We Bring The Fire - Entire
Fandom: Final Fantasy X
Title: We Bring The Fire
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
Before its destruction, the Isle of Kiore played host to a peculiar marriage ritual, native to its shores alone. Each member of the uniting couple would each bring a lit torch to the ceremony. The abiding priest would let down a cloth, woven from a native bunchgrass fiber. The couple would remain separated by the cloth until the conclusion of the ceremony, after which each would touch their torches to the cloth, which lit and burn within moments. By this symbolic action, the couple had destroyed the last remaining veil separating them. This heathen ritual was said to predate Yevon, and it survived countless attempts by the Temples of Yevon to quell it.
--Excerpt from Being of a Compleat History of the Southern Archipelagos by the Honorable Maechen, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of St. Bevelle
---
You lied to me!" Auron yanked his arm away, scowling.
"It was for your own good," Braska said wearily, grabbing the boy's forearm once again. "You'll see that eventually. The Orphanage of St. Bevelle is a fine--"
"You told me we were going to the monastery, to the warrior monks! Priests aren't supposed to lie. I'm going to run away and tell everybody you lied."
"If I hadn't said what I did…you would be," Braska paused, considering if the boy who'd just lost his home and family to Sin a week prior could bear the lurid images of death and dismemberment that floated to his mind just then. He then reviewed the intervening week, during which he had been the target of an endless free-flowing, petulant barrage of complaints, questions and - Yevon help him - corrections. This child could absolutely handle it, Braska decided emphatically. "If I hadn't lied to you, the wolves would be slurping up the remainders of your ribcage by now."
"I can take care of myself." With an abrupt wrench of his torso, the boy twisted free of Braska's grip and lunged toward the street. Braska scarcely contained his laughter as his charge collided with a rather burly nun, who Braska recognized as one of the Orphanage's house mothers. The boy pitched backwards, limbs splaying awkwardly in an effort to right himself. The nun merely pursed her lips and readjusted the apron of her habit.
"Mother Superior," Braska called out in a voice meant to convey concern but instead came out rather delighted, in spite of himself. "Meet young Auron. I trust you are not injured?"
"Never better. Thank you, Braska." The nun placed a firm hand on Auron's shoulder. "Auron, it is? Another of the Kiore Isle children?"
Braska nodded. "The last of them, I believe. This one ran off to the jungle. He was not particularly compliant."
"The jungle? Fending for himself and all that?" She scrutinized the boy. It was Auron's turn to nod, a fierce, proud motion that shook his short ponytail. "Well, that's a blessing. I'd trust a boy like you'd be sturdy enough for the private orphanages."
"Private orphanages?" Braska said, catching the look of panic in his charge's eyes. Little more than work camps, it seems the infamy of the private orphanages had not escaped even the most distant of the southern islands.
"Aye. Our beds filled up weeks ago, and I can't imagine he'd fit all that well into a cradle." Her smile waned as she caught Braska's eyes. "I am sorry, truly, but with the funding cuts on top of the tithing reductions, we've been turning away dozens of young ones. Why, we have to share our healer with the the dungeons! You know how it is these days."
Braska bowed slightly. "I understand. Thank you for your time, Mother."
"I'm only sorry I could not do more." She gave Auron a reassuring pat on his back. "Might not be much consolation, but I'm acquainted with the headmaster of the Orphanage on the east side of town and from what I've heard, it's not so bad. Light work: potion brewing and textiles. See if Master Braska won't show you over that way."
As the nun left them standing outside the orphanage, Braska slipped his hand around Auron's forearm again -- a bit rougher than necessary perhaps. "How old are you again?" Braska asked.
"Thirteen years and two months."
Braska narrowed his eyes and seemed to study Auron.
"You're sixteen now." Without further explanation, Braska pulled the boy in the direction of the road again. Auron picked up pace when he realized the direction they were headed. "You say priests shouldn't lie, Auron?" Braska peered down, the softness of a half-smile playing on his face.
"Um...no, but..."
"Except perhaps when it's in your favor, hmm?"
The boy seemed to genuinely wrestle with the question. Braska chuckled. This child would make a good monk, he decided. As the two of them walked toward the monastery, Braska took a fleeting amusement in ruffling his charge's hair. This time, the boy didn't snarl and threaten to jump overboard and swim back to the island. This time, the boy did all he could to hide a excited grin.
---
"Agh!" Kinoc scuttled backwards, his foot sliding oddly in his boot, which had become entangled within the coiling grip of a muscular tentacle. Kinoc, never having mastered melee techniques, could only fumble with his daggers, slashing at the vine-like appendages frantically. But it held him fast, and he could already feel his ankle growing numb. Above him, a vast double row of pyramidal teeth glistened with strings of saliva.
