To Zanarkand

I was relaxing in a jazz club at Luca, some drunk hypello kept laughing at the same joke
"Ze shoopuff is hungry"
I fed them this morning darn it Zef! Stop crying about your shoopuffs all the time.
"Ze shoopuff is hungry and needs food !!"
Darn it Zef I told you to feed them not run the business. Our stomach or the shoopufss are more important? I swear this kid is obsessed with them.
What would you do if you had my love of these magnificent animals?
I would certainly not be on some old shoopuff's back laying all day long.
"What would you do if you were 130 years old"
"I wouldn not waste my day watching the pirefly lake Zef." "This old shoopuff is your obsession"
"Well I don't harm anyone, so shut up"
"Hhaha you lost again!"
He threw the dice again, losing for the third time today.
"If you would stop your mumbling then I would play seriously Ridof." "Stop joking around and then Ill play for real."
When was the last time you played for real Zef??
Zef threw the dice down and slowly sipped a cup of macalania coffee.



I guess I was to spend a little time here but this hypello company won't let me calm down.
"Would you like some more beer?" The waiter asked me.
"No thanks a lot. " I replied and finished rolling a cigarette.
I decided to smoke it and go after a while. The hypellos were now silent and man that silence was golden.
Two Rhonso brothers entered the bar.
"Hey did anyone see the broken horn Kimahri here?"
No reply.
"I asked a question !" He stomped the wooden floor .
No but they say Kimahri is with his chief . Said a hypello that was so skinny you would mistake it for a shahagin with legs.
The Rhonso left quickly. I'm sure the information was fake so that they would leave us alone.


I finished my beer and cigarette and left the bar leaving a note that had Yuna's head on it. It was kinda odd seeing Yuna with normal eyes and a stern countenance . I guess some things never change even in Spira .
I passed by the lake with a shoopuff and went to the other shore where there was a tiny celebration for the usual summoner time of year. I saw some familiar faces, talked only to one because I was tired and needed to go on with my thing.
"Im looking for some spheres , would you know anything?"
Try Zanarkand , I heard the place is where the really good sphere hunters rove.

After a while I was at Zanarkand , passed by a fireplace that was now put out. It was close to nightfall ,after searching for a while I found nothing. I sat by the sea and could hear the waves softly touching the sand . Sometimes I could even feel the pireflies if they were close enough.
Suddenly some gulls were making noise at a particular spot a little farther form the place I was standing next to so I decided to see what all the commotion was for.
Arriving the gulls were now more scarce but I could see something shining in the water , it was nearly washed off shore. After a while I noticed a spherical object shining in the twilight , underwater. Asphere! Finally! I can pay off my rent now - That's what immediatly crossed my mind. But the other side of the brain was now active and I used my hand getting the sphere. It was an orange one .
I had a piece of the -now rare- macalania wood, so I chose to use it on my sphere grid and see what happen.
A bright silver light and then nothing.
No, wait, I see something now. It was a memory sphere, something they used to record a dream. I wonder how old this is.
I saw a coast and a teen with spiky blonde hair playing in the beach with his friends. Now the teen was climbing and after a while it reached the peak of the old ruin ..he was watching the sunset . Now something changed, the kid used an oragne sphere and turned to an semi invisible form and started flying above the sea, it ascended into the skies and above the clouds where you see them as white fluffy carpet.
He now made swings and flips in the air and decided to lower himself and approach the sea , he flew just above the sea level and then went underwater and watched the marvelous realm of perpetual darkness called the ocean . He saw shimmering lights and spheres here and there, then he ascended again, and dolphins now accompanied him. He traveled just a bit more quickly than his dolphin companions. Now the sun had set and his companions were gone, it was him and the twilight of the burning sky , so red that you thought the sky was on fire .

He swang across the sea and made a flip once again going farther into what now was a starry moonlit sky and then the dream ceased.
-That's all? Man I guess Icould sell this for 200 gil but I think I'll keep it.

Dreamland Venice & Ice Realm Helcaraxë

Now I'm on a boat in Venice. In Venice β , now is the season of the falling azure leaves, of the Crying Trees. Only they shed their leaves before changing their colour. In fall the waters are filled with the deep blue tapestry of those leaves, where they are called "tears" . Passing by I saw an old mansion, prestigious but abandoned. I stopped the boat and stepped on the ground. It was a courtyard with dark blue leaves on the ground. These leaves grow darker when they are shed and ready to decompose.
The water channel was near a cyclic panel, nesting a great "Azure lady" . These trees are named so and in autumn they "weep" shedding their still blue leaves. The legend goes : At the beginning, these trees were just like any other . Once , a nymph of the woods , dashing through the flora , saw a little girl dressed in blue and wearing a blue ribbon. She had no parents . The nymph and the little girl played all day until the fall of night. Nymphs don't have a name, therefore the little girl kept calling her "lady". That night the girl fell asleep and never woke up. At sunrise, when the sun crept above the top of the leaves, they were now cerulean . Thus the first azure lady was born .
I entered the courtyard and saw a fountain that was still running, with a little cupid's statue and the water coming out of a seashell.
I kept on journeying .




==






Today I'm on Calypso the boat of Jacques Cousteau. I am passing through Helcaraxë, where the great two ice masses of the planet collide. The extreme cold turns your breath into vapor. The realm of the dark blue skies , an antithesis of the innocent white of eternal ice. The creaking ice was falling to pieces before our very eyes, and suddenly, an ethereal melody weaving in the air.
Cousteau: Did you hear that?
Ermis: That faint melody in the air ?
Cousteau: So you too hear it. It's not my old and weary ears that fool me is it?
Ermis: What do you think this is ?
Cousteau: I hear tiny bells ringing. Dancing in the wind and clad in the piano's song they speak to the vast Ice. It can be no other than the famed song of the Ice Queen. The Ice hearkens what the lady has to say, and it responds. Maybe if we reached above the next passage and turn off the motor, we can listen to it more clearly.
-We stopped the boat and climbed the ice, reaching an iceberg that looked like a big white mushroom. Before us lay the ice jewel, the cerulean twilight of these lands. As if all life had stopped, and this frenzy of Nothingness had never existed. As if life had never infested this place. Everything was filled with the void, the twilight almost spoke to you, it too was listening to the song of the Ice Queen. As the first snowflakes touched the ground , the bells sounded fainter, until they couldn't be heard at all.
Ermis: I'd like to stay here forever Jacques.
Cousteau: It's beautiful but nonetheless we have to leave.
Ermis: If I could die and wander as a soul, my first stop would be here.
- We had beer ,cheering the twilight that was now deep , for everything that it said to us, without telling a word.

The city of glass

We had been at the lake slowly moving the boat . A gaze passed right before my eyes in a second , a gaze that speaks without words. A bit farther some birds flew away from the sight of the boat . The sky grew black from their mass for a moment . While I approached the marina some moss got in my way. I reached the marina . It was a small extension, nothing more. It was a bit chilly when I reached the upper city. I removed the hat in case the wind blows too much. It was odd and creepy , noone existed like they were all vaporized in the blink of an eye. While I was exploring the city without people, I kept noticing discolored and rusty signs. My hair was getting into my eyes and the edges of my eyes saw figures that did not really exist.

Cars and trucks went past me, towards a bridge that wasn't finished yet. They were ghosts too. Like the camera lens sometimes it blurs and you get to see a picture of blurred harmony of faint colours and hexagonal flashes, the light becomes the toy of the lens. Likewise, you could see the cars, and a moment later you couldn't .