[Fic] FFX - Clarion Part I: Dreams of Memories (Braska, PG)

[justira]

ETA: This story has been rewritten!
Please read the updated, complete version: ( DW | AO3 )

Title: Clarion
For: darthneko
Medium: Fic
Request(s): Braska, summoning
Fandom(s): Final Fantasy X
Characters/Pairings: Braska. The arc centers on him, and this part especially, but the following two parts include a sprinkling of Auron, Jecht, and Yuna.
Rating/Warnings: PG
Feedback: Yes, please. I love concrit! If you're interested in addressing specific issues, I have a list in my notes XD
Spoilers: Nothing very explicit in this part, but the overall arc has massive spoilers through Zanarkand.
Word Count: 9,500. I'm not kidding.
Summary: Braska's first lessons in summoning - and in hate, grief, and irony.

First of a three-part arc detailing Braska's path to becoming a High Summoner. Part II is called Waking Life, Part III is called The End of All Things. Both deal with his adult life and pilgrimage.


Final Fantasy X - Clarion
Part I
Dreams of Memories
-=-

At the end of all things, he remembers a waking life, and at the end of memory, he dreams.

Braska's eyes snapped open. He started awake in a strange bed, alone, his heart racing and his eyes dark-blind. His breath was coming fast.

And in the back of his throat, in the open, sweat-stained space of skin stretched over thin flesh and the protruding bones of his shoulder blades, a formless fear had settled: choking; cloying. Watchful.

Braska closed his eyes, though it made little difference. He had not been long in the Bevelle temple, but they had begun to teach him the rudiments of meditation, of finding peace in prayer to Yevon.

Braska closed his eyes, and prayed.

He thought of the whisper of snow across the woods, the warmth of the fire, the slow passing of winter days. He thought of the temple of Macalania and Shiva's melancholy hymn, the winter winds sweeping mournful echoes across the empty expanses of the frozen lakes, of the hush inside the temple and the peace of Yevon wrapped around it like a cloak. Shiva. Yevon...

His eyes almost snapped open again - the feeling of - awe, watchfulness, weariness - crescendoed, a cold touch upon his spine. He squeezed his eyes tight. Emptied his mind. Breathed. Prayed.

His breath came slow and forced, then slow and steady. His frantic heartbeat slowed, its thunder fading from his ears to be replaced by the calm, even breathing of the other acolytes. And as he opened his eyes, he found enough time had passed that he could see. The moonlight limned his pale skin, glistening faintly upon his sweaty palms.

Braska exhaled. It was not the first time he had found comfort in the teachings. He had received few lessons yet, but... they were a comfort.

Nor was it the first time he had awoken in a cold sweat, alone among his fellow acolytes. Nightmares had come often at first: half-formed recollections of Sin, augmented by the fledging demons of a young mind; and the numb, empty loss of his parents.

Those awakenings had grown rarer with the passing weeks.

Tonight had been different.

He could not remember what had woken him.

No fading traces of Sin's touch on his mind, no fleeting images of terror and destruction. Strangely, he seemed to remember the summoner who came and danced, and the light touch of a pyrefly on his skin.

He had been had taught of the summoner's Sending today, how each dance was unique, how to draw the souls of the slain towards the Farplane. Braska had liked that lesson, the feeling of peace and freedom and the reassuring weight of warm wood in his hand as he practiced. The dance came easily: Bevelle was rich in the music of the pyreflies; her halls echoed with the hymn of the fayth.

Bahamut.

A shiver ran up his spine.

Braska waited, shoulders tense. Breath studied and even.

Nothing came.

Somewhere in the temple, a door opened and closed as a monk went about his rounds, and a whisper of the hymn floated down the dormitory hall, evanescent and clear and full of peace.

The moonlight waned, and with it Braska's wakefulness. He lay back down, wondering, and slept.

Bevelle was beautiful in the warm light of morning. Even months after coming here, Braska marvelled at the elegance and majesty, at the vast open spaces, indoors and out. So different from his home: all closed to keep in the warmth, low-ceilinged to draw down the heat. When he had first arrived, it had registered in disconnected drifts through his Sin-sick haze. Each day had brought small revelations: first the clothing, light and free; then the space, open and welcoming. Finally, the deep core of peace, a stillness his soul welcomed.

This... this was a good place to be. He wanted to bring this peace with him, always. Everywhere.

There were many other orphans in the compound. The temple overflowed with them, refugees and acolytes of every ilk, all mixed together in the chaos. Several were from Macalania, like him, though none were the friends he had known. Some planned to stay and become priests, monks... summoners. Some were to stay a short while as the Macalania temple recovered from the influx of refugees. The last attack had been nearly unprecedented in magnitude: Sin was growing stronger. The temple walls groaned with the pressure of too many lost souls, dead and living. Crops lay rotting in the fields for want of harvesting. And Braska was startled to sense in himself a horror at the hollow eyes of the children - when had he begun to think of them as children?

He had seen it in the faces of some of the orphans, had been surprised to see his own face set in the same hard lines when he caught his own reflection. This could not continue. There had to be another Calm soon.

"Today's lesson is very important," Takla said. The priest's voice broke through Braska's reverie, kind but unwontedly stern. The other acolytes, his fellow summoners-in-training, sat up as the day's teachings began. "We have all experienced loss. Some of us found it through Sin and its spawn. Others have seen ill come from those lost to Yevon's teachings. Many have known loss from the fiends of souls unsent."

A small ripple of nods passed through those assembled. Braska kept still, and watched, and listened. He saw the eyes of some students harden, their jaws set.

Takla walked among them, speaking on. "You have chosen the path of the summoner. This is a noble calling, and a hard one. You may think the difficulty lies in acquiring the fayths, in the long journey ahead, or in the sacrifice you are asked to make." He touched some students on the head or shoulder, those whose frames were set and resolute but whose eyes were still wide with fear. "Or you may think," he smiled as he spoke, "that the hardship lies in listening to the droning of old men before you are allowed to walk your chosen path." Braska smiled as well, and several others, but Takla's tone grew heavy and serious again. "There is indeed hardship in these things. But," he paused, having circled back to the front, "these are not the most dire trials you will face."