"Fira!" A voice cried to his right. Kinoc felt the whiskers of his beard singe as the spell bloomed in blinding oranges and golds above him.
The Malboro tensed its grip around his foot painfully, and began to jerk wildly. Kinoc slid helplessly, gravel grinding into his light field armor, feeling hot blood leak into his boot. With a sudden seizing, the thing let out a great belch, spittle splattering out in a radial burst. A dollop hit square upon Kinoc's helm, clouding his vision and hissing like steam escaping from a pipe as it dripped onto his face.
Kinoc careened forward, apparently oblivious to his wound, solidly plunging both daggers into the tentacle, severing it in a single swipe and rushing to meet the beast head-on, wielding his daggers at chest level. He launched his knives at the creature, all ferocity, no strategy. A viscous, yellow ooze issued forth with each wound.
Auron galloped to his side, slashing his blade deep into the plant-fiend's hide. A hoarse screech knocked free from its rotten mouth, fading as the carcass dissolved into pyreflies, leaving Kinoc stabbing madly at the empty air.
"Are you alright?" Braska called to Kinoc from a short distance away, the cool fizzling of a healing spell ready at his fingertips. "I'm sorry I cast that last one at such a close range, but I'm afraid--"
Kinoc swung around, dashing at the priest, daggers still raised. In a moment he was close enough for Braska to recognize the unfocused, berserk haze in his eyes.
"Confusion!" Braska barked. Auron reacted swiftly, tackling Kinoc from the side, pinning his comrade's arms under each knee. Kinoc reacted with a groan, head lulling loosely as an impressively vertical stream of vomit spewed from the grate of his helm. "And poison, I see." Braska slipped a flask from his robe's inner pocketing, already tugging on the cork with his teeth as he approached.
Auron's face caught midway between alarm and disgust. "But sir, that potion--"
"Is far more efficient than two separate healing spells, which he would otherwise require."
"It's Al Bhed made. It's contraband, dangerous! Sir, it is said to lure fiends."
Braska made a bitter chortling sound. "Thirty years ago, they would have said the same of Guado potions. Yet now that we have a Guado maester, you'll hardly find a medicine chest without one. Convenient, isn't it?"
"But sir...," Kinoc suddenly twisted under Auron, freeing his arm and wildly swiping his blade at his friend's face. Auron reacted a little too late, the blade skimming the underside of his chin. Auron gritted his teeth -- without a free hand to press to the wound, blood dribbled freely down his chest.
Braska smirked. "There is a saying among them, my fiancee's people: Good intentions heal nothing but wounded pride."
"Your...fiancee's people? She is an Al Bhed?" Auron stammered.
"You should thank her for teaching me so well. This stuff can be tricky for us poor Yevonites." The corners of Braska's mouth turned up, eyes mirthless. "Come to think of it, they have a fantastic recipe for stain removal. Takes out vomit and blood surer than anything you'll find in Bevelle. I suspect you might want a dab in your next washing, Auron."
Auron sighed roughly. Even so, he pried open Kinoc's jaw as Braska poured the contents of the flask down Kinoc's throat. Momentarily, Kinoc's body relaxed, blinked dazedly, squirming under Auron's weight. Auron leaned back onto his heels."Welcome back."
Braska helped Kinoc to a sitting position before turning back to Auron. "Now, shall we see how a cursed Al Bhed loving priest can heal up a flesh wound, or would you prefer your good intentions?"
Part Two
"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."
Part Three
"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.
Part Four
The white ceramic lid was scarcely noticeable, but Auron's perpetual scanning of his surroundings had caught it, sunk into the freshly fallen snow, the jar's ridged design resembling a misplaced seashell. Surely, he thought, it must be their missing jug of Ronso ale. Jecht must be nearby. Auron jogged ahead. "My lord," he shouted back at Braska, his breath huffing into white clouds as he uncovered the jug with a boot. Auron frowned when it was heavier than expected, puzzling over why it was full.
Not far from Auron, Braska stared over the side of a mountain path, seeming not to hear Auron, face drawn and hand clutched over his heart.
Then he fell to his knees, sinking into the snow. Auron abandoned his find and was at his side in a moment. And then Auron saw what Braska saw.
Jecht laid at the bottom of the rocky ravine, half covered in snow, hair clumped with frozen blood, limbs scrambled, graphic lumps of organ and flesh scattered in the snow. It looked like he'd been chewed on; his right arm was ripped from its shoulder and lay at a twisted angle. His face was as open as ever -- lips a cracked and chapped grey, vacant eyes trimmed with icy tinsel.
