We Bring The Fire - 3
Fandom: Final Fantasy X
Title: We Bring The Fire (part 3/4)
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, part two can be found here.
"Hey! Hey look at me!" The boy spun and brandished his homemade wooden sword, swiping at a stand of bushes, an acrobatic blur of bright Besaid textiles and orange-red hair. "I could be your guardian, ya?"
Jecht whistled appreciatively. "Not bad." But can you take on the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark IV?" With large, exaggerated movements, Jecht crouched and sprung, whirling the blade of his sword in the swift and self-assured aplomb with which Jecht did nearly everything. Then with a whoop, Jecht let the blade go at the height of a dramatic leap. The child's eyes widened, and he nearly fell on his backside as he tracked the sword flipping through the air. It hit the sand hard, point down, wobbling with the sudden stop. "Whoa."
Braska smiled. "I'm sure you'll make a fine guardian when you're older. Any summoner would be lucky to fight beside you."
"I don't wanna fight with just any summoner. I wanna fight with you guys. I know! When you get back from beating Sin up, come back here! You can stay with me and my big bro. We can train together! There's some pretty tough fiends around here," The boy said seriously.
"Sounds like a plan, my man," Jecht thrust his knuckles out, which the boy met with his own in the fashion of the local greeting,
"No." Auron, who had been standing silently seething as Jecht pulled another show-off routine. "Lord Braska will not be back here. You know that, Jecht. Or perhaps you were drinking when we told you?"
The boy peered up at the men, his glance darting from one to the other.
"Lord Braska," Auron started, addressing Jecht rather than boy, "will not return here because the Final Aeon will--"
"So uncool!" Jecht interrupted before turning back to the boy. "Hey kiddo, how 'bout you run back to the village and see if the Innkeep needs any help with supper? Got to get our grub to be strong, right?"
"But--"
"Go. Now." Auron snarled, his glare still fixed on Jecht.
With a half-nod, the boy leapt and jogged down the path inland, kicking up wings of sand behind him.
"Dude," Jecht started, his palms out in front of himself in a placating gesture. "I don't know how it is in Spira, but where I'm from, you don't just say shit like that to little kids."
"You'd rather lie? Perhaps that is why your son hates you."
Jecht, who had already readied a finger in humorous indignation, froze in mid gesture, features hardening, curling his hand into a trembling fist. "You living, breathing piece of--"
"At least I don't lie," Auron snapped, hand closing around the hilt of his blade as he took a step toward Jecht, who responded in kind. "Or drink myself into a stupor on night shift. Or endanger our lives with stupid stunts. Or--"
"Please." The filigree end of Braska's staff slipped into the narrowing space between then.
" Jecht took on the tone of an indignant child. "Braska, did you hear this guy?"
Braska's eyes darted from Jecht to Auron and he looked wearier than he ever had on the road. "To an extent, it is true, things are different in Spira."
"In Spira, we don't lie to our children." Auron added sharply.
"Still, the matter should be handled with more tact than you displayed, Auron."
"And dude, you don't even have kids. Braska knows what it's like, dontcha Braska?"
Braska tilted his chin in an almost imperceptible nod.
For a moment, Auron flexed his forearm furiously, the muscles in his jaw tight. And then, his arm fell limply at his side and he turned to storm as loudly as one may storm on a sandy beach.
Watching Auron march angrily down the coast, Jecht exhaled slowly, easing the tensions of a near-brawl out of him. "I don't know where you dug 'em up, Braska, but that guy has issues to work out."
"Mm." Braska responded, noncommittally. "You know Jecht, I don't think I've ever told you how much I appreciate your traveling with us. It is...truly nice to know there is someone who can relate."
With that, Jecht slapped Braska's shoulder with a fraternal pat. "Backatcha, man."
---
The sound -- like the shriek of a hundred teeth on metal -- hit him harder than he'd expected. As though the earth had pulled him under, Auron fell to his knees hard and his stomach went heavy. When it stopped, the sudden silence was worse, it smacked like a breath-stealing slap and thrust him into a nauseating cycle of pressure changes as if he were being dragged down into a sphere pool. He tried to right himself, but he struggled about in a muddled mist, wrapped tight with gauze, pockets weighted with ore.
But even through his addled horror, Auron felt the wafting of a great wingspan descend suddenly. A fierce talon gleamed in the setting sun for a moment before it struck Lord Braska, who he could not protect.