The old priest took a deep breath, and looked at his students again. "My children, you must not let yourselves hate."

In the short pause, the silence was complete.

And in the short pause, Braska was breathless and did not know why.

"In hate, in resentment, in anger - there lies the greatest danger. It is so easy to hate, is it not?" He paused again, and everyone was too still, and in the silence Braska caught the hesitation in their breath. "As a Summoner, you will see... more suffering than most. Perhaps more suffering than any. You will be called upon to comfort the mourning and Send their loved ones to the Farplane. You will travel Spira and see Sin's tracks as clearly as your own footprints, as clear as the tracks of tears on children's faces. And wherever you go, the people will ask great things of you. They will speak their hate and anger to you and expect to walk away at peace. They will feed and lodge you, no matter how hard the times, out of hope that in your journey and your sacrifice lies their salvation. They will point at you to show their children, and the elderly will entrust you with the legacy they cannot live to protect."

Takla took a deep breath and lowered his head for a moment. When he raised it again, his eyes were liquid and beseeching and weary.

"Oh my children! Do not hate! Do not hate the fate that led you here, do not carry anger in your heart at the sorrows of the world. Above all, do not hate those among whom you will walk, who will place so heavy a burden on you. Above all... my children... do not hate yourselves."

The old priest was silent for a time, watching them. Braska realized he had not taken breath, and his shaky inhale was too loud to his own ears.

No one spoke, and a minute passed in silence.

Takla took another breath, deep and loud in the still air. The sun shone gentle and warm on his face, and Braska was struck in that moment, as he had been many times before, by the priest's stillness, the years weighing down on his papery skin and the deep well of compassion in his voice and quiet eyes. "You have completed the first part of your training. You have been taught the rudiments of the summoner's arts and know as much as those who will become the priests who guide you and the monks who guard you. Takla looked at them all, and Braska's chest tightened at the hint of Pride in his eyes, in his small smile. "Here, today, your apprenticeship will truly begin. The lessons now will be long and hard, and few of them will be learned here in these halls of teaching." His smile faded. "When you began your training, you were asked to judge yourselves and decide if this path was meant for you. Look within yourselves once more. Look within your heart. Do you hate? Can you overcome it? Can you find Yevon's peace and carry it with you always?"

Another pause. Some students shifted, some looked down or away.

"Your teachings for today are over. Walk these halls, hear Bahamut's hymn, and consider yourselves. I wish you clarity, my children. I wish you peace."

Takla bowed in prayer.

The students stood up in a startled shuffle to answer the prayer, then milled about, looking uncertain, exchanging low, uncomfortable whispers, hesitant to leave as Takla walked to a far corner to lean on the railing of a balcony. No one spoke at first.

Braska was unsure what to think. He did not remember what it was to feel anger. He remembered, in hazy snatches fading between one indistinct moment and the next, weeks spent under the spell of Sin's toxins, weeks of comforting confusion that held at bay the overwhelming sense of loss... but still invited fear. He was not sure if he was afraid. He was not sure what to think of Takla's words.

Braska was unsure of what he wanted to say, but he felt he needed to ask... something. He walked over to stand at a respectful distance. Takla looked up. "Yes, my son?"

"I... I am not sure what I wanted to ask." Braska paused, gaze sliding towards his shifting feet before meeting Takla's eyes once more. "Is this really your last lesson?"

Takla smiled. "It is, though I am sorry for it. I am no summoner, to teach you the ways of power. All I can do is guide you down your path."

Braska hesitated before continuing. "How can you tell which path is right? Is... is there only one way of following it?"

Takla's look sharpened. "You are asking if a summoner, knowing his path to be right, can yet wonder if he can walk it the way I instruct. The way anyone instructs." Takla's eyes were searching. "You are not afraid of the Final Summoning?"

Braska hesitated again. "I don't know. I know what the Pilgrimage leads to, but I... I do not think dwelling on it would help."

Takla nodded, then smiled a little, sadly. "Are you asking if it is possible to be a good summoner and still carry anger with you?"

"It is one of the things I wonder about."

Takla nodded again, looking distant. "I believe that there is danger in hate, that it is impossible to hate and not infect others with it. Hate, envy, these are the sources of fiends, and grief. A summoner sees much grief, and it is their calling to comfort, heal, and protect. To do any of these thing truly, my son... I believe one cannot hate."

Braska thought for a few moments. "I... do not think I am angry. I don't know."

Takla's look was full of sympathy. "I think you are still grieving, my son. You are all... so very young. There are many who start down this road in their youth, full of fire and vengeance. I think we spend our youth too quickly these days." Takla met Braska's eyes, and he looked old, and sad, and unimaginably weary. "We do not have much of it to spare."

"But even those who follow a different path do good things, don't they?"

Takla looked startled for a second, then another smile spread on his lips, warm and unexpected. "They do at that."

Braska bowed in prayer and left, thinking of how many ways there were to be a summoner. He did not think of how many ways there were to grieve.

Braska thought of hate. He thought of fear. He thought of wakefulness and grief. He thought of Sin. He thought of dying, of Sending, of dreaming...

He dreamt.

Or he did not dream, for he did not wake so much as stop breathing, stop thinking - stop hating - under the pressure on his chest, the noiseless thunder in his ears, the blinding black flare, the weight of weariness-

His eyes were open. He was being watched.

He could breathe. He breathed. He was not dreaming, he did not hate, and when he turned his head, he met the sharp grey eyes of another acolyte. Wide, frightened - young - there was hate there. He- something knew this. The acolyte stared, and Braska could see his bare chest rise and fall rapidly - the boy was panting.

Their eyes locked, and held. The boy said nothing. Braska could think of no comfort to speak. He breathed, and each breath held the beginning of a question left unsaid.

