Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life is life and mine is mine
And I will live until you're mine
- E^st

Auron was not reborn. He did not emerge from the sea, salt soaked and glittering in the early morning sunshine to the overjoyed cries of his loved ones waiting on the beach. He did not rise from the ashes of a cascade of glowing phoenix downs gleaming with holy light and honor. He did not ride in on a tide of destiny while the Hymn of the Fayth rose to crescendo around him. He was not reborn. He was not remade. He was repossessed, snatched from the womb-glow warmth of eternal rest and sanctity, the silent sweet peace after a life of torn up, badge bright, misguided honor and another of tireless, toiling purpose.

He never wished for this.

He was not grateful.

-

All of a sudden his consciousness was blooming around him, sounds soaking into ears that should not have heard, sensation returning to limbs that should have never felt again. It was ugly; it was brutal after such blissful serenity. The cold stones beneath his cheek scalded him. The bizarre chittering noises he could hear pelting wildly down upon his sensitized ear drums was cacophonous, deafening. He felt burned alive, he felt flayed. He should not have felt at all, and as he became aware of the heaviness of limbs, the rise and fall of lungs that felt weighted with rocks, Auron wanted to howl in misery. Instead, disbelieving and so weary once again, Auron forced open his eyes, feeling the pucker-pull of scar tissue over his right socket that told him that even though he breathed once more he was not a new man.

The light pouring through broken cracks flared over his retina like molten metal and he dragged his right hand - such heavy, roughened hands - to his face to protect it. He smelled the leather on his fingers mixed in with a heated animal smell, the stench of fur and crushed foliage, old stone and dirt. Laboriously slow, he dragged his legs beneath him as he attempted to pick himself off the ground. He got to his knees, hearing the excited pitch of those relentlessly awful animals rise in fervor. The clink of beads against belt buckles, against clay, familiar and terrible and so unwelcome in the din around him. Once again he opened his eye, a slight crack, and let the sphere light scald him till the world he had fought so hard for and been so content to leave behind came into focus.

The first thing he saw before him was not the tearfully smiling face of an old friend, it was the shifty eyes of a furtive monkey retracting a hand back from its attempt to snatch something from his pocket.

"Leave," he rasped, his own voice cutting across his ears like a cascade of rusty shrapnel. Sensing the threat this large, lumbering man posed, the monkey skittered back to its avidly watching brethren.

Auron heaved himself the rest of the way upwards, legs made of granite tossed to sea and pulled down in an undertow. He glanced tiredly over himself; the dusty red coat, the tarnished belts, the heavy metal boots; the accessories of a life he had thought deservedly over. Before him on the ground lay the Masamune, still black bright and wicked sharp, ornate and threaded with ancient burning magic. For a hot, furious moment he gave up on the idea of reaching for it, of hauling it back over his shoulder and once more donning the mantle of Legendary Guardian. But he quickly shrugged off the apathy as the practical side of his weary mind spoke to him. If he was returned, if the Fayth had sent him once more to Spira, then he must be needed. The world must need him direly or he would still be Sent.

Bending slowly forward, feeling muscles stretching achingly, tendons bunching tightly, Auron stood, lifted his sword, so saddened by the familiar gesture of slipping his one arm into the sling of his gi and balancing his weapon across his back that he nearly collapsed under the weight of such sorrow. But he was the Legendary Guardian Auron, and made of much sterner stuff.

Instead he took stock of the world around him, the awful familiarity of the Zanarkand Dome dawning on him as the cruelest of jokes. He had been brought back to the place where he had been struck down, not even killed, by Yunalesca. It had taken falling off a mountain to finish him. No, but he had been brought back to the place where his life had truly ended. All the rest after that was just walking wounded. He saw an overgrowth of vines and dozens of monkey's peering at him from the sidelines like he was the main headliner at a blitzball tournament, still with anticipation before he made his shot. Dark stone, garish lighting, and far too many puzzles. How much time had passed?

"We shall see," he murmured, and took the first, decisive step forward into a future he did not want.

-

Legendary Guardian Auron had come back from legend to become mythical, and his miraculous return spread across Spira seemingly with the breeze. The very air around him whispered of holy magic, of deities and eternity, of Fayth and eternal circles and immortality.

As he had slogged his way from the once more empty ruins of Zanarkand Dome he found littered trash, tourist brochures and ticket stubs that spoke of unpleasant change. Time, he found, had passed, but not so much that he was not immediately recognized as soon as he was encountered outside the Zanarkand Dome by a flabbergasted boy apparently opening the ruins for the morning preparations. Soon after a frantic sphere call Rin had come by airship, handsome face aglow to offer an unfazed handshake and a polite bow.

And Auron had gone.

Chapter Text

Auron had, of course, quickly gone to Besaid. Courtesy dictated that he go to the children he had left behind in their shining new world and tell them of his arrival and what it must portent. It was embittering to always be the cloud to blacken their sunshine, but endure it he must. Auron had no sooner stepped off Rin's airship than Tidus had come barreling down the beach with absolutely no more grace and absolutely no more dignity than he had had when Auron had fought beside him (years ago?)

"Auron! Auron!" he called, waving wildly as though Auron might have missed him without the ecstatic arm flail. "You're here! How?! I mean, I don't care how but you're here and you're not dead! You're not dead and you're here!"

The boy, all sunbleached blonde and giant tears and runny nose like he was six years old with a skinned knee, peered up at him, grinning so hard his face might crack, teeth white enough to blind, and Auron did not have the heart to tell him that he truly, truly wished he was still dead.

"I see you too have returned," he murmured. "How long?"

"Four years now," Tidus crowed, laughing as he dragged the slower paced guardian up the hot, sandy beach. “The Fayth wanted to thank us for what we did. What Yuna did the second time. And here I am!”

Auron doubted very much that he was someones thank you gift.

Tidus circled his mentor wildly, unable to stand still, prodding and touching and peering him over.

"We didn't believe it! We thought someone was impersonating you or lying or spreading rumors, but than Rin called and told us that he was bringing you to us and it was really you!"

Further up the beach Wakka was standing as he always stood, as if he was the greatest cat that had ever got the greatest cream, with a small orange haired boy clinging loosely to his pant leg and peering at the red cloaked man. Lulu, as secretive as ever, took two steps forward than a third, her purple lips curling into a sly smile when she touched his arm and her fingers did not slide through him. Not that they would have before, but he appreciated her dour theatrics.

"No ghost this time, I think," she said softly.

"We couldn't see through him before neither, ya?" Wakka said loudly, crossing his arms. "But it sure does look like you, Sir Auron."

He had no reply, and so he merely shared a look with them both, and nodded approvingly at their child. Four years had passed since Tidus's return, but how long since he had been sent? Apparently long enough for these young things to propagate.

Tidus had continued pulling him, prodding him, while he walked at his own measured pace until they reached the town. Guilt hung over him like a shroud as Yuna emerged from the small Besaid temple in her simple robes, and ran to him, and threw her arms around him with unbridled joy. He felt a wash of warmth rush over him at the touch, the first true hug he had had since before he was Unsent, and named it happiness.

"How are you alive?" she gasped, her voice as feather soft and sunshine light as he remembered it. His sincere warmth slipped away as he recalled the bad tidings he had to bring them.

"I fear I have been brought back because of the trouble Spira faces." he said somberly.

Yuna's face fell, pink lips crumpling. She glanced at Tidus, who shrugged, scratching the back of his head.

"What troubles?" she asked. “We've heard nothing.”

"That," here he cleared his throat, "is still unclear."

Tidus laughed nervously as the silence lengthened, giddily grabbing hold of Auron’s sleeve once more.

“Enough with the dark and gloomy! Come on Auron! I’ll show you around!”

--

That night the two of them sat around a crackling fire long after Yuna and the others had gone to bed. Tidus apparently wanted to rehash every moment of their first journey together, with the years in between thrown in for good measure. He flowed rapidly over the memories of Zanarkand before Jecht to the Thunder Plains, to Luca, to Zanarkand and beyond with little to no cohesion. It was a good thing Auron had been there as well and retained the memories otherwise he never would have been able to follow the timeline.

The blonde threw another log on the fire and leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees as he grinned.

“I can't believe you're back Auron. You don't know how much I... how much we all missed you.”

“Your focus should have been on the future, not the past,” Auron murmured. “I wanted a world where you only had to look forward, where the cycle of death was broken. I was never meant to be a part of such a world.”

Tidus shook his head, rueful. “You know, for a guy who spent his life trying to save several entire races you are really bad with people, Auron.”

“I do not argue that,” he replied lowly, staring into the fire.

“Things are good Auron! We beat the bad guys! I mean, yeah, sometimes there are things that pop up and put a cloud on things... We had a guy drown last year after he fell off his fishing boat. Kimahri letting the Ronso head out into the world to figure themselves out was pretty awesome but they are still having a bit of difficulty getting used to it. Sometimes we hear about bar fights or there was a protest in Luca one time about larger housing being built... and I mean actual larger housing! Those guys are huge! This Gippal guy is pretty much running the Al Bhed now and he is really, uh, proactive!”

“Yuna?” Auron smirked. Tidus looked abashed, rubbing the back of his head.

“Cid? The girl?” he asked curiously. Cid was a fierce leader, and his children had been next in succession. Where were they now?

“I don't really know any of that stuff, leading is more Yuna's wheelhouse. Cid is still the leader of the Al Bhed, definitely! But Gippal is kinda in charge of like, their regrowth and fitting the Al Bhed into the rest of the world now. Brother doesn't want to lead and said as much. Probably a good thing. He is completely absorbed in that air ship! He seems to run parts now more than anything, getting the stuff Gippal needs here and there. Last I heard, Rikku was diving off the coast of Djose! She is the head of their Artifact Recovery Unit or something! Very cool stuff! She stops by sometimes to show us some of the really cool finds!”

Auron made a small noise of agreement, turning over the tangled puzzle of Al Bhed government in his mind before placing it aside.

“What of Bevelle? What happens in the capital?”

“The Spiran Council keeps an eye on all the boring politics. This guy named Baralai heads it. He does a good job!”

“I see,” Auron said. As far as explanations on global politics went, Tidus' answer was minimal at best.

He found it difficult to believe that there were no murmurs of political dissent, no war mongering among the territories, no cesspool of corruption in internal government. At the very least complete peace between all the races of Spira sounded far fetched. He imagined that Tidus was rather sheltered on the quiet shores of Besaid. Perhaps this was not the best place to garner the information he needed. He would need to move on.

For a moment the silence weighed down and Auron realized with distant clarity that he was warm, relaxed, and fatigued. Such a strange host of sensations, the heat of the fire making his eyelid want to slide shut.

“You uh, see my old man there?” Tidus asked hesitantly in the quiet.

Auron cracked his good eye open and settled it on the boy. “The Farplane is not a social club, with all the Sent milling around swapping stories and jesting about the good old days. It is an edge of existence if you can even call it that. It is a non-awareness, a peace. There was no Legendary Guardian Auron there. There was no Jecht or Braska or any other. There was nothing.”

“And that was good?” Tidus chuckled uncertainly.

“It is what I hoped for,” Auron said, looking deep into the fire.

“And now?”

“And now I am here,” Auron said. “And there is no sense becoming maudlin over what cannot change. Are you... happy?”

“Of course!” Tidus said, shooting upright in surprise at this turn in conversation.

“Then we will protect that happiness,” Auron said firmly, and settled back into his seat, arms tucked firmly into his gi.

“From what, Auron?” Tidus frowned, blinking at the other man.

Auron had no answer, and instead watched the fire burn merrily away, the sparks of hot orange ash floating rapidly into the cobalt blue sky before burning out.

--

And six months later Auron still had no answer to their question about the danger they would face. He had left the sunny island of Besaid, a dark cloud over their familial paradise, sure that he would root out a great crisis and call for their aid once more, anxious of breaking their peace and possibly orphaning the child of Wakka and Lulu. World weary, solitary, he feared he could not remain beside those children grown to adults and not resent them for having gotten all they wanted when he had just lost his own wish for death. Instead, he told himself he left in order to protect their happiness. They deserved their sunshine lit days, their happy endings. He was so grateful they had found one another once again.

Besides, the island of Besaid was abysmally hot and muggy.

He was learning about himself. He had not felt the heat, the cold, the wind as they had during their pilgrimage. It was as though being Unsent had left him experiencing life through a shroud of mist he had not known about. Sensations did not penetrate so much, and he had not noticed such things as temperature, hunger or fatigue as acutely as he did now, truly returned, he supposed. What a tyrant he must have seemed, he thought in reflection, driving them through snow and storm, through sand and sea at a dogged pace to what they thought for so long was their death.

With a shiver he threw another piece of wood on the fire before him, digging deeper down into the warmth of his heavy coat. He paid heavily for it now, and justly perhaps.

He had wandered through several of the larger towns trying to ferret out problems, trying to find the danger he was certain was lurking behind every shut door, every closed temple and cloister. Madmen were born every day coveting power and spewing grandiose ideals about world conquest or obliteration. Where were they now? Why was Auron brought back to life as a man once more and not just a stubbornly clinging ghost? What had changed?

Everywhere he traveled he was unsettled by the people of Spira. They stopped, hushed, in awe of him when he passed. The more he showed himself to them the more worshipful they became. They began to leave offerings of fruit and cloth, incense and sake for him at the inns he stayed at, began to crowd the ale houses and eateries he stopped at to pray for him, at him... to him. They called him Immortal. They begged him to speak to their dead loved ones for them as though he was a messenger from the Farplane. They began to ask him to bring their loved ones back. He was dismayed by their fervor, and unsettled to think what they would believe him to be when he did not answer their prayers. He wondered if he would become a symbol of withholding, a blasphemous relic of their dead religion.

In a world so long ruled by faith suddenly left with a gaping void he must have seemed miraculous for good or bad. And so he withdrew further to the smaller towns and finally to the outskirts and the farthest reaches where their whispered fervency could not reach him. In doing so he found himself now on Mount Gagazet, where Kimahri, Elder of the Ronso people, Uniter of Ronso and Guado, who had let his tribe spread their wings and decide their own fates, had found him and offered him shelter while asking no questions. It had been two weeks, than three, and Auron had still found no answers, heard no whispers of ill tidings, had no great revelations from the Fayth who had deserted him here.

He was sitting again beside a crackling fire tucked into one of the high caves pocketing the mountainside when Kimahri stepped solidly in and handed him a dull cerulean sphere. Glancing narrowly at the huge blue creature who shrugged passively, Auron turned it over in his hands and fumbled about until he managed to activate it. It flared to life, and Rin's blonde, green eyed face appeared within it.

"Greeting Sir Auron. I hope this sphere has made its way to you. I am in need of your unique services and would like to extend an offer of short term employment to you should you desire it. I am sure you are aware of the recent peace we Al Bhed have been enjoying, and Gippal, the head of the Machine Faction has a recovery operation that we feel could benefit greatly from your aid. If interested, please come to Bikinal Island as soon as possible. You may send word from any of my agencies and I will have transportation ready."

The sphere shut off, and Auron carefully placed it beside him on the cold stone. Kimahri said nothing, and for a moment Auron contemplated Rin's presumption and guts. At least the merchant mogul was not trying to deify him, just hire him.

"What say you, old friend?" he asked softly. Kimahri leveled him with his yellow eyes, crossing his massive arms across his chest.

"Kimahri thinks Auron must find Auron's new path," he said, "and it cannot be found within this cave."

Chapter Text

As soon as Auron stepped off the airship he realized he had made a serious mistake. Bikanel Island was hot, a brutal dust-dry heat that caught in his lungs and blew in his eye and left him lethargic as soon as his boots hit sand. He slid his arm from the sleeve of his coat and let it hang around his waist, deftly unhooked the collar of his black shirt to allow the stifling heat to escape from being trapped around his face. This was little better, and the breaths of air he took were like warm soup in his lungs.

"It gets easier," a smooth voice said, and Rin came forward, bowing neatly as though Auron deserved the honor. "And evenings are cool while nights are freezing. We are extremists, the Al Bhed, in all things."

Auron grunted, shouldering the Masamune and wondering how quickly they could get out of the burning, burning sun.

"I have your accommodations ready," Rin said, smiling so charmingly that Auron immediately wondered what the catch was. His russet eye narrowed steadily and Rin shrugged. "It is just a room in the temporary agency I run here. This is a transient city, merely erected to help with the salvage and research operations the Machine Faction have undertaken with Cid's approval. It is not glamorous, but I am sure you understand. We are in the deep desert, after all."

As he spoke, Rin led him to a large host of tents erected against the tinder dry winds. From inside he could see they were connected by flaps; a reception area, a dining hall, and a number of small divided tents, some with bags and backpacks and the other accouterments of travel peeking from them. Rin led them past the open areas and farther to the back of the amassed rooms.

"I have taken the liberty of giving you a larger room, and farther from the main areas. You have always seemed like a man who appreciates the quiet."

Smiling as though he had just told some fine joke, Rin gestured Auron though the door flap and stood politely back.

"Rest, eat and drink and we shall have our meeting in the morning when it is cooler," Rin said.

"I would prefer to know why I am here now," Auron said quietly. He was not ungrateful but he was in no mood for social pleasantries. He was not sure he ever truly had been, alive or dead.

"Gippal does not arrive until morning. He has been detained in Luca due to a meeting that was pushed back. I apologize Sir Auron. If you have need of me, I am down the hall."

He left as suddenly as he had come much to his annoyance and Auron turned to his tent, taking in the simple cot, the large basin of water on a woven stand and the canteen beside it, a small bowl of desert fruits, the small window flap with the pulled down cover and the lidded basket he could presumably put his things within. Only Auron had no things to put away. Instead he moved his sword, settled himself on the ground with his back comfortably against the woven stand, and stretched out his other leg, resting his arm on his bent knee. He bowed his head, thankful at least that the oppressive heat was less severe than it had been outside. Perhaps, he thought, the thread of disaster he had been searching for would be found burning here in these wickedly smoldering sands.

-

He awoke to darkness and for a moment, as he did each morning, he became mired in the gloomy thought that his wish to not wake up in Spira at all had been denied once more. He lay in the cot, listening to the early morning winds whip the canvas and send hissing waves of sand sluicing across the walls. Perfectly still, he took stock of his body; the heavy muscles of a swordsman thick down his arms, his thighs, his stomach hard even at whatever age the Fayth had chosen him to be. Mid to late thirties from what he could tell from his seldom glanced at reflection. Age had become something of a dark joke to him. When you were apparently unable to die or at least stay dead it ceased to mean much. He felt his toes, his fingers, his jaw, the lobes of his ears. He knew the lines in his face and the grey peppering his temple well. He felt the tail of his hair half caught between him and the bed.

Legendary Guardian, he thought. I feel it, dusty and stolid. Brute strength and such bone deep exhaustion.

But Auron was pragmatic, steady and trained to endure. He could not wallow for long and even now the temperature, though cold, was rising. He could almost sense the slowly mounting sun impatient to scald the sands to nothing once again. Vendetta's, he thought with a wry smirk, even nature has them. Rising, he pulled on his boots, grimacing at the tarnished iron, then his black shirt, buttoning up the collar. He would have to purchase a secondary set of clothing. Washing it piece by piece as he traveled was wearying and the cloth was beginning to take on a weathered look. He could not smell overly pleasant after a hard day of travel, either. He took his shades from their perch on the floor and settled them over his nose, brushing a weary hand through his hair and feeling it spiking between his fingers. A haircut was necessary, he thought. He had not needed one during the last pilgrimage. It made sense, for if his will had shaped his appearance then if he had not noticed growth it would not have occurred. How easily he had fooled himself as an Unsent, aging his own body with sheer willpower but how depressing a form he had taken, all ugly scars and grey. What looks he had in his youth had never done him much good either so in the end none of it had mattered. He left his red coat behind in his room, leaving him in the plain black plated shirt he wore beneath his hoari and his loose pants. There was no sense in baking himself within its confines merely for the sake of vanity he did not feel. He took only his sword, as much a part of him as anything.

As he strode from the Inn he felt chagrined for already the Al Bhed town was crackling with activity, vendor stalls open, people sitting and laughing at small stands serving sliced fruit and cooled tea. Usually he was the first to rise, to nudge sleeping rolls with steel toes and put out the fires with no little noise. Clearly the Al Bhed made the most of the time when the temperatures were agreeable. He had forgotten so much.

He began to walk the street, taking note of the water vendor, the chemist stall, the repair booth and the numerous clusters of machinery being tinkered with, assembled and disassembled at a seemingly frantic pace by scattered groups of Al Bhed engineers. Industry, he thought approvingly, these desert people wasted no time.

Amidst her people, he thought momentarily of Rikku Cidolphous, and wondered what antics she was about in these times if she was gathering artifacts. She had been an energized, overwhelming child, so like her cousin in her earnestness, so unlike her in every other way. Yuna had mentioned something about a falling out and towers and divergent paths, and undersea exploration voyages with her brother. He tortured himself with the thought of cool ocean breezes and cold salt water soothing his sand burned skin. She was wise to avoid this excessive heat.

A vendor selling chilled cactus fruit caught his eye and he grimaced, noting that he was in fact hungry. The sensations plaguing him where so simple, so benign in their humanity, but so foreign to him after a life as what was essentially a tired ghost. Hunger, fatigue, thirst, discomfort, they slowed him down as they had not before. He fingered the gil in his pockets with weariness and approached the vendor, purchasing a sizable portion of the sweet, sticky fruits. She tried to wave off his coin, gesturing to his sword as the language barrier stood between them, but he insisted. He was a large man, and the food he needed to maintain his muscle mass was no small amount. If he had needed as much food now as he had during his first pilgrimage, on top of what Kimahri, Wakka and Tidus had eaten, they would have had to spent the majority of their funds on food costs alone.

He took a moment to sit down on one of the impromptu tables set up in front of the cactus fruit stall, bits and pieces of scrap metal, very uncomfortable to sit on but functional. He ate slowly, methodically and if he noticed that the fruit was creamy, cool and deliciously sweet, he did not to show it. After finishing his meal he stood up and disposed of his plate, some sort of large green leaf, in an awaiting compost receptacle. He nodded once to the vendor who had watched him surreptitiously, quietly awe struck that the Legendary Guardian Auron was sitting at her table, eating her fruit just like any other man.