Auron knew this -- he'd read about this. Sonic Boom. He should have been better than this. He should have been better prepared, he should have been stronger, faster, smarter. He should have not gotten so close.
Braska sagged, letting the glimmering crown of his staff scrape the ground. Auron attempted a stumbling step, clumsy and imprecise. His boots seemed to sink as though the ground had become a bog.
And suddenly, improbably - Jecht was there, sure-footed and swift, and he was guarding. Guarding Braska as Auron guards Braska. Jecht braced, absorbed the attack and rushed back with a counterattack.
The bird-fiend sucked in air for another hellish squeal of Sonic Boom, but by this time, Braska had begun the summoning ritual. Glyphs traced in light beneath his feet, and with the wumph of a second pair of wings, another type of bird call was heard. Auron filled with the twin feelings of affection and unease that Valefor's presence inspired. Through his dizzy, wounded state Auron had the sensation of being lifted from the battlefield as though by a invisible arms of wind, a benevolent tornado.
Valefor charged, again and again until the Gaurda was destroyed in a final, focused beam of light.
Before the pyreflies had dissipated, Jecht was upon Auron with a vial of hi-potion. "You ok? Took a hell of a beating back there."
Auron downed the potion in a gulp, gasping as the icy trails of healing traced their way through his limbs. "You guarded him."
"Learned it from you, man. I ain't as dumb as I look, you know."
"Thank you, Jecht." Braska looked pale and drained, as he often did in the immediate aftermath of a summoning. As always, Auron burns, faced with the knowledge that there were some things from which he could not protect his summoner. "Auron, are you all right?"
"Yes." And truthfully, he was. At least, well enough to stand and wipe the dirt from his trousers. "Thanks, I suppose, to Jecht." Auron directed a nod at the other guardian.
Jecht made a dismissive wave. "Like I said, learned it from you. If you didn't have your shit together like you do, I couldn't have done that."
Auron found he had nothing to respond with. In spite of himself, he is himself briefly indulging a flattered and oddly touched pride.
It is much later, by the silk-shadow of orange campfire, when Jecht said what he'd been thinking for weeks. "He only hates me 'cause he don't like how I love him." Auron jumped, startled to hear another voice, thinking the others asleep as he kept guard. "I want him to be good, you know? I want him to kick ass. I want him to be stronger. I want him to be so good he can beat his old man. I want him to be better than me." Jecht said with an odd choking cough. "And I know he can be." Jecht stared into the woods for a time. Auron tried to focus on the fire - the twisting fingers had always reminded him of a home he scarcely knew. "Hey man, you know what? Take the night off. Get some real sleep."
"But..."
"Can't sleep anyway." Jecht looked thoughtful. "Besides, you gotta be beat after a day like today."
Auron shrugged. Truthfully, he was tired, more so than usual. "You are certain?"
"Sure. Even stiffs like you need a little R&R." He landed a fraternal punch on Auron's shoulder.
"Thank you." Auron smoothed his bedroll out, staring at the clear, cold sky for a while, thinking about apologies and debt. Given the choice, he would rather be indebted than wrong. But all the same...
"Jecht, I am sorry." If Jecht responds, it is much later. Auron sleeps solidly and quickly, dreaming of a sky on fire.
---
"He's gone!"
"Hm?" Braska, warm and foggy from sleep, rubbed a hand across his forehead.
"Jecht! I woke up and he was gone!"
Braska poked his head out of the tent, shivering against the slicing wind coming down from Gagazet's peak. Against the periwinkle of the pre-dawn sky, Auron appeared equally groggy: hair undone, belts buckled crookedly, greatcoat twisted hastily around his torso. "Surely, he's only left for a moment, have you checked for--" Braska cut himself off, answering his own question with a brief glimpse around camp. A storm had evidently blown in overnight, and the ground was covered with a fresh layer of snow. Even the tracks they had made on their way to camp had vanished.
Auron rustled through their traveling pack and let out a curse. "The Ronso ale, it's gone. My Lord, he left us to drink." Auron's voice had a clipped and injured quality to it.
"The Ronso ale was a healing drink, Auron."
"It was alcohol. And he -- he was a drunk!"