He said nothing, and the boy's breathing slowed to match his own. The boy closed his eyes, deliberate and firm, and turned from Braska. Braska watched the rigid spine that didn't relax, the small shadows that never grew and never shrank.

The boy was gone the next morning, his bed empty.

Takla did not return to teach them the next day. A summoner stood in his place, his robes elaborate and heavy and his staff tall and intricately carved. He was smiling as the students shuffled in. His smile, Braska decided, was not like Takla's.

The summoner spoke before the students had finished settling. "Well! I guess you're the ones Takla hasn't managed to scare away." His tone was light and easy, his voice strident in the open air. "My name is Zakel. I'm stopping here on my pilgrimage, and I've been roped into teaching you." His smile never faded, and some of the students smiled back.

Braska listened as Zakel breezed through the lessons he was to teach them: the healing white magics, drawing pyreflies for the Sending, navigating the Cloisters, the rituals in the Chamber of the fayth, summoning the aeons. He didn't walk among them but leaned easily on his staff and the balcony railing behind him.

"We'll start with the basics. No Sending or summoning today, just meditation." Zakel grinned at the palpable disappointment and the scatterred suppressed groans. "You were all excited, weren't you? You've heard it before. You walk before you run, and you meditate before you Send or summon. Come on, everyone. Sit down, get comfortable. Close your eyes. Listen to the hymn, listen to the pyreflies, breathe in.... breathe out, slowly... don't think, just listen..." His voice dropped, no longer strident, but calm and steady, cadence slow. Braska was unused to this - Takla had always meditated with them in silence, but Zakel spoke, instructions coming in small swells of words and tone followed by long, slow sentences: breathe in, breathe out. Braska felt himself breathing together with the others, with the rise and fall of Takla's voice, with the silent buzzing whisper of the pyreflies, the swell and hush of the hymn. It was unfamiliar. It was peace, it was listening...

Time did not pass so much as wait for every breath to slide down his throat and fill him up and hiss quietly by, and the sounds of the late morning faded, Zakel's voice blending with each inhalation, like the words soaked in with every breath, into the slow rush of his blood, the sun on his skin...

And he breathed in ages.

And he breathed out eons of waiting.

He listened...

There was music, the music of the Sending, the song of the aeons, the lilt of the pyreflies, and Braska felt more than still. He felt... full. He felt... not as if he was listening but being listened to; he felt expectation, attention... he felt something waiting.

He waited, too, caught on the edge of expectation. Was he afraid?

"Open your eyes."

Braska's eyes snapped open. He blinked; it was past noon and his legs were very, very sore. The sense of expectation was gone.

"We will be meditating every day until you can hear the world waiting for you. I can guarantee you'll like it when you get there." The grin again, and an easy wink. "Now get up while you can still remember how to walk."

Everyone staggered to their feet, weaving as their legs steadied. The blood was rushing in vengeful burts of needling pain past Braska's knees again, and he rubbed his aching calves with careful hands, wanting to shake his head at himself, lips quirked in irony. He was definitely going to lie down next time, even if Zakel threw a knowing grin at him for it. The students grumbled good-naturedly, about their stiff legs, about the length of this session, and whatever the world-waiting thing was. Braska accepted some friendly pats on his back and nodded from near his knees at the jokes and questions as to the well-being of his circulation.

One of the older students, Dappul, came up and waited while Braska ministered to his legs, shifting on his own, his eyes darting around the crowd. "So, did you feel anything? Was the world waiting?" Dappul grinned his tight grin.

Braska smiled wryly. "I felt... something waiting. I wouldn't say it was the whole world."

Dappul laughed. "I'm sure you'd have noticed. I just felt sleep waiting."

"You'll learn," Zakel's voice floated over. The summoner drifted by on his way out. He widened his smile at them, though Braska felt Zakel held his eyes a second too long.

Dappul laughed, and turned to Braska again, talking of temple affairs, glad that the acolyte monks and priests had been moved to their own quarters again now that the refugees were returning to their villages. "They're rebuilding everywhere, you know? And they're all coming back to help. I wish I could go back too, sometimes, but I'm learning to help more here, yeah?" He chattered on, and Braska nodded.

He was glad, too. But his mind lingered on the moment time had stood still, and on Zakel's wide smile.

Braska waited. Braska closed his eyes, and breathed, and waited. He breathed as the moonlight crawled across the bed, sliding sinuous and pale across his face and fingers, until it covered him and until it was gone. He breathed, and he listened to its inaudible slither, listened to the pyreflies whisper of its passing, listened to his own heartbeat slow.

He listened until the pyreflies stilled and began to listen, too.

He listened, and he was very cold.

He listened until it crept along him as the moonlight had, until it slid slick and cloying down his throat with his heavy breath, until it pooled cold in his gut, until his spine, sweating against the mattress, thrilled with it. Until the fear choked him, and he could breathe no more.

Until he drew a shuddering gasp and his eyes flew open and the pyreflies sang their murmuring song again and there was nothing waiting at all.

The next night, and the next, and for many nights thereafter he did not meditate, he did not pray, and he did not wait.

Zakel's easygoing lessons continued. They meditated until there was a sober silence after every session before the jokes would begin again. Zakel pushed along, smiling and making them smile, though the tasks were growing hard. He taught them the white magics, how to gather strength from the waiting pyreflies and let it out like life-giving breath, to heal and protect. Braska liked these lessons: the healing was like a release of pressure. They practiced on their own sore legs first (Zakel's grin was knowing), then on injured animals from the city and the countryside. Finally, Zakel took them on excursions to the quarters of the warrior monks and the Crusader outposts and smaller temples around Bevelle. He did not smile as much then, when they were healing the refugees from Sin's ravages. None of them did.

Not until they learned that in their smiles there was healing, too.

Once they had mastered drawing the pyreflies' energy in and then out through breath and spells and comforting words, Zakel began to teach them how to draw the pyreflies themselves.