Braska grasped Auron's offered arm and stood shakily. Braska had seen countless injuries and nearly as many deaths in his career as a healer and summoner, vested as he was with the sad honor of pointing the dead to their final destination. But nothing could prepare him for this -- this friend that was now a body, splayed out like a lesson in failure and futility. Stricken suddenly with a wash of vertigo, he sagged forward and retched. Auron steadied him with a strong grip under his elbow. His nausea had not yet subsided when he became aware of the sound.
"What is tha--" By the time Braska had recovered enough to look up, Auron's head stood high, stretching his neck in the direction of the sound like a wolf.
It happened in an instant. Auron's hand flew to his sword, and he threw his body in front of his summoner. The fiend, bruise-purple and bipedal, reacted with a fierce, enraged movement, moving faster than a thing its size should. Behemoth, Auron realized with a stabbing dread. He could do nothing but thrust himself into the line of the attack, sword stabbing desperately, handling entirely unlike a sword. In a single swipe of the fiend's claws, Auron was thrown back violently, his already lifeless weight hitting Braska and knocking him to the snow, katana slipping free on the hard-packed snow, ringing as its blade hit a rocky outcropping. Before Braska had fully comprehended the situation, the call had already formed itself in his mind, arising in whole from scrambled, broken places. Bahamut.
The winter white sky opened then, ripped in twain with by the cold brilliance of the glyphs, rattling with a tornado of power. The pressing rush staggered Braska and he nearly lost his balance again, but the rage surged through his him like iron veins. His spirit and gut and brain and muscle strung to the heavens in glorious rage. Bahamut's wheel began to spin, scalding in mystical friction, despair for a world which is measured not by the spinning of its cosmos, but in the perpetuity of death. The Behemoth drew back another claw, but Bahamut had already begun to draw from his Summoner -- white hot, pure and honed to a spiraling singularity. And with all the righteousness of the universe behind it, it burst. For a wretched moment, Braska thought he saw fear in the fiend's eyes -- the simple, confused terror of a child -- a sweat-soaked hand clutching out for his mother's hand because he'd dreamed of falling off the edge of the world.
It was only then, as the fiend faded into a swarm of pyrefly light, that Braska saw it. Jecht's sword, falling in the space from where it had been lodged into the hide of the Behemoth. In the next moment it was over, Bahamut bowing to his summoner before crossing his arms and leaping once more into the sky.
As much as he needed it, Braska did not have a moment to rest. His last guardian lay dying in a reddening slush of snow, the snow melting under the warmth of his blood. Too spent for life magic, Braska fumbled through their travel pack for the little jar of phoenix down. Their second-to-last, Braska noted. Placing the tuft upon his guardian's bloody lips, Braska found himself automatically reciting a simple recovery prayer, body tense until he saw the down lift and vanish on a faint current of breath. Auron coughed and attempted to sit up. Braska pressed him down gently. "Please. You are still wounded." Unlatching Auron's armor, he cringed at the jagged wounds, only partly healed by the phoenix down. It was a wonder that Jecht had even gotten a hit on the fiend, considering the ease with which it had felled Auron. Reeling his will back, Braska focused himself into his hands, expertly massaging the healing potion over striated muscle and the knots of old wounds, so that not a drop was wasted. Auron squirmed as the buffeted organs righted themselves and torn vessels repaired themselves.
When Braska was satisfied with Auron's recovery, he fetched his guardian's katana. It was then when Auron saw Jecht's sword, in the snow where it fell from the Behemoth's carcass. "My Lord, did you see--"
Braska nodded, neither question nor answered require between them. And then, still burdened by a sick knot in his stomach, Braska danced for Jecht. They were unsure if a man from Zanarkand could truly be sent, they were unsure if they had found him too late, they were unsure if they would face the jealous death-anger of a being formed from a man once called friend.
When no pyreflies rose from Jecht's corpse, Auron laid his friend's sword over the wrecked body. Braska turned away, too worn to watch.
With every fiend they encountered until the end of their journey, they asked themselves the same crushing question, never needing to voice it. They were just returning to the trail when Auron's boot knocked against Jecht's final sphere.
---
Jecht sits, defiantly shirtless against the chill winds of Gagazet. He's grinning, the unopened jar of Ronso ale at his feet. He trains his eyes on the viewer. "This one's for you, boy." He pauses, eyes flitting to his hands which are becoming progressively knotted around his knees. "Tidus." He straightens up, looks at the camera again. "Look, it's not exactly a secret that I wasn't a great dad for you. I mean, you know I love you. And I know you love me. I mean, shit. I hope you love me, at least. Because you -- and your mother -- you are about the only ones who ever did. The real stuff, I mean. The game stuff -- the fans, the groupies, the trophies -- they ain't real. Know what else?" Jecht picks up the jug and sets it down again. "This ain't real either. Haven't had a drop for over a month. And tonight, I was about ready to throw all that away, because --" Jecht scratches his neck and pulls the camera in closer.