Braska frowned. Certainly, this did not look good. It had only been last evening, after all, when the three of them had their first glimpse at the ruins of Zanarkand. As for himself, Braska had found them beautiful and melancholic -- not at all the haunted, unsent-ridden place he'd heard so much about as a novice. But Jecht -- all color had dropped from his face, all voice from his throat. Uncharacteristically, he spent the evening in a silent wallow, only speaking to volunteer to take the first night watch.
Was he sure he didn't want to talk about it, Braska had asked, but Jecht had merely shook his head, watching the wild upward spin of orange sparks as he jabbed a twig into the kindling of their campfire.
"I had come to--" Auron trailed off, arms crossed solidly over his chest as he gazed toward the horizon Trust him, Braska knew Auron was thinking.
"I think we should search."
"To what end, my Lord? Back to Luca? He's probably headed there, after all. Haven't you heard? The Goers are holding tryouts soon, it's all he'd been talking about since leaving the Inn." Auron spat his words like poison.
"Very well. Then we wait."
Auron opened his mouth to protest.
"Those are my orders, Auron. Until noon, at the very least." Mind, Braska was not any more pleased to wait. Every hour wasted was another hour of danger. To Auron and himself, to Spira, but mostly to his dear Yuna. His pilgrimage was one of urgency and selfishness.
Auron glowered and kicked at a chunk of rock, which slid down the incline slowly, tracing a thin line in the snow as it fell. "When you suggested him as guardian, I-I-."
Braska sighed, as heavy as the snow. "You were right? Is that what you'd like to hear? That I was wrong to have brought a self-important, delusional drunk on the pilgrimage? Auron, say what you will about the man's dedication to our goals -- though please ask yourself what you would do, had you found yourself in his world. But I will never regret knowing Jecht. He was -- is -- a good man. He saved my life and yours." Braska drew himself in. "And he cares," Braska corrected himself, "for you and me, both."
Auron's bristling frustration was replaced with something more subdued.
They were silent for a while, then. The shadows disappeared and began to lengthen when Auron spoke up. "My Lord, it is after noon." Then, in a voice as consoling and optimistic as Auron could manage, "We can search for him on our way to Zanarkand, perhaps."
Braska nodded. The two left silently, the snow tracking like scars behind them.
Title: We Bring The Fire (part 3/4)
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, part two can be found here.
"Hey! Hey look at me!" The boy spun and brandished his homemade wooden sword, swiping at a stand of bushes, an acrobatic blur of bright Besaid textiles and orange-red hair. "I could be your guardian, ya?"
Jecht whistled appreciatively. "Not bad." But can you take on the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark IV?" With large, exaggerated movements, Jecht crouched and sprung, whirling the blade of his sword in the swift and self-assured aplomb with which Jecht did nearly everything. Then with a whoop, Jecht let the blade go at the height of a dramatic leap. The child's eyes widened, and he nearly fell on his backside as he tracked the sword flipping through the air. It hit the sand hard, point down, wobbling with the sudden stop. "Whoa."
Braska smiled. "I'm sure you'll make a fine guardian when you're older. Any summoner would be lucky to fight beside you."
"I don't wanna fight with just any summoner. I wanna fight with you guys. I know! When you get back from beating Sin up, come back here! You can stay with me and my big bro. We can train together! There's some pretty tough fiends around here," The boy said seriously.
"Sounds like a plan, my man," Jecht thrust his knuckles out, which the boy met with his own in the fashion of the local greeting,
"No." Auron, who had been standing silently seething as Jecht pulled another show-off routine. "Lord Braska will not be back here. You know that, Jecht. Or perhaps you were drinking when we told you?"
The boy peered up at the men, his glance darting from one to the other.
"Lord Braska," Auron started, addressing Jecht rather than boy, "will not return here because the Final Aeon will--"
"So uncool!" Jecht interrupted before turning back to the boy. "Hey kiddo, how 'bout you run back to the village and see if the Innkeep needs any help with supper? Got to get our grub to be strong, right?"
"But--"
"Go. Now." Auron snarled, his glare still fixed on Jecht.
With a half-nod, the boy leapt and jogged down the path inland, kicking up wings of sand behind him.
"Dude," Jecht started, his palms out in front of himself in a placating gesture. "I don't know how it is in Spira, but where I'm from, you don't just say shit like that to little kids."
"You'd rather lie? Perhaps that is why your son hates you."