Auron continued his steady march until he had reached the end of the single street town and stood peering out towards a further grouping of tents and machinery resting before a dune of sand. It was at first peaceful, mere activity that he enjoyed watching. Hard work was to be admired.

But squinting hard in the rapidly brightening sky, he saw sparks flaring and an enormous metal behemoth in the center of the camp judder to life. At first he thought the shouts he heard were triumph, celebration for having made the beast move. He was disabused of this notion when he saw the engineers scattering out of its way and towards the town. The machine reached forward with huge metal arms and seized a chunk of metal, some sort of speeder that had been in front of it. It crushed the vehicle to pieces like crumpling a piece of paper, the grinding and screeching of metal sharp across the sand. He heard the tinkering detritus thud into the sand, saw the machine drop it aside and before it began reaching for another thing to destroy Auron was running steadily towards it, sword over his shoulder, battle ready.

Unafraid.

Chapter Text

The wind was hot across his cheeks, his bare arms, the dusty heat of it already causing sweat to drop down his forehead and back as he stopped from his sprint before the machina. He cautioned himself to ignore his crippling discomfort and focus. The machine was huge but Auron had destroyed things far bigger than it without fail. He sized it up, looking for chinks in its plated front, exposed wires, anything that would tell him where to strike. The machine squeezed together its latest victim, what looked to have once been an intake engine of some kind. It tossed it down beside the heaped remnants of the speeder and took a lumbering step forward. Auron settled himself before it, sword ready, and reached within himself for the magic he could feel thrumming through him with the heat of battle.

He lunged forward, the old reflexes still primed, still steady, striking heavily at the powerful metal arm and feeling the wash of Armor Break run forth from his sword arm and spread over his enemy as he tore through it. The machina halted slightly, stumbling as its arm began to spark wildly, gears grinding angrily, pistons trying to pump within its wrecked appendage.

Safely away, Auron shrugged his shoulders, lowering his stance in order to pull forth his power and strike once more. It felt familiar and invigorating, the tensing of his sword arm beneath the weight of Masamune a sturdy reminder of the warrior he had always been.

"Wait! Wait! Hold it! Hold your chocobos! Cease and desist! Halt the one man army!"

From behind him rang a frantic voice he knew, high pitched and as painfully girlish as spun candy. He half turned to warn her off, to ask why he needed to stop, to step in front so she did not become a heap of crushed bones and torn flesh, but she darted around his warning hand, as quick and slippery as a Hasted fish in a rapid current. It was a tiny thing, all skittering long legs and arms encased head to toe in mesh engineering gear and goggles, with a wild ponytail of blonde, braids and bangs scattered with beads to top it off.

She sprang forward, ducking nimbly beneath the machina's extended arm, hand springing between its massive crushing legs and as he watched narrowly, clambering up inside the machine's innards like a wily little monkey. He heard some curses in Al Bhed, some squeals of irritation, and suddenly the thing powered down, lights dimming, arms falling powerlessly to its sides. It shuddered once, still sparking sporadically. A chunk of its busted arm thumped heavily onto the sand.

Auron lowered his sword arm, eye narrowed as the girl came sliding out of the machina with a gusty sigh, dusting off her hands. She came towards him.

"You walking miracle!" she huffed indignantly, coming to a stop a few feet from him. "It's about darn time you showed up in my neck of the woods! Or sands, I guess!"

She reached forward and clicked something wrapped around her wrist, and as Auron watched with one eyebrow cocked, her clothes blew away from her in a burst of sparkling magic. She tossed her hair back and propped her hand on her hip, clad now in a tiny yellow bikini, a long yellow scarf, a barely there green skirt, ridiculously bowed sleeves and little blue boots. He blinked, tongueless and stern and mildly horrified, and she grinned cheekily.

"What's a tall drink of dark and broody doing in a dry pit stop like this?" she chirped.

Auron kept his mouth firm, turning his eyes to the relative safety of the defunct machina while he tried to equate the tiny green eyed Al Bhed with the orange top and blue ribbons, with the too earnest heart and the impatient whining, to the barely dressed, cheeky little tanned sand devil he saw standing before him. Something nagged at him, a feeling as though he had seen her like this before. A sensation deep within his chest. He recognized her before he had recognized her but did not understand how such a thing were possible.

Then again, his lives seemed proof positive that the impossible never was impossible.

"Rikku,” her name had a strange flavor to him. He had spent a lifetime ago thinking of her as only girl and child and Al Bhed.

“That was," he wanted to say impressive, settled on, "reckless."

"Luckily reckless is my middle name!" she said, waggling her eyebrows.

She stepped closer, peering up at him so closely he could see the native swirls in her eyes. He shifted away, discomfited.

"Yunie said you were back. She sent me a sphere, and said you went all solo soldier and weary walkabout. I thought you'd at least come say hi Rikku, see how I'm not dead? That's kind of good and nice to see you're alive to after we changed the world together, but you never bothered! Were you afraid I'd be too cool for you now Mr. Crimson Loner? Too busy? Hey, where's your coat?"

Auron waited until she took a breath.

"Rikku," he rasped, unsettled, "I did not think you would concern yourself with memories better left to rest."

She halted her tirade, doing an impatient little wiggling dance that kicked sand into the air and his eye. "Concern myself? What are you, week old porridge? You were my friend!"

He had not considered the little girl in their party close enough to call friend. The most he would have called her was hope, the worst was martyr.

"I see," he murmured, and turned from her towards the town.

She skittered around his steady pace, before him, beside him, behind him, unfazed by his stoicism.

“Yunie said she heard you when we fought Vegnagun and I was so mad because what am I? A flan? You didn’t think I might need a pep talk too? Talk about selfish. And I saw you pop up all Fayth-ly now and again in the arena, fighting baddies like you owned the joint but you never bothered to say hi!”

Auron was confused. He had been Sent. There was nothing other than that… except… except… There had been times in that non-awareness when he had felt the faint pull of something, an echo of an echo that tugged at the man he had been. Had the Fayth been toying with him, bringing pieces of him back without his understanding? He felt used, cheapened somehow. Unsettled, he shrugged his shoulders, adjusting the weight of his sword.

"Auron, look at you! You're buff! I mean, you were always buff but I never noticed that you are really, really buff! And your hair is still long and your face is just as frowny and do not speak to me, but heed my quiet wisdom for I am the walking wounded as I remember!"

What could he say to such nonsense?

He grunted shortly.

"That machina you were getting all rough and tumble with wasn't actually trying to hurt anybody, you know," she chirped. "It just reverted back to its original programming on start up. Crush this, crush that, Compactor routine, ya know? Those dummies on my crew must have activated it while I was getting a message to Gippal, and then you went all Ultimate Guardian on it and now we're going to have loads of repairs to do. Honestly, we got off easy. I think you were just itching to take that thing down. We're lucky it's not scrap."

Had she been this unbearably lively before? Auron did not know what to tell her. He had not even considered contacting her when he had awoken. She had been but a child, even younger than the rest and perhaps selfishly, he had dismissed her. She was not with the others in Besaid, and had only been mentioned by her import in Yuna's retelling of her war against Vegnagun. It had been enough to know she was successful in the life she was leading.

Behind the girl, the engineers were swarming back over the broken machine, picking up pieces, welding, adjusting like an assiduous hive.

"You have work to do," he said carefully, gravel voiced. She was so unexpectedly happy to see him he was ashamed that he had not returned the sentiment.

Rikku spun around, throwing both her arms up and teetering forward so far Auron almost reached out to stop her from face planting. But there was nothing to grab hold of save for the band of cloth wrapped around her hips, and he did not think for a moment it would hold out against even her meager weight. He did not want to be left holding her skirt while she sprawled face first in the sand in a string bikini so indecent even Yunalesca would have blushed.

"Rumt ib, tuuvicac! Teth'd oui tu ahuikr tysyka mega, dah sehidac yku!"

She took two hasty steps forward, spun on her heel and pointed at him as she jogged backwards. She touched her wrist band again, and the mesh body suit sparkled back onto her body in a wave from toe to head. He let loose a slow breath and refused to call it relief.

"Alright Tall, Grouchy and Rude! Run away, but I'll hunt you down later, tie you up and make you tell me you missed me!"

Auron stood watching her blankly as she rejoined her crew, shouting orders in noisy Al Bhed to which they hastily complied.

Rikku Cidulphous, desert whelp, Al Bhed princess, dizzy thief and alchemist beyond any alchemist he had ever known in either lifetime. So eager to save her cousin at tender fifteen, to bleed for her protection instead of letting Yuna bleed. Shifty child, clumsy child, bright-hearted and achingly strong child, ready to fight for a world that had born no love for her. He had wanted her to be a guardian no more than he had wanted Jecht to become Sin, but at the time he had needed numbers and her assets were vital. He had forgotten more about her than he had ever known.

"She has saved the world twice over before she was twenty," Rin said from behind him, jovial, "and will no doubt one day lead our people when Cid steps down since brother has chosen to pass on the succession."

Auron's voice was a rasping whisper over the wind that was rising along with the blinding sun. "Do you truly believe she will one day be ready to lead you?"

He had not meant to sound as skeptical as he had, but she was currently half up the leg of the behemoth amount of metal, gesturing violently at the shooting sparks.

"I truly believe anything is possible," Rin said with a blatant, pointed stare. "Gippal has arrived. He is eager to begin."

Rin turned and began to lead the way back, and Auron glanced once over his shoulder at the wildly gesticulating blonde, now perched dizzily high on the shoulder of the machine and pointing frantically at something while the Al Bhed below her on the ground scratched his head. He studied her for a moment, narrow eyed, processing methodically as he always did. He felt a low ember of excitement start to glow, a pang within his stomach as he breathed life upon it. There was much he could teach her, perhaps bridle her, temper her erratic excitement into sharply focused ambition. There was so much she could do for this world beyond fighting the desperate and villainous. He had it within him to help her become, in this overturned world of dead religions and fantastic technologies, and that meant something.

He turned and followed Rin.

Chapter Text

Rikku was having a great day. Most of her days were as glitter bright as a handful of sparkles and five times as tasty as a bowl of banana custard, but today was especially exciting because Gippal was finally letting her in on his Super Amazing Plan. He had been taunting her with the idea for weeks now, all patented smirks and I'm-so-cool-my-tips-are-frosted, and though she'd begged, cajoled, bribed and even tried her best Lovely Rikku Pout, he had remained immune. He'd even caught her trying to sneak into his tent and look into his plans, but that was only because Brother had finked on her.

So today was a good day, filled with explosions and acrobatics and awesome old men who came back from the dead to beat up her stuff just because he was heroic and beating stuff up was what he did. She pressed the bangle at her wrist, releasing the magic of her garment grid and the altered engineering suit Shinra had supped up for her in favor of her regular clothes.

Rikku let out a happy sigh, hugging herself as though she had to hold all those good glowing feelings inside her tummy with her arms. Stone faced, smoky voiced, one eyed, cryptic and withholding, bullying old Legendary Guardian Auron was back and didn't that just beat all? Admittedly, she hadn't been paying him as much attention during their pilgrimage as she should have been, and most of her memories of him involved being frustrated by his apparent desire to see Yunie die or wishing she was super cool enough to impress him so he'd be like Rikku, thank goodness you were here. We would be lost without you.
Of course, she had known that without him saying it.

And then in a matter of hours he'd saved the world, overthrown religion and called it a day by walking heroically off into a burst of pyreflies, all P.S., I'm dead, while Yuna danced her broken little soul out. They'd all been so busted heart strings and blubbery tears over Tidus being totally not real ever, that their mentor-type had sort of been brushed off. Oh, you were dead this whole time? That's nice. Cake anyone?

Gone, not even dust to throw to the wind, no ashes and gravestones and funeral dirges. Just multicolored whining lights and the memory of those broad, fading shoulders sagging in relief...

Rikku put a finger to her lips, cocking her head to the side. There was something important there, something tickling the edge of her mind that had giant lights flashing towards it saying Look Here, but she wasn't quite seeing it...

And she was already late!

Taking one last look at the now canvas covered Compactor RK-27, destroyed arm completely removed, she dashed off towards Gippal's tent. He'd been in a meeting all day, but she hadn't been allowed to come until someone sent for her this evening. How rude, she had thought, but then she'd realized that arriving earlier would have meant sitting for hours and hours listening to Gippal drone on about this political faction they might be bothering, what if any forms needed filling out, and that ancient heavy artillery guarding the entrance, when all she wanted to hear about was the good stuff.

Tell her what she was doing, where she was going, how she was getting there and maybe why she was doing it and by the time you were done she was already halfway out the door!

Humming to herself, Rikku headed towards Gippal's impressively sized tent with the Machine Faction pennants blowing in the wind before it, contemplating how mad he'd be if she altered the design again just a bit.

"Hi Boss, how's goings?" she said as she scurried through, finding the eyes of three men before her, all of which could be called her boss at one time or another.

Gippal stood at the head of the table, one finger pointing at a location on a map as far as her cunning thief-y eyes could see. He smirked as she entered, or maybe he was squinting. It was hard to tell beneath that eye patch that she still wasn't a hundred percent sure he even needed.

"About time, Cid's Girl. I was about to send out a search party," he said, definitely smirking.

He straightened up, all spiky jester arm guards and wild hair and Rikku snorted. She knew he was trying to look cool and untouchable, and while she liked to think it was for her benefit it was far more likely to be for his hero. Her eyes brightened when they fell on Auron, leaning against one of the support beams of the tent, broad shouldered and nonchalant and exactly as he had always stood. She couldn't get over it. Even death couldn't keep a man that good down.

If he felt her eyes upon him he did not show it. Instead he adjusted his shoulders slightly, arms crossed and head bowed. He was a really big guy, all thick muscles and dark, grey streaked hair. In all her memories of him, how had she forgotten how much space he took up? Rin sat in one of the spindly chairs, nodding politely at her when she grinned at him. She threw herself nearly on top of the maps and papers strewn about the table as she grabbed the one Gippal had been pointing at, elbows and bows rustling all over.

"The Omega Ruins?" she asked, disappointed. "That place sucks so bad! It's dark and damp and last time Clasko made us do so much work! Send me elsewhere! Going back there would be so boring!"

"Enough Rikku," Auron murmured, and Gippal shot her a surprised glance when she quickly straightened herself off the table and crossed her arms languidly over her head, leaning back.

"Sure thing, Boss," she chirped.

It wasn't that she wanted to be ordered around, it was just so funny to see Gippal thinking she was following anyone else's orders but his! Let that add a bit more credence to the Legendary Guardian Auron mythos. Tamer of Awesome Al Bhed Princesses! Besides, if memory served he was someone worth listening to. He had driven them hard, yes. So hard she had woken up some nights with muscles screaming with overuse, a stomach gnawing with anxiety or hunger and eyes full of tears because she thought they were going to die and she was scared... but he had pushed them onward, doggedly onward, and if they ever fell too far back he would be the one to get behind and push, pull or carry them till they dragged more out of themselves to continue.
He had been their leader; an example to follow.

So yea, she owed him a little courtesy. A little restraint. About five seconds of it.

"So what's going on? Are you sending me on a salvage mission? Artifact recovery? Fiend gathering?" she fired the questions at him.

A lot of the time Gippal still had her running around Spira salvaging off the coasts, bringing back bits and pieces of the past in order to build a better, bigger Home. Sometimes he just needed her to steal big amounts of the oddities that could only be gathered from Fiends by an exceptional thief such as herself. Cid was mostly in charge of fundraising for now; his love of the Al Bhed coming out in the oddest of ways. He had come up with some pretty good ideas though and rarely were they hampered in their efforts to build by zero finances. But Gippal had made it his personal credo to build it better, build it safer, and introduce Machines to the people of the world so long afraid of them. The Al Bhed had been displaced enough, it was time to dig in their roots and have a little piece of Spira to call their own.

Gippal eyed her for a long moment, as if reconsidering. “Schematics. Something we’ve heard rumors about but never anything solid enough to move on.”

“Until now?” she pressed.

He turned and looked at Rin, who shrugged with a small smile. There was no point in asking for his sources, but he would not have brought this to his attention if it hadn’t been verified.

“We think they’re deep within a walled off section of the Omega Ruins but we don’t have the proper cartography to be a hundred percent certain. You’ve both been there. You know the layout better than anyone else we’ve got and you’re the best chance we’ve got at finding these plans.”

Rikku did an excited little shimmy, feeling the thrill of the unknown dancing at her heels. New adventures! New people! New places! And oh so many shiny new things! But Gippal was still looking at her, and she caught sight of the straightness of his usually smirking mouth.

“And the catch is?” she asked, scurrying closer to him. She poked her index fingers at the corners of his mouth and tried to lift them. He batted her hands away lightly and turned back to the map with a dark frown.

“We think the schematics are flight capability merged with tech magic. With it, it could be possible to make huge buildings portable. It has massive defensive capability potential for building the new Home.”

“Than what are we still standing here for?” Rikku jumped up and down impatiently, already making a sporadic list of things she had to pack for Super Secret Omega Flying House Mission.

“There are risks, Cid’s Girl,” Gippal sighed, curling his hands around her upper arms to still her. “The bad kind of explosions and cave-ins and not coming home kind of risks.”

Rikku blushed a bit and drew her arms from his grasp. Her nose crinkled. “Don’t think I can pull it off?” she asked.

Gippal knew that if he so much as hinted that he didn’t believe in her, she’d stomp off on her own before sunup in a ridiculous attempt to prove him wrong. He knew he had to handle her with kid gloves. Act and distract.

“My faith in your abilities is the entire reason you’re here,” he said with a smooth shrug and a cocky grin. “I’m not too big to admit you’re okay in a fight if it comes down to the wire, and you’re a passable alchemist sometimes…” he needled.

Her green eyes widened dramatically with outrage. “Passable? Passable?! I’m the best darn alchemist to come out of Spira in ten years!”

“In a hundred,” Auron’s deep, graveled voice rose up behind her and at the sound of it she felt a sudden trickle of excitement tingle down her spine and end in her knees. “From my own personal experience and that of the history books, you might be the greatest alchemist Spira has ever known.”

Rikku’s mouth fell open. She closed it only to have it fall open once more. She was, for once, speechless. That was, hands down, the greatest, most splendiferous and glittery thing anybody had ever said to her in her entire life and it had been Auron to say it! She wished she had a sphere recorder. She wished she had ten.

“Yeah, well,” Gippal coughed into his gloved hand and swept back to his maps.
Rikku was still staring at Auron who was staring impassively back.

“As I was saying, you have a skill set we need. Bombs, specifically. Nobody know how to control an explosion like you do so we need you to work your little Rikku magic and create bombs that will do the following,” here he handed her a list, “with a few additional contingencies. Feel free to add your own flare.”

“Like you could stop me,” she murmured distractedly, tearing her still surprised eyes from Auron.

“I’m not trying to stop you, I’m asking you to hurry your butt up. Finish what you need to do because you leave in an hour.” Gippal snorted.

“An hour? Like, as in the hour after this one?!” Rikku whined, throwing her arms in the air. “I haven’t finished with the repairs to the compactor! I have a dive scheduled in three days!”

“This takes precedence over everything, Rikku,” Gippal shrugged. “If we know, others know, and its going to take long enough for you to gather what you need for that list of bombs. Not everybody can do what you do, so go do it.”

“You big bully!” she snorted, shifting herself back and forth edgily, but she headed for the door. “I’ll be ready in an hour. Meet me by the airships, Auron!”

The silence she left behind was a relief, but Auron could only enjoy it for a moment. How such a tiny creature had such a massive amount of energy consistently whirling around her he could not fathom. She had always been that way, even muted by sadness and fatigue on their pilgrimage as she had been. Endless, bountiful energy only the very young can maintain without burning up. He was a relic in comparison, and not ungrateful for it.

“Protect her,” Gippal said softly.

Auron shifted his one good eye from its intent inspection of the floor to the handsome blonde leader.

“That’s why I brought you in on this. This is so much more dangerous than she’ll understand or listen to. I know what Rikku can do, but I also see her limits when she can’t, sphere grid or no. That’s why I hired you. That's why I'm paying you.”

“Protect the girl,” Auron murmured, a weary, half-hearted smile appearing momentarily on his face.

“It’s what you do isn’t it?” Gippal asked, focusing intently on his map. There was no cocky smile now, no languid arrogance with Rikku gone from the room. “Legendary Guardian Auron?”

Chapter Text

“Satchel, satchel, satchel...” Rikku chanted as she darted about her tent.

She had shoved it under the bed, hadn't she? She flung herself down on her hands and knees and reached beneath but only came out with a handful of sand and a cactus pear. She poked around the woven basket where they were supposed to keep their things, around the floor, and finally found it lodged beneath the covers at the foot of her bed. Tugging it open she began to dump in all the necessities of desert travel. Water tabs, compass, electrolyte pills, matches, her multi-tool, her spare grids, protein bars, soap, toothbrush (she packed two in case her buddy needed one) cords, first aid for the little bumps and scratches too small for a white mage sphere change... The list went on until her bag was stuffed to the brim.
The best part about Shinra's sphere grid tech was that she no longer had to pack clothing or weaponry. That definitely saved on the ol' inventory space.

Packed and staring at the closed (with difficulty) straps of her bag, Rikku drew in a long breath.

Gippal had been worried. She had known him long enough to read that pretty clearly, and yeah, some of his concern wasn't exactly brotherly though he had never even tried to make a pass at her (which was she disappointed by? No. Maybe. Yes.) but he had always treated her like she could handle herself and she appreciated that endlessly... So his concern was, well, concerning. She wasn't stupid. His concern was why Auron was here now. It was pretty obvious he was to play bodyguard to keep her from ending up a pile of smush on the stone wall of a long forgotten chamber of the Omega Ruins.

The thought sent a pang through her. Wasn't that guy ever allowed to not be in mission mode? Even apparently back from the wispy nebulous realm of the dead like Tidus, he was immediately thrown back into a warzone. These were peace times. When would he find his?

She pictured his last moments in Zanarkand as he had shouldered his giant sword and turned and announced the world was now theirs. She stared at the dust blowing beneath the edges of her tent, disquiet running through her though she couldn't say why. The wind shook the canvas walls, but offered no answer.

