We Bring The Fire - 2
Fandom: Final Fantasy X
Title: We Bring The Fire (part 2/4)
Characters: Auron, Braska, Chappu, Jecht, Wen Kinoc
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: You probably won't like this if you don't like angst and violence. Anything more would be spoiler-y.
Notes: This was written for Laylah as part of the Doink! Final Fantasy Exchange. Only about a billionty months late (ಠ_ಠ), I'll be posting it in four parts. Many thanks to owlmoose for her perpetual patience and excellent betaing skills. Blame me, not her, for any leftover errors. You can also find this story on AO3 . Part one can be found here.
"Auron!" Braska extended an arm into his kitchen in invitation. "It is good to see you again, friend."
Auron stepped into the kitchen and gave a stiff bow. He looked uncomfortable, but Braska scarcely knew Auron to be any other way. "I cannot stay long."
"Oh." Braska wore an exaggerated crestfallen expression before a gleam rose in his eyes, "Well in that case, you can blame me when you're back late. Withdraw a little bit of reputation from my account, as it were."
"Ha! We're overdrawn as it is!" A voice added, laced with a barely-detectable accent. A woman, lanky save for her round belly, appeared at Braska's side and nudged herself under his arm. "Paz," she said, thrusting out her hand in greeting.
Braska grinned. "You know, it is strange you two haven't met. Two worlds of mine, coming together finally. Auron, Paz. Paz, Auron. As I'm sure the both of you know."
Auron went stock-still, arms tucked behind his back, shoulders high, face florid. He did not acknowledge Paz's greeting. "Sir, I've been sent from the temple to deliver this." He produced a small ivory envelope from his winter overcoat and offered it to Braska.
Paz lowered her arm awkwardly, face red, and hurried out of the kitchen.
Braska frowned, running a thumb laterally along the envelope. "Another love letter from the council of Yevon?"
Auron's face yielded no clue. Braska replaced the envelope on the table and moved a step closer to Auron. He could still see the fierce stubbornness of that boy from the Isle of Kiore, but many years had passed. The youth who had looked upon Braska as a mentor, a teacher, an advisor had become a strong, broad-shouldered young man. More significantly, Auron's name remained favorable in the temples, while Braska's did not. No, Auron's name had become beyond favorable. Widely respected, openly adopted as the head commander's personal protégé. Auron, he realized, with a pang, had only to lose by rekindling a friendship with a fallen priest.
"Auron." Braska lowered his voice and placed his hand upon Auron's tense shoulder. "I understand if you cannot associate with me as you once had. But it would mean a great deal to me if you and Paz could--"
Suddenly, a whirring sound and a shadow of something arial spun wildly into the kitchen. Swordless, Auron hunched into a defensive pose, automatically crossing his torso in front of Braska's body. The thing, however, didn't engage like a usual fiend. It flew, fast and unpredictably, careening so wildly that Auron could not get a proper sight on it. Glowing blue, It looked little more than streaks of disembodied light. And then, it came straight at him. Awkwardly, Auron dodged it and attempted to swat it down, a sight he might have considered rather undignified had he seen himself. Finally the thing came down, skittering across the kitchen floor. It appeared to be a sphere of sorts, nestled into a tiny machina, blinking with bright blue lights and affixed with something like a miniature propellor of a boat. Auron bristled, his heart hammering.
Reemerging from the kitchen, Paz stooped down, one hand on her round stomach, and scooped up the device. "These things sure take a lickin," She chirped merrily.
With a single smooth movement, she popped the sphere out of its enclosure and placed it into the kitchen projection cradle. A recording sphere. Auron failed at suppressing a snarl. Immediately it began to play : a nauseating, unstable perspective of Auron's confused and furrowed face swatting at the camera. Paz roared with laughter, and even Braska could not help a small smile.
Auron clenched his jaw, a thunderous headache already encroaching.
"Come on, have a sense of humor!" Paz said, gently yanking Auron’s ponytail. "You know, that's the trouble with you Yevonites. All somber and sacrifice. Death, death, death. I mean, look at how cute you are!" Paz furrowed her brow and pursed her lips in an imitation of Auron, green eyes glinting.