Jecht, who had already readied a finger in humorous indignation, froze in mid gesture, features hardening, curling his hand into a trembling fist. "You living, breathing piece of--"
"At least I don't lie," Auron snapped, hand closing around the hilt of his blade as he took a step toward Jecht, who responded in kind. "Or drink myself into a stupor on night shift. Or endanger our lives with stupid stunts. Or--"
"Please." The filigree end of Braska's staff slipped into the narrowing space between then.
" Jecht took on the tone of an indignant child. "Braska, did you hear this guy?"
Braska's eyes darted from Jecht to Auron and he looked wearier than he ever had on the road. "To an extent, it is true, things are different in Spira."
"In Spira, we don't lie to our children." Auron added sharply.
"Still, the matter should be handled with more tact than you displayed, Auron."
"And dude, you don't even have kids. Braska knows what it's like, dontcha Braska?"
Braska tilted his chin in an almost imperceptible nod.
For a moment, Auron flexed his forearm furiously, the muscles in his jaw tight. And then, his arm fell limply at his side and he turned to storm as loudly as one may storm on a sandy beach.
Watching Auron march angrily down the coast, Jecht exhaled slowly, easing the tensions of a near-brawl out of him. "I don't know where you dug 'em up, Braska, but that guy has issues to work out."
"Mm." Braska responded, noncommittally. "You know Jecht, I don't think I've ever told you how much I appreciate your traveling with us. It is...truly nice to know there is someone who can relate."
With that, Jecht slapped Braska's shoulder with a fraternal pat. "Backatcha, man."
---
The sound -- like the shriek of a hundred teeth on metal -- hit him harder than he'd expected. As though the earth had pulled him under, Auron fell to his knees hard and his stomach went heavy. When it stopped, the sudden silence was worse, it smacked like a breath-stealing slap and thrust him into a nauseating cycle of pressure changes as if he were being dragged down into a sphere pool. He tried to right himself, but he struggled about in a muddled mist, wrapped tight with gauze, pockets weighted with ore.
But even through his addled horror, Auron felt the wafting of a great wingspan descend suddenly. A fierce talon gleamed in the setting sun for a moment before it struck Lord Braska, who he could not protect.
Auron knew this -- he'd read about this. Sonic Boom. He should have been better than this. He should have been better prepared, he should have been stronger, faster, smarter. He should have not gotten so close.
Braska sagged, letting the glimmering crown of his staff scrape the ground. Auron attempted a stumbling step, clumsy and imprecise. His boots seemed to sink as though the ground had become a bog.
And suddenly, improbably - Jecht was there, sure-footed and swift, and he was guarding. Guarding Braska as Auron guards Braska. Jecht braced, absorbed the attack and rushed back with a counterattack.
The bird-fiend sucked in air for another hellish squeal of Sonic Boom, but by this time, Braska had begun the summoning ritual. Glyphs traced in light beneath his feet, and with the wumph of a second pair of wings, another type of bird call was heard. Auron filled with the twin feelings of affection and unease that Valefor's presence inspired. Through his dizzy, wounded state Auron had the sensation of being lifted from the battlefield as though by a invisible arms of wind, a benevolent tornado.
Valefor charged, again and again until the Gaurda was destroyed in a final, focused beam of light.
Before the pyreflies had dissipated, Jecht was upon Auron with a vial of hi-potion. "You ok? Took a hell of a beating back there."
Auron downed the potion in a gulp, gasping as the icy trails of healing traced their way through his limbs. "You guarded him."
"Learned it from you, man. I ain't as dumb as I look, you know."
"Thank you, Jecht." Braska looked pale and drained, as he often did in the immediate aftermath of a summoning. As always, Auron burns, faced with the knowledge that there were some things from which he could not protect his summoner. "Auron, are you all right?"
"Yes." And truthfully, he was. At least, well enough to stand and wipe the dirt from his trousers. "Thanks, I suppose, to Jecht." Auron directed a nod at the other guardian.
Jecht made a dismissive wave. "Like I said, learned it from you. If you didn't have your shit together like you do, I couldn't have done that."
Auron found he had nothing to respond with. In spite of himself, he is himself briefly indulging a flattered and oddly touched pride.