"Stick with me, kid. Zanarkand. Our Zanarkand. Tonight I -- I don't even know if that's real. I know it sounds nuts, but I swear that all I can be sure of is this..." Jecht puts his fist over his heart, a gesture not unlike the standard Yevonite salute. "You're my boy. And --" That's where it ends, because in the next moment, the sphere flings sideways, thrown from its recording base into the blue snow, the overloud roar of the Behemoth crackling the volume threshold.
"Turn it off," Braska croaked, his voice thick.
Auron complied and turned to his Lord, unsure of how to help him. "I don't think I can do this." Braska said rawly. "I never thought I could do this. I'm a fool and a murderer. Auron, I can't let you die for me --"
Braska is cut off by his own quaking self -- a string cut, a banner falling, soaked through with grief and misery.
Auron, simply there and wanting. In him there were so many unvoiced truths because it had been Braska all along -- he had loved him as long as he could recognize love, that he had burned with guilt and fear when that woman had loved him because he knew he could never love her, and as ever, there is so much to say that he is ready to fall to his knees and, in spite of everything, beg Braska to stay -- it has always been so confusing, but there has always been so much, so bursting much.
And as always, under everything it all there remained an earthquake of needing. But Auron knew that he could not protect Braska in the way that Braska must protect Spira. Still, Auron churned with thousands of consuming unsaids and he only wanted to be held, to hold, just once, while on this side of the blue.
Instead, Auron smiled.
.
"No, My Lord -- Braska," he said, correcting himself with some effort, "Your daughter -- Yuna -- this is her world. I want her to live in it without fear. I want her to know hope. I want to continue."
Inexplicably, the air went glistening and unreal between them, like the wobble above a rising flame. Braska hefted his staff toward the ruins, still spread out below them as though in miniature. Like a king, he stood, chest swelled. He did not look back when he said it, but his words were heard and the smile in his quiet voice was unmistakable. "Auron. Thank you."
Not far from them in neither time nor place, a dead queen kindled her hearth, perched upon her throne of bones.
---
Auron, promise me.
The voice is small and distant and pleading, as though from a child in the next room over and years ago. But he could still hear it and he clung to it, willing the fading spark of a memory into a bonfire. Bucking against the toxin-induced delirium, he repeated over and over: the new Master is not my Lord. He willed himself to burn.
Oaths had once made his flesh and coursed through his veins like blood, but he had long been scorched away to a core of clattering bones. He kept his remaining memories there, permeating the sponge of his marrow.
Vision charred with smoke, he looked upon the land below. Did he know this place -- small and rocky, shivering with silvery evergreens? Had he set foot upon the land, had he thrown his sword against the fiends in their defense? Had he protected them once?
The leash tightened around his throat, then. The voiceless commands come coiling and ceaseless; the Master herds with vulnerabilities: Because the world could not be ours, the world could not be right. Auron is at once selfish and servile, each motion manifest rage.
Even the voice of his Lord is silenced now, mute lips forming the same words over and over, even when there is hardly an Auron left to hear it: I love you, I love you, I love you.
Then the mantra slows and becomes indistinct - his Lord and his Master are no longer separate but have merged into one. The veil has burned away. The voice speaks with the tick-wing hiss of Yevon, each word meted out in the kind, measured cadence of Braska. We are here, it says. We bring the Just Unmaking. We bring the fire.
Braska's Calm had lasted longer than most.
The throatless roar of wildfire. The pines bend like the fur of a running wolf, the scudding clouds vanish, all the sky goes burning-bright, as though the sun has drawn too close.
A young wife, crouched over a kettle, sniffs the hissing steam. She is sure she smells smoke; has she burnt the tea? It is only when the roof of her hut catches fire when she realizes. Sin is here because her village has not done enough, prayed enough, given enough, obeyed enough. She knows they have not done enough. And she knows that she should grateful that her husband, deep and sick with fever, will not wake.
For one moment she considers running, swimming, flying. Escaping.
Her face is tight with rage and fight when she begins to smell the roasting of her own skin. She realizes with a twist the unjustness of it all, with as much certainty that the moment affords, and with it comes a fleeting and defiant peace. She lays her quivering lips upon her husbands.
In a small mercy, it happens fast -- flesh burns away, the loam of death settling upon their skulls, and their faces set in the final smile that has us all.
Later that night, a boy who is a better sailor than his old man ever was, sets his course toward the orange blaze on the horizon.
