“Little Shop, Little Shop of Horrors!”     ^^

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Chapter 14 --- Seymour the Obviously Evil

            Back in the “real world,” Yuna and her six guardians had made it into Guadosalam.  It looked like a city of caves and caverns made out of the trunks, roots, and branches of giant petrified trees.  It was lit like a cloudy day, with the sources of light unknown.  Some Guados were having a beach party in a more warmly lit area, but there was no beach.  “Very odd people, these Guados,” Tydus thought as he noticed a waffle eating contest being held in another section of the city.  He slipped off from the group.  No one noticed except Auron, who watched over him obsessively, keeping in mind the kind of trouble he was capable of causing.

            The group stood there looking around, half in awe, half in doubt.  Eventually one of the various Guados milling around the city noticed the odd group of humans and walked up to them.  He looked quite old, with wrinkles like a used bed sheet and a big beer belly.  “Hello,” he said weakly, “My name is Tromell.  I am the great Lord Seymour’s personal assistant.  Lord Seymour would like to speak with you, Lady Yuna.”

            “You mean, would like to murder you with a rusty pitchfork,” thought Tydus, who had returned from the waffle contest with a full stomach and a first place hat on his head.  As the first prize, the Guados in charge had given him his legendary weapon, but Tydus wondered why they had something that for some reason was meant for him.

            “If Lady Yuna would come this way…” Tromell grabbed Yuna’s arm and led her toward the massive mansion where the dictator pig, no wait, the Lord of the Guados, ha, sorry, lived.  Inside, the walls were covered in portraits of past leaders of the Guados done out in green slime.  It gave them a gooey three dimensional effect.  The walls themselves were pink and purple and made one think of coral.  In one corner of the room was a pathetic little plant.

Tromell attracted the group’s attention with a bullhorn.  “Now that I’ve dragged you all here I realize that Seymour is still out bowling, so you’ll have to sit around until he comes back, or until Tydus talks to everyone in the room.  To make up for my daftness, you may take advantage of our world-class waffle buffet while you wait.”

“Yeah!” Tydus said enthusiastically, drool almost pouring from his mouth, “This almost makes up for the fact that Seymour is evil!”

            “And our award winning hot chocolate,” Tromell continued.  This effected Auron in much the same way as Tydus.  And so, when Seymour finally came, both Tydus and Auron were too full to do anything about him.

            “Hi there,” he said, “Wanna see something nifty?” 

Tydus burped loudly.

“’Scuse me.”

            “Anyway…”  Seymour led them through a door with a flashy sign over it that read: ZANARKAND – The Ride!  Tydus would have been concerned about this, but was rendered nearly senseless by the sheer bliss he had recently experienced and almost immobile because with any sudden movement his stomach might burst.  Through the door was a short train of seats with harnesses.  “Get in, yo!”

            “This looks like a roller-“ Tydus started, his mind in fog, as everyone sat down.

            “No, it’s not!  It’s magic!”  Seymour walked briskly over to a control panel cleverly disguised as a sphere.  After he pushed a few buttons he quickly jumped into the front seat next to Yuna, and the thing that was certainly not a roller coaster jerked into motion.  A three-dimensional picture that was certainly not a hologram shivered into being around them.  What they all saw night in Zanarkand.  It was lots of black with lights all over.  As they got closer they could see that it was, indeed, a ruin.  A huge pile of rubble covered in pyreflies.  Tydus lost his waffles.

            “Hmmm, something’s wrong with it,” Seymour muttered, “I’ll have to get the mechanic, I mean, shaman, to have a look at it.”

            “Uh-huh,” Tydus said skeptically.  He felt much better now that his organs weren’t being crushed from his rather large stomach.  The group left the ride and went back into the first room.

            “Sorry, guys, it’s supposed to be a breath-taking tour of Zanarkand as it was one thousand years ago with a short documentary on garbage pick-up methods at the end.”  Seymour stopped and looked thoughtful.  “This is not the wonderous atmosphere I had wished to create, but oh well.  Yuna, will you marry me?”

Yuna stood there and made various faces of disbelief.