Auron ignored her, drawing himself high in the kitchen doorway. "Goodbye, sir." With a few wide strides, Auron had left, a frigid scowl of mid-winter air punctuating his departure.
"Sorry, babe." Paz turned to her husband. "But your pally's kind of an ass."
"That's nothing new." Braska chuckled, then turned pensive. "But perhaps he has changed more than I'd realized."
Paz shrugged. "That's temple folk for you. So what'd he bring us? I hope it's not another tax liens. A single gil more and we'll be living in the chocobo stables and eating monkey hides."
Braska slid a fingernail under the envelope's flap and pulled out a small, folded letter. Upon it was the official seal of Yo Mika, and it was written in the the smooth, neat hand of the official scribes. Braska's face tightened and then fell, pale. Wordlessly, he drew his wife into an embrace and laid a protective arm over his unborn child.
"An eviction notice."
---
Braska knew a few things for sure. He knew that his wife was dead. He knew her body was with her brother -- his brother-in-law, if Cid would ever deign such a title. Because Braska also knew that Cid didn't like him. At one time, Cid might have scowled, cursed his sister for running off with a moogle-brained Yevonite who had stolen away his poor kid sister. But now, he done away with cute and petty slanders, his final letter thick with the ferocity of primal rage. Braska had written back, trying to explain that Paz had been on her way home, to make amends with her family, but his correspondences had been returned unopened.
And so, Braska knew he wasn't going to see his wife again. He would never be able to kiss her golden forehead, or close those spiral eyes with a tender finger. He knew by now she was likely no more than ash and smoke. That was the Al Bhed way, after all. And the Al Bhed way was no less right than the Yevonite way. But Braska was left with a space in his ribs, hollow and dancing like the gleam of a pool hitting a bathhouse arch. He ached to say goodbye in the way he'd always known how to say goodbye.
So he had come here, alone, damp stone floor echoing his footfalls, staff aloft. He had briefly considered wearing his robes for the occasion -- Paz had always thought he looked handsome in them. But tonight was a private and selfish thing -- more for him than for her -- and he had never liked the weighty drape of vestments.
Only the altar statues bore witness to this, their unblinking gaze meant to convey the ceaseless and infallible judgement of Yevon. Yet Braska felt only invitation. He far preferred this little chapel to the pomp grandness of St. Bevelle. Its patron summoner had brought the Ronso to Yevon and the temple itself was decked with a Gagazet motif, accents of bright feathers and silvery spearheads, facsimiles of skulls and bones carved from rock. At the feet of the patron statue, a bronze cluster of stylized Ronso pups peered up in mute admiration. Their small faces shimmered in firelight from the ever-burning lantern cradled in the hands of their beloved summoner.
And so, his heart as heavy as his feet light, Braska began the sending dance. Despite the absence of a soul to send, or perhaps because of it, the sending magics set swiftly about him, arcing in wide orbits, the gravity and perpetuity of sorrow threatening to overwhelm him.
He danced of her, of him, of them. He danced as he had when they had first met, both a little clumsied by cactuar spirits. He danced as they had with their daughter on her fifth birthday, to half-remembered Al Bhed jigs. He danced of joy and of agony. He danced of contradictions. He danced of the greatest of knowings: she had been his and he had been hers, and Yuna would ever be theirs.
He danced until his heart rose from his chest and perched at the end of his staff, unfurling its new wings.
And when it was over, Braska sat in the empty pews and thought of his daughter.
Yuna, who now had only him. He, only her. Yuna, the daughter who had been born in love and hope only to face hatred and fear -- risen from two worlds, welcomed into neither. Yuna, who sits upon his shoulders and nests in his heart. Yuna, who he must protect. And in the hardest of ironies, Braska had never been so ill-equipped to do so as he was now -- damned, despised, doomed. A target of punishment. And if not Sin, then Yevon would bring her down. She would be chased, hunted and hurt until she was worn hollow. A blackening fog of despair began to rise about him. There was nothing he could do -- unless --
"Sir. There's someone in here."
Braska clutched his staff and squinted through the dark. Surely it was not yet time for the dawn blessings.