Title: We Bring The Fire
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
Before its destruction, the Isle of Kiore played host to a peculiar marriage ritual, native to its shores alone. Each member of the uniting couple would each bring a lit torch to the ceremony. The abiding priest would let down a cloth, woven from a native bunchgrass fiber. The couple would remain separated by the cloth until the conclusion of the ceremony, after which each would touch their torches to the cloth, which lit and burn within moments. By this symbolic action, the couple had destroyed the last remaining veil separating them. This heathen ritual was said to predate Yevon, and it survived countless attempts by the Temples of Yevon to quell it.
--Excerpt from Being of a Compleat History of the Southern Archipelagos by the Honorable Maechen, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of St. Bevelle
---
You lied to me!" Auron yanked his arm away, scowling.
"It was for your own good," Braska said wearily, grabbing the boy's forearm once again. "You'll see that eventually. The Orphanage of St. Bevelle is a fine--"
"You told me we were going to the monastery, to the warrior monks! Priests aren't supposed to lie. I'm going to run away and tell everybody you lied."
"If I hadn't said what I did…you would be," Braska paused, considering if the boy who'd just lost his home and family to Sin a week prior could bear the lurid images of death and dismemberment that floated to his mind just then. He then reviewed the intervening week, during which he had been the target of an endless free-flowing, petulant barrage of complaints, questions and - Yevon help him - corrections. This child could absolutely handle it, Braska decided emphatically. "If I hadn't lied to you, the wolves would be slurping up the remainders of your ribcage by now."
"I can take care of myself." With an abrupt wrench of his torso, the boy twisted free of Braska's grip and lunged toward the street. Braska scarcely contained his laughter as his charge collided with a rather burly nun, who Braska recognized as one of the Orphanage's house mothers. The boy pitched backwards, limbs splaying awkwardly in an effort to right himself. The nun merely pursed her lips and readjusted the apron of her habit.
"Mother Superior," Braska called out in a voice meant to convey concern but instead came out rather delighted, in spite of himself. "Meet young Auron. I trust you are not injured?"
"Never better. Thank you, Braska." The nun placed a firm hand on Auron's shoulder. "Auron, it is? Another of the Kiore Isle children?"
Braska nodded. "The last of them, I believe. This one ran off to the jungle. He was not particularly compliant."
"The jungle? Fending for himself and all that?" She scrutinized the boy. It was Auron's turn to nod, a fierce, proud motion that shook his short ponytail. "Well, that's a blessing. I'd trust a boy like you'd be sturdy enough for the private orphanages."
"Private orphanages?" Braska said, catching the look of panic in his charge's eyes. Little more than work camps, it seems the infamy of the private orphanages had not escaped even the most distant of the southern islands.
"Aye. Our beds filled up weeks ago, and I can't imagine he'd fit all that well into a cradle." Her smile waned as she caught Braska's eyes. "I am sorry, truly, but with the funding cuts on top of the tithing reductions, we've been turning away dozens of young ones. Why, we have to share our healer with the the dungeons! You know how it is these days."
Braska bowed slightly. "I understand. Thank you for your time, Mother."
"I'm only sorry I could not do more." She gave Auron a reassuring pat on his back. "Might not be much consolation, but I'm acquainted with the headmaster of the Orphanage on the east side of town and from what I've heard, it's not so bad. Light work: potion brewing and textiles. See if Master Braska won't show you over that way."
As the nun left them standing outside the orphanage, Braska slipped his hand around Auron's forearm again -- a bit rougher than necessary perhaps. "How old are you again?" Braska asked.
"Thirteen years and two months."
Braska narrowed his eyes and seemed to study Auron.
"You're sixteen now." Without further explanation, Braska pulled the boy in the direction of the road again. Auron picked up pace when he realized the direction they were headed. "You say priests shouldn't lie, Auron?" Braska peered down, the softness of a half-smile playing on his face.
"Um...no, but..."
"Except perhaps when it's in your favor, hmm?"
The boy seemed to genuinely wrestle with the question. Braska chuckled. This child would make a good monk, he decided. As the two of them walked toward the monastery, Braska took a fleeting amusement in ruffling his charge's hair. This time, the boy didn't snarl and threaten to jump overboard and swim back to the island. This time, the boy did all he could to hide a excited grin.
---
"Agh!" Kinoc scuttled backwards, his foot sliding oddly in his boot, which had become entangled within the coiling grip of a muscular tentacle. Kinoc, never having mastered melee techniques, could only fumble with his daggers, slashing at the vine-like appendages frantically. But it held him fast, and he could already feel his ankle growing numb. Above him, a vast double row of pyramidal teeth glistened with strings of saliva.