It was not until they began to study the Sending in earnest that Braska woke in the night again.

For the night after he drew the first few pyreflies to his hands, hesitant and warm, he woke feeling cold and watched.

He could breathe this time. But his breath was uneven as he shivered under the expectant touch on his mind, panting in the face of the overwhelming vulnerability even as he pressed his bare back into the sheets.

He closed his eyes and thought of warmth, then of nothing at all.

The Sending lessons continued. Zakel had them practice calling the pyreflies while sitting still, then while dancing, until the bidding came easily - and the parting as well. "You must remember," he cautioned, "to let them go. I know how it feels to have so much power drawn around you - quite heady, isn't it? You won't be ready the first time you Send truly, the first time you draw the souls of the slain to you. Trust me, no one is. But the next time, and the next - remember they have a long way to go. Let them go."

Braska found the warning odd. It was true that drawing so much energy felt powerful - but it was a power that pressed, a power that felt alien and expectant, or too familiar, and Braska always wanted to heave a sigh of relief when he let it go.

But he watched Zakel, and watched the other young summoners, and said nothing as some of them nodded, casting their eyes down or to the side.

Zakel did not take them to Send for anybody as he had continued to take them to heal. It was, he said with a wry quirk of lips, not something that should be done any more often than necessary.

Instead, he moved on to praying to the fayth. He did not say much of the Cloister of Trials other than that the skills they had learned would "come in handy" and that the Trials existed for them to navigate for themselves. On the fayth, he said even less.

"You know the drill. Kneel, and pray. Open yourself up like you do for the pyreflies, and if the fayth wills it, the fayth will come." His ever-present smile had grown hard as he spoke, and no one asked questions afterward.

It was on summoning that Zakel spent the most time.

"Call the pyreflies to you and draw from their energy the lines of power. If you have seen a summoning, you've seen the sigils. Pretty designs, aren't they?" Braska had never witnessed a summoning, but a couple of the others nodded. "Well, you're going to have to memorize them." Those who had nodded groaned. "Yes, yes, it's all fun and games until I make you memorize things, isn't it?" Zakel laughed. "Each aeon's summoning spell is unique. Be glad they are known now, and that you don't have to divine them for yourselves with the fayth watching over your shoulder."

Braska shivered.

Someone raised their hand to ask a question. "What about the Final Summoning?"

Zakel smile flickered. "That fayth is different. The High Summoners each knew how to summon it, and if you ever stand at that crossroads, you will too."

They all sobered. Zakel didn't give them time to think on it much more.

"Now, I'll show you each spell. Don't try to call anything forth. Just follow the lines. We'll start with someone a few of you should know quite well." Braska started when he thought Zakel met his eyes for a moment, but the summoner had moved on. "This... is how you summon Shiva."

Slowly, lines of light curled themselves around Zakel's feet, intricate, glowing - beautiful. Zakel's eyes were closed. He had raised his staff, and for the first time Braska saw a true summoner in him - graceful, serene, and full of power.

The designs grew in interlocking circles, and Braska's eyes were drawn away from Zakel's face to the compelling lines of light. They thickened and multiplied and curled around themselves. Braska thought of watching frost form on Macalania Lake, and shuddered. He felt the buzz of the pyreflies thicken around him, felt the condensed energy like the winter sun harsh on his face, felt the call, the yearning, the prayer embedded in the spell. And, faintly, snatches of a sorrowful hymn, felt more in the undulation of energies than in the vibration of sound. The design was completely alien to him, but it - it felt familiar. He felt chill like a light snow falling, and he thought, for the first time in months, of home.

And at the thought he felt a burst of cold in his heart, a soul-deep chill, and his breath rattled in his throat under the warm sun.

"Try it." Zakel's voice startled Braska - it sounded- not strained, not quite distracted, but- far away.

They all shuffled apart to give themselves room. Braska wanted to close his eyes, but he concentrated on the unfamiliar design, on its familiar feel. It took a long time. Slowly, slowly, the floor around him started to glow with a tracery of light, with circles and squares and shapes he could not name but could feel forming in his mind, with layers of calling and control, with spangles like the glint of snow, with the shimmer of power.

And oh, he felt cold.

His heart hammered in his chest.

By the time he finished, Braska was panting with effort and a strange resonant ecstasy, with the pressure of the spell and the touch of cold on his heart. He saw that some had completed their spells and stood, chests heaving with too-controlled breathing, within a circle of glimmering light, while others were still tracing the outer edges of the design with slow, careful, shining strokes.

Zakel's breathing was heavy, too, and sweat glistened on his brow and lip, but he stood straight and held his staff high, eyes closed. Braska did not know how the summoner could tell when the last student had completed the spell, but as soon as all the designs were done, Zakel drew a long breath in and let it out, slowly. The spell faded with his beath, dissipating like cold mist.

When Zakel opened his eyes, they were twinkling. "Now.... let it fade, slowly. Don't cut it off, but let it dispel with your breath. Give the power back. Let it go, like you let the pyreflies go."

Braska closed his eyes, finally, and concentrated on the gentle release, drawing in clean air and breathing out spent power. Slowly, a little at a time. There was not much to dispel, but he felt - he felt it draw him, he felt it calling, he felt it waiting, and he tried not to choke on his own expelled breath, thick with power. It felt achingly familiar, like coming home - no, like leaving home.

It hurt.

He let it go.

When he opened his eyes he was puffing and his legs were shaking. He was trembling. A few of the others seemed to be in similar condition - some were those who had recognized Shiva's spell. Others he remembered had nodded when Zakel talked of clinging to power.

Zakel grinned at them. "Well, looks like that's all for today. Try to draw out the design tonight. Tomorrow, we'll do this again, until you can do this in your sleep."

He was waiting for it, Zakel's last comment echoing in his mind. Staring at the ceiling, back pressed into the bed, still feeling exposed.