It is much later, by the silk-shadow of orange campfire, when Jecht said what he'd been thinking for weeks. "He only hates me 'cause he don't like how I love him." Auron jumped, startled to hear another voice, thinking the others asleep as he kept guard. "I want him to be good, you know? I want him to kick ass. I want him to be stronger. I want him to be so good he can beat his old man. I want him to be better than me." Jecht said with an odd choking cough. "And I know he can be." Jecht stared into the woods for a time. Auron tried to focus on the fire - the twisting fingers had always reminded him of a home he scarcely knew. "Hey man, you know what? Take the night off. Get some real sleep."
"But..."
"Can't sleep anyway." Jecht looked thoughtful. "Besides, you gotta be beat after a day like today."
Auron shrugged. Truthfully, he was tired, more so than usual. "You are certain?"
"Sure. Even stiffs like you need a little R&R." He landed a fraternal punch on Auron's shoulder.
"Thank you." Auron smoothed his bedroll out, staring at the clear, cold sky for a while, thinking about apologies and debt. Given the choice, he would rather be indebted than wrong. But all the same...
"Jecht, I am sorry." If Jecht responds, it is much later. Auron sleeps solidly and quickly, dreaming of a sky on fire.
---
"He's gone!"
"Hm?" Braska, warm and foggy from sleep, rubbed a hand across his forehead.
"Jecht! I woke up and he was gone!"
Braska poked his head out of the tent, shivering against the slicing wind coming down from Gagazet's peak. Against the periwinkle of the pre-dawn sky, Auron appeared equally groggy: hair undone, belts buckled crookedly, greatcoat twisted hastily around his torso. "Surely, he's only left for a moment, have you checked for--" Braska cut himself off, answering his own question with a brief glimpse around camp. A storm had evidently blown in overnight, and the ground was covered with a fresh layer of snow. Even the tracks they had made on their way to camp had vanished.
Auron rustled through their traveling pack and let out a curse. "The Ronso ale, it's gone. My Lord, he left us to drink." Auron's voice had a clipped and injured quality to it.
"The Ronso ale was a healing drink, Auron."
"It was alcohol. And he -- he was a drunk!"
Braska frowned. Certainly, this did not look good. It had only been last evening, after all, when the three of them had their first glimpse at the ruins of Zanarkand. As for himself, Braska had found them beautiful and melancholic -- not at all the haunted, unsent-ridden place he'd heard so much about as a novice. But Jecht -- all color had dropped from his face, all voice from his throat. Uncharacteristically, he spent the evening in a silent wallow, only speaking to volunteer to take the first night watch.
Was he sure he didn't want to talk about it, Braska had asked, but Jecht had merely shook his head, watching the wild upward spin of orange sparks as he jabbed a twig into the kindling of their campfire.
"I had come to--" Auron trailed off, arms crossed solidly over his chest as he gazed toward the horizon Trust him, Braska knew Auron was thinking.
"I think we should search."
"To what end, my Lord? Back to Luca? He's probably headed there, after all. Haven't you heard? The Goers are holding tryouts soon, it's all he'd been talking about since leaving the Inn." Auron spat his words like poison.
"Very well. Then we wait."
Auron opened his mouth to protest.
"Those are my orders, Auron. Until noon, at the very least." Mind, Braska was not any more pleased to wait. Every hour wasted was another hour of danger. To Auron and himself, to Spira, but mostly to his dear Yuna. His pilgrimage was one of urgency and selfishness.
Auron glowered and kicked at a chunk of rock, which slid down the incline slowly, tracing a thin line in the snow as it fell. "When you suggested him as guardian, I-I-."
Braska sighed, as heavy as the snow. "You were right? Is that what you'd like to hear? That I was wrong to have brought a self-important, delusional drunk on the pilgrimage? Auron, say what you will about the man's dedication to our goals -- though please ask yourself what you would do, had you found yourself in his world. But I will never regret knowing Jecht. He was -- is -- a good man. He saved my life and yours." Braska drew himself in. "And he cares," Braska corrected himself, "for you and me, both."
Auron's bristling frustration was replaced with something more subdued.
They were silent for a while, then. The shadows disappeared and began to lengthen when Auron spoke up. "My Lord, it is after noon." Then, in a voice as consoling and optimistic as Auron could manage, "We can search for him on our way to Zanarkand, perhaps."
Braska nodded. The two left silently, the snow tracking like scars behind them.