-

The hour was gone alarmingly fast for Auron. He had returned to his tent, gathered his miserably few belongings, buttoned up his long red coat as night approached, and then went to wait beside the airship docks as requested of him.

She came some time later, after he had had the chance to listen to the mournful moan of the wind over the lonely, endless dunes and grow colder in his coat.
Rikku approached him as the sun was dipping low behind the dunes, just a glowing band of yellow quickly being stretched beyond the shadows. Her bag was packed and she wore her alchemist dresssphere, warm enough for travelling across the desert at night but still strong enough not to be taken by surprise by any of the beasties she might have encountered. Usually she would have chosen her Samurai sphere but the thought of him seeing her dressed in a long red hoari like his, carrying his sword, made her feel strange.

He cut an impressive silhouette against the dunes, his coat flaring wildly about his calves, wide shoulders holding the weight of the world above him. His back was to her facing that sunset, that desert, that world like it was an enemy. She watched the wind shivering through his hair like fingers. She closed her fist against the half formed ghost of an urge to do the same and a shudder ran through her. He was truly here, truly standing before her, no longer the Unsent but the man. How strange, to regain something that had been lost to them forever. Then again, Tidus had already kind of shaken things up concerning the word permanence.

But she was never one for a closed mouth and she skipped beside him, elbowing him (charmingly, she assumed) in the side and nodding her chin towards the sands.

“I hope you got enough sleep, Legendary Awesome-Pants Auron, because we’ve got to mosey on out of this sand trap!”

He shifted slightly, turned his good eye towards her. “Which ship do we board?”

She blinked up at him. So far up. She only came up to the fretwork on his shoulder guard. She didn’t remember him being this tall. Hadn’t she grown at all in all the years he’d been gone?

“Ship? Didn’t Gippal tell you?”

“Tell me what,” he asked, voice low enough to send a quiver of nervousness through her tummy because even she wasn’t oblivious enough not to hear the warning beneath it.

“We aren’t taking a ship. You and I are hoofing it. There aren’t enough airships to spare and we’d be stopping every twenty feet anyway in order to gather up all this stuff. I never take a ship when I go gathering unless it’s to get to somewhere across Spira and I get dropped off. And I need shadow gems which we can find in Bikenal.”

If he was annoyed she could not tell with his face hidden behind his collar. He turned back to the horizon and began to move off without a word. She remembered him doing just that when they were traipsing around Spira, saying far more with physical cues than with the verbal. She hadn’t been good at reading him then either, and more often than not had been the last one skittering after the party.

“Oh don’t worry,” she called after him, “I’ll catch up!”

She shouldered her pack and began that tireless tread through the sand, enjoying anew the familiar crush of it beneath her heels because it meant adventure. He didn’t seem to be carrying a bag, or any sort of supplies, which was rather presumptuous of him considering. Lucky for them both she had done this before a time or two or a hundred.

--

“Skitter, skitter, scurry, sand mouse in a hurry!”

Hours later she was twittering cheerfully as they moved over the dunes, now in the scandalous yellow bikini outfit that seemed to be her regular attire, much to his dismay. She was impervious to the heat which had been scorching even at dawn, seeming for all the world as if she was taking a jaunt through a shady glade.
She was helplessly tone deaf.

“What is that song?” a sweat soaked Auron asked.

He was slightly out of breath, choked by heat, but Rikku had decided to be too polite to comment even though she was dying to make a crack about his age.

“Mine?” the girl asked happily, as if there was anyone else singing. “That’s an old Al Bhed nursery rhyme my mom used to sing! I think it’s called The Sand Mouse Run or something. You like?”

“The language is Spiran,” Auron stated, curious. “Is that not strange?"

Rikku frowned, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Not really, you know? Mom knew lots and lots of people, and the Al Bhed weren’t always hated, right? I know it’s really, really old.”

He said nothing in reply, trying to focus on moving through such endless heat.

Auron’s eye lifted to the boiled blue of the sky. It could not be more than eight o'clock in the morning. The day was proving to be particularly vicious and night was long lost. It was time for rest, though his pride ached to admit it.

"We should find shelter," he said, and was pleased when Rikku made no jest about his inability to cope with the high temperature though he caught her shifty glance.

They began to make their way towards a low outcropping of stone that seemed promising, thankfully running into nothing that required more than a powerful slash of Auron’s sword or a flick of her daggers. Being little more than a pile of rubble it was far from ideal refuge but they were beggars beneath the heat and choice was a luxury they did not have.

Rikku cheerfully rummaged through one of her people’s miraculous aid boxes, unfolding a white tarp with nonchalant expertise and pinning it up to nearly triple the size of their meager shelter. Still humming her merry tune, she passed him some water rations from the box and finally took a seat. How capable she was here in her foisted homeland. How quietly surprising to see such great changes in the girl.

Sometimes, Auron thought, watching her dig her heels in the sand, wrap her skinny arms around her knees and sit back, it was good to be surprised.

He enjoyed the moment of stillness and quiet beneath the shade of the tarp while the blazing heat baked the sand around them.

A tremor in the ground beneath him and sand pitter-pattering against the stones had him reaching for his sword even before the huge sand worm had burst upwards from beneath the dunes and sent Rikku tumbling down the side, yelping indignantly.

Sometimes it was not good to be surprised.

“Stay back,” he ordered, sword swinging as he rushed the great beast.

The girl seemed too small to be able to take the kind of abuse a full grown worm could inflict when there was no white mage in their party, though her best defense had always been the speed to not get hit at all. The thought of her small form being slammed into the hard packed sand or swallowed whole was unsettling for him. It had always been the way for him with small things; the urge to shield. He remembered Gippal's orders. Protect the girl.

With a sinking stomach he heard another rumbling behind him and half turned, calculating if it were possible to take two of the beasts on at once and deciding that even rusty his odds of success were good. But instead of a second beast, from the corner of his eye he saw Rikku yanking herself out of a lake of molten black and red that had suddenly pooled upon the sand below studded in black armor and wielding, of all things, his own sword. He faltered a step, taken aback and double checking that he still indeed held the Masamune before the beast roared furiously, rearing upwards. He turned his focus once more to his enemy. Very well. Let the girl show him what she could do with this grid magic Gippal had mentioned.

She took her place beside him on the battlefield and Auron struck first, charging forward, curving round in a deadly arc to thrust the Masamune deep into the thick flesh of the corpulent worm. It stank of worm blood and dirt and it coated his arm thickly as he pulled out his sword and moved away.

"This armor isn't just for show, you know!" Rikku yelled, and he felt the magic humming through the air and wrapping itself lightly around her even before he saw the purple and green flare of Bio emerging from her sword.

She darted in, sliced, and the fiend howled in rage as the poison immediately took effect, weakening it substantially each time it attempted to strike at them or swallow them whole. They struck, and struck again, guts and flesh everywhere. Soon it let out a final mournful moan and slammed hard into the ground, dissolving into pyreflies while Rikku did a shimmying little victory dance before it.

Auron shouldered his sword, ignoring the fiend blood rapidly fading from his clothing as the pyreflies dissolved until not a trace of death remained. Rikku grinned up at him, impressively prickly in her spiked armor. As he watched, a chunk of worm meat stuck to her arm guard dissolved in an orb of pink, another of green.

"We're a pretty good team," she cooed brightly, looking smug.

"Your sword," he murmured, halting in front of her and holding out his own.

Confused for a moment Rikku glanced down then shrugged, face reddening as she held hers out beside his. They were identical, though Auron could not sense the same strength of powerful magic that bled through his.

With an embarrassed laugh Rikku clicked the tiny spheres at her wrist and wind swirled around her, magic glittered and glowed, and she stood once more before him in her regular skimpy attire. Close enough that the swirls in her eyes were apparent and focused upon him and the heat coming off her skin was something he could almost feel. He suddenly realized that he stood too close and stepped back, jaw tightening with irritation. He had never had to tamp down such realizations of impropriety as an Unsent and was grateful as he remembered Lulu’s ample curves and Yuna’s graceful shoulders. He was paying for it now with all the skin this girl was exposing.

"I don't really know how I have it," she said with another roll of her shoulders. "I think the magic itself gathers things from inside you, memories and dreams and everything you know that makes you who you are when the dress spheres bind themselves to you. You should see my Samurai dress sphere. You influenced that one more than a little. Red coat, your Katana. Yunie's got a sword of yours as well."

She stopped for a moment, hands crossing behind her back and toe digging childishly in the sand. She looked at him, all wide green eyes and blonde bangs, the two of them hot and tired beneath the scorching Sanubian sun while the heated winds dragged through their hair and blew the dust of the desert over their feet. He looked quietly back, unsettled by her honesty.

"We missed you, you know," she said seriously.

And Auron had no reply.

--

Chapter Text

--

Fiend gathering was slow, tedious work. If it hadn’t involved as much sightseeing as she usually forced it to, Rikku never would be able to do it. She had an itch in her heels when she stood still for too long, a need to scurry over the globe, turning over rocks and poking whatever she found beneath. Sand ran through her veins like in an hourglass, and it moved. As it was, they had gathered a fistful of dark crystals by the end of the second day and thank goodness, because she was tired of the endless sand sea. She wanted real water, she wanted the ocean! She wanted to splash down into it, thrash around in it, maybe wash off some of this grey dust clinging to her uniform. And her hair. And her face and arms and legs and every possible inch and crease of her. Yuck.

“I think we can call it, Boss!” she sighed happily, counting over the valuable crystals with a greedy glint in her eye. “Let’s call in the cavalry!”

He looked at her, expressionless, and she chortled, flipping open her CommSat and typing rapidly. After a moment a male voice squawked forth and she replied. “Brother! Kick your kiester into high gear and get to these coordinates right away! Like today away!”

A steady stream of Al Bhed was spewed back in reply, and Rikku slid back into her native tongue easily, the language both harsh and smooth to his ears. Auron watched blandly as the skinny thing threw herself onto her feet and scurried from one dune to another, than another, than a different direction, in what he was quickly recognizing to be her haphazard version of pacing.

Poor news then, he sighed internally, limp with heat.

She slapped shut the CommSat and spent a minute cursing in her mother tongue and kicking sand before she spun herself back towards him in a tangle of far too much hair and bows.

“How much do you like camping in the desert?” she asked slyly.

“I’ve spent a good portion of my life and my un-death doing just the thing,” he murmured in reply.

“Good. Because Brother can’t make it till tomorrow, the big dope. They blew a cooling valve flying over Besaid, nearly took a nosedive into the drink and ended up doing even more damage. If I’d been there we’d have been aces but since nobody anywhere is as amazing at everything as I am, they had to make an emergency landing and they’re waiting for a parts shipment.”

“Why do we not press on?” Auron asked, narrowing his eye at the surrounding shapeless sea of sand. It was so easy to get lost in these dunes, but sitting idly around was not conducive to their strategy. “No time to waste. Let’s go.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Rikku snorted. “Well, we could exhaust ourselves some more trying to track down more worms, but I have all I need and then some. I’ve also collected some musks, elixirs and all manner of junk so we’re not exactly low on supplies.”

“Can you at least use what we have on hand now to build some explosives?“ he asked seriously.

“If you’re asking me if I can build an arsenal of bombs out of what few things I’ve gathered so far than quite frankly I’m insulted. Of course I could! I could build us enough bombs to level Bevelle out of this junk! I’m that good! That doesn’t mean it’d be what we need. Gippal was very specific, and if I know the Omega Ruins, I know what we are going to need too.”

“He is concerned for you,” Auron reminded her calmly.

“He can take his concern and shove it,” Rikku muttered, abruptly petulant. “He’s not my boss. Well, he is but it doesn't even count because I'm also his princess.”

She turned from him, propping her hands on her skinny hips and shrugging her shoulders. Her wild mane of hair shook, beads clinking noisily.

“When are you people going to get that I’m not a kid anymore? I can do this. I think I’ve proven that the time or two I saved the world! Last time I checked the scores that made even you and me even, but nobody bothers to call me Legendary.”

He did not mention that she had done so without dying, so technically she was ahead of him if they were scoring, as she so crudely put it.

“Nobody is doubting your abilities, Rikku,” Auron rasped. “Do not confuse concern for condescension, nor affection for distrust.”

She turned, looking at him askance. “Well thanks, Legendary Guardian Love Guru, when I need help from the eternally single I’ll know exactly who to turn to.”

He did not have to utter a word to broadcast his displeasure and she threw her hands up in defeat and sighed.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. My pops and Gippal, those two always get me on edge. Let’s file them under Do Not Mention Ever and be done with it. Paine has a huge amount of those files. She’s almost as conversational as you.”

“Paine is… the other one you travelled with to defeat Vegnagun?” he asked, seeking to change the subject as adroitly as possible.

“Yea. She’s kind of the love child you and Lulu never had.”

Auron arched a disapproving brow.

Rikku pictured Auron and Lulu together, gazing somberly into one another's eyes. It was… sobering. It was like sitting a rock a foot away from a brick and expecting sparks to fly. As quick, clever and stimulating to, what with all the silent frowning. Then again, they both had a thing for belts. It didn’t exactly inspire romance novels that she could see, so maybe Paine wasn’t actually their cybergoth future punk baby sent back in time to save the world and then hang out around Spira with Nooj and Baralai like she'd suspected.

Rikku glanced around the empty dunes, seeing little to landmark their location in the lengthening shadows. It wasn’t an ideal camping spot, but no particular direction was looking any better.

“We may as well make camp,” she sighed. “At least we can try to straighten out our confused internal clocks by sleeping at night for once.”

She decided on a mildly wind sheltered area surrounded by larger dunes and set her bag down on the sands before digging around for a few rocks suitable to make a serviceable fire pit. She wasn’t looking for chef quality cooking, just something she could char whatever she’d stuffed into her pack over.

Auron was not satisfied with their choice of rest but she seemed disinterested in his input as she immediately set up camp. He frowned at her behind his collar as she cobbled together a fire pit and set about preparing their dinner for cooking, but as she seemed immune or oblivious to his displeasure, he left off intimidation in favor of meditation. Something about spending this much time with this woman-child left his patience thin but he recognized that this was unfair of him. He was no longer her unofficial leader, her guide into the unknown. She was an equal despite the age disparity and personal differences. He was not ahead of her, their footing was even and though he could not tell her what to do any longer, the least she might do was consult with him. She was obviously used to travelling solo and answering to no whims but her own. This would be… trying.

He found a place to seek a moment of peace and unclipped his shoulder guard and belt, placing them neatly in the sand and spreading the thick red fabric of his coat over the ground. He knelt, and placed his sword before him in the sand with quiet reverence. Masamune, the stuff of legend and lore, a sword that had followed him through death and deserved such respect. He left his boots on, as removing them in fiend infested sands with no natural defense around them was foolhardy. He did not court disaster, only nullified it. He placed his hands palm up, thumb tip to thumb tip.

He centered himself, breath after breath, silently erasing first the sound of the girl tinkering about behind him, than the smell of smoke as her efforts were met with success. He dismissed the world at large save for a constant hiss of wind skating across the sand dunes. He narrowed his world to just that, flowing with it instead of burning within it like dry straw to tinder. He found stillness within the constant sluice of sand, the ever shifting tide of it slowly heaving across the deserts over the days, the months, the years. He breathed, time passed.

“Do your feet get sore?” a whisper ridiculously close to his ear drew his focus and he exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, bringing himself back to the world. He felt revitalized.

“No, such things are second nature to me,” he told her calmly.

He opened his eye, glancing askance at her to where she was hanging over his left shoulder. He grew aware that her braided hair was brushing his bare arm and that the feather dangling from her ear was tickling his skin. Orange and white, like those she used to wear at the end of her braids. He flicked his one good eye from her hair to her eyes and she blinked, face flaring red before she jerked away, spinning on one foot with her arms behind her back. He imagined she looked much like the child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and could not say whether he was amused or annoyed.

“It’s very monk-like and Yevon-y and all that,” she said, scrubbing at her cheeks, toes tapping in the sand.

He skimmed her over with his good eye, taking in her ceaseless motion, her skittish behavior. He wanted to teach her but she was not an easy one to settle. As he recalled, her best bond had been with Tidus, both of them prone to antics both unwise and recklessly heroic. They had been the best of children together, and perhaps if Yuna had not caught his ward’s heart they could have been more. He did not seek to bridle her, but saw that she could benefit from some tempering. The strongest of weapons was always carefully tempered.

“Rikku,” he murmured, and she stopped her fidgeting, standing behind him with one braid caught in her fingers and her lip jutting out uncertainly. “Sit down.”

“Kay,” she said, complying immediately by dumping herself in the sand beside him. If the heat of it burned her skin she gave no sign.

“Sit with your legs crossed, straighten your spine,” he instructed, and hastily averted his eye when she did just that in her silly skirt and her bright yellow bikini bottoms showed themselves to the desert and to him. He felt his face flushing red, an embarrassing stirring within him that he stoutly refused to acknowledge. His meditation induced peace was rapidly eroding. Things had been so much simpler as an Unsent.

She noticed her exposure because she gasped and drew her legs together with a nervous titter. “I don’t do a lot of cross legged sitting. All my clothing is kinda geared towards speed and total freedom of movement.”

“Evidently,” he rasped, eyes firmly averted.

She giggled nervously and thought for a minute before clicking the device on her wrist. Magic washed over her, the tingle of it skimming over his skin, and after a moment of show and glitter she sat marginally more modestly clothed in a purple gloved outfit that still exposed a good deal of her skin, paired with thigh high pink stockings topped in black, blue boots and thankfully, a yellow and blue wrap draped down the side of one long leg. She set aside the strange gun that had appeared in her hand and pulled the fabric around so that it settled between her thighs. Happily, she re-crossed her legs and shot him a cheeky grin. He kept his face impassive, wondering at the widespread capabilities of that incredibly diverse magic and most assiduously not anything else. Such were thoughts for another time though, and he focused on the task at hand.

“Straighten your posture and place your hands in your lap. You should be comfortable, but not slouched. Take a deep breath, and attempt to center yourself.”

She wiggled until she deemed herself comfortable and shook out her shoulders, closing her eyes but peeking out at him from underneath her lashes. He saw the glint of green.

“I do not expect you to sit for long, just a moment. The Al Bhed have their own reverence, their own beliefs, and they find stillness within themselves by drawing upon different sources. Find it, whatever it is that brings you peace in such moments.”

Rikku shifted slightly, trying to imitate his stern posture, his blank face. She didn’t really know why she had agreed to this. She wasn’t exactly known for her inner peace and tranquility. Religious reverence was totally Yuna’s thing and Paine had stoic staring at nothing totally locked down.

But she had kept glancing at him as she set up camp and prepped the food, and nothing had moved about him save for the wind ruffling his hair no matter how many times she’d said his name, or called it. Or that one pebble she’d thrown at his back. He had been like glass, like stone, an immobile rock while the sand and the wind sang around him. It had made her ache, staring at the rigid strength of his spine. It had made her lonely. She had danced closer, edged closer still, and when he still seemed as though he was immune to the world at large she had become nervous. What if he blinked out of existence again? What if he really was a statue and not just still as one? What if he was gone again, and just an empty shell was sitting in the desert with her? It had suddenly become desperately important to hear him speak to her.

And leery of any sudden movements on his part as sneaking up on a massive warrior was not the brightest of ideas but confident of her own speed, she had leaned over his shoulder and poked the wendigo.

He had smelled dusty and sweaty and of sandalwood, and the silver threads of hair at his temples weaving into the black had made something in her chest turn over. The lines of his face were smoothed out, his eye was closed and his eyelashes were dark and thick and spiked against his skin. She followed the curvature of his lips, straight and serious, and wondered what it was like to see him smile and not just ruefully smirk.

And so maybe he’d kind of caught her at a vulnerable moment, distracting her with that voice and that smoky russet eye and those broad bare shoulders because here she was, sitting demurely, trying to reign in her wildly cavorting thoughts and grab a slice of that inner peace he always seemed to have so many helpings of.

What brought Rikku Cidulphous peace? What made her still? Not much.

“What do you think of as you go to sleep?” he asked. “Even you must rest now and again.”

Rikku scrunched her nose, wiggled her bum deeper in the sand. She usually started trying to go to sleep by thinking boring thoughts, like the inner workings of her speeder, or what chores she had to run the next day. Sometimes she thought about leading her people, imagining the great changes she could bring to Al Bhed culture. Sometimes she imagined letting go of it all and just abandoning everything ever and running off to be a full time treasure hunter.

Sometimes she imagined her mother, with the white foam jasmine her dad had said she liked to weave in her long blonde hair and the sweet smell of them thick around her that still made Rikku’s chest tighten up whenever she smelled them.

“There,” he murmured. “That is your peace. Now keep it with you, and breath.”

She took in a deep, slow breath, exhaled, drew another. She thought of her mom, and tried to mimic a bit of Yuna’s serene grace. How was she so calm all the time? How could she just sit there and pray and talk to her aeons and all that? Maybe they spoke back? Maybe they had long philosophical discussions on the nature of Wakka’s hair or something.

“Focus,” Auron admonished.

Rikku adjusted her posture and took another deep breath. This time she imagined all the little baby monks in their little monk robes all in tidy little rows in the old churches of Yevon. She smelled the flowers in her mother’s hair, and tried to be still like the little yevonites like Auron must have been.

For a time, it worked, and after a while Auron broke his posture, drawing himself to his feet and looking down on her. She peered back up hesitantly.

“You did well,” he said. “It is no easy task for every individual to marshal their thoughts and sit still. The benefit of a few minutes every day will serve you for a lifetime.”

“Uh, thanks,” she said, and took the hand up he offered her. It was warm and heavy and dry against her palm, and her pulse jumped when the smoothness of his skin slid over hers. “I can’t say that was my favorite lesson ever, but it definitely wasn’t the worst.”

He said nothing, merely set about shaking his coat and replacing his belt and shoulder guard. With a happy sigh, Rikku clicked her garment grid and changed back to her regular clothing, shooting him a look, but he seemed impervious to her charms.

She was always mostly bare and nudity was a non-issue to her... But when he had looked at her and she had actually watched the ruddy hue flood his cheeks, in that moment she’d actually felt naked. Her pulse jumped nervously.