"Fira!" A voice cried to his right. Kinoc felt the whiskers of his beard singe as the spell bloomed in blinding oranges and golds above him.
The Malboro tensed its grip around his foot painfully, and began to jerk wildly. Kinoc slid helplessly, gravel grinding into his light field armor, feeling hot blood leak into his boot. With a sudden seizing, the thing let out a great belch, spittle splattering out in a radial burst. A dollop hit square upon Kinoc's helm, clouding his vision and hissing like steam escaping from a pipe as it dripped onto his face.
Kinoc careened forward, apparently oblivious to his wound, solidly plunging both daggers into the tentacle, severing it in a single swipe and rushing to meet the beast head-on, wielding his daggers at chest level. He launched his knives at the creature, all ferocity, no strategy. A viscous, yellow ooze issued forth with each wound.
Auron galloped to his side, slashing his blade deep into the plant-fiend's hide. A hoarse screech knocked free from its rotten mouth, fading as the carcass dissolved into pyreflies, leaving Kinoc stabbing madly at the empty air.
"Are you alright?" Braska called to Kinoc from a short distance away, the cool fizzling of a healing spell ready at his fingertips. "I'm sorry I cast that last one at such a close range, but I'm afraid--"
Kinoc swung around, dashing at the priest, daggers still raised. In a moment he was close enough for Braska to recognize the unfocused, berserk haze in his eyes.
"Confusion!" Braska barked. Auron reacted swiftly, tackling Kinoc from the side, pinning his comrade's arms under each knee. Kinoc reacted with a groan, head lulling loosely as an impressively vertical stream of vomit spewed from the grate of his helm. "And poison, I see." Braska slipped a flask from his robe's inner pocketing, already tugging on the cork with his teeth as he approached.
Auron's face caught midway between alarm and disgust. "But sir, that potion--"
"Is far more efficient than two separate healing spells, which he would otherwise require."
"It's Al Bhed made. It's contraband, dangerous! Sir, it is said to lure fiends."
Braska made a bitter chortling sound. "Thirty years ago, they would have said the same of Guado potions. Yet now that we have a Guado maester, you'll hardly find a medicine chest without one. Convenient, isn't it?"
"But sir...," Kinoc suddenly twisted under Auron, freeing his arm and wildly swiping his blade at his friend's face. Auron reacted a little too late, the blade skimming the underside of his chin. Auron gritted his teeth -- without a free hand to press to the wound, blood dribbled freely down his chest.
Braska smirked. "There is a saying among them, my fiancee's people: Good intentions heal nothing but wounded pride."
"Your...fiancee's people? She is an Al Bhed?" Auron stammered.
"You should thank her for teaching me so well. This stuff can be tricky for us poor Yevonites." The corners of Braska's mouth turned up, eyes mirthless. "Come to think of it, they have a fantastic recipe for stain removal. Takes out vomit and blood surer than anything you'll find in Bevelle. I suspect you might want a dab in your next washing, Auron."
Auron sighed roughly. Even so, he pried open Kinoc's jaw as Braska poured the contents of the flask down Kinoc's throat. Momentarily, Kinoc's body relaxed, blinked dazedly, squirming under Auron's weight. Auron leaned back onto his heels."Welcome back."
Braska helped Kinoc to a sitting position before turning back to Auron. "Now, shall we see how a cursed Al Bhed loving priest can heal up a flesh wound, or would you prefer your good intentions?"
Part Two
"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."
Part Three
"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.
Part Four
The white ceramic lid was scarcely noticeable, but Auron's perpetual scanning of his surroundings had caught it, sunk into the freshly fallen snow, the jar's ridged design resembling a misplaced seashell. Surely, he thought, it must be their missing jug of Ronso ale. Jecht must be nearby. Auron jogged ahead. "My lord," he shouted back at Braska, his breath huffing into white clouds as he uncovered the jug with a boot. Auron frowned when it was heavier than expected, puzzling over why it was full.
Not far from Auron, Braska stared over the side of a mountain path, seeming not to hear Auron, face drawn and hand clutched over his heart.
Then he fell to his knees, sinking into the snow. Auron abandoned his find and was at his side in a moment. And then Auron saw what Braska saw.
Jecht laid at the bottom of the rocky ravine, half covered in snow, hair clumped with frozen blood, limbs scrambled, graphic lumps of organ and flesh scattered in the snow. It looked like he'd been chewed on; his right arm was ripped from its shoulder and lay at a twisted angle. His face was as open as ever -- lips a cracked and chapped grey, vacant eyes trimmed with icy tinsel.