The tracery of Shiva's hymn, the flurry of snow and summoning - they had felt familiar and strange. Like the expectant presence he had felt some nights before... and yet, unlike.

An hour after everyone else had fallen asleep, with the moonlight creeping slowly towards his bed, it had not come.

Braska sat up, his back prickling and open to the cool air. He closed his eyes and breathed into prayer, into meditation, and waited. He could feel the pyreflies flitting lazily about. Far away, he could hear the dim echoes of the hymn.

He thought he felt a touch of expectation, but he could not tell if it was his own or... not.

He shivered again, suddenly cold.

Braska expelled a held breath and lay back down. Exasperated, disappointed, relieved - all three - he could not tell.

He thought of Shiva and of cold and the familiar strains of her lonely hymn, and did not sleep.

They practiced the spell until the tracery would burst forth in an instant, fully fledged and glowing, on the floor beneath them. The weeks passed, and after Shiva's, Zakel taught them Ixion's spell, fierce and flickering, thundering and complex; then Ifrit's, full of flare and fire and a haze like smoke. Valefor's was almost simple, almost - radiating warmth and open spaces like the free air, and a steadfast sense of loyalty. Valefor's spell was hard to release, and Braska was glad it had not come first.

With each spell Braska waited for the touch of cold fear, the expectant sense of waiting. It did not come. And Braska's heart beat on, and Braska's breath sustained him, and he went through the delicate motions until the last.

Bahamut was last.

Bahamut was hardest.

Bahamut was waiting.

"Our friend here has the hardest spell," Zakel had said. No one questioned why after they saw it, sigils full of grace and power; searingly intricate and blazing bright and infused with the weight of stone and ages.

Braska had been waiting. And when the choking prickle of wariness ran down his spine and settled between his shoulder blades, he was half-expecting it.

He almost didn't have to look at Zakel's spell - he recognized it now, could feel the filigree of energy, could almost trace the shapes of the summoning from the memory of hours of wakefulness in the deep of night. Could feel the chill in his heart as it stuttered.

He kept his eyes open and breathed through his nose, slow and controlled. And he traced the spell as he had traced the others.

It grew around him, light and dark and shimmering in shades of strength. It grew, pressing on his mind, powerful and encompassing.

It was complete, and Braska felt nothing.

He stood in the center of the sigil, holding the power balanced, carefully not reaching out to call - exactly as he had stood for the other aeons' spells. Except Shiva's - he suppressed a shiver of cold.

This was Bahamut's spell, and nothing was happening.

Zakel's voice broke though the numb haze. "Good job, everyone. We'll do this twice more this week. You're all almost done."

Braska caught his breath as the students dispersed, controlled inhalations through his nose. He watched Zakel, and saw that the summoner's nostrils were strained and dilated like his own. Zakel delivered his usual parting words and smiles and made his way to the hall.

Braska followed.

He entered the dark, cool hush of the hall. Blinking as his eyes adjusted, he called out. "Summoner Zakel?"

He heard footsteps stop.

And he heard them continue.

He frowned, and made his careful way down the hall, following the fading footsteps. His soft acolyte's boots made almost no noise. He was entering the depths of the temple, farther than he had gone before. It was cold in here - Braska preferred to wander the warmth of the vast, open balconies. The steps descended further into the temple, and Braska realized that the hymn was growing louder. Zakel was approaching the Cloister.

Braska hesitated, thinking it ill of him to follow this far, when he heard the steps turn aside to a chamber off the main hall, and Zakel's voice speak.

"You're ready?"

"Yes, my l- Zakel."

Braska started. The answering voice was female.

"Good. It's about time I came to face the dragon again."

Braska backed away, looking to leave before he made the situation any more awkward. He had turned to make his way back down the hall when he heard a hard, measured step approach from an intersection. A monk. He could ask the way out of here.

He was about to call out when a man emerged from an intersecting hallway. He was carrying a gun. Machina.

Braska's eyes widened and he choked silently on the beginning of his call. He pressed himself back against the wall and shuffled sideways until he felt the recess of a door behind him, and hid himself in the niche.

What were machina doing in the heart of Bevelle?

The greatest sin, the evil that had called down Sin upon Spira, the machina that invited death and destruction and -

Braska swallowed.

He was trembling, and the roiling tumult within him felt alien and strange - and half-remembered like the remnants of a dream - was he angry? Was he afraid?

Was he mistaken?

His breath was coming quick, thundering in his ears.

"Zakel?"

Braska started - it was the woman from before, Zakel's companion. Her voice was coming from just a litle ways down the hall. Braska could see light spilling from the chamber Zakel had walked into.

"Yes, Noru?"

"Are you sure you're- Are you sure this is the right time? When you obtain the fayth, we will be going to Zanarkand..."

Zakel snorted. "Not up to me, is it? Besides, if he will come to me today, it will be good. I'm almost done with teaching."

Braska remembered how Zakel's smile had hardened when he talked of calling the fayth.

He heard the soft hesitation in the woman's voice. He had wondered, often, why someone such as Zakel would stay his path long enough to teach summoning for a season.

"You don't wish to remain here any longer?"

Zakel's voice was hard. "There is nothing here for me but Bahamut's fayth. It's time and past I finished this journey. I have nothing left to lose but time."

His voice had grown louder, and Braska saw him emerge, hard smile in place, and turn to continue down the hall. And he saw the woman following. She was small and dark-haired, and as she stepped out, her face caught the room's light and Braska saw a longing softness in it. She carried a small figure shaped like a shoopuf.

A black mage's channeling tool. She was a black mage, a guardian. Braska had never thought to wonder who Zakel's guardian might be.

Zakel turned back to her, looking expectant. Braska pressed himself back in his niche, but not before he had seen her face had schooled itself to calm. Her voice was even when she spoke. "Yes. Let's try again."

Braska heard the shuffle of heavy robes shifting. "I'm s- Did you want to stay longer?" He heard an odd uncomfortable note in Zakel's voice, and an odd echo, and imagined that he had turned away. The echoes shifted again when Zakel next spoke - he had turned back. "I can wait a few more days."