“Well, dinner isn’t going to burn itself!” she chirped, and scurried back to her abandoned meal.

Auron glanced at her, brow arched as he took in her bright red face, and said no more.

Chapter Text

---

“You didn’t sleep much back then, that I can remember.”

Her voice came to break the stillness of the predawn silence, light across the smoldering fire pit. He turned slightly, his eye running over where she was curled under a green wool blanket, head propped on her hand. She smiled at him sleepily, wrinkling her little nose, and he turned his impassive gaze back to its contemplation of the first blush of dawn. He was not affected by such childish gestures.

At all. He was sure of it.

Unaware of his internal annoyance Rikku flopped onto her back, stretched luxuriously and then clambered from her sleeping area, dragging the blanket with her to wrap around her shoulders. It got so cold in the mornings! She came and settled beside him, pressing against his side a bit harder when the pleasing knowledge that he was warm seeped into her arm. He shifted uncomfortably but did not pull away. Had he been warm before? As an Unsent she doubted it but he had always been bundled up in that huge red blanket he called a coat with gloves and boots and a collar and even shades… He had only really bared a bit of skin during fights when he shrugged off that gi and really got cocky. She grinned at that, remembering their fights lately and the smug satisfaction in his voice whenever they won. He was strong, so strong, and he might have been super silent and all I-am-contemplating-deep-ancestral-spirit-guidance-things-so-stop-trying-to-steal-the-gil-from-my-pocket most of the time but he was still the heaviest hitter that she’d ever seen hit and that was saying something. That man could fight!

And she wasn’t too big to admit that she maybe, just maybe, had lost track of her thoughts a time or two when he’d been swinging forward with those huge muscled arms and endless shoulders to clobber and slice whatever doomed fiend had crossed their path. And sometimes when he started talking she just zoned out because it didn’t matter what he was saying it was enough to make her knees weak that he was saying it at all in that low, smoked voice.

So yea, Rikku might have been perving a bit on Legendary Guardian Auron and was that such a crime? He wasn’t dead. Anymore.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, at his somber face ever focused on the horizon, at his stodgy gi and the straight posture and the rigid bearing of Yevon still written all over him in invisible ink, and wondered if maybe it was a small crime. Religious desecration maybe.

“Well, Al Bhed’s always were a bit heretical!” she chirped aloud and he glanced at her, unperturbed by her randomness.

With a guffaw, she heaved herself upwards and began cleaning up their meager camp, rolling up her bedroll and kicking sand over the fire. She rummaged through her packs, tossing him a few of the dried meat strips and a cactus apple which he caught with a nod of thanks.

“We’ll need to pick up a lot more supplies before we head to Kilika,” she muttered, poking at the remaining food in her bag. “You seem to have rediscovered your stomach. How did we not pick up on the whole Unsent thing back then?!”

“Fear, hope, determination; you had more pressing thoughts to occupy your minds than the eating habits of an old man. You did not expect a monster in your midst.”

Rikku, squatting beside her bag, shut the flap carefully and glanced over at him. He was still sitting in the sand, the food held loosely in his hands. He spoke softly, eyes still on the horizon and there was no shame or disgust in his tone, no regret or sadness. Just a sad truth he had accepted. He had died (Re-died? Died-er? Deadeded?) thinking this way about himself.

“I don’t think any of us ever thought you were a monster even for a second,” Rikku said, trying to choose her words as carefully as she was able, trying to navigate what she assumed was a minefield but not quite sure why. “You were our leader. You were our mentor. We loved you. We lost you and we all missed you when you were gone.”

“Mentor? Hardly,” he snorted. “Shyster. Charlatan. Preaching against the very religion that allowed me to walk past death. Using a pack of innocent children to achieve my own ends at the likely cost of their lives.”

“That is…” Rikku mulled over the words for a moment, falling back from her uncomfortable squat onto her rump on the soft sand. “…the most depressing possible way to look at our pilgrimage ever.”

“It is the way of things,” he said distantly.

“No, it’s one way, not the way. You should know better than anyone that there are more sides to every story than just two.”

She missed the glance askance he sent her, appreciating her plain wisdom for what it was. She was too busy opening her CommSat and pressing the keys wildly. She wasn’t sure what to make of his morose view of the world. She never had been. Was it such a bad thing to want to shake things up with him a little? Maybe see this world with a little more color? She sent Brother their exact location coordinates knowing he would be approaching soon. She shut the device and stuffed it back into her bag before putting her hands on her hips and studying Auron once again. He was unwrapping a strip of the dried meat with almost ceremonial care, placing the wrapper beside him in the sand and securing it with a stone. His legs were crossed, his gi off the shoulders, and she watched his biceps flex minutely with the movements of his fingers. She couldn't recall him joining them for a meal, couldn't remember the smell of dirt and sweat coming off his gi like it had everyone else. He took a careful bite of his breakfast.

It struck her then, devastatingly, blindingly, madly, that it was the most amazing gift to ever be given that he was there in the sand right in front of her, hunting fiends and watching sunrises and eating that tough old meat and listening to her bad jokes and waiting for Brother’s airship in the middle of a desert with her of all people. Auron. Legendary Guardian Gruff Pants, who had been with her at the worst juncture of her young life, who had asked her if she was sure, who had forced her through the Thunder Plains with his dismissal, who had defended her against the Guado, who had sat with her outside the Farplane like a comforting, uncomfortable stone, who had been gone just as they were losing Tidus and so nobody could even mourn him like they should have.

She had thought of him over the years; he came to her in dreams sometimes, a flash of red coat, a hand tightening on the hilt of a massive black sword, a low voice giving her a choice. She hadn’t forgotten him, not entirely, and certainly not that last picture of him she had had after the defeat of Sin.

And that is what was clicking in her brain right now, something loosening from the wild hive of her mind and darting forward for her to hold in her mental hands.

Those same shoulders cloaked in red, sagging with relief as the pyreflies pulled themselves from him, deceptively soft colors as they tore him away from this plane and dragged him to the next. This is your world now. So tired, so unburdened, so thankful.

That was what she had been missing and why he could not look her in the eye for long.
He resented it, this second chance.
He didn’t want it.

She felt a flood of ridiculous tears gush over her eyelids and pour down her cheeks, heard Cid laughing at her in her head for wasting good water in the middle of a desert, and so she wiped it away with the bows clustered over her arms and hoped her mouth hadn’t fallen open while she stared at him. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that her eyes were overflowing with a torrent of tears.

“What is the matter, girl?” his voice held a faint trace of confusion.

He had noticed.

She shook her head, so many words tumbling from her throat and none of them allowed their turn. She was going to say something stupid, something idiotic and unforgivable and he was going to abandon her and go sulk in a cave or something until he died again. What good was a gift like this if it was given to somebody who hadn’t asked for it?

“I s-stubbed my t-toe,” she sobbed, wiping madly at her eyes.

Auron glanced slowly over her feet and the smooth, rockless sand surrounding the tiny blue boots. He placed his breakfast carefully beside him and stood, sliding his arms back into their sleeves. He moved to stand in front of her, at a loss as to what had set this hysteria off or what to do about it.

“You are not an accomplished liar,” he said, studying her wet, reddened face.

“Yea, well, we can’t all pull off the collars-up-to-our-nose look. My game face if more an open book,” she sniveled; there was no other word for it.

“You likely lose often,” he said mildly, attempting a bit of levity. She heard it in his voice, the change in tenor, and blinked up at him for a long moment before bursting into another round of tears, this one noisy.

He blinked, quietly horrified. What was this erratic thing weeping for? He could not fathom her sporadic emotional chocobo ride. One minute she’d been staring at him intently, the next she’d been bawling. Was she completely sane?

“You seem to have sprung a leak,” he tried again, somber still. She gawked at him through her tears, a bubble of laughter jumping forth from her throat.

“You’re so stupid,” she gasped, crying and laughing and dismayed and loving every second of it. “Don’t you even know? Don’t you even get how amazing all of this is?”

And he made to shake his head, to open his mouth to dismiss her, to correct her smoothly, but she surged forward and threw her arms around him beneath his own and squeezed him. She pressed her cheek against his breastplate and even though she didn’t say it he knew in a second that she was listening to his heartbeat and he understood that he had been found out. He could feel her fingers scrabbling at his back, could smell the salt and the soap in her hair.

“Foolish girl,” he murmured, aghast and rueful. After a moment his arms came up around her and came to rest tentatively on her shoulders. She was baring far too much skin to place them on her back. The sun tanned warmth of her soaked into his gloves.

“You don’t get to waste this one,” she sobbed, “third times the charm.”

And he tried to say that he had never wasted a moment, that he had used every second of both lives as hard and as strongly as he possibly could have. He tried to say that he served no purpose he could find in this unasked for new life and that that uncertainty placed him at an unsettling disadvantage unlike any he had ever faced before. But a roaring was soon filling their ears and she was pulling herself from him and running forward, waving wildly at the sky and wiping her face on her sleeve again and again and again as a huge, graceful airship swept down towards them.

He watched her back as she ran from him, swallowing once than turning around to retrieve his sword. He shouldered it upwards, snagged her bag as well and carried it loosely in his other hand as he began his slow trek across the rapidly heating dunes and the red ship wavering in the blossoming heat.

The only thing that marked their lonely passing was the scattered stones of their fire pit and the lone wind ravaged wrapper crackling beneath a pebble.
--

Chapter Text

He found himself alone in a communal sleeping area aboard the Celsius, sitting in a squat little chair tucked along the upper level beside a low table. The entire expanse to his left was clear, curved glass windows where he had an unblemished view of the sky. To the right of him was a railing that overlooked a bar area where an overly accommodating hypello cheerfully served food, drinks and assorted other things. The entire room had a Besaid feel to it, with its wicker and tribal designs. Tidus’s voice cheerfully bothered him in his mind. What’s got you so uptight, old man?

And his own sour reply. Everything.

Truthfully the ship was a relief and a respite. The air was cool, the food and drink plentiful, and if they hadn’t been hurtling above the endless seas at a rapid pace, he could have mistaken it for a tropical resort. But the girl had highlighted the sorest points of his own misery for him and then dashed off to tinker with the engine of this massive orange ship without another backwards glance. He had been left to make his own introductions to the captain; her strange, obnoxious brother who he recalled from when Cid had ferried them around Spira. It had not seemed appropriate to say ‘I knew your father before I died again,” when the young man was scowling at him so suspiciously and very obviously avoiding touching him.

“Oui yna dra krucd syh lusa ykyeh (You are the ghost man come again!)!” he spluttered. “I am the Captain! Shinra finally got this rust bucket off Besaid and now we fly all over Spira hunting treasure!”

“I see,” Auron said, shrugging Masamune higher up his shoulder.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment before Brother pointed to the long corridor where an elevator waited.

“Lypeh, (cabin)” he sighed, looking defeated when he hung his head and his arms dangled limply towards his toes.

With an unsure nod of thanks, Auron had proceeded down the long, neon lit corridor and selected the cabin button, finding himself beneath the curious gaze of a Hypello who nodded enthusiastically before gesturing towards the stairs at the back of the room.

And now he sat in silence, the thrum of the engines the only source of noise in the room as the Hypello had retreated to parts unknown. He kept his feet planted firmly on the floor, his dislike of airships leaking through his unflappable composure, and carefully leaned Masamune against the side of the chair. He tried to settle himself on the cushion, first leaning back than forward, bracing his arms on his knees. His spine was perfectly straight, his stance defensive even when he tried to breath and relax.
Finally he stood and moved to the windows, gazing at the rushing seas hurtling below. His stomach clenched. Had he always felt this way of flying? He couldn’t say that he had managed to get much of it in on his pilgrimage with Jecht and Braska. And he had felt little about anything as an Unsent. Regardless, he did not like it now.

Auron’s mouth thinned, and he ran a gloved hand through his spiky hair, aware of the sweat and grime decorating him as he stared at the clean oceans below. Braska should be here seeing his daughter leading this glittering life in the peace and heat of Besaid. It was the gift he had ensured for her with the cost of his own life. Jecht should be here to see the world his miraculous, pained, bright son had wrought for them all. Those who had sacrificed the most were not here to reap the rewards, so why was he? What had the Fayth brought him back to see? To do? Why was a homeless, tie less ronin brought back to wander this world whole while those far more deserving were nothing but cold memory?

He grimaced and pressed his gloved fingertip against the glass of the window, feeling the cold bleed through.

--

“I have a deadline, Rikku! I am an important man!” Brother yelled.

“You’re an important dope!” she screeched back, stomping her foot for good measure. “Dumping your little sister in the middle of nowhere without even a good nights sleep or a bath! I’m on a mission! I deserve a little respect!”

“Mission? What mission?” Brother snorted. “Gippal won’t even tell me what you’re up to. Bnupypmo hu kuut, oui yht dryd clyno tayt syh. (Probably no good, you and that scary dead man.) ”

“Ask Gippal if you want to know! He’s way too smart to tell a blabbermouth like you though! Oh, and that’s Sir Auron, not scary dead man you oaf! Have a bit of respect for a guy who hurled himself at death twice and still came up aces!”

“They say things about him, Rikku. The churches are stirring. They are saying he is Yevon reborn.”

Rikku’s mouth dropped open, incredulous and more than a bit horrified. “Auron? He isn’t anything but a reborn Auron, whatever that is. He isn’t a god. He’s like Tidus. Does Tidus seem divine to you?”

She thought specifically of the last time Brother visited Besaid and the blatant scowling-turned-eating-turned-drinking-turned-Blitzball-competition he’d tried to instigate with Tidus that the other man had been cheerfully oblivious to the entire night.

Brother shrugged, crossing his arms and looking away. “I do not like you travelling with him.”

“Well, too bad for you because I like it tons,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “I couldn’t be in better hands.”

“You stay out of his hands!” Brother squawked, turning red.

“Tu oui ajah ghuf fryd oui'na cyoehk?! (Do you even know what you're saying?!)” Rikku opened her mouth to say more, but the calm voice of Buddy came over the intercom and announced their arrival at Kilika.

Rikku closed her mouth and shook her head, glaring at her older brother who glared resolutely back.

“Not even time for a hot shower and some grub,” she sighed disgustedly.

“You said you were on a mission,” brother retorted. “Those don’t involve bubble bath and hot meals. Help yourself to the protein bars we’ve got and be ready to disembark in ten minutes. I have to get to Bevelle for a blitzball tournament.”

“That’s the last time I re-calibrate your navigation system for free,” Rikku muttered, and stomped her way to the elevator.

With a final hot glare at her sibling, she hit the button to close the lift doors and punched in the button for the cabin. She wondered, for the first time, where Auron had holed himself up.

So she’d kind of maybe ran away from him as soon as the airship arrived but could anyone blame her? She’d been bawling her eyes out, tossed herself into his arms (where he did not, she noted with interest, promptly toss her out) and then dashed off like a lunatic. She needed to regroup, rethink and strategize. What was she even trying to accomplish? Eyeing him up like a pervert, traipsing after his approval like a puppy and mooning lustily over his fusty, dusty self like she was fifteen again full of hormones and heartbroken over Gip-

Nope! It was time to show certain Legendary Guardians that she was a confident, independent girl who needed nothing but her own wits to get by!

The lift drew to a stop and opened, and she stepped onto the cool cabin floor. The bar was empty and with a cheery whistle she dove behind it and set about looting the food stores of a sizable portion of packaged foods, some tinned goods, and the last of the cool, creamy melon that Brother was a fan of. For good measure she shoved a couple icy beverages into her bag and two massive steaks. They’d eat like kings tonight!

“Is such largess sanctioned or is this a more covert operation?” his deep, smooth voice came from behind and above her, and Rikku turned to see him back-lit by the windows of the second floor. She squinted and turned back to her task, taking a huge bite of a red berry from a crate before closing her bag.

“We’re being dumped off here in Kilika like a pair of dirty old shoes,” she said resentfully after she chewed and swallowed. “You ready to go?”

“I am always ready,” Auron said softly, shouldering his sword and striding down the line of beds and rounding the stairs.

“Good to know,” Rikku said with a grin but her joke probably went over his head because he didn’t respond as he fell into step beside her.

“Apparently Brother has no time for us to hang around, maybe sleep on a bed that isn’t dirt because he’s got better things to do. I’m thinking Gippal might have told him not to let us cool our heels.”

They entered the elevator together and Rikku smacked the touchscreen. She was a little grimy, a little cranky, and she knew she smelled not good at all because Auron was standing there in the tiny enclosure also smelling not good at all. Fiend gathering was sweaty business and business was apparently booming. She should have given Brother an excessively snugly bear hug. Hopefully Auron hadn’t noticed when she’d grabbed onto him.

“That is wise. We must press on quickly in order to see this through,” he said.

The door opened and Rikku stepped down into the loading bay where Brother had kindly opened the service hatch door for them to clamber out of. Like trash. She made sure to turn around and gesture rudely to where she knew Brother was watching.

“We aren’t anywhere near the village,” Rikku huffed, lugging her bag onto her back. “So no chance of an Inn yet. Just a lot of dank forest, tropical heat and bugs. I hate bugs.”

Once they were safely enough away from the ship Rikku turned and waved and Brother, apparently having kept watch, quickly started the engine sequence and was away in a blur of red metal. Insultingly quickly.

“Easy come, easy go,” the girl sighed beside him, kicking her toe at the ground in the boundless silence the airship's parting had left. Around them the jungle resumed its cacophony of animal noises and insect buzzing.

--
They began to make their way into the dense, dark jungle thick with greenery and rife with birdsong. It seemed as though Auron just kept exchanging one kind of torturous climate with another because while Bikanel had been a fierce, dry, wind driven heat; this jungle was a wet, cloying one that had the sand powder still dusted onto his skin turning into a thin, caking mess as sweat began to prickle through his scalp and run down his forehead.

They pushed their way into the greenery, tall trees and low vines dangling in their path which Auron made quick work of with his sword. It became sticky with green juice and their progress was halted by several huge whiskered Queen Coeurl’s and olive green Assassin Bees, but none of the Fire Elementals they were hunting for yet. They reached a relative clearing surrounded by some of the tall, slender trees that seemed to pierce the canopy above them, and Rikku dropped her bag with relish.

“You hear that? This is a great place to set up camp while we gather up what we need. What do you think, Big Guy?”

Auron cocked his head slightly, listening. He could hear several monkeys screeching in the depths of the forest, the continuous cacophony of birds, the quiet rush of water, and the steady thrum of insects.

“What is it you hear?” he asked quietly, dismayed to find he was mildly out of breath.

Rikku chuckled slightly and began to clear their camp of stones and rotted logs so they’d have a place to stretch out when it came time to sleep. She said nothing to the large man, who, with a tired sigh, moved to help her until they had cleared a sizable niche.

“We managed to snag a few poison fangs off those bees,” Rikku sighed. “That’s bound to come in handy.”

Auron grunted in reply, trying to now scrape off a layer of green slime from his glove with a flat stone.

“Now that that’s done!” she said and sighed happily.

Auron did not turn around for a long moment, instead wadding together a bunch of leaves and grass in order to wipe some of the grime off Masamune’s edge. One did not leave their legendary spiritual weapon dull with filth.

When the silence lengthened suspiciously Auron looked behind him but saw no trace of the girl. He stood, frowning, but when she did not come bounding back into their camp his eye narrowed in suspicion. He listened hard once again to the woods and heard her cheerful whistle in the distance.

He caught up to her just as she was reaching the river, and he was gratified to see that though she continued to skip about like a fool she was alert to her surroundings to the point where she immediately noticed him behind her.

“Hey!” she called, arms akimbo, “No peekies!”

He was in little mood to joke. He caught up to her, his steady stride eating up the distance between them.

“You abandon camp without word for a beauty soak?” he asked, tone even and cold, but inwardly his temper simmered high. He was sweaty and exhausted, travelling at a breakneck pace with nothing but stones and dirt to sleep on at night and if he had to admit it, the girl's antics that morning had shaken his footing. He was annoyed. He did not enjoy the self examination her tears had forced upon him nor the bleakness they had brought to light.

“The camp is like, next door in that clearing! And you, Mister High and Mighty, would be there holding down the fort if you weren’t out here playing Mister Self Righteous with my ever so wonderful self, you know!”

She halted, crossing her arms and tilting up her pert little nose.

“Besides, I’m beautiful even without the soak!”

He did not bother scoffing, despite the travel dust, the sweat, and the grass stains decorating her skin. However, he had dealt with beautiful women before, and this impudent chit was a mere girl.

“Rikku,” he said slowly, as if explaining to a child, “you also wandered off alone into a fiend inhabited forest without telling me.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she cried, stepping towards him and waving her arms indignantly. “Just so you know, since you seem to constantly forget, I helped save the world not once, but twice! Count them up again ‘cause as I said before, that makes us even!”

Auron stepped back from her, irritated that she was in his personal space and acknowledging inside that perhaps she was right about her abilities and that a bath was not without merit. She took that as a win because she began to make her way down to the gently drifting Kilika stream, scrabbling – tottering precariously on the border of clumsy - over rocks and driftwood until she made it to the water's edge.

He watched as she surveyed the area for fiends and then inspected the bank for an appropriate bathing spot; something sheltered, shallow, within easy shore distance, and without much power in the current. She apparently found a location she was satisfied with because she plunked herself down and began tearing off her unnecessarily complicated sleeves, then wrenched out the bandanna in her hair with a wince. Her hair fell around her, sweat soaked and lank, the individual braids that had been looped beneath the bandanna falling sporadically through the mess, each finished off with a colored bead.

Auron’s russet eye narrowed behind his thin, darkened glasses as he grew more aware of his own dirt caked skin and itchy scalp. The sensation was old, unpleasant and unwelcome. He doubted he smelled good. He turned his eye back to the girl, begrudgingly admitting that perhaps he should follow her lead for the time being.

She was an oddity. He could take a dozen sphere shots of her and within each one she was graceful and confident, all naive sexuality and loose limbed poise… However, make a sphere of her in motion and one would immediately see that grace was much, much too kind a term to place upon her lanky limbed scuttling. She never stood still, had a curiosity that would gall a coeurl, and never, ever thought before acting.

As she was not doing now.

She reached behind her for the string of her bikini, and pulled.