A boy of perhaps sixteen, dressed too plainly to be a novice monk, stood in the foyer. In one hand, a lantern held a wavering flame and in the other, a small can of lamp oil.
The lamp keepers, Braska reminded himself. "I see. Tiren, I will finish the duties here." The voice was familiar, though Braska could not immediately place it. The source of the voice stepped from behind the boy to retrieve the lamp-lighting supplies. "You are to return to the stables. We will continue your training at dawn."
"Aye, sir." The boy pressed a fist to his chest in salute and took his leave.
Braska's heart lurched. It had been years, nearly a half decade, since Braska had last seen him. He had heard rumors, of course. His friend's name had become golden around the city. A rising star plucked from obscurity by the good graces of Yevon, the self-congratulatory legend went. And then, merely months ago, something had happened. The word was that he'd been caught skimming tithes, but anyone acquainted with either Auron's relentless morality or the political mechanisms of Bevelle wouldn't believe it for a moment. And, indeed, the rumors seemed suspiciously emergent in the wake of Auron's refusal of the high priest's daughter. The punishment for refusing to play political in Bevelle: a permanently tarnished name and a demotion to stable master.
And now, Auron strode towards him through the aisle, face unreadable. Braska stood, stricken and plain, tears on his face.
Auron stopped a pace from where Braska stood. Braska wondered if he heard the news about Paz, wondered if Auron knew that Braska had heard about Auron's own troubles in the temple. Gradually, the answers condensed on Auron's face, pain webbing out in the trenches of his brow, weighted with a new breed of tension. A man who'd never once really tended to his wounds and was lost in regret for it.
And then, Auron bent deeply at the waist, his bound hair slipping down to hang from the nape of his neck. He stood like that for a long time, longer than either of their current rank required. And then, in a voice that bore the marks, "I'm sorry."
Braska, who in his life had so rarely felt certain, was sure of a few things now. He knew that before him was a broken man. He knew that he was much the same. He knew that he must protect his daughter. And he knew that his plan was the right one.
"Auron. Friend." Braska placed a hand on Auron's shoulder and drew him up. "I have a difficult favor to ask of you."
Title: We Bring The Fire (part 2/4)
Characters: Auron, Braska, Chappu, Jecht, Wen Kinoc
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: You probably won't like this if you don't like angst and violence. Anything more would be spoiler-y.
Notes: This was written for Laylah as part of the Doink! Final Fantasy Exchange. Only about a billionty months late (ಠ_ಠ), I'll be posting it in four parts. Many thanks to owlmoose for her perpetual patience and excellent betaing skills. Blame me, not her, for any leftover errors. You can also find this story on AO3 . Part one can be found here.
"Auron!" Braska extended an arm into his kitchen in invitation. "It is good to see you again, friend."
Auron stepped into the kitchen and gave a stiff bow. He looked uncomfortable, but Braska scarcely knew Auron to be any other way. "I cannot stay long."
"Oh." Braska wore an exaggerated crestfallen expression before a gleam rose in his eyes, "Well in that case, you can blame me when you're back late. Withdraw a little bit of reputation from my account, as it were."
"Ha! We're overdrawn as it is!" A voice added, laced with a barely-detectable accent. A woman, lanky save for her round belly, appeared at Braska's side and nudged herself under his arm. "Paz," she said, thrusting out her hand in greeting.
Braska grinned. "You know, it is strange you two haven't met. Two worlds of mine, coming together finally. Auron, Paz. Paz, Auron. As I'm sure the both of you know."
Auron went stock-still, arms tucked behind his back, shoulders high, face florid. He did not acknowledge Paz's greeting. "Sir, I've been sent from the temple to deliver this." He produced a small ivory envelope from his winter overcoat and offered it to Braska.
Paz lowered her arm awkwardly, face red, and hurried out of the kitchen.
Braska frowned, running a thumb laterally along the envelope. "Another love letter from the council of Yevon?"