"No," Noru said. "You are right. Let's go."

Their steps retreated down the hall.

Braska was unsure what to think.

He listened for some seconds more before emerging from the shadows of the doorway, taking care to be quiet, painfully aware even of the soft shuffle of his shoes and the gentle rustling of his robes above the quiet hum of machina. He had been engrossed in following Zakel to ask him about Bahamut, and had not been paying attention to his surroundings, other than to shiver at the cool hush. He looked around now, and saw - locks, lights, buttons. Machina, everywhere, subtle and ubiquitous. He was a good ways below ground, he knew. There were no machina in the upper levels of Bevelle, where people came to pray. But here, now, he sensed it - a small high-pitched buzz, like and unlike the pyreflies' whispers.

He was not sure he was supposed to be here. This was not the main way to the temple proper.

He looked around, and heard the distant footfalls of more monks on their rounds. He felt guilty. He walked quickly to the nearest stairs leading upwards, and made his way up and up until he felt the temperature rise a little, until he began to recognize the halls again.

He needed to talk to someone. He needed to ask about Bahamut. And... machina. And... maybe Zakel, too.

He thought of his fellow summoner students. He had... he hadn't been making friends here. His friends were dead, or in Macalania. They had stayed, and he had left. He thought of Dappul's hard, determined smile and his open, likable face.

He thought of Takla's weary eyes.

He went in search of the old priest.

When Braska found him, Takla was about to leave the temple. He called out, hesitating. "Father Takla?"

Takla stopped and turned to face him. When he saw who was calling him, his face creased in a smile. "Young Braska. What brings you here?"

"I'm sorry to bother you. I... had some questions."

Takla raised his eyebrows. "Well, my son, I would be happy to try to answer them."

Braska felt a little lost at Takla's manner - he missed feeling he could talk to the man as he had when he had been Takla's student.

"I wanted to ask about Bahamut. And... about something I saw."

"Bahamut? Are you sure you don't seek your teacher? Zakel?"

Braska looked away. "Zakel has... some business. May I speak with you instead?"

"Of course you may. Would you like to walk with me? There are not many warm days left to the year." Takla smiled at him, warm and welcoming, and Braska's heart lifted. He fell into step beside the priest, and was startled to realize he was taller than him. They walked onto one of the vast balconies, to an airy walkway stretching between Bevelle's spires. The day was still warm, but Braska felt the chill in the winds off Macalania Wood. He had come here in the spring, as the air grew warm and wet with the offshore breeze. Winter was coming to Bevelle. He shivered.

"What is on your mind, young summoner?" Takla walked beside him, face uplifted to savour the sun and wind.

"I'm not sure how to explain... I don't remember coming here very well."

Takla nodded. "Sin attacked Macalania. You likely suffered from Sin's toxins."

"I think so. But... after some weeks, I began... having dreams. Waking in the night. I am not sure how to explain, but I thought Bahamut was calling me. I could... I could feel something watching me. I could hear the pyreflies, and I would wake feeling... very afraid."

Takla stopped walking and turned to face him. "Tell me, my son, were you in training to be a priest at Macalania Temple before coming here?"

Braska startled. "Yes. I had just started my training."

Takla looked thoughtful. "You are probably more sensitive than most to the magics here, then. Most people who come here have not had any teachings in listening to them."

Braska nodded slowly. "I suppose you are right. I would wake most often when... when Zakel taught about listening to the pyreflies, or Sending. I thought it was Bahamut because... I am not sure. It felt like him."

Takla nodded. "Bahamut's presence here is not hard to feel."

"But... today, when we were taught Bahamut's spell, I felt... I felt nothing. I thought- I thought something would happen. He has been in my dreams and my sleep for so long. I thought I would feel something when I drew his sigil. I had felt something the first time we were taught a summoning spell, and I'd been waiting, expecting. I wanted to ask Zakel about it but-"

Braska broke off, feeling shamed.

Takla leaned against the walkway's railing, looking out to the distant sea.

They stood there in the cooling breeze for some time. Braska was not sure what he wanted ask, what he wanted to say.

"I... followed him," he admitted finally, glad that he did not have to meet Takla's eyes as he slid his gaze sideways. "I meant to ask him about Bahamut. I called out to him, but he didn't wait for me. I was confused, this has been happening for months, and I did not know who to ask. So I followed him further. I didn't realize how far down I'd gone, when I heard him talk to his guardian."

"Yes, the lady Noru. She was from a small village on the Moonflow. Sin came there some years back."

Braska remembered the black mage's doll. "Yes... I heard them talking. I meant to leave then, but- I saw a man. With machina."

Takla's face hardened, and Braska was surprised for a moment before Takla sighed and the familiar weariness crept back into his voice. "Yes, you went deep into the temple. There are machina there, all through the core of Bevelle."

"But I have always heard that machina are a sin. Against Yevon's teachings."

Takla took a long breath and met his eyes. "There are many sins in Bevelle, my son. It is an irony. We are priveledged here. Machina makes the lives of those high enough to use them easier, but the same ease cannot be given to the people of Spira. I do not know what is right. The machina make it easier for Bevelle to guide and govern and give aid. And yet it is unfair. But if the people knew, there would be too much resentment. So say the Maesters."

Braska was not sure he understood. But Takla had known. Braska swallowed an irrational sense of betrayal. He had enough to shame him for one day. He was silent for a time, uncomfortable and confused. Takla waited beside him for some minutes, until the priest closed his eyes and spoke again.

"Zakel was much like you in his youth."

Braska looked up, surprised.

Takla's smile was gentle and a little sad as he spoke. "He trained here, too, after his village was destroyed. I taught him, as I taught you." Takla sighed. "He was upset, too, to learn about the ironies of our service here. I wish sometime that I had... I wish I had instructed him better. I have learned much from teaching here."