Chapter Text

Rikku shimmied out of her clothing -all of it - the same way she did all things, rapidly. She stretched and uncoiled the length of her body to the evening sun and hurled herself un-glamorously into the water. Auron, resolving to be steadfastly unfazed, nonetheless wondered about the direction of her moral compass. He could not decide whether her fully undressing in front of a man many years her senior without a thought was brazen, naïve or insulting. He was not blind, after all, and she was well aware he was there and could see, judging from her previous reaction to sitting cross legged.

He had now taken note of her body with as much awareness as any hot blooded man would, albeit any outward signs hidden behind his high collar and long coat. Perhaps moreso, he thought with painful chagrin; he lived once again and the reactions he was ignoring now were almost uncomfortably strong and foreign. They heated through him. He shifted involuntarily and glanced away, very perturbed.

“So good!” she said, satisfied, and it made no sense to the flustered Auron how a desert bred whelp who could not possibly have but the barest of memories of their ocean address could be so at home in the water.

Then his eye was distracted as she threw herself backwards. He looked quickly away. He had seen his share of breast and buttock in his young life, and had not desired it as an Unsent, so the string of temptation trying to tug his gaze back to the girl’s alarmingly nubile, wet, sun streaked body was strange and not welcome in the least. He thought perhaps it was a good time to meditate on Al Bhed ways and make peace with this.

The Al Bhed were an open, honest tribe, obviously. She wore little enough in the day to day, he thought with annoyance. Living in a desert meant water was rationed and bathing was most likely a group affair, but he (gratefully) could not ever recall her undressing during the pilgrimage. Still, he stoically averted his eye, scanning the trees for threats instead. He was marginally annoyed to see not a one and knew he would have to face his demons or come back in the dim of night and risk leaving the girl alone in camp.

With a long sigh he approached the water’s edge, setting his gloves, glasses and sword aside and kneeling down to douse his hair in the water. It was cool but not overly chilly and he quickly scrubbed it over his neck and down his arms and beneath them until he felt modestly cleaner. Any other washing would be done far away from the girl before him. The impropriety involved in undressing before her had his face heating in a way he had not felt since his days as a young man. This trip was becoming far more trying than he had anticipated. And he had anticipated much.

Warrior monks had bathed in solitude under cold water, giving penance for impure thoughts in each hard scrape of the wash stones against their bare flesh. He was taught that every inch of exposed skin aside from what was needed to see his foe or use his weapon was a sin, a distraction. They didn’t splash and frolic in the stream like children, ducking their head beneath only to come up blowing plumes of water into the air.

“Blech!” she muttered at the taste, tossing herself forward and diving under again.

Auron returned to his seat. He had spent one lifetime of piety and harsh upbringings with little enough to do with women. He had spent another half-life devoid of desire for all but change and rebellion. Where did that leave him in this third life? Auron leaned backwards, adjusting the knobs of his spine against the hard scratch of tree bark and settling his sword more comfortably against his leg. Trickles of water slid down his neck and dampened his collar. So many sensations he had forgotten about. Death had been relatively uncomplicated compared to all of this... living.

He turned his steady gaze back to her as if inspecting the girl for secrets. Rikku was now cheerfully scrubbing her hands over her arms and shoulders, tanned skin reddened by cold and her ministrations. Unwillingly, he felt desire pulling at his veins. He felt almost inflamed but was confident that outwardly he showed no signs. What an unnecessary annoyance.

Droplets of water were streaming down her bare shoulders and her long hair, loose and wet and golden, was hanging about her face in damp tendrils. It made her look appallingly young at twenty-one, and he glanced away with an impatient huff, disgusted with them both.

“Hurry,” he ordered curtly.

She planted her hands on her hips, back to him, and said over her shoulder, “Don’t rush this! I’ve got needs, Auron! I love water!”

“Your people would have benefited greatly from such technology had you not missed your chance to acquire it by bathing in such excess that all your time was wasted,” he rebuked, playing on her softened heart strings tangled as they were about the Al Bhed. He stood to leave.

Her lower lip jutted out and she sank gracelessly into the water, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned to face him so the full force of her adorable pout would be forced upon him.

“How much good is a stinky thief?” she sniffed. “Everyone would smell me coming.”

“Better a stinking thief than a thief left behind,” he warned, staring hard at her.

Rikku seemed to think, chewing on her lip before throwing out her arms in an awkward gesture of surrender below the water.

“Turn around then,” she sighed.

She clambered towards the shore, snatching her discarded bikini and the skirt and dunking them into the water to give them a hasty scrub. Auron turned politely away as she lifted herself from the river, pulled her clothing over her wet body, beads clinking, boots squelching. He turned back as she was dragging her bows back up her arms, and his gaze followed its path over smooth skin. She clipped the small pouch back at her hip and was done.

“Come, we leave,” he rasped.

“Fine, I go!” she muttered, purposely jostling into him as she passed and dampening his arm. With skill clearly born of routine, she swept her wet hair back up into its high, thick tail and looped the braids around it before wrapping her bandanna over the whole affair.

A few steps ahead, she turned and threw him a dirty look and Auron raised a brow, temper thinning further. He shouldered his sword and continued at his slow, even pace though she bounced and skipped around like a petulant monkey on a sugar high.

“You know,” she called back, “I don’t really think you’d leave me behind, even aside from the fact that this is pretty much my mission…”

“No?” he replied disinterestedly.

“A defenseless girl alone in the wilderness? I don’t think you have it in you.”

“I have nothing within me,” he said quietly, voice husky and low. Then, when the silence became slightly awkward at that bared honesty, “and as you said, you are anything but defenseless having saved Spira twice before you were even eighteen.”

Rikku halted in front of him, folding her arms behind her back and leaning forward. She peered up at him, head cocked and eyes bright.

“I can behave you know, I just, you know... don't. I can be as meek and sweet as honey with milk and sugar as Yunie.”

“The day you humble yourself so is the day you renounce machina and go resurrect the church of Yevon,” he said flatly.

She made a face and Auron scoffed. “I thought not.”

Rikku eyed him for a long moment and he brushed past her, uneasy with her sudden interest in his face. She quickly scurried up to him and ahead, ever the scout though he had no idea how she spotted much moving as erratically as she did, and she swung around in a flurry of arms and legs and blonde, looking like a marionette without strings.

They had just established a casual silence when an ominous buzzing drew their eyes upwards to where a Death Dauber was hovering quietly up the path.

“Rikku,” he cautioned, but she was alert and already had her daggers drawn.

"We aren’t so good with fly boys, boss,” she warned needlessly as Auron un-shouldered his sword and took up a stance in front and to the left of the girl. "And I left my guns in my other bikini along with my dress spheres. Long story involving losing my garment grid in a stream and a fishing rod and about ten years of apologies to Shinra."

“Do you have the necessary tools though?” he asked quietly.

“An Al Bhed always comes prepared!” she crowed. “Except when she doesn't. Then she improvises!”

“Go then,” he ordered.

Rikku rifled through the pouch she kept at her side, assembling and palming a few grenades with dazzling speed and hurling them, one by one at the monstrous orange bee. It only struck once, rendering Auron asleep for what seemed like one horrible, silent moment after he moved to defend the girl, before the magic faded and he began to move once more. Rikku tossed a final grenade and the thing burst apart in a glitter of pyreflies.

“We’re pretty slick,” she commented, apparently satisfied though Auron was angered by his own defeat. His heavy frame and enormous swords were not quick enough for flying fiends and such trickery infuriated him. He did not know how long he had been asleep for and he hoped that she would make no mention of it either. They needed to do better. To compensate for their lack of strength against flying foes.

“Our camp is waiting,” was all he could say, tired and angry. "And you should always inform your party of your intentions."

“Some party. I don’t see any cake,” she muttered.

They continued through the forest, listening to the silence for signs of other fiends in the fading twilight. They had taken too long and dinner would likely be awhile, but they had their needs and hygiene had much virtue even if she didn’t. It wasn’t as if she complained about much else. He glanced at her where she was skipping forward, a tad more sedately, deep in thought.

“Rikku, stay alert,” he warned.

She sighed, rolling her eyes and jamming her hand onto her hip in order to give him a more completely annoyed look.

“Auron,” he took note that she never seriously called him sir, “I’m perfectly fine! I’ve been looking after myself for ever and always! I can wander a forest without getting bruised and broken by some buggies!”

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged tiredly, “but you’re also a young woman. You are not ready to take on the entire world alone yet.”

He realized with a flicker of panic that his voice was fond as he spoke. Rikku seemed to notice to because she cheered up, sidling close to him and bumping his arm with her shoulder.

“So,” she settled into step beside him, unnervingly close. “You see those big steaks in my pack? I wedged an ice pack in there to keep them cool.”

“No. I had to finish making camp while you wandered off like a fool until I followed.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were a peeper,” she teased.

“A protector,” he corrected, mouth tightening.

She laughed, and the sound was like carnival music he’d never heard and sugar he’d never tasted and all the balmy summer evenings he could never remember before he had become an Unsent. Something inside of his chest loosened. He tightened his grip on his sword.

“Why’d you become a monk the first time round?” she asked suddenly.

“The past is dead and buried. Leave it to rest,” he said curtly.

She seemed to think that was a very funny comment because she guffawed, slapping her knee with laughter before glancing at him.

He found no comfort in the sly look she sent his way. Her little nose was twitching as she tamped down a grin. She took one of the braids near her face, her quick fingers artfully pulling the three sections apart and then setting about redoing it.

“Don’t think I lived deep enough in the desert not to hear all about your fall from Bevelle’s social elite,” she grinned.

“Enough,” he frowned. Why had he agreed to protect this rude, ungrateful little thing who asked such insipid questions?

As a warrior monk he had never had to deal with such feminine inclinations until the Maester’s daughter. He had appreciated beauty and it had occasionally turned his head as a young man; the arch of a neck, the smooth tendrils of hair artfully arranged, the turn of an ankle and dip of a waist, but he had never found a woman that interested him enough to steer him from the path of the righteous. Then, of course, Lord Braska had changed his path entirely and there had been little time for such distractions. And as an Unsent he had distantly recognized beauty, had seen the woman that sought to catch his eye and those that did not. He had even been distantly aware of the beauty of the women he shared his party with, but as Unsent he had never cared.

He glanced now to Rikku, with her insatiable need for attention and her strawberry blonde hair, her endlessly bared skin and flashy grins. He wanted to know why she was asking such things, but looking at her, her face pale lavender in the fading twilight and an impish smile curling her lips, he already knew. But as a monk he had led a life that was devoid of sex and desire. He was taught that such things should be swallowed back, choked down, and locked away in the darkest pits of the soul for only Yevon to see and forgive. Such sins could only unsheathe their claws within you and weaken your resolve. He had been raised this way and even though he had fought against an entire faith, he could not change who he was within.

Even after being blacklisted by the church, abandoned by the faith he had trusted and ripped away from the mortal coil, he clung to such beliefs. They were the foundation stones of who he was, the building blocks of Auron. He was not versed in the art of sex or seduction. He was an even, stolid man, there was no escaping that. He was not used to being tempted and most certainly not by a foolish woman-child. He had withstood the lures of women far more beautiful than this one.

“There it is!” she squealed, pointing to where the warm glow of the last remaining sunlight could be seen spilling through the trees over their belongings.

But Auron was having a difficult time remembering any of those fabled women.

Catching himself drifting off into persuasive, dangerous thoughts, Auron steeled himself and focused. There was nothing to be had by thinking these things. He was damaged goods, and too heavy a burden to place on such a girl.

“Come on!” Rikku laughed, running forward, and Auron turned his eyes steadily ahead.

No good could come of such things.

Chapter Text

The next morning was much the same as it had been in the desert. They awoke, Auron much earlier than the girl as the timing of their watches had fallen that way, and he tended to the camp fire, the rations, and surveyed the trees while mentally preparing for the day. When Rikku awoke she rolled herself theatrically out of bed and huddled close to the fire while whining about just about everything possible. The chill, the damp, the forest, the chilled, damp stench of the forest... Before she scrabbled up, clicked her dress sphere into the appropriate outfit and took an inventory of their supplies. She was zealous when it came to counting their bomb materials. After slogging their way through the steamy jungle of Kilika for two days, they had found enough of the Fire elementals and harvested their bomb fragments to get somewhere. They would make for the village this morning as soon as they broke camp.

Rikku was frantically typing into the Commsat she always had on her, something Auron did not approve of. How could one be aware of the world around them when their nose was stuck deep in a screen?

“Who do you communicate with so arduously?” he finally asked, watching her with brow raised.

“Hm?” Rikku asked, pulling her eyes away. She swiped her braids from her face.

Auron frowned and looked at the device significantly.

“Oh! Lots of people but mainly Shinra! He is sort of like, this tiny king of technology. Like, he knows everything and anything there is to know about this stuff. He's kind of changing the face of the world. Makes me feel old since he's doing all this amazing stuff though he's just a boy. I bet Gippal has him in on this too even though he hasn't mentioned it to me on here. Hush hush and all that.”

“Does your communication further our mission?”

Rikku pulled a face. “Not everything has to be about the mission, but kind of maybe no, yes?”

She stood up and grabbed the last of her gear, slinging her bag onto her back. Auron stood slowly, glancing around to make sure they were finally ready to leave. He would have to speak to the girl about wasting time. Again.

“See,” she began as they pushed their way into the jungle. Already it had begun to thin out as more well trod paths began to appear through the trees. The village couldn't be more than an hours push but Rikku hadn't wanted to shell out the gil for a room. She was surprisingly tight fisted. “I was thinking about my sphere grid, and I wanted to speak to him about the possibility of setting you up with something along the same lines. Maybe a little less glittery and with less posing, but imagine the possibilities! You could become like, the army knife of heavy fighters! I don't see you utilizing the Lady Luck garments or some of the sexier ones though you would look fabulous belting out a tune in a songstress dress sphere... Do monks belt tunes? Bevellian war chants maybe.”

Auron stayed steadfastly silent.

“But think of the actual capabilities! You could learn dragoon spells, become faster like Tidus! Imagine your heavy strength behind a ranged attack. You'd be unstoppable!”

He liked to think he was already somewhat unstoppable and told himself his pride was certainly not pricked.

“The idea is not without merit, Rikku,” he allowed, ducking below a low vine and breaking onto a clearer path. He reached back and helped her over a large root. “But I am confident in my own abilities. I do not need to diversify. That is the hope, at least.”

“The hope?” she asked curiously, happy to be on an actual footpath.

“That my skills are not needed at all, let alone needing to be strengthened and diversified. A world at peace has no use for a warrior such as myself.”

“You'll always be needed,” she shrugged, as if her words were nothing but a base truth. “Spira doesn't have Yevon and Sin to contend with but it's far from a perfect Utopian society. I mean, have you seen our hairstyles? There are some seriously questionable and aggressive life choices on display here.”

He assiduously avoided looking at the heap of braids cascading around her head. Instead he concentrated on the path, thankful he did not have to bend and twist through the steaming vegetation any longer. His back was aching, he realized with dismay. He had aged. He was aging. The thought did not please him, he realized with a pang.

“Kilika has changed since you were last here,” Rikku said, unaware of his unease. “It's bigger. What with not fearing total destruction every ten years or so. There is an actual point in rebuilding your sandcastles when the bully isn't coming by to stomp on it every time you get it done.”

“Good,” he whispered, pleased by tangible change that he had wrought upon the world with his rebellion. He welcomed the sight, always.

But when they approached the village, still a tropical wooden paradise built upon the shores, his good mood quickly evaporated.

The villagers rapidly realized who he was and the ridiculous reverence that he had been avoiding was not mitigated by travelling with an Al Bhed at all. If anything they seemed even more shocked and awed. It took him a moment to realize that he was not the only notable public figure. But of course. Rikku had saved the world from Sin and Vegnagun, was the next leader of the Al Bhed and was a legend in her own right. It had been arrogant of him to dismiss her accomplishments in favor of his own; the thought shamed him. Rikku was apparently just as notorious as he was in these times, and a (misconstrued) symbol of the Fayth travelling with a symbol of Al Bhed leadership might have ramifications he had not considered.

There was little he could do about it now and so he kept his head high and began to make his way through the milling throng, instead concentrating on the newly built houses and thriving businesses with the little thief beside him. She waved edgily to the people.

“They... are they bowing to you Auron?” she asked in a loud whisper.

“Unfortunately,” he grunted.

“But why?” she asked, halting and staring hard behind her at the villagers of Kilika. They were gazing at Auron with wide open eyes. Some were praying! Auron was big and broad and all, but he wasn't a church!

“They're praying!” she gasped.

“Ignore it. Move along,” he bit out.

“Do they.... do they think you're some sort of holy relic?!” Rikku muttered, growing increasingly uncomfortable. They had done away with all that! They had revolutionized the whole world to get rid of all that dusty, fusty biblical reverence and racism and stuff. And here these people were looking at Auron like he was a literal godsent.
How to fix that?

“You feel like doing something heretical?” she asked, grinning broadly.

“No,” Auron sighed. “It would be counter-productive for the future leader of the Al Bhed to further fan the flames of a deeply ingrained religious distrust the populace is only now putting aside.”

“Well when you say it like that,” she sighed. “So what do we do about them?”

Them was of course the stunned, wildfire whispering populace of Kilika, all of whom were vying for Auron’s attention without trying to be outward about it. Some were praying slightly, others were clasping a hand to their chest and bowing over it towards Auron. One lady strew a handful of petals in his wake. Rikku looked at her agog.

“Ignore them. There is little else for it,” he said tightly, nudging Masamune more comfortably up his shoulder.

“You need to nip this in the bud,” Rikku insisted. “This isn’t just going to go away because you refuse to look at it.”

“Much like you,” he muttered, and Rikku couldn’t resist laughing and patting a hand on his shoulder.

“Much like me. Like I said, something heretical. Grab my bum or something. Nobody wants a lecher for a god.”

Auron shot her a sharp look, and she was quite certain his cheeks were reddening.

“I will not,” he said.

“I could grab yours? I bet its kind of hard to get a hold of through that red coat but I’ve snuck through heavier security in my sleep. The people will be less zealous if they know your bum is grabbable. You never heard of anyone talking about Yevon’s perfect tush, right? Or maybe you did. I never studied up much on that whole religion thing and you were a monk so you probably know all about Yevon’s butt.”

He walked faster and laughing, Rikku followed.

“Cease such tomfoolery, girl,” he rasped coldly and she shrugged.

“You act like such an old man,” she snorted.

“I am an old man,” Auron muttered, trying to keep his voice from reaching the sea of parting people before them. “As old as your uncle Braska would have been if he lived. Or Jecht.”

“But Jecht seems like a guy I could have partied with,” Rikku nodded thoughtfully, skirting past a reverently bowing woman and skipping backwards for a moment.

Auron lifted a brow behind his sunglasses, shouldering his sword higher up, leery of grasping hands. He eyed her up and down for a moment as objectively as possible.

“I am sure he would have welcomed the idea,” he frowned, discomfited at the thought. It wasn't as though Jecht had been particularly discreet or choosy when it came to flirting with the fairer sex... But as girlish and flighty and tanned and blonde as this one was, he had no doubt that Jecht would have been all over the idea like honey on a comb.

And he did not like to think of his tattooed, foul mouthed friend getting his heavy hands on this Al Bhed girl because.... Because he did not like to think of it.

“Let's get to the boat straight away,” he frowned even harder.

“It's a ferry now. Get with the times old man!” Rikku said, and without warning she reached up, up, up and swished her hands through his hair, knocking his sunglasses askew and spiking it wildly faster than he could react. “And maybe get a haircut!”

She stood on tip toes, yanked him down and whispered “Much less holy,” cheekily into his ear, slapping him firmly in the shoulder before darting through the crowd. He told himself her mouth that close to his ear had not affected him at all, that his shiver had been due to the cool breeze.

The people still watching them hung back a little, looking confused.

Auron adjusted his glasses back until they settled upon his nose, but, as he followed sedately behind the girl, he notably left his hair an undignified, spiking mess.

--

“This is for me,” Rikku sang, handing the ticket taker the proper fare, “and this is for the completely normal every day man in the big red coat who is totally not a walking religious symbol.”

His scowl deepened and he nodded curtly to the wide eyed man ushering them aboard.

He followed Rikku towards the front of the vessel, settling against the wall in his customary lean while she splayed haphazardly over the side and peered down at the water. She seemed deeply fascinated by something in the depths and he was desirous of silence so he left her to it. After about ten minutes the engines thrummed to life beneath them and the ferry began to nudge its way through the water. No other passengers came to disturb them and Auron assumed that they were probably staying away out of respect. For a while the silence was glorious, but it was not to last.

“How can we make you less recognizable?” Rikku asked, eyes narrowed as she heaved herself off the edge of the railing and looked him up and down. “Everyone knows that big sword, that red coat, the jug, the sunglasses. You gotta have a makeover!”

“No,” Auron said as the girl swayed closer, arms crossed above and behind her head. “It would not matter in the long run. I could shave my head and paint my face green and it would merely become another trend to follow. If anything it would come dangerously close to the beginnings of a cult mentality. Believers see such things as instructional rather than a deterrent.”

“I could see you rocking the green face,” she hummed, “but keep the hair. It's nice.”

And she reached up once again and smoothed her slender fingers over the silver threads at his temple, carded them through until she almost cupped the back of his head. Startled by such intimacy he froze, blinked his one good eye. She was very close to his face. He could see the swirls in her eyes, the smoothness of her cheeks. Her hand rested warm and soft against his skull for a long moment where neither of them quite knew what to do. He looked sharply away and her hand fell.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly as her cheeks flared with color. “It is pretty nice though.”

“Yes,” he blurted. Yes? Had he lost his common sense as well as his undeath? What idiocy! No tact or diplomacy at all. He should have demanded she remove her hands. He should have forcibly removed them for her, but he could feel the slight tremor in his fingers at the thought of touching her skin. “It is indeed due for a trim though.”

Auron felt his own cheeks heat. Was he truly discussing haircuts with a handsy Al Bhed princess on a ship sailing for Luca in what was his third run at life? What madness was coming over him?

“Maybe we'll find you a place in Luca,” Rikku sighed, settling back in her seat and crossing her ankles. “Unless the mobs start singing hymns at you or fall over in religious ecstasy or whatever leftover Yevonites do when they see something that thrills them.”