Braska grasped Auron's offered arm and stood shakily. Braska had seen countless injuries and nearly as many deaths in his career as a healer and summoner, vested as he was with the sad honor of pointing the dead to their final destination. But nothing could prepare him for this -- this friend that was now a body, splayed out like a lesson in failure and futility. Stricken suddenly with a wash of vertigo, he sagged forward and retched. Auron steadied him with a strong grip under his elbow. His nausea had not yet subsided when he became aware of the sound.
"What is tha--" By the time Braska had recovered enough to look up, Auron's head stood high, stretching his neck in the direction of the sound like a wolf.
It happened in an instant. Auron's hand flew to his sword, and he threw his body in front of his summoner. The fiend, bruise-purple and bipedal, reacted with a fierce, enraged movement, moving faster than a thing its size should. Behemoth, Auron realized with a stabbing dread. He could do nothing but thrust himself into the line of the attack, sword stabbing desperately, handling entirely unlike a sword. In a single swipe of the fiend's claws, Auron was thrown back violently, his already lifeless weight hitting Braska and knocking him to the snow, katana slipping free on the hard-packed snow, ringing as its blade hit a rocky outcropping. Before Braska had fully comprehended the situation, the call had already formed itself in his mind, arising in whole from scrambled, broken places. Bahamut.
The winter white sky opened then, ripped in twain with by the cold brilliance of the glyphs, rattling with a tornado of power. The pressing rush staggered Braska and he nearly lost his balance again, but the rage surged through his him like iron veins. His spirit and gut and brain and muscle strung to the heavens in glorious rage. Bahamut's wheel began to spin, scalding in mystical friction, despair for a world which is measured not by the spinning of its cosmos, but in the perpetuity of death. The Behemoth drew back another claw, but Bahamut had already begun to draw from his Summoner -- white hot, pure and honed to a spiraling singularity. And with all the righteousness of the universe behind it, it burst. For a wretched moment, Braska thought he saw fear in the fiend's eyes -- the simple, confused terror of a child -- a sweat-soaked hand clutching out for his mother's hand because he'd dreamed of falling off the edge of the world.
It was only then, as the fiend faded into a swarm of pyrefly light, that Braska saw it. Jecht's sword, falling in the space from where it had been lodged into the hide of the Behemoth. In the next moment it was over, Bahamut bowing to his summoner before crossing his arms and leaping once more into the sky.
As much as he needed it, Braska did not have a moment to rest. His last guardian lay dying in a reddening slush of snow, the snow melting under the warmth of his blood. Too spent for life magic, Braska fumbled through their travel pack for the little jar of phoenix down. Their second-to-last, Braska noted. Placing the tuft upon his guardian's bloody lips, Braska found himself automatically reciting a simple recovery prayer, body tense until he saw the down lift and vanish on a faint current of breath. Auron coughed and attempted to sit up. Braska pressed him down gently. "Please. You are still wounded." Unlatching Auron's armor, he cringed at the jagged wounds, only partly healed by the phoenix down. It was a wonder that Jecht had even gotten a hit on the fiend, considering the ease with which it had felled Auron. Reeling his will back, Braska focused himself into his hands, expertly massaging the healing potion over striated muscle and the knots of old wounds, so that not a drop was wasted. Auron squirmed as the buffeted organs righted themselves and torn vessels repaired themselves.
When Braska was satisfied with Auron's recovery, he fetched his guardian's katana. It was then when Auron saw Jecht's sword, in the snow where it fell from the Behemoth's carcass. "My Lord, did you see--"
Braska nodded, neither question nor answered require between them. And then, still burdened by a sick knot in his stomach, Braska danced for Jecht. They were unsure if a man from Zanarkand could truly be sent, they were unsure if they had found him too late, they were unsure if they would face the jealous death-anger of a being formed from a man once called friend.
When no pyreflies rose from Jecht's corpse, Auron laid his friend's sword over the wrecked body. Braska turned away, too worn to watch.
With every fiend they encountered until the end of their journey, they asked themselves the same crushing question, never needing to voice it. They were just returning to the trail when Auron's boot knocked against Jecht's final sphere.
---
Jecht sits, defiantly shirtless against the chill winds of Gagazet. He's grinning, the unopened jar of Ronso ale at his feet. He trains his eyes on the viewer. "This one's for you, boy." He pauses, eyes flitting to his hands which are becoming progressively knotted around his knees. "Tidus." He straightens up, looks at the camera again. "Look, it's not exactly a secret that I wasn't a great dad for you. I mean, you know I love you. And I know you love me. I mean, shit. I hope you love me, at least. Because you -- and your mother -- you are about the only ones who ever did. The real stuff, I mean. The game stuff -- the fans, the groupies, the trophies -- they ain't real. Know what else?" Jecht picks up the jug and sets it down again. "This ain't real either. Haven't had a drop for over a month. And tonight, I was about ready to throw all that away, because --" Jecht scratches his neck and pulls the camera in closer.