Braska remembered Takla's final lesson, on hate and anger. He remebered waking and choking on both. "I... I am still not sure what my dreams mean."

Takla looked at him, eyes serious. "You could go speak to Bahamut yourself." Braska turned to meet Takla's eyes, his own grown wide. "You training is near complete, and you are a summoner. If Bahamut has called you, then perhaps you should answer his call. Perhaps he calls on you to speak with him, and begin your pilgrimage."

Braska looked down. He spoke slowly. "I think I knew this. But..." He closed his yes. "I did not want to think on it. I was afraid."

Takla shook his head. "You are braver than you think, my son."

Braska squeezed his eyes tight. The words meant much to him. Too much, maybe.

A chill wind swept down from the wood, and Baska shuddered.

"I will go speak with Bahamut." His mouth was dry.

Takla nodded, and when Braska met his eyes, he wanted to look away. Takla did not speak again, but Braska saw things he could not have borne to hear said aloud in those compassionate eyes.

He gripped his staff, hand clenched tight as he headed back to the temple. For once its warm weight held no comfort.

The endless winding staircase, he decided, was a bit much. He felt bitter, and he knew his thoughts were twisted to more irony than was his wont. But each step, going down and down, filled him with more apprehension. The hymn swelled around him, and now that he knew to listen for it, he could hear the faint buzz of machina. He'd never noticed it before, but it permeated the deeper chambers. He saw the machina all around him.

And the air was growing cooler.

His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mouth was dry.

But Bahamut had called him, and he had come to find out why.

He was nearing the bottom of the stairs, and his mind buzzed with questions, with a vague sense of anger and betrayal - and with fear. He swallowed, and approached the Cloister.

Someone was exiting the sacred room - Braska's heart jumped to his throat.

His eyes widened when he saw - it was Noru, and slumped at her side, one arm slung over her thin shoulders - Zakel.

Braska barely recognized him. His face was ashen, his eyes wide and white; sweat glistened on his brow despite the chill; and in place of his usual relaxed carriage he stumbled now, and bowed under the weight of exhaustion.

But it was Zakel's smile that chilled Braska to the core, terror and revulsion running like ice-cold water down his spine and pooling in his belly, and his mind screamed to flee this place of the fayth.

The smile was hard, harder than ice and harder than stone; it held no mirth; it held no hope. It held no soul.

He stumbled back - out of their way, or simply away - and Noru looked up.

Her eyes were bue, ice-blue, and Braska wanted to turn away from the hard determination, the hopeless desperation he saw there as she supported her summoner's shaking steps. His stomach turned with his guilt, and he choked on too much understanding.

They ascended, and Braska was left alone on the threshhold of the Cloister, shaking and cold.

He was afraid.

He was alone witht the machina and the pyreflies, and he was afraid.

He entered the Cloister.

Braska floated through the trial as through a dream, the eerie light rippling around him. The puzzle was vexing, but he was beyond worrying over it. The chamber buzzed with magic and machina, his mind buzzed with it, and it was in a daze that he felt the spheres and searched and sifted through the welter of energies for a matching pedestal. When he solved it, he paused a moment. This is where a guardian would stop, he thought. Only summoners were permitted to speak to the fayth.

He wondered what Noru had felt when she had watched Zakel enter without her.

He stepped inside.

The Chamber was not as elaborate as he expected, but he did not look around for long - his eyes were drawn to the statue on the floor. The statue of the fayth. He had never heard them described.

It was terrible. It was beautiful. The vast span of a pearlescent wing, the dizzying colours, the ripple of muscle in a strong back.

The statue had no face. He felt a little sickened.

He knelt before it, his heavy breaths heaving in his chest. He tried to slow his mind, meditate and pray and wait.

He was shivering.

He was not sure how long he knelt there, trying to marshal his scattered mind, when he felt an overwhelming, terrible presence swell before him, familair and alien and vast.

He looked up, and the dragon Bahamut was before him. The dragon flexed its vast shoulders, and the vast wings shuddered. Braska swallowed, and blinked. When he opened his eyes, the dragon was gone.

A boy stood in his place, his robes strange.

And from him, from the fayth, Braska felt it. An overpowering familiarity, a presence that had hovered on the edge of his mind since he had come here, haunting his dreams. Haunting those moments as he woke, and the fayth, the fayth was a young boy, and he remembered wide, hateful eyes meeting his in the dark. The countenance of the fayth, the presence, was terrible, full of waiting and weariness and hate, a hate so deep and fathomless that it had grown sympathy as a fast-rooted tree grew leaves, groaning and whispering under the steady pounding of the wind. Braska remembered the hate, remembered waking and shuddering with it.

And yet, it did not feel quite right.

Braska pushed the confusion aside, and bowed in prayer.

"I have come to pray before you and ask that you lend me your power on my summoner's pilgrimage."

There was an agonizing pause until the fayth answered.

"You do not want to become a summoner. I will not come to one such as you."

Braska's mind felt sticky and slow. The words did not seem to be sinking in. "But... you have been calling me. I felt you waiting."

"I am always waiting. It was you who called out to me."

Braska shook his head dumbly. "No, weeks after I came, I woke. In the night, you would come and watch and wait..."

The fayth's voice held no expression. "You do not remember because you do not wish to remember."

Braska shook his head again, numb and senseless.

"You came touched by Sin, but the touch was fading. When your memory began to return, you called out to me."

Braska's breathing was becoming ragged. The fayth did not pause or slow, his words coming in even, measured, toneless tides.

"You were afraid. You are still afraid."

Braska gasped in a breath. "I am not sure."

The fayth shook his head. "You are afraid."

Braska attempted to gather himself and look at the fayth, speak clearly through the thick buzz in his mind. "I do not think I feel afraid of the pilgrimage. Or the Final Summoning."

The fayth's gaze remained steady on him as he spoke again.

"You are afraid of living."

The words hung there for a moment as Braska's mind screamed away from them. But he closed his eyes and swallowed and heard the truth.