“I could get a hood.” Auron said, “or a new cowl. Something that covers my face.”

“With our luck you'd pick something with a giant red feather and gold braid and start a fad I just don't think the world is ready for,” she snorted.

“I... You clearly do not know my taste at all,” Auron frowned.

Rikku sniffed. “Says the guy dripping with beads and gold fretwork.”

“These are Bevellian warrior beads, hung for each tier of the skills I mastered as a warrior monk,” Auron said curtly, eye narrowing at the girl.

“And this is the sacred Sanubian string bikini, given to me in a rite of passage ceremony after I mastered the art of hard-wiring an XR-75 in under ten seconds! Extremely important to my people! My point is that you wear stuff that isn't the most... Understated.”

“You expect me to believe the Al Bhed dole out string bikinis to those who master mechanics and electrical work?” Auron scoffed.

“Brother has one too! He only wears it on special holidays. I can get him to send you a picture right now if you want!”

Exasperated and his embarrassment fleeing as irritation took its place, Auron slipped his arm into his Gi and stretched his legs out, deciding that he needed a moment of quiet contemplation before he Banishing Bladed this girl.

“Silence, Rikku,” he muttered. “I must meditate.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she snorted. “Contemplate that imagery. I'm going to go find us something to eat on this barnacle heap!”

She left, and he sighed in exasperated relief.
--

Chapter Text

The white stone of Luca beneath his feet was one of the only echoes of memory he had once he set foot in the city again. The changes to the trading hub were vast and impressive. Rikku had explained to him that three men, including Gippal and Baralai whom Tidus had mentioned, had relocated most government business from Bevelle to Luca. It was a sound tactical move, solidifying the division of power from the church and cementing a new stronghold away from the ruins of the old. It was a move he would have suggested had he been alive at the time. The city had grown even larger and new buildings had risen up everywhere. The girl seemed familiar with the new winding labyrinth of streets and he followed her quickly darting footpath towards what she insisted was the only inn worth spending their gil on.

The great white stone buildings were rising higher than he remembered, the city sprouting upwards in strong, clear lines. He paused for a moment in quiet appreciation of such solid growth spearing towards the blue sky before Rikku urged him on once more.

He had told her that Gippal would not want them to rest for long but she had given him a look of such frustration that he had fallen silent and raised a brow in anticipation of her tirade.

“Gippal isn't here. Gippal isn't low on food and water and needing to resupply because only one of us bothered to bring the things we needed. Gippal's feet aren't blistered and sore and Gippal isn't wandering through the new capital of our world with enough explosive supplies in his backpack to be considered an outright terrorist with no evidence explaining our actual destination so forgive me if I gotta insist on stopping for a night to regain a teensy bit of sanity along with a more solid plan than get more stuff then blow it up!” She finished in a furious whisper, aware of the people flowing passed them.

“I...” Auron had blinked, chagrined. “Yes. I see now that I was thoughtless when we left Bikanel, and did not consider the finer details of this plan. I have not traveled as.... not Unsent, in some time, and when I did Lulu tended to handle the supply runs. I apologize.”

Rikku's ire had burned off quickly and she had tilted her head to the side, smiling at him fondly. “I know Big Guy. I'm sorry for snapping. We'll make sure we get everything we need this time and get you a backpack as well so we don't have to resupply as often. We'll make a living man out of you yet!”

Auron shook his head, sighing, and gestured for her to continue ahead of him once more.


-

Rikku had never been overly fond of Luca. It wasn't that it wasn't a great city, what with all the Blitzball stuff and the stadium and the new giant Al Bhed run arcade that Cid had installed in the recreational sector, but it was so crowded and closed in she always felt like a sardine in a can! There was nowhere to spread her arms and twirl without smacking like ten people in the face! She knew, she'd tried! She had to keep urging Auron to keep up, glancing back at him now and again while he stood gazing quietly upwards. No doubt admiring the architecture or something because he was just that old.

They had avoided much notice thus far, though a few sharp eyed citizens had noticed the red coat and giant sword and put a very obvious two and two together. Rikku was leery of another prayer meeting taking place on the streets and wanted to get the big guy under cover as soon as possible, but if he didn't pick up that slow, even pace of a steadfast ronin, she was going to have to get behind him and start pushing!

“Much has changed,” he said, so softly she nearly missed it within the noise of the crowd.

She glanced at him as covertly as possible, suddenly feeling like a grade A jerk. He might be in culture shock or something seeing how much the world had grown and changed and moved on without him. It maybe must kind of smart to see that they were getting on just fine despite him being gone when the entire world had depended on him pretty hard for awhile.

“Yeah, I guess it has,” she said with an uncomfortable little cough. What could she say that would make him understand that even if Spira had changed because of him, that the world was a thousand times better because of his dedication and sacrifice... It would have been even greater had he been there to share in it with them? “The arcade even has Chocobo Dance Party Ultra Star!”

Close enough.

He looked at her askance, confused by the gibberish she was spouting, and Rikku's cheeks flared with heat. She tugged on his elbow and urged him to follow her with a sharp left turn down a quiet alley.

“The inn is up ahead. It's off the beaten path, quiet. And it belongs to Rin so that means it will be run by somebody who has probably been given the head's up that we might be stopping in, and to, you know, not light the alter for you and tell the masses of Luca to gather up their prayer books.”

Auron sighed tiredly.

The alley opened up to a enclosed square of buildings tented with colorful overhangs of bright blue and orange fabrics. Al Bhed woven if he had any sort of eye for such things. Baskets and barrels were neatly stacked beside the entryways to several small establishments of unknown purpose, and Rikku hurried towards a wide double door entry. She pushed it open with a gusty sigh and put her hands on her hips.

“Your fearless future leader has arrived!” she crowed, posing.

The young man behind the counter bowed politely.

“Rikku, less theatrics please,” Auron said quietly. “It has been a long day.”

She threw him a cheeky look over her shoulder and dumped her bag onto the counter. “Rin tell you I might be swinging by?” she asked the boy.

He was blonde and green eyed like all Al Bhed and his cheeks were turning what looked to be a painful shade of red. He seemed to be having a difficult time keeping his eyes off of both Auron's sword and Rikku's, well, Rikku. Impertinent, he thought with a twinge of annoyance.

“We need a room!” Rikku said, “with a tub!”

“Just.... one?” the boy asked uncertainly, glancing between them.

Rikku shrugged and leaned into his line of sight, effectively blocking the warrior from the innkeepers eyes.

“Don't tell me you're worried for his virtue! I'll have you know we've been on the road for quite a few nights now and I have been a perfect gentleman! Yes, one room, with two beds! I'm not handing Rin double the gil when he ought to be giving me the room for free anyway since I am his princess!”

Behind her Auron lifted his eyes tiredly to the ceiling and tried to recite the Bevellian prayer for inner calm.

A key was placed quickly into Rikku's hand and she shoved some gil across the counter with a cheeky wave in the boy's direction before heading up the stairs. Auron followed slowly behind.

The stairs wound up in a spiral before opening onto what seemed to be the third floor. Auron could only assume the floor below housed the kitchens and storage. This floor had four doors branching off of it, and Rikku slid the key into the one straight ahead of them. She tossed open the door and immediately they were greeted with openness and light. It was a large room, the balcony huge and open to the sea. Blue sky seemed to pour inwards and the wind blowing off the sea was crisp and warm as it gently stirred the white curtains. There were two single beds covered in white and blue bedspreads with invitingly plump pillows, uncomfortably close together Auron noted. That would need to be attended to. A small offshoot to the room housed a deep stone tub decorated with seashells and carvings as well as other proper washroom facilities. All in all it was a complete luxury he was not accustomed to. He quickly surveyed it for any threats apparent or hidden, noting that the balcony was a vulnerable point of entry but little else put them at risk.

“Finally,” Rikku said, tossing down her bag and kicking off her shoes. Her tiny feet were reddened and sore looking as she padded out to the balcony and threw herself at the rail with boneless abandon. She seemed to delight in making his heart seize in his throat whenever she was near high altitudes.

“Take a moment, then we must make a plan,” Auron said.

He carefully placed Masamune within easy reach near a deep blue chair and shrugged off his gi, placing it atop the very same. He sat down upon the chair in his black shirt, removing the cowl and dropping it and his sunglasses to the floor. Planting his boots on the floor he reached up and rubbed the sore muscles of his neck, cracking it for a touch of relief. He sighed, opening his eye to see the dark swirling stone of the floor and the set of tiny toes before him. He lifted his gaze up the length of her leg, over her hips, her bare abdomen and all the way up to meet her green eyes. She was staring down at him, a thoughtful look in her eyes and her hand outstretched as though to touch him. The tip of her upturned nose wriggled as though she were tamping down a smile. He searched her face, gazing back up at her seriously as the moment between them lengthened, tightened, spread like a string tensed to break. Her hand fell momentarily to his shoulder, catching up the threaded tail of hair he still kept. She ran her fingers over it and though he was utterly taken aback by such intimacy, he merely watched her. His breath caught in his throat and he forced himself to exhale evenly, ever in control.

“We do this too,” she said quietly. “The Al Bhed. Grow our hair, beads and feathers for everyone we've lost.”

His mouth dried, remembering Braska's quiet smile just then, so similar to his niece in this moment, and Jecht's barking laughter. He swallowed, voice husky.

“It did not start out that way.”

“Can't say many things start how we plan them to, Boss,” she said with a touch of a giggle. “Even fewer end that way.”

Her hand fell away, his hair falling against his neck soft and cool like a caress. She stepped back, bubbling with energy once again and he allowed the moment to pass over him, accepting its strangeness, its sense of the unknown and of change. It felt as though his stomach was knotted with tension. She did a wriggling little skip towards her backpack and tossed herself bodily to the ground, dumping out the contents of their bag with alarming haste considering it apparently housed all the ingredients she would need to create a bomb and level a building or ten. He was no alchemist but common sense urged him to consider the contents potentially volatile.

“Yes, yes!” she said, running her hands over the bomb cores and crystals and teeth and other magical detritus they had gathered. As he watched her he felt the flow of her power gathering and twisting over the pieces, the way she shaped it with seemingly effortless haste. Her hands were quick and fluid, connecting things, shaking things, breaking others apart too quickly for him to follow. She truly was a masterful alchemist, shaping things anew with an incredible second nature ability and magical potency he had never before witnessed. How powerful would she become as the years went by considering the amount of power she already displayed? She would be a leader to be reckoned with when she ruled the Al Bhed.

“There we go!” she said, leaning back in her cross legged position with a satisfied grin. “I've banged a few things off the list. There are quite a few things we need for the ah, shall we say, controlled blasting, but we are off to a good start.”

“What do you need? Is there anything you can buy from the Luca vendors?” he asked.

“Not unless Rin has bankrolled us with unlimited funding,” she snorted. “But with you and me on it? We'll be able to gather some of the tough stuff.”

“And what is the tough stuff, Rikku?”

“Oh you know, arctic winds and such. Definitely some shining gems.”

She was being suspiciously vague. Auron glanced out at the beautiful blue ocean he could see from his seat, regretting much he would not say aloud. Of course they required objects only the most dangerous creatures of Spira could offer in order to selectively blow up parts of an ancient magical labyrinth that would no doubt be considered gross historical defilement and possibly lead to arrest. Why would it be any other way? Had there ever been a mission that had been as simple and straightforward as going in, getting it done, getting out? Not in his experience.

Protect the girl. That was what he did.

“Hey Big Guy,” she said softly, much closer than she had been a moment before. Startled, Auron looked back towards her to where she now knelt before him, leaning forward on one arm with her hand splayed out right beside his boot. His foot twitched with the urge to move away, wary of crushing her hand. He stayed perfectly still, unsure of her apparent new need to get into his personal space. Even less sure of how he felt about it.

“What is it?” he murmured, and did he imagine that he saw her shiver? No, he could see the ripple of goose-flesh over her arms. His pulse jumped.

“You don't have to keep going with me if you don't want to,” she said earnestly, blindsiding him with sudden and uncomfortable truths. “You've done so much already, for me and for you know, Spira. You don't owe us any more of your self. I know Gippal brought you in on this but I can tell him I fired you for being too cranky or starting too many prayer meetings on the road or something.”

She leaned even closer, forcing him to meet her gaze. He did, the swirls in her eyes holding him. “I know, Auron. I know you don't want this... being here. But you are and I'm happy. We all are. You deserve so much more than life handed you, so you gotta take it this time!”

“Rikku, I....”

Want to keep going. Want to rest. I don't know any other way than a sword. I am tired of what Spira has to offer, but often in this short time with you I feel as though I am...waking.

He fell silent for a moment as he struggled within, looked away out the balcony doors to where the blue of the sea erased the green of her open eyes because he did not know what to say to her. The wise words that usually came so easily to him were absent. He was crippled by his own strength in matters such as this. He could not recall the last time he had seen his life as having choices. He could not remember a time when he had been given one.

“...will continue,” he said finally.

When he looked back to meet her eyes, she smiled slightly, nodding. She flicked the end of his ponytail with a thin finger. “I figured.”

She scrabbled to her feet and swayed towards the bathroom. “I call dibs on that tub, Big Red! Why don't you go shake down that guy downstairs for some dinner?”

He watched her go silently, a prick of shame sharpening in his gut along with the many other things he did not wish to acknowledge.

He had disappointed the girl.

Chapter Text

Rikku wasn't sure what kept coming over her. The apparently insane urge to put her hands all over Auron as though Auron was someone who allowed people to put their hands all over him.

She lay back in the tub, bubbles up to her neck, and dipped even lower until her mouth was below the water. She blew a stream of bubbles, blushing red. But was he ever worth getting her hands on! Hard and muscled and huge and... She opened her mouth underwater to let out a frustrated scream and nearly choked as she came up gasping. She grabbed a flowery labelled bottle from the side of the tub. Rapidly she ran her shampoo laden hands through her loosened hair, free of the weight of it all tied up and beads and braids. She felt vulnerable with it down so seldom was she without the bandanna and heaviness of it on her head. A girl had to wash though, and shampoo was a seldom afforded luxury on the road!

She wasn't sure if he was back yet. She hadn't heard the door reopen after she had sent him on Operation:Dinner, which was probably a good thing. She needed to think without him looming everywhere distracting her with his tired, sagely words and half smiles and those muscled arms and that voice... What had come over her in Kilika? Tossing off her clothes on an impulse just to see if he reacted!

Which he didn't. At all.

Her ego had definitely taken a huge punch with that little stunt, though she really shouldn't have been surprised. Auron was as stitched up and dry as a bag of sawdust... Although... She had thought she had caught the edge of something in his eye when she had been staring down at him holding that surprisingly silky tail of hair. A flicker of heat that she wasn't sure she was prepared for, honestly. It was all fun and games until... until it wasn't. Biting her lip, Rikku thought hard about what lines she could and could not cross with a man who she knew surprisingly little about aside from what the histories told her and the faded memories of her girlhood self. He had been a teacher, a mentor, a leader, a ghost, a memory, a source of strength to draw from... Did she really want to mess all that up by making clumsy goo goo eyes at him when he had already made it pretty clear he was Rikku Charm Proof?

Not really. But kind of totally absolutely yes.

Maybe it was better to shuffle these romantic and sexy cards away with her Lady Luck dress sphere and switch tactics. White mage Rikku maybe. Keep it pure and bland and 100% safe. Have the kind of attitude that would have Yuna nodding with pride as opposed to her usual antics which received a high five from Tidus.

Rikku pulled the plug with her toe and clambered out of the tub, nearly slipping on the tiled floor into a naked heap. She giggled to herself, snatching a towel from the stack of them sitting on the counter and wrapping herself up. She grabbed another and rubbed it through her impressive amount of hair, shivering slightly in the cold before tossing the mass of it over her shoulder and sliding back the screen to the main room.

She stopped dead in the center of the room, blinking in disbelief as every good intention she had had attempted to make a break for freedom by starting a riot of butterflies in her stomach.

Auron stood, gloriously, broadly shirtless, on the balcony facing the sea with his hair shifting lightly in the breeze. His arms were braced on the railing where the sunshine highlighted every muscle he had in the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his back and the arms that had her seriously questioning why she had ever thought she could be stronger than the ridiculous attraction that was lighting up fireworks within her.

Forget white mage, she was about to go berserker.

“Oh, come on!” she cried out loudly in frustration.

--

Auron turned from his post on the balcony, unsure of the cause of her outburst. He had returned from the hotel lobby with a sampling of fresh fruits, local breads and yogurt as well as some chilled juice. He doubted the selection of food was the cause of the girl's ire. He straightened upwards immediately upon catching sight of her, wishing he could turn right back around without losing face. She was garbed in nothing but a fluffy, white, small towel. Her hair was loose and damp around her naked shoulders and the damn towel was doing little to disguise the sheer length of her bare legs and arms. The girl wore barely anything in the day to day! He had seen her flopping around naked in a Kilika stream just the other day! How could she possibly look more naked now?

If he was a betting man he would have put money on the fact that it was due to the bed she stood directly in front of that he was staunchly refusing to admit the existence of.

“You could have warned a girl that you were going to break out those bad boys,” she whined, gesturing at his pectorals.

Auron glanced down at himself skeptically, unsure of the issue until he caught the blush in her cheeks and her eyes dragged over his chest. It was true, he had yet to remove his armor in front of her despite travelling in close quarters over the last few days. And he had very deliberately done his bathing, such as it was, elsewhere on Yuna's pilgrimage. A flush of male pride surprised him when it hit and he straightened his shoulders and raised himself to his full height before feeling rather foolish. Did it really matter that this little chit seemed struck by the musculature of his chest? He had not been seen in such a state of undress in many years by the fairer sex. His arrogance concerning her reaction was foolish and flustered him.

“I apologize,” he said awkwardly. “I didn't know you had left the bath. Perhaps some clothes...?”

She hurried to her bag and grabbed something out, also sliding one of the garment grids onto her wrist. “Shinra has all the basics installed on these things now,” she explained nervously. “So we don't have to pack like, six suitcases when we travel. I don't have to pack mountain gear or blitzball uniforms or things like pajamas.”

She clicked a button and a wash of ridiculous glitter and light enveloped her. Her towel dropped to the floor and he looked sharply away, flushing. Was there no end to the impropriety around this woman-child?

“Okay! Now we can get down to brass tacks!” she sighed gustily.

Auron returned his eye to her when he felt it was safe enough to do so and found her in a simple pair of pale blue pajamas. A safe enough option. He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly grabbed his black shirt back up and slid it over his head. If she sighed gustily in disappointment he affected not to notice. The girl headed out to the balcony again and he followed, looking away momentarily when the sunlight hit the paleness of her loose hair.

“Have you given any consideration as to how we can speed up this process?” he asked. “We are already behind.”

She shrugged, twisting the cap off a small bottle in her hand. He blinked, taking a closer look at it. She stepped closer to the balcony and lifted a small, delicately coiled metal wand to her lips... and blew. A large, colorfully hued bubble wobbled forth, detaching itself into the air and drifting away. She dipped the wand in again and blew a steady stream of small bubbles into the cooling ocean breeze. Mystified and annoyed, Auron watched them float silently away. He was uncomfortably reminded of the whining lights of Macelania.

“We must plan, Rikku. This is... this is frivolous,” he snapped.

“No,” she said slowly, blowing another huge bubble that reflected a soapy rainbow at them, “this is relaxing. It helps me think. You asked me what brings me peace, makes me still? Well you're looking at it.”

Now Auron had no idea that she was lying through her teeth and she just wanted to enjoy a bit of sunshine and blow some bubbles to let off steam, but Rikku wasn't about to admit all that when she seemed to have rendered him speechless. His mouth thinned in annoyance and she decided to raise the stakes a bit higher because she was feeling pretty lucky. She gently blew a flow of bubbles right towards Legendary Guardian Auron. They streamed against and around him, popping on his chest and floating swiftly past his hair while he looked impassively at her. Bet that was a new one for the annals of Auron. Legendary Guardian Bubble Blown.

“That is... you...” he fell silent, and Rikku knew she was pushing too hard and too fast at this particular stone of a man but that was the only speed she ran at.

“Didn't you ever do something just for the sake of doing it, Auron? Didn't you ever jump in puddles or fly kites or build sandcastles just because you could? Even as a kid?” She asked.

And the quiet answer that seemed to be torn from him hung in the air between them, pained and messier in its simplicity than anything she had heard Auron ever say.

“No.”

And he expected pity, and he expected skepticism and perhaps even laughter if she thought he said so in jest. He even braced himself for it, ready to coldly and brutally dismiss any such emotions as completely unwelcome. He would set this wily Al Bhed puzzle back in place with respect and dignity and about two feet of distance always squarely between them. He would regain some of the footing he had lost with her.

Instead she just nodded thoughtfully and held the metal stick out towards him.

“Then I guess it's time to start,” she said with a smile so soft that he knew he could not bring himself to break it, meeting his gaze levelly and without any of the shadows that held him back in the easy brightness of her eyes.

--

Auron did not take the wand. He looked from it to her as though she had just offered him a handful of chimera entrails. He was thrown, both by her temerity and his inability to rebuke her for it. He felt as though he was wrestling with himself inside and was somehow losing.

“This is not the time for such things,” he snapped, discomfort hardening his tone.

She shrugged and turned back to the balcony, dipping the wand in and blowing several medium sized bubbles into being. They sailed away, several popping midair as he watched in unsure, edged silence.

“Then when is the time for things like this Auron? Was it during The Calm when all our days were numbered and we never knew who or where was gonna get hit first as the clock tic tic ticked down? Was it after Sin blew off in a heap of pyreflies and we all sat there, ruined by our own victory because it had cost us both Tidus and you? Was it when Shuyin decided to have an undead temper tantrum with his girlfriend because he didn't appreciate fate any more than the rest of us or was it in the Eternal Calm after? Seems to me that this is the kind of thing you make time for because you never knew if there will be a time for such things.”