Auron's face yielded no clue. Braska replaced the envelope on the table and moved a step closer to Auron. He could still see the fierce stubbornness of that boy from the Isle of Kiore, but many years had passed. The youth who had looked upon Braska as a mentor, a teacher, an advisor had become a strong, broad-shouldered young man. More significantly, Auron's name remained favorable in the temples, while Braska's did not. No, Auron's name had become beyond favorable. Widely respected, openly adopted as the head commander's personal protégé. Auron, he realized, with a pang, had only to lose by rekindling a friendship with a fallen priest.
"Auron." Braska lowered his voice and placed his hand upon Auron's tense shoulder. "I understand if you cannot associate with me as you once had. But it would mean a great deal to me if you and Paz could--"
Suddenly, a whirring sound and a shadow of something arial spun wildly into the kitchen. Swordless, Auron hunched into a defensive pose, automatically crossing his torso in front of Braska's body. The thing, however, didn't engage like a usual fiend. It flew, fast and unpredictably, careening so wildly that Auron could not get a proper sight on it. Glowing blue, It looked little more than streaks of disembodied light. And then, it came straight at him. Awkwardly, Auron dodged it and attempted to swat it down, a sight he might have considered rather undignified had he seen himself. Finally the thing came down, skittering across the kitchen floor. It appeared to be a sphere of sorts, nestled into a tiny machina, blinking with bright blue lights and affixed with something like a miniature propellor of a boat. Auron bristled, his heart hammering.
Reemerging from the kitchen, Paz stooped down, one hand on her round stomach, and scooped up the device. "These things sure take a lickin," She chirped merrily.
With a single smooth movement, she popped the sphere out of its enclosure and placed it into the kitchen projection cradle. A recording sphere. Auron failed at suppressing a snarl. Immediately it began to play : a nauseating, unstable perspective of Auron's confused and furrowed face swatting at the camera. Paz roared with laughter, and even Braska could not help a small smile.
Auron clenched his jaw, a thunderous headache already encroaching.
"Come on, have a sense of humor!" Paz said, gently yanking Auron’s ponytail. "You know, that's the trouble with you Yevonites. All somber and sacrifice. Death, death, death. I mean, look at how cute you are!" Paz furrowed her brow and pursed her lips in an imitation of Auron, green eyes glinting.
Auron ignored her, drawing himself high in the kitchen doorway. "Goodbye, sir." With a few wide strides, Auron had left, a frigid scowl of mid-winter air punctuating his departure.
"Sorry, babe." Paz turned to her husband. "But your pally's kind of an ass."
"That's nothing new." Braska chuckled, then turned pensive. "But perhaps he has changed more than I'd realized."
Paz shrugged. "That's temple folk for you. So what'd he bring us? I hope it's not another tax liens. A single gil more and we'll be living in the chocobo stables and eating monkey hides."
Braska slid a fingernail under the envelope's flap and pulled out a small, folded letter. Upon it was the official seal of Yo Mika, and it was written in the the smooth, neat hand of the official scribes. Braska's face tightened and then fell, pale. Wordlessly, he drew his wife into an embrace and laid a protective arm over his unborn child.
"An eviction notice."
---
Braska knew a few things for sure. He knew that his wife was dead. He knew her body was with her brother -- his brother-in-law, if Cid would ever deign such a title. Because Braska also knew that Cid didn't like him. At one time, Cid might have scowled, cursed his sister for running off with a moogle-brained Yevonite who had stolen away his poor kid sister. But now, he done away with cute and petty slanders, his final letter thick with the ferocity of primal rage. Braska had written back, trying to explain that Paz had been on her way home, to make amends with her family, but his correspondences had been returned unopened.
And so, Braska knew he wasn't going to see his wife again. He would never be able to kiss her golden forehead, or close those spiral eyes with a tender finger. He knew by now she was likely no more than ash and smoke. That was the Al Bhed way, after all. And the Al Bhed way was no less right than the Yevonite way. But Braska was left with a space in his ribs, hollow and dancing like the gleam of a pool hitting a bathhouse arch. He ached to say goodbye in the way he'd always known how to say goodbye.
So he had come here, alone, damp stone floor echoing his footfalls, staff aloft. He had briefly considered wearing his robes for the occasion -- Paz had always thought he looked handsome in them. But tonight was a private and selfish thing -- more for him than for her -- and he had never liked the weighty drape of vestments.