"Stick with me, kid. Zanarkand. Our Zanarkand. Tonight I -- I don't even know if that's real. I know it sounds nuts, but I swear that all I can be sure of is this..." Jecht puts his fist over his heart, a gesture not unlike the standard Yevonite salute. "You're my boy. And --" That's where it ends, because in the next moment, the sphere flings sideways, thrown from its recording base into the blue snow, the overloud roar of the Behemoth crackling the volume threshold.
"Turn it off," Braska croaked, his voice thick.
Auron complied and turned to his Lord, unsure of how to help him. "I don't think I can do this." Braska said rawly. "I never thought I could do this. I'm a fool and a murderer. Auron, I can't let you die for me --"
Braska is cut off by his own quaking self -- a string cut, a banner falling, soaked through with grief and misery.
Auron, simply there and wanting. In him there were so many unvoiced truths because it had been Braska all along -- he had loved him as long as he could recognize love, that he had burned with guilt and fear when that woman had loved him because he knew he could never love her, and as ever, there is so much to say that he is ready to fall to his knees and, in spite of everything, beg Braska to stay -- it has always been so confusing, but there has always been so much, so bursting much.
And as always, under everything it all there remained an earthquake of needing. But Auron knew that he could not protect Braska in the way that Braska must protect Spira. Still, Auron churned with thousands of consuming unsaids and he only wanted to be held, to hold, just once, while on this side of the blue.
Instead, Auron smiled.
.
"No, My Lord -- Braska," he said, correcting himself with some effort, "Your daughter -- Yuna -- this is her world. I want her to live in it without fear. I want her to know hope. I want to continue."
Inexplicably, the air went glistening and unreal between them, like the wobble above a rising flame. Braska hefted his staff toward the ruins, still spread out below them as though in miniature. Like a king, he stood, chest swelled. He did not look back when he said it, but his words were heard and the smile in his quiet voice was unmistakable. "Auron. Thank you."
Not far from them in neither time nor place, a dead queen kindled her hearth, perched upon her throne of bones.
---
Auron, promise me.
The voice is small and distant and pleading, as though from a child in the next room over and years ago. But he could still hear it and he clung to it, willing the fading spark of a memory into a bonfire. Bucking against the toxin-induced delirium, he repeated over and over: the new Master is not my Lord. He willed himself to burn.
Oaths had once made his flesh and coursed through his veins like blood, but he had long been scorched away to a core of clattering bones. He kept his remaining memories there, permeating the sponge of his marrow.
Vision charred with smoke, he looked upon the land below. Did he know this place -- small and rocky, shivering with silvery evergreens? Had he set foot upon the land, had he thrown his sword against the fiends in their defense? Had he protected them once?
The leash tightened around his throat, then. The voiceless commands come coiling and ceaseless; the Master herds with vulnerabilities: Because the world could not be ours, the world could not be right. Auron is at once selfish and servile, each motion manifest rage.
Even the voice of his Lord is silenced now, mute lips forming the same words over and over, even when there is hardly an Auron left to hear it: I love you, I love you, I love you.
Then the mantra slows and becomes indistinct - his Lord and his Master are no longer separate but have merged into one. The veil has burned away. The voice speaks with the tick-wing hiss of Yevon, each word meted out in the kind, measured cadence of Braska. We are here, it says. We bring the Just Unmaking. We bring the fire.
Braska's Calm had lasted longer than most.
The throatless roar of wildfire. The pines bend like the fur of a running wolf, the scudding clouds vanish, all the sky goes burning-bright, as though the sun has drawn too close.
A young wife, crouched over a kettle, sniffs the hissing steam. She is sure she smells smoke; has she burnt the tea? It is only when the roof of her hut catches fire when she realizes. Sin is here because her village has not done enough, prayed enough, given enough, obeyed enough. She knows they have not done enough. And she knows that she should grateful that her husband, deep and sick with fever, will not wake.
For one moment she considers running, swimming, flying. Escaping.
Her face is tight with rage and fight when she begins to smell the roasting of her own skin. She realizes with a twist the unjustness of it all, with as much certainty that the moment affords, and with it comes a fleeting and defiant peace. She lays her quivering lips upon her husbands.
In a small mercy, it happens fast -- flesh burns away, the loam of death settling upon their skulls, and their faces set in the final smile that has us all.
Later that night, a boy who is a better sailor than his old man ever was, sets his course toward the orange blaze on the horizon.