Auron opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and swallowed before coming to lean heavily against the railing beside this exasperating girl in what he could only call defeat. He was grateful she had not tried him this much during their pilgrimage together else he might have thrown his hands up and abandoned the entire affair. It seemed as if his footing was always wrenched from underneath him when he dealt with her oversimplified, idealistic wisdom. But there was sense to it that only came with experience. Despite her youth she had lived, had learned. It would be remiss of him not to pay attention to the things she was trying to show him. He hoped to temper and guide her but only a fool closed himself off to the teachings of others while pressing his own upon them. He took a deep breath, drawing himself together.

“Yes,” he murmured low, a pleased smile appearing momentarily on his face. “I see.”

A sense of exhilaration flooded Rikku as she watched the dying sunlight fade over the city before him and slide over the swordsmen's hands curled over the railing. She heard the smile in his voice and grinned so hard her cheeks hurt.

“So what did Legendary Guardian's in training do in their off hours?” she asked happily, leaning backwards on the rail beside him, the bubbles and wand loose in her hands. The wind caught her damp hair and brushed it against his bare arm. She followed the path of it, imagining the coolness of her hair against the heat of his skin with a quiver of excitement she tried to tamp down.

He shrugged. “Katas. Studying. Prayer. Military strategics. Chores. Meditation.”

She made a noise of deep disgust and he glanced at her askance. She pulled a face. “It sounds like you lived in a library. Did you get shushed if you ever raised your voice? Did you get your kicks by dusting the tomes out of order or praying off key?”

“I... no,” he scoffed. “That is all I knew even as a young boy. It was a quiet life full of contemplation and reverence. The training was arduous but I had a gift for swordsmanship. I spent my time practicing new techniques and studying the history of Spira. It was an average upbringing for a warrior monk. I thought I was destined for the clergy. As you can see, such was not the case.”

“I'd say all's well that ends well,” Rikku grinned. “But you kind of keep changing what we see as an end.”

Uncomfortable, Auron released his grip on the balcony and moved to one of the wicker chairs tucked into the corner.

“I do not know why I was returned,” he said shortly.

Rikku came closer and threw herself into the other chair, curling her legs up underneath her. She propped her head in her free hand and looked at him intently.

“Does there gotta be a reason?” she asked.

Auron frowned, moving his gaze from the girl back to darkening sky. “I would prefer for there to be,” he said honestly.

“I can't think of a reason for Tidus to be back other than the Fayth saying 'thanks for letting us dream you into existence! Here's some more of that life we tricked you into thinking you had!' Honestly those guys really play the long con...”

“That does not explain my presence,” he sighed. “I thought when I first awoke that it would be to fight once again, to face a threat that Spira required me and me alone for. Arrogance, I see now. That does not seem to be the case thus far.”

“I don't think the Fayth brought you back to work for Gippal, either,” Rikku mused. “And if they did, then boy do they ever have a sick sense of humor because that guy is obnoxious. Divine punishment maybe...”

There was a long moment of silence as Auron weighed his words.

“What if there is no purpose?” he asked softly, and once he had spoken the words aloud he could acknowledge the fear that coursed through him at the thought of this reality. What if he had merely been brought back to be? Loose, adrift and open. Such freedom was impossibly daunting to him, a man who had had his life and undeath mapped out by purpose and direction. The enormity of such aimless potential was overwhelming. His throat tightened.

“Then you live,” Rikku chuckled. “That's all any of us do, Auron!”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“I have yet to try,” he said ruefully.

Placing her feet on the still warm stones, Rikku dipped the bubble wand back into the soap before carefully offering it to him once again. It slowly dripped onto the tiles between them, once, twice, three times.

After a long, unsure pause Auron took it from her smaller hand, feeling the softness of her soapy fingertips against his own.

He held it uncertainly and the liquid dripped onto the fabric of his thighs. He scoffed a bit, looking at the thin membrane of soap stretched over the metal. Nonetheless, he raised it to his lips and gently blew.

A large, satisfying bubble trembled forth and traveled a few feet along the balcony before gently coming to rest on the ground. Auron stared at it, smiling slightly at the ridiculousness of it all. Beside him Rikku watched, a brilliant grin spreading over her face as with a sigh of defeat he reached for the bottle of bubbles in her hand.

Chapter Text

Hours later when darkness had fallen and the stars were bright in the night sky, Auron stood awake on the balcony once more. It was cool, balmy, as though the city were pleasantly trapped in endless summer. Below him the nightlife still thrived, streets aglow with soft lamps and torches. He could hear vendors hawking their wares at a nearby night market, could smell the thick spice of milk tea and the perfume of flowers on the breeze. Before him in the distance the sea rolled methodically on, a vast black sheet rippling with reflected stars.

Behind him the girl stirred. She was as restless a sleeper as she was awake. He glanced behind him to where her long leg sprawled bare and golden in the dim glow of the incoming light freed from her blankets. He caught his eye travelling the length of it with interest before he sighed wearily, turning back to his pensive contemplation of the Luca skyline. What had come over him? Where was his vaunted control and caution? Had he come back different than the man he had been when Yunalesca killed him, or was this who he had always been destined to become? This... old relic of a man curiously lusting after a flighty girl-child.

The sheer idiocy of Legendary Guardian Auron blowing bubbles on a Lucan balcony with an erratic Al Bhed princess made him wonder if maybe he had not returned at all and this was all some sort of bizarre new dream of the Fayth.

What scares you so much about little Rikku, Auron? He could hear Tidus teasing him in his head.

Not so little anymore, he replied tersely. So, much.

He toyed with the idea of speaking to the real Tidus about such things but imagining the awkwardness and dismay in the boy's face when he told him he found himself frustrated by, confused by and strongly... distracted by Braska's niece was enough to discount the idea outright. He had no business being here at all let alone finding himself with an itch to drag his hands through the blonde mass of her hair and feel how soft it was for himself.

Stopping himself with a frustrated sigh, Auron braced his hands on the balcony and bowed his head, beginning to recite one of the many Bevellian litanies for inner calm. He did not condone his body's reactions to her, not when they occurred without his consent.

Protect the girl. Did that mean she must be protected from him as well?

Ruefully, he recalled the way he had caught her peeking at him on more than one occasion, and thought that perhaps that was a two way street.

But all of it; this whole misguided and haphazard exploit had felt... good. Travelling again, sleeping beneath the stars, listening to her prattle on with such verve... A sense of release in the act of blowing those silly bubbles with her pleased and guffawing beside him. It had reminded him of the easy days of his pilgrimage with Jecht and Braska between the stress and force of pushing forth across an opposing world that did not yet believe in them. Or the languid, free days with Tidus, Yuna and the rest of her guardians in the Calm Lands where he had relented enough to slow their breakneck pace towards a final confrontation and allow them to enjoy what he knew might be their last days alive in Spira.

So callous of him, so cruel, to dole out time for them to live their lives as though he had any right to do so.

But cold or not, he had relaxed alongside them during those times, remembering his former life with Jecht and Braska just as he had done tonight. The weight of his failures still followed him then but for a time his Unsent self could see the strength and heroism around him with pride and not just a tactical eye and mountainous guilt. They had all meant something to him; Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri, Yuna, young Rikku and Tidus. They had made him proud with the sheerness of their strength and determination.

They had not, however, made his pulse race every time they stepped too close to him and stroked his hair.

Discomfited, he turned his gaze to the silent sky.

Such useless physical distractions as chemistry and romance held little appeal to him. He had never been in thrall to such things before and it made little sense to start now. They had bigger goals to focus on and though Rikku Cidulphous had grown into a beautiful woman it was not his business to notice it.

Irritation plagued him and he shifted restlessly from his stance on the balcony when he remembered the clerk noticing that beauty too. Men's eyes caught on her, bent towards her as they moved through the crowds. She was a celebrity to this world, an important and influential person, but she was also a very attractive young woman wearing very little in the way of clothing and more and more he was catching the longing stares of boys and men as she raced passed them.

It should not bother him. It did bother him.

Fitful, Auron stepped silently back into the room and returned to his bed, taking a seat on the edge of it and propping his chin in his fists. Before him the girl slept on, her bed still uncomfortably near his own. The two of them had spent a good amount of time out on that balcony in companionable silence as he dipped the wand repeatedly into the soap and sent bubbles cascading over the city of Luca beneath a setting sun. She had been content, merely watching the erratic path of them as they swayed and quivered through the air. Finally he had handed her back the accouterments and informed her that he was going to go use the bathtub. She had grinned, waved him off and that had been that.

His bath had been short and perfunctory, leery of any other hi-jinx on the girls part though none had occurred. When he returned to the room she had set up the food he had brought on a small wicker table and invited him to join her.

“I'm so hungry I could eat a behemoth!” she sighed gustily and dropped into her seat, helping herself to some of the fresh fruit and a bowl of yogurt. He took his seat before her and reached for a slice of the crusty bread he had been given from the kitchen below. With his usual careful precision he buttered it and set it on his plate. He glanced up at the girl and saw her shoving a large helping of red fruit into her mouth.

“I see the behemoth community ought to be leery of you,” he smirked.

She turned red and took a smaller bite. She chewed and swallowed as he helped himself to a sampling of berries and melon.

“Sorry. I'm used to eating in a hurry. There are always a hundred things to do and places to get to!” she laughed awkwardly.

'No need for apologies, Rikku,” he murmured. “It was said in jest. I know a thing or two about eating on the road. This is pleasant, being able to sit at a table and enjoy a meal.”

The words 'with you' stalled on his tongue and died away where she would not hear them.

“With you, Auron!” she exclaimed as she heaped jam atop her slice of bread. “I still can't believe that you're with me. I guess good things do come to those who wait!”

He chuckled. “I hardly count as a good thing.”

Rikku shot him an annoyed look. “You gotta lay off the woe-is-me dark and gloomy, Auron. It isn't my job to prop up that shaky ego of yours, and I'm gonna turn down any invite to your pity party!”

Auron paused, blinking at her. “I do not follow.”

“I mean,” she clarified, “you are always insulting yourself like you were some sort of nasty ochu that stood behind us with a cat o' nine tails and whipped us all the way to Zanarkand! You weren't, I'd have noticed (probably, because we didn't notice you were dead back then so our observational skills weren't exactly top notch). But we were there because we chose to protect Yuna! You couldn't have stopped us if you tried!”

He eyed her pointedly and she huffed. “Okay, yeah, you totally could have stopped fifteen year old me if you had tried. But you didn't, and here we are! And for the record, I could give you a darn good run for your gil now!”

Auron paused, brow furrowed. Rikku fought the urge to lean over the table and smooth the lines away with her fingers.

“My intentions were always for the greater good rather than the personal safety of any of you. That hardly qualifies me as a friend,” he husked, setting down his bread.

“Nope nope nope! You pick up that food, mister!” she reached over and shoved it back into his hand. “Do you think that any of us didn't realize what you were doing? Sure, we didn't know you were Unsent while you did it but your whole Let's break the machine and overthrow religion spiel wasn't exactly subtle, Auron. You fought for change. We helped you make it. We saved Yuna. We saved Spira. There is no shame in what you were to us. The only wrong you did to us was leaving afterwards.”

“I was already dead,” he said carefully.

Rikku pictured him walking away after the battle with Sin, the pyreflies breaking him apart and shivered slightly, fear condensing within her.

“Unsent or not, the only ones we didn't save during that pilgrimage were you and Tidus,” she said quietly.

It sat ill on her features, this sadness. He felt regret for having put it there. “You could never have done so. I was dead long before your journey with Yuna was begun, and Tidus was something else entirely. That thinking is futile.”

She shot him a sharply annoyed look, eyes narrowing. “If you want to see futile thinking you should find a mirror.”

He narrowed his own eye back at her and the tension rose. Rikku took an angry bite of melon then sighed, slumping backwards in her seat. There was no sense in getting herself all in knots inside because Auron was too stupid to realize that he was awesome.

“So...it's different now?” she asked. “This whole living thing?”

Auron took another bite of food as he pondered his reply, chewing and swallowing slowly.

“I feel more now,” he said hesitantly. “The heat of Bikanel. The cold of Gagazet. The damp of Kilika. Before it was like living beneath a shroud of mist I did not sense was there. I was protected from much of what the rest of you experienced though I was not aware of it at the time. I existed, but it was as though I were my reflection in the mirror doing so. And now sensation is...” he cut himself off awkwardly.

Rikku tilted her head, popping a berry into her mouth and blinking at him. “What is it?”

“It is more somehow,” he hesitated. “Joy and sorrow, jealousy, heat and fatigue. There is an intensity I have had to relearn to deal with. I did not feel these things as you did then.”

“Well, I am glad you didn't feel things like a teenage girl,” Rikku joked, “but I bet that's pretty weird now. To feel it all again at full intensity must be like getting overloaded circuits.”

“That is an apt analogy,” he allowed, resuming his meal.

“Jealousy?” she pricked up after a moment, wiggling her brows.

“A poor word choice,” he groused uncomfortably. “Eat.”

She giggled, and did just that.

“What now?” he asked point blank. “The market for supplies, then where must we go?”

A strange beeping emitted from her bag and Rikku clambered away from the table and dove for her pack. On her belly, she dug around for a moment before finding the offending technology. Her handheld device, the Commsat, sat in her hand a moment later.

“Not him!” she squealed but flipped it open anyway.

From where he sat behind her at the table Auron could see the screen and the handsome blonde Al Bhed leader smirking upon it.

“Had to ruin a perfectly good night, didn't you Spikes?” she groused.

“Hey Cid's Girl,” he replied with infuriatingly languid ease. “Been keeping out of trouble?”

“I would be if you didn't keep throwing me at it!”

Rikku had dragged herself upwards now and sat cross legged with the Commsat held before her.

“I heard you were cooling your heels in Luca and I wanted to get a status report. Must be going pretty well if you have time to get into the city and lounge around at the inn. You look... well rested,” he grinned.

The small portion of her face that he could see reddened. Her spine straightened up.

“Listen here! I don't answer to you or anybody! I'm working on it! We've been slogging through the desert and jumping through jungle for days fighting fiends on the most vague treasure quest ever! So if you think you can call me up just to nag at me while you sit in your cozy tent then the next time I see you you're gonna end up needing two eye patches!”

Her body language was vibrating with tension but somehow she seemed... happy. Auron frowned and turned his attention back to his meal.

The young Machine Faction leader was capable and daring. He had wrought many positive changes for his people in the past several years. He was strong and ambitious, though his fashion choices were circumspect. They would make a powerful political union should they join together.

Was an eye patch truly necessary? Was it the societal norm? Perhaps he had been remiss all these years in not wearing one. Without meaning to, Auron lifted a hand to touch the long scar bisecting his eye.

“Where's Big Red?” Gippal asked.

Quickly, Auron forced his hand down.

“He's eating his well earned meal, jerk! You've got no sense of timing.” Rikku sniffed, but brought the CommSat to the table and set it before Auron.

Awkwardly, Auron nodded at the other man's smaller image. The blonde nodded back. “You're a day behind schedule,” he said without aplomb. “I figured you'd be at the Moonflow by now.”

Auron glanced up to where Rikku stood making exaggerated faces at the device.

“I was unaware our timeline was so strict. Our ride was under his own time constraints and thus we could not get as far as we intended.”

“Brother kicked us off at Kilika!” Rikku called.

Gippal sighed. “Yeah, I'll have a word with him. You're going to need a ride from the Celsius to get you two back on track. Does tomorrow sound good?”

“Make it noon,” Auron agreed. “We must resupply at the market.”

“Quit leading, you two! I'm not a flan over here!” Rikku muttered petulantly.

“You are right,” Auron murmured. “Is this acceptable to you, Rikku?”

“Sure as sunshine, Big Guy!” she smiled.

Gippal sighed, staring hard at the Ronin, who stared resolutely back. “I've got to make some calls to Brother. Thank you both for the report. I'll check back soon.”

Rikku stepped forward and hit something on the device that deactivated it, because the other man's face disappeared and they were left in silence. Rikku frowned mutinously at the thing before picking it up and tossing it onto one of the beds.

“Way to make me lose my appetite!” she said, but she quickly took her seat and resumed her devouring of the berries.

Auron felt oddly perturbed by the whole affair, and now, hours later in the dark of their hotel room when he should be sound asleep, he still couldn't shake the irritation and anxiety twitching through him. He sighed.

He could not make sense of the one thing he needed to the most. Why was he here? His restless soul would find no peace until he knew the answer and though tired, he was alarmed to realize that he was not as world weary as he had always been before. The past several days were vivid, fresh. As awkward and exasperating as Spira, as Rikku, had been, it was as though he could finally see the world for what it was again. And there was much to see. What was more, he wanted to see it. He sat with his chin propped up on his knees in the dark, contemplating shadows and uncertainty and sunset balconies and starlight while before him Rikku slept undisturbed. Once in awhile she would shift and her tanned skin would flash against the white of the sheets in the moonlight. He kept his eyes politely away.

In the darkness, he sought to put his pieces back together in a way he could understand and forge a path ahead for himself. Jealousy, vanity, attraction, wanderlust, anticipation. He was becoming a stranger to himself. For good or ill, he did not know.

Chapter Text

He cracked his eye open long after the sun had broken over the horizon after finally having fallen asleep sometime long after the witching hour. He listened to the shuffling and chirping he quickly identified as a developing Al Bhed leader. She was humming quietly to herself in the bathroom, he could hear the clink of what he guessed were hair beads against the stone counters. He heaved himself upwards and brought his bare feet to the cold floor, wincing slightly. He wiggled his toes against the floor and sighed.

“You awake, Big Guy?”

She peeked her head around the corner, her customary bandanna and wild mop of hair arranged back on her head. She looked familiar and comfortable, and he experienced a moment of relief before she slid the rest of the way around and he saw that she was once again covered (barely) in her yellow bikini and bow sleeved outfit. She came to stand before him, and he narrowed his eye in irritation as her hand darted forth and ruffled through his hair once again.

“You look like you just rolled out of bed with a cranky behemoth! No, no! You are the cranky behemoth someone rolled out of bed with!” she giggled.

His mouth tightened and she shrugged, stepping back and planting her bum onto the messy sheets of her abandoned bed. He looked away from her, pinning his gaze on the balcony but she didn't let it worry her. She had quickly picked up on the fact that Auron went all Stoic-Faraway-Gaze when he didn't know how to handle something. And he definitely didn't know how to handle her yet.

Honestly Rikku didn't know why she kept pushing his buttons... There was just something about seeing how far he would let her go that thrilled her. It was reckless, and thoughtless and stupid to keep hurling herself blindly into the morass of angst and self flagellation that was Auron, but she was self aware enough to recognize feelings when she was getting them, and the butterflies and blushing and heartbeats and hormones she'd been experiencing every time Auron came close would definitely qualify as feelings to her.

So maybe her heart was pounding a bit like a herd of behemoths with him sitting there with white sheets tangled around his waist looking rumpled and tired and his amazingly chiseled pecs just freaking bulging there as he ran a hand through his hair and there were two beds there so would it be the worst idea to maybe... use them?

Rikku giggled, high pitched and bordering on giddy hysteria as red flared in her cheeks hot enough to cook an egg. She shot out of bed as though it had pinched her and shoved the last of her things into her bag.

“We better mosey on out of here if we want to get any of the good bargains,” she said rapidly, refusing to look at him. He turned his head to her and his eyes were heavy, she could feel the weight of them and wondered if that was something he learned in Monk school too. Was Ponderous Weighty staring a class? He must have aced that course along with Rousing Speeches and Dramatically Timed Entries. Bet he got extra credit for Theatrical Use of Convenient Wind too.

“Agreed,” he rasped, standing up, and Rikku wasn't too embarrassed to admit that she peeked to see what he was wearing to bed nor was she too mature to admit that she was disappointed to see it was pants.

He moved quietly into the bathroom and she heard the water running, letting out a gusty sigh and pressing her cool hands against her face. She glanced around to make sure all their gear was packed then took a hunk of the bread they had wrapped up last night from the cloth napkin and ripped off a small bite. She chewed with determination, forcing her thoughts back to their mission and the supplies they required rather than his broad shoulders. What was with her? She wished she could call Yuna and talk to her about all this, but imagining her cousin's aghast face when she heard she wanted to roll into bed with a particular Legendary Guardian was enough to blow that thought up right in the hangar. She popped another piece of bread in her mouth and slung her bag over her shoulder.

“Have you a list?” Auron asked quietly, and Rikku jumped guiltily.

He had emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, as red and battle worn as ever, his hair damp and slicked back. Water trickled down and left his collar damp, and for a second she could imagine the heat of her mouth against the cool skin of his neck.

“A mental one,” she coughed, swallowing her impromptu breakfast.

She passed him the rest of the bread and he took it quietly, holding it between his hands with his usual solemnity and taking a careful bite.

“When you're done saluting the sun and thanking the bread gods, let's get gone,” she snorted.

He blinked at her, confused, and swallowed. “How often do you actually listen to yourself speak?” he asked curiously.

“Not as much as I should, probably!” she giggled nervously and moved to the door.

She saw him survey the room for any stray items, but considering all they had was literally strapped to her back, it was a quick check. He followed her down the stairs and into the entryway, where she waved cheerfully to the boy tending the desk before tossing open the front door and bursting out into the sunshine filled city. Happily, she took a deep breath of fresh air. Behind her, she felt Auron come to a stop.

“The markets are pretty crazy even this early, Big Guy,” she said. “So stick close. I need to get Shinra to hook you up with a Commsat in case we get separated. We could talk anytime after this whole thing is over to! I can call you up and we can chat about the good old days and the weather and how kids now don't respect their elders.”

“I believe I am your elder,” Auron huffed. “And that is true.”

She threw him a glance over her shoulder. It made her tummy twist unhappily to think about going their separate ways after all this was done. She was having fun. They merged into the flow of people trickling down the streets and she steered them towards the day market.

“Elder? You always act like you've got one foot in the grave Auron... Though I guess you've jumped into one feet first already so that's checked off the list and not worth worrying about! Are you implying that I'm disrespectful?”

“I apologize if you thought I was implying anything, Rikku. I meant to outright state it,” he deadpanned.

She stopped so abruptly that he nearly bumped into her, swishing around so fast her hair smacked him in the face. He blinked down at her, and without thinking she reached up and pushed playfully against his shoulder.

“You sir, are getting funnier!” she said with a giggle. “I like it!”

“Yes, well,” he shifted uncomfortably. “I was always funny.”