Only the altar statues bore witness to this, their unblinking gaze meant to convey the ceaseless and infallible judgement of Yevon. Yet Braska felt only invitation. He far preferred this little chapel to the pomp grandness of St. Bevelle. Its patron summoner had brought the Ronso to Yevon and the temple itself was decked with a Gagazet motif, accents of bright feathers and silvery spearheads, facsimiles of skulls and bones carved from rock. At the feet of the patron statue, a bronze cluster of stylized Ronso pups peered up in mute admiration. Their small faces shimmered in firelight from the ever-burning lantern cradled in the hands of their beloved summoner.
And so, his heart as heavy as his feet light, Braska began the sending dance. Despite the absence of a soul to send, or perhaps because of it, the sending magics set swiftly about him, arcing in wide orbits, the gravity and perpetuity of sorrow threatening to overwhelm him.
He danced of her, of him, of them. He danced as he had when they had first met, both a little clumsied by cactuar spirits. He danced as they had with their daughter on her fifth birthday, to half-remembered Al Bhed jigs. He danced of joy and of agony. He danced of contradictions. He danced of the greatest of knowings: she had been his and he had been hers, and Yuna would ever be theirs.
He danced until his heart rose from his chest and perched at the end of his staff, unfurling its new wings.
And when it was over, Braska sat in the empty pews and thought of his daughter.
Yuna, who now had only him. He, only her. Yuna, the daughter who had been born in love and hope only to face hatred and fear -- risen from two worlds, welcomed into neither. Yuna, who sits upon his shoulders and nests in his heart. Yuna, who he must protect. And in the hardest of ironies, Braska had never been so ill-equipped to do so as he was now -- damned, despised, doomed. A target of punishment. And if not Sin, then Yevon would bring her down. She would be chased, hunted and hurt until she was worn hollow. A blackening fog of despair began to rise about him. There was nothing he could do -- unless --
"Sir. There's someone in here."
Braska clutched his staff and squinted through the dark. Surely it was not yet time for the dawn blessings.
A boy of perhaps sixteen, dressed too plainly to be a novice monk, stood in the foyer. In one hand, a lantern held a wavering flame and in the other, a small can of lamp oil.
The lamp keepers, Braska reminded himself. "I see. Tiren, I will finish the duties here." The voice was familiar, though Braska could not immediately place it. The source of the voice stepped from behind the boy to retrieve the lamp-lighting supplies. "You are to return to the stables. We will continue your training at dawn."
"Aye, sir." The boy pressed a fist to his chest in salute and took his leave.
Braska's heart lurched. It had been years, nearly a half decade, since Braska had last seen him. He had heard rumors, of course. His friend's name had become golden around the city. A rising star plucked from obscurity by the good graces of Yevon, the self-congratulatory legend went. And then, merely months ago, something had happened. The word was that he'd been caught skimming tithes, but anyone acquainted with either Auron's relentless morality or the political mechanisms of Bevelle wouldn't believe it for a moment. And, indeed, the rumors seemed suspiciously emergent in the wake of Auron's refusal of the high priest's daughter. The punishment for refusing to play political in Bevelle: a permanently tarnished name and a demotion to stable master.
And now, Auron strode towards him through the aisle, face unreadable. Braska stood, stricken and plain, tears on his face.
Auron stopped a pace from where Braska stood. Braska wondered if he heard the news about Paz, wondered if Auron knew that Braska had heard about Auron's own troubles in the temple. Gradually, the answers condensed on Auron's face, pain webbing out in the trenches of his brow, weighted with a new breed of tension. A man who'd never once really tended to his wounds and was lost in regret for it.
And then, Auron bent deeply at the waist, his bound hair slipping down to hang from the nape of his neck. He stood like that for a long time, longer than either of their current rank required. And then, in a voice that bore the marks, "I'm sorry."
Braska, who in his life had so rarely felt certain, was sure of a few things now. He knew that before him was a broken man. He knew that he was much the same. He knew that he must protect his daughter. And he knew that his plan was the right one.
"Auron. Friend." Braska placed a hand on Auron's shoulder and drew him up. "I have a difficult favor to ask of you."