And Braska's world crashed down around him. The memories that had been circling came thundering back, writ in the blood that pounded in his ears - so much blood, his blood, their blood, and the pyreflies all screaming their agony and hate, the hate, the poisonous envy a rage of jealousy, Sin's fathomless anger seeping into him, infecting his blood, toxins and poison, the cold, Yevon, the cold, and dreams, dreams of such destruction, and those souls close to fiends with the blood dripping from their teeth, the blinding need to taste life-

He screamed.

Oh, he screamed, and the temple swallowed his screams whole, wrapped them in the hymn and smothered them with the buzz of machina and swallowed them up in the vast hollow spaces of nothing, no heat and nothing closed to keep in the warmth and the blood and the death.

Braska remembered.

And Braska wept. For the first time since Sin had come, he wept.

He wept for his parents, he wept for his home, he wept for his lost friends. He wept for Shiva's hymns and for bloodstains in the snow, for the closed spaces and the cold; he wept for the machina under the prayerhouses, he wept for Zakel's anger under his pride, for Takla's sorrow layered over his weariness.

He wept for the pyreflies screaming and then silenced.

He was young, and he wept for himself.

The fayth, ageless and without pity, watched him in silence.

When Braska knelt exhausted before the statue, the fayth did not speak.

Braska breathed, shuddering, in vast, hollow gulps. He felt weary beyond words, raw and sore. And he felt angry, and full of grief; confused, unsure, lonely. Afraid.

Alive, and aching with it.

His mouth was dry, and his lips had stuck together in the long silence. He pried them apart to croak a whisper. "Thank you." The words tasted bitter coming out, a bitter irony, and yet... his heart beat freer, and he had felt the need to say it.

The fayth said nothing.

Braska sat up. His knees hurt from the stone floor, and his hands looked red and raw. He pressed them against the floor, slow and deliberate, and rose, halting and shaking, to his feet. He felt light and light-headed, and lucid, as if he had woken from a long dreaming. He looked up at the fayth.

He did not know what to say.

The fayth granted him no mercy then, either.

Finally, Braska, overcome with exhaustion, drained and stunned, spoke. "I do not know what to do."

The fayth stirred. "You have dreamed. We know something of dreaming. You are waking, and you are free. What will you do with your waking life?"

Braska shook his head, tired beyond measure. "I had chosen my path. You tell me my choice was wrong."

"I am not one to tell you your choice was wrong. But it was ill-founded, and you are afraid and do not know your own heart."

"You will not come to me?"

The fayth shook his head. "You are not ready."

Braska heaved a sigh, too numb to think about how much relief it held. He felt a distant need to eat and drink, and a much more pressing need to sleep. Exhaustion was pulling him into unconsciousness. But there was a thought hovering on the edge of his mind, and he grasped at it before his mind could slip away entirely.

"You say I called you. But you listened and watched. You were waiting for me."

The fayth's chin dipped in a nearly imperceptible nod. "I am waiting."

A familiar chill ran down his spine at the careful words, and Braska straightened enough to bow into prayer with dignity. "I still believe the path I chose was right."

The fayth said nothing, and when Braska rose from prayer, he was gone.

But Braska had his answer. As he stumbled out of the Chamber, glassy-eyed, and made his way through the shimmering Cloister in a daze, he knew.

And when he returned to his bed and slept soundly, warm and dreamless, he knew.

And when Sin attacked a nearby village and he came with the others to heal the wounded monks and he met sharp grey eyes across a crowd and felt a shock of recognition like an electric jolt, he knew.

Bahamut was waiting.

Bahamut was waiting.

He was so tired of waiting. He was so tired of dreaming.

Those first steps down the long road. The summoner had called out to him, and Bahamut had known that this was the beginning of the end of all things. He sighed under the weight of hatred, hatred so old he could kindle it no longer and only bow under it, bow under the weight of sympathy. The summoner's fear, the summoner's hatred - they had stirred something within him, those nights when he had answered the summoner's call.

He thought of the dream city and the young dream there, the young dream so full of fire. He thought of the waking world, the summoner and the young monk, the boy whom Bahamut had touched also. The summoner had seen his touch in a moment between sleeping and waking.

The summoner was waking.

And Bahamut was waiting.

--

End.

A/N: I have probably too much to say about this story. Most of it invovles incoherent gibbering and me banging my head against hard objects, though, so I'll start with something easy.

Thanks so much to bottle_of_shine and first_seventhe, who were kind, patient, and stern with me, and put up with all my WOE WOE WOE and beta'd this. Thanks and deepest apologies to darthneko, who has been gracious and patient beyond reason. I hope you enjoyed this, and I promise the next two parts will do a better job of addressing your prompt. Finally, apologies to the ff_exchange community for being the lame late loser mod and managing to get myself temp-banned from my own exchange. Through a combination of lots of poor time management and some legitimate offline mitigating circumstances, I've earned myself a two-Chocobo Down penalty. I look forward to doing that and more - there are so many great prompts!

As for the story itself... It's hard to talk about it alone, as it's part of an arc. I had a fascinating time working with this version of Braska, who's so different from the one I had built up in my head for a different story (Walk the Widening Spiral, in progress for a year and unpublished until it's done). It was strange and a lot of fun. I also had fun inventing a lot of specifics for the mechanics of everything summoners do - I just love to meta, and indulged myself shamelessly.

For all the fun and woe that went into this, I'm still worried about a lot of it. I'm still so unsure of the pacing here, the tone, even the overall central idea of this part. I'm never secure in my OCs. Heck, I'm not even sure of the language here, the style - it's something new and different for me. Most of all, I worry that I blew the emotional tone, understating or overemphasizing certain scenes.

But... overall, I'm proud of this. And I'm proud of finishing, however late. The other two parts are almost done, lacking just a couple scenes and some polishing, but I intend to take a break before I tackle them. I hope you enjoyed this story and I hope you stay with me for the next two parts, Waking Life and The End of All Things. =)