            “Ha!” said Tydus, “I wish I had a mirror so you could see your face.  Seymour, dude, I don’t think you’re gonna hear a yes.”

Yuna’s face settled on glaring at Tydus.  She then turned this glare on the entire group which was, including Auron, near bursting with laughter.  Finally, she rounded it on Seymour.  “You creep!  Of course I won’t!  Not even if I only have a few months to live!”

            “Wha-?” said Tydus.

            “I’ll take that as a maybe.”  Seymour winked at Yuna.

            “You know she won’t stop the pilgrimage,” added Auron.

            “Quiet, before I send you!” Seymour said teasingly.

“Huh?!”

            “Tydus, stop revealing your ignorance,” Lulu interrupted, “We’re going to the Farplane right now.  I figure that if we go fast enough, we might avoid any crazy schemes Seymour might be planning.”

“Right. Toodles!” said Yuna, and she lead her guardians away, leaving Seymour alone in the room.

            “Feed me, Seymour,” pleaded the dying plant.

            “Oh shut up!”  Seymour stormed out of the room to find fragile things to break.  The plant shed a tear.

            At the entrance to the Farplane Tydus was having second thoughts.  “The Farplane is where you send dead people, right?”

            “Ya…” Wakka answered.

            “And this right here is the Farplane?”  Tydus gestured at an enormous wall covered in various gems like mirrors that glowed softly.  The path led to a particularly large and clear one.

            “Ya…”

            “Sooo, there’s dead people in there?”

            “That’s the idea.”

            “…  Creepy.”

As the group continued Tydus noticed that Auron had stopped and was busying himself setting up a hot coco maker.  “What are you doing?”

            “You want me to just sit here and do nothing while you guys have your romp with the dead?”

            “I bet you’re scared.”

            “Do you remember back in Zanarkand when I said I would tell you nothing?”

            “Yeah…”

            “And do you remember the times when I actually did tell you something?”

            “Yeah…  Oh, right.  Nevermind, then.”  At this point Tydus would have run to catch up with the rest of the group, but he noticed that Rikku had also decided not to go, and he had a feeling that her reasons would be more pleasant than Auron’s.

            When he asked, Rikku replied matter-of-factly, “I’m Al Bhed.  I don’t believe the Farplane is real, so it would be contradictory for me to go.  It’s a good thing Auron’s out here too, or Wakka might get suspicious.”

            “Yeah, I still think he’s just scared, but I don’t want to risk it.”

            “Risk what?”

            “Nine times out of ten I wish Auron would keep his mouth shut, and the tenth time is never very pleasant either.”

            “Ah, well, have fun hanging with the dead!”

            “Yeah…”  Tydus nervously walked up the rest of the path and through the largest gem, the portal to the Farplane.  In the Farplane was…

a rocky platform.

            “Well this isn’t so—“  Oh yeah, the platform was floating over beautiful fields, elegantly curving mountains, and rushing waterfalls flowing into vast clear oceans.  It was all covered in millions of fluffy pyreflies.  Tydus missed a step and hit the ground quite hard.  This alerted the others to his arrival.  Lulu shook her head and Yuna giggled.  Kimahri stood there, enjoying a brief lapse in harassment from the butterfly.  The butterfly was hanging with some of his dead buddies.  Wakka was too involved in a one-sided conversation with a projection of someone who didn’t look a thing like Tydus.

            “Hey, Tydus, this is Chappu,” said Wakka.

            “He doesn’t look a thing like me.”  Tydus was waving his arm through the image of Chappu.

            “Stop that.  It doesn’t matter what he looks like.  He served his purpose in getting me to help you.  Do you remember that sword I gave you before we left Besaid?”

“Uh, no.”

            “Well surely you have found great use in the Brotherhod?”

            “No.  It only does Strength + 5% or something.”

“Fine then.” Wakka waved his hand.  “There, fully upgraded.”

            “Ah, thanks.  You really shouldn’t have held it against Chappu that he didn’t want the sword as it was.”

            “In reflection, you are right.”  As these words were spoken the world ended.

            “That’s not funny,” Tydus muttered, his arms crossed and foot tapping.  The world popped back into existence around him.  Tydus figured that a nice chat with Lulu might be safe.  At least she wasn’t talking to any dead people.

            “So,” he said, “Don’t have any dead loved ones?”

            “Yes.  I just feel that the dead are dead and you shouldn’t bring them back.”

            “You’re just creeped out,” Tydus teased.

            “Shut up.”

            “So, Yuna’s not gonna marry Seymour?”  Tydus looked a tad apprehensive.

            “No.  Why?  Do you want to?”

“Maybe.  But there’s just all this cool stuff we could do after Yuna defeats Sin, and there’s no way I could hang around with her if she married that loser Seymour.”

            “When you say ‘cool stuff we could do after Yuna defeats Sin,’ are you including Yuna in the ‘we’?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh, nothing.”  “Ha!” thought Lulu, “He could use a little heartbreak.”  Of course, she didn’t have a clue about what would really happen.  Tydus decided that he didn’t want to know what Lulu was smiling about and went to talk to Yuna.

            Meanwhile, at the entrance to the Farplane…

            “Hey, Auron, how do you see anything with these sunglasses on?”  Rikku waved her hands in the darkness in front of her.

            “Eh.”  Auron shrugged.

Back in the Farplane…

“Hey, Yuna! Those your dead folks?” said Tydus, nodding at Yuna’s parents who were see-through and floating near her.

            “I’m glad to see how well you are adjusting,” Yuna said tearsly.  They stood there.  “Hey, why don’t you check if you’re dad’s dead?”

            So Tydus thought about his dad.  Nothing happened besides Tydus getting himself really pissed.  “See?  So you can still find him to punch him out.”

            “Oh, joy.”  Suddenly, the ghost of Tydus’s mom appeared.  “Oh, that’s embarrassing.  Hey, wait.  If she’s here than that means she’s dead, and if she’s dead then that means she was once alive, and that means that I must have been alive and real one thousand years ago!  So even if I am a dream, I wasn’t at one point in time!”

            “What are you talking about?”

Tydus’s face went vague.  “You know, I’m not quite sure…”

            “I think this might be a good time to leave.”

            So the group left.  Kimahri had to drag Wakka away from the memory of his brother.  Outside, Auron was having an argument with some pyreflies that were hanging around.  Rikku was munching on a waffle she had swiped from the mansion.  A few Guados were also standing around the entrance, including Tromell.  They greeted the summoner warmly when she emerged, the last of the group out.  As she stepped away from the entrance to the Farplane something hard hit her in the back of the head.

            “Ouch!” said Yuna.  She turned to see who had thrown what appeared to be a movie sphere at her.  Standing at the entrance to the Farplane was Maester Jyscal Guado, made entirely out of pyreflies.

            “It’s a fiend, kill it!” said Tydus, but Tromell whacked him on the head.  “Stupid old man,” Tydus muttered, rubbing his head.  Yuna, who was more tactful, set to work sending the dead Maester.  However, she was quite miffed about having a sphere thrown at her head, so her method of sending was very un-tactful.  Simply put, she shoved Maester Jyscal back into the Farplane with her rod.  Several Guados made gasps of shock at the horrible way in which Yuna “sent” their previous lord.

            “Ah, sorry,” she said, and discretely scooped up the sphere.  “Well, better get going.  Lots of things to do.”  She and her guardians pushed quickly through the Guados.

            “So what now?” asked Tydus.

            “Well, we need to get to Macarena Woods,” Lulu said, “And to get there we first need to go through the Thunder Plains.”

“EEK!” Rikku shrieked, and she jumped behind Wakka.  Everyone stared.  “Don’t say the word!”

            “What word?”

“Can’t say it! Too scared!”

            “Is it a verb?”

            “No.”

            “Is it a noun?”

            “Yes.”

            “Is it thun-“

            “Don’t say it!”

“Um, sorry.  So you are afraid of the T word…”

            “Yes,” said Rikku, with a look of utter terror.

            “Okay, then,” Lulu said carefully, “To the Plains of the Sound That Lightning Makes.”

            “Riiiiight,” said Tydus.  The group set off once more.