“Uh, no, Auron. Emphatically no. A hundred times nope. You were not funny. Brooding and Wise? Yes. Inspiring and Strong? Definitely. But when they figured out that laughter cures what ails you, you had already been vaccinated against it.”

“Perhaps my sense of humor was just more sophisticated than a fifteen year old could understand,” he scoffed.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Rikku grinned, quietly delighted that he had taken a bit of offense at that. If she had pricked his pride than could that mean that he cared about how she saw him? And if he cared about how she saw him, did that mean he cared about her? And did she care about him caring about her caring? Because she was pretty sure she cared.

Turning back around she urged him onward through the winding white stone streets until the colorful blue overhangs that shaded the market stalls began to appear. There was a huge length of roadway specifically dedicated to small vendors, from fruit sellers to weapon vendors. Over the years Luca had expanded even more into a trade hub, with sellers or every possible item from every possible race converging on the harbor city. Rikku could see the hypello vendor that sold really amazing sugar buns and made a mental note to stop by his shop to grab a few for the road.

“We're going to need a bag because I am tired of being the pack-horse, and food. Water. Potions... I have some antidotes and the usual travel basics so we won't be getting put to sleep or stone or anything if I keep them on me. Mainly we just need to restock our food and water today. But we will need some more specialized stuff before we get into the ruins. Rope and some rappelling equipment, lights. We don't know what kind of terrain we are going to need to get through if there even is a walled off section. What if its a hundred feet down? Or under water?”

She stopped dead.

“Wait, do Unsent need to breath? All those fights underwater when you stayed on shore and Tidus, Wakka and I had to take on the heavy hitters on our own... Could you have helped?!”

Auron shook his head, sighing. “Regardless of breath, I am too slow underwater to be any sort of effective a fighter. Do I really strike you as someone who would fob off his duties and relax while his companions took the brunt of work?”

Rikku smiled, mostly to herself, reaching out to finger some bright yellow fabric in one of the vendor stalls. “No, you are definitely not a guy who hides from duty. If anything you skip towards it with arms open singing for more.”

“I do not skip,” he frowned sternly. "Or sing."

Rikku slid her eyes to him, her lightening fast hand reaching up to, of all things, tap him impetuously on the nose.

“Bet you didn't blow bubbles either,” she smirked, and in her eyes was a challenge that had him both searching for an exit from the situation and straightening his spine in anticipation of facing it head on.

Auron took a breath and opened his mouth to form a reply he hadn't even fully decided on. He wanted to tell her to stop baiting him. He wanted to tell her that she was being a disrespectful brat. He wanted to crack a witty and incredible joke that would light up her face with laughter. He wanted to keep this conversation going. But a voice suddenly rose above the crowd behind them and startled, they both turned to face whoever had called out her name so loudly and the words died in his throat.

He frowned, his eye narrowing on the stranger making their way towards them.

Chapter Text

----

“Rikku, I knew I recognized that hair.”

Judging from their bland commentary and the delighted gasp of the blonde before him, Auron knew this was no foe.

“Paine!!” she cried out, leaping forward and throwing her arms around the leather clad woman who now stood before them.

Auron looked at the young woman standing calmly clad in leather and belts despite the heat of the city. She had spiked grey hair and eyes that appeared crimson, and her face, though pretty, seemed incapable of smiling. However, she was looking fondly at the little Al Bhed currently skittering around her and the warmth in her eyes made Auron relax his guard minutely.

“Auron, this is the girl I told you about! My friend Paine!”

Ah yes, the imagined progeny of he and Lulu had they ever produced a child.

Paine turned her eyes towards him, warmth dimming noticeably. Her chin ratcheted up a notch and she looked him up and down as critically as he was doing her despite the little ball of energy circling her and peppering her with questions. A warrior then, judging from the ornately decorated sword strapped to her back and the ready stance of her boot clad feet. Her face revealed nothing but the pull of her eyes back to Rikku then himself gave her away.

She did not trust him with her friend.

He approved.

“Sir Auron,” she relented, bowing her head slightly towards him in a mark of respect. “I have heard stories of your exploits my entire life. It is an honor to meet you in the... unexpected flesh.”

Rikku giggled, coming back to circle Auron and peeking out at Paine from behind his right arm.

“Oh don't start with the whole Sir thing, Paine! He just gave me a lecture about respecting my elders.”

“You should treat him with respect, Rikku. He is a legend,” Paine sniffed with a delicate shrug of her shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah! Legendary Guardian Auron, I know! But he's just...” she grinned up at him, and he glanced down at her sunny face and met her swirled green eyes. “Auron, to me now.”

His stomach bloomed with unexpected warmth. Just Auron. A warrior monk first, then a guardian, then a ghost. Any he had ever called friend were dead and those that remained kept him at a distance with their impenetrable wall of respect. Even to the boy there had been expectations of surrogacy and mentor-ship. When had anyone looked at him and merely seen a man instead of the ever burgeoning fairy tale?

He pushed his shades up his nose and glanced away as he came to terms with this, warmed.

Paine shrugged and crossed her arms.

“Nooj told me that Gippal had sent you two on a mission. He didn't give me the specifics but he said it was dangerous enough. I admit I was as surprised as anyone to hear you had resurfaced, Sir Auron. It seems too fantastical to believe.”

“Well, the believers believe it,” Rikku snorted. “In fact we could use a little less believing.”

She came to stand between them, her arms akimbo as she glanced back at forth.

“Yet here I am,” Auron murmured quietly, turning his face to the silver haired girl.

Around them the crowds shifted, intent on their own business. It was only a matter of time before someone recognized him on the edges of the market though. The thought was saddening to him somehow. Such undeserved praise. The weight of such hopes that these people held. One could not blend into the crowd with a mantle as heavy as his, it caught on too many of them and forced their perceptions into its undertow. Here I am, indeed.

“Yet here you are,” Paine replied just as quietly.

A long moment passed where they each tried to get a read on the other and their intentions, holding their gazes fast and with challenge.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rikku cried out, waving her hands between them. “And how is Nooj doing, Paine?”

Rikku was totally excited to see her friend but all of a sudden the two of them were staring at one another for way longer than was decent and she knew that Paine had a thing for the older broody type and Paine had just as many belts and as much leather as the walking dominatrix fantasy that was Lulu and what if Auron was into that?!

Paine was mature and level headed, sharp as a whip, a totally kick ass fighter and way suaver than Rikku was, she could admit! What if Auron liked that whole responsible and mature thing in a woman? What if he hadn't even bothered to be bothered by her bikinis and skin because he liked them pale and covered in leather? They were both warriors and the Strong and Silent type. They would be good together! If she looked at it just right it made a horrible amount of sense! She did a nervous little dance that neither seemed to notice because they were too busy eating one another with their eyes!

“Nooj?” Auron asked, turning his eye to Rikku.

She glanced back up and her stomach fluttered nervously because he looked really really good with the sun beaming down on him and the breeze carding through his hair, all strong and wise and capable and what if Paine was noticing to?

“Yea, he's one of the so called shot callers now and Paine is his right hand gal. His second in command! His partner in crime! Totally his... yeah! He's kinda who you would have been if you had lost a leg and spent twenty years raised in a bohemian cult instead of as a monk. He's like Sir Auron, Fashion Diva Edition.”

“Nooj is well, Rikku,” Paine eyed her oddly. “I'm sure he would be disappointed to have missed you.”

“I'm not so sure,” she laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head. “Last time we met he told me I was 'more taxing on his patience than being trapped in a closet with a herd of hasted chocobo chicks'.”

“To be fair, you had stolen his leg,” Paine frowned.

“I upgraded it for him! If he cares about it so much, he shouldn't leave it laying around!”

“The one leg didn't need the speed boosters, Rikku,” the other woman sighed, rolling her eyes. “And taking it off in his bedroom at night doesn't count as leaving it laying around.”

“What were you doing in his bedroom?” Auron's voice suddenly rose between them.

Paine and Rikku both looked his way. Despite his attempts at nonchalance he had sounded annoyed. Auron was sure of it and judging from the sharp look the warrior was sending him, she had picked up on it too. His mouth tightened, but he could not deny the sharp bite of jealousy currently chewing its way through his stomach at the thought of Rikku being in this man's bedroom at night. Especially not a man that was apparently a pale reminiscence of himself.

Rikku seemed confused, blinking at him.

“She snuck in,” Paine said with a rueful shake of her head. “He forgot to lock the door. Something you should take care to remember to do if you're travelling with Rikku. Keep your gear close and sleep with one eye open.”

“What, do you think I'm going to try to customize a legendary holy sword like Masamune?” Rikku giggled, but Auron didn't like the sudden thoughtful look on her face as she became distracted by the idea.

“No,” Auron said meaningfully, staring her down. “One does not customize a weapon such as this. I trust Rikku to see what folly that would be.”

Sighing loudly, she scuffed her foot in the dust. “What's the point of being a weaponsmith if nobody will let you play with their gear?”

She had gone in secretly with the intent to leave again undiscovered. Good. Then he wasn't bothered. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Gippal is sending a pick up outside of the city at noon. We're headed for the Moonflow for some fiend gathering,” Rikku explained.

“Can I help in any way?” Paine asked. “I have to be back at headquarters tomorrow but if you need my aide I can contact Nooj.”

Rikku looked at her shiftily, eyes narrowed. “Is that what you want to do? Help?”

Paine looked quizzical. Auron turned his eye away from Rikku and addressed the other woman.

“Thank you, but our numbers must be kept low,” Auron said. “We are high profile enough as it is. From what Rikku has told me you have some notoriety of your own, and though your aide would be welcome I think it would attract even more attention. It would be best if we travel alone.”

“If he was trying to go for covert he should have gone a different route than famous Al Bhed Princess and Resurrected Legend,” Paine said disdainfully.

“I don't think Spikes even knows what the word subtle means.” Rikku grumbled.

“He had to make a tactical choice between secrecy and strength,” Auron explained. “The benefits of our significant skill set outweighed the cost of our so called fame.”

“In short, this was a job only you two could do,” Paine rolled her eyes. “Nice to be so highly recommended.”

“Indeed,” Auron husked, chuckling slightly.

Rikku felt her stomach drop. Paine had made him laugh! Sure it was only a little rumble in his throat but in Auron-speak that was practically a knee slapping belly laugh! Should she just get out of the way and let Paine propose to him right now? Her lip jutted out mutinously and she crossed her arms, looking away. Five minutes with another girl and he was practically melted butter!

“Rikku,” Auron murmured, and she felt his hand brush momentarily on her arm. “I will be by the coffee vendor. Say your goodbyes. We must be about our business.”

He nodded politely at Paine, who nodded back, before he moved away.

Rikku's eyes followed him through the crowd as he went to stand a careful distance away and proceeded to speak to the merchant.

“Okay Rikku, what's the deal with you and the Ghost of Pilgrimages Past?”

“Hey!” she cried, swinging her eyes back to her friend and waving her arms, “weren't you just nagging me about showing him respect?”

“I was hoping you'd heed the respect thing, Rikku, and that was all you'd show him.”

“I was only naked the one time!” she squealed, and Paine's eyes widened.

“What?”

“No, no! Not that way! There was a stream and there was dirt and I was washing and he wasn't even looking and he didn't notice which sucked and shouldn't have sucked but it did because I want him to and I think sometimes that he looks at me the same way but how do you sneak your way past that much dignity and propriety but it doesn't even matter anyway because you two were gazing at each other like Tidus gazes at a blitzball in the off season and I don't even want an invite to the wedding, okay?!”

Paine shook her head, breathing out through her nose and running a hand through her silver hair.

“Okay, rewind Rikku, and repeat. What?”

“He doesn't seem into me,” Rikku mumbled, scuffing her toe.

“You've... checked?” Paine asked carefully, shooting a glance at the broad, red clad back being handed a cup of coffee from a smiling man.

“Not really. I may have tossed off my clothes in Kilika and bathed in stream, but my little water goddess routine fell flat. He didn't even bat an eye.”

“He only has the one to bat, Rikku,” Paine snorted. “Maybe he just didn't want to miss the show.”

Rikku blinked, then giggled, shoving gently at the other woman.

“Are you sure you even want to get involved with that particular... baggage pile, Rikku? He has Walking Wounded written all over him. He's practically a household story now. He was alive then dead, then undead, then very dead, and now he's sipping coffee in the Luca market. That just has Big Risk written all over it to me.”

“What's life without a little risk?” Rikku grinned cheekily, then sobered, watching him take a careful drink of the no doubt black coffee.

“There's something about him... I dunno, he draws me in. He makes me feel safe, and listened to. He makes me feel like anything is possible. I don't know what any of these butterflies in my tummy really amount to but I gotta follow them, you know? I want to help him figure out what he wants.”

“A man like that never truly puts down his swords, Rikku, only buries them for a time.”

“Why does he have to bury them at all? Why can't he just be who he is?” she asked peevishly. Everyone was so obsessed with making people become something they weren't. Just let people live!

“Do you think a man who has lived the lives he has even knows who he is?”

And Rikku really wasn't sure. But looking at his rigid back and how carefully he held that cup, thinking of the way he rested on his knees during meditation and thought before he spoke, she thought that he had a pretty darn good idea of what was within himself.

“I don't think any of us have ourselves figured out for long, Paine. We're always changing. We're always learning. Auron hasn't been free to figure things out much but he will. I know he will.”

“You have a lot of faith in this man,” she replied, worry deep in her eyes.

“Well, I've known him for at least one of his lifetimes now,” she sighed, grabbing her hands behind her back and lifting up on her toes happily as she continued to watch Auron relaxing with his drink. “Let's go for round two.”

--

Chapter Text

Paine had left after a relatively curt goodbye and Auron was not sorry to see her go. The less conspicuous they remained, the better. They had procured what they needed from the vendors and he now found himself the uncertain owner of a deep red leather satchel Rikku had insisted upon filling with the remaining odds and sundry they required for travel. They had left the market nearly unnoticed, only a few groups pointing and whispering as they quickly passed.

The tall white buildings of the city began to thin out around them as they headed towards the entry gates, and Rikku seemed to relax notably.

“What did you think of Paine? Fun, right?” she asked as they walked.

“She appeared capable,” he answered neutrally. Truthfully the other woman had shaken loose some uncomfortable truths that he did not feel interested in examining at the moment. The talk concerning the man Nooj in particular. Jealousy, in a warrior his age, was no desirable trait.

“But you, uh, aren't hoping to see her again soon?” Rikku asked, and Auron glanced down at her where she walked apace with him.

Her cheeks were pink.

“No,” he answered carefully. “I have no interest in seeing her again unless we need her in a tactical capacity.”

“Good! I mean, like, not that having her around isn't great but like, good. That's good. I'm good. We're good.”

“Rikku,” he slowed his pace, keeping his focus on the road ahead and the open gates of the city. “I have no intention of allowing anything to distract me from this mission. I already told you I would continue. The Omega Ruins are not to be trifled with by even those of our power.”

“Anything?” she squeaked. Her feet had slowed as well. Did she sound disappointed or was he reading too much into her high tone?

“We have a mission,” he said slowly. “Distractions are unwise. I have never succumbed to them and will not now. My duty comes first, always.”

“So, you aren't going to steal my Commsat and start calling Paine to choose a wedding date?”

Auron blinked, wondering how it was that he had fallen into such a tidal wave of confusion and attraction with this infuriating, frustrating, amusing girl.

“Certainly not,” he sniffed, once more picking up the pace and moving past the sentries stationed to keep the crowds moving in and out of Luca moving.

“Ha, yeah, I guess I -” Rikku began.

“We have already settled on an autumn wedding,” he interrupted smoothly.

He continued walking swiftly onward, smirking slightly when after a long, shocked pause her footsteps quickly pattered after him and he could hear her muttering to herself in annoyed Al Bhed, bumping him angrily with her tiny shoulder as she passed by. He watched her, amused.


--

The gaudy orange airship was parked blatantly on the small airstrip outside of Luca, and as Rikku hurried towards it, waving to the slowpoke behind her, she sighed loudly. Their so-called secret mission could not possibly be more loudly announced than with a flaming orange, tribal tattoo covered metal bird parked outside of the world's largest trading hub! Was Gippal a total moron? No, it was more likely that Brother had just decided to wait for them at the most obvious place ever instead of landing somewhere more hidden by the cliffs or treeline maybe, oh, not right outside the city limits?

If they were lucky, people would just assume the Al Bhed were just doing some more you know, Al Bhed stuff and nobody would look too closely at her or the walking legend marching behind her.

At her approach the hatch opened and Rikku turned to wait for Auron. She didn't trust Brother not to try to take off before he got on board.

“Stop walking all dignified and scoot that boot!” she called back.

When he had caught up Rikku hurried up into the airship, noticing that he had not, in fact, scooted any faster. She was still a bit peeved that he had decided to tease her about marrying Paine though she had kind of earned it. Approaching the intercom, she informed Buddy that they were on board and without further ado the ship closed and the engines began to thrum throughout the metal colossus.

“I'm surprised your brother is not here to interrogate us,” Auron murmured beside her as they walked towards the elevator.

Rikku snorted indelicately and slapped a hand against the call button. “Oh, he's definitely pouting somewhere on the main deck. Gippal probably tore a strip off him. We might not even see him this ride.”

“He would most likely wish for that,” Auron nodded. “I have taken note of his discomfort.”

“Don't mind him,” Rikku sighed. “He's like that with everyone. Weird.”

Auron said no more and they fell into silence as the elevator shuttled them to the cabin deck. It opened to the sunny, tribal space with its high windows and Rikku stepped onto it without looking back. There was a tension to her shoulders that Auron did not know how to read.

Rikku moved to the stairs, dropping her bag to the ground and heading up them. With little else to do, Auron followed. He set his newly bought satchel carefully beside the elevator doors and walked up the staircase behind her. She tossed herself bonelessly into the same chair he had commandeered the first time on the ship and he settled himself across from her, turning his eyes to the rapidly moving landscape below them, then quickly away when his stomach jolted. He undid his cowl, setting it beside him intending to relax.

With little else to look at he kept his eyes on her. She was looking uncharacteristically somber, green eyes pensive as they focused out the window. He was unaware of what had brought on this sobriety and at a loss as to how to fix it. She could not possibly be this upset about his joke about marrying Paine, so what had caused this gloom? He struggled within himself with a way to address this, unused to dealing with women. Braska had honestly been the one who had been able to speak to them effortlessly and with aplomb. Jecht's approach had been more akin to a behemoth smashing into a cliff side and was not to be drawn from.

“Rikku, what troubles you?” he asked carefully. He had enjoyed the easy camaraderie they had formed in the hotel room, and seeing her thus left him uncertain.

Rikku blinked at Auron for a moment, taking in the troubled crease in his forehead and the way he had settled his feet upon the floor while his spine remained straight. The big guy was uncomfortable. And probably was going to get a lot more so if he really wanted to hear her thoughts! All his talk about distractions and not succumbing had made her realize that what Paine had said might be alarmingly true. He might not know himself at all, might be trying to cram himself back into the ghost-box self he had been as an Unsent as though living that tightly trapped away was normal, was happy. And what if what she had said was right too? Who was she to try to tell him who to be? Who was he? Did anyone know? Troubled by her thoughts, she decided she was going to try to find out.

She met his eyes.

“You said duty comes first, and I feel like that's not the first time you've said it.”

Auron did not know what to say. “It has been a part of my code for most of my life,” he said carefully.

“Which one?” she asked bluntly.

“Both. All. It does not matter, it is there. It... matters, to me.”

“So duty is important to you, and you see this mission as your duty. You see me as your duty.”

“You are oversimplifying the situation, Rikku, but in some ways yes. You knew this. It cannot come as a surprise,” Auron sat up even straighter, clasping his hands before him as though speaking to a child.

Rikku's temper throbbed low in her belly, reading the placation in his stance and seeing through it to the past when he guided them on their pilgrimage and the miserable truth that lay within it. Always the sage, the instructor, the guide. But he had never engaged with them. He had led them on their path to Sin but he had never become distracted by them. He had never succumbed like he had with Uncle Braska and Jecht.

Because he had known the price he would pay.

But they hadn't, and he had stepped back and let them pay it. Each and every one of them. They had bonded themselves to each other and to him, they had cared for one another as comrades and friends, some of them lovers. They had all become distracted and in the end it had cost them dearly because of course they hadn't known then that the debt they had paid would be repaid years later when Tidus was given back. And then Auron. And now he lived with the guilt of this bred into his bones and did not believe that he was worthy of their care.

He was watching her face as though he could read the thoughts speeding through her head and Rikku couldn't stop them. She wanted him to see her as more than duty. She wanted him to see life as more than duty, but didn't know how to show him! She wanted him to look in a mirror and see himself, but the questions circling through her mind were childish, cruel. Years worth of confusion and guilt was mingling with the blossoming feelings for him in her head.

“You left, at the end. And you were so grateful for it. I could see it, Auron. I didn't know it then but the way your shoulders fell... It was like the weight of the world had been lifted and you were so glad to go. How could you be so glad to leave us?”

That had slipped out. That was selfish and wrong and not at all what adult Rikku had meant to ask but it was what had been on fifteen year old Rikku's mind for years and it was too late to take it back and all she could do was meet Auron's one garnet hued eye as it met her own with shock and dismay within it.

The silence was heavy for a moment before he opened his mouth to speak.

“Neither I nor Tidus were given a choice then. The Fayth had to rest after their relentless vigil and they could not sustain our presence any longer. His life was not his to live. An unjust sacrifice, true, and not one I would have chosen but I was not the architect of such dreams. He was given back. You should be grateful.”

“I am grateful, Auron. The whole Tidus thing isn't what I mean here! I'm grateful for you. I don't think you can see that behind this huge martyring guilt monster you have sitting on your chest! I don't think you know what you meant to us and I'm starting to think its because we didn't mean nearly as much to you! When you... you showed us you were Unsent you ripped a part of each of us out and took it with you to the Farplane.”

Auron felt betrayed. He felt anxious and twisted inside. He felt called out, crucified by this girl-child and her guilt. He grasped at words for a moment, focusing hard on the leather of his glove as he pulled it off his hand and tossed it aside in an uncharacteristic vent of frustration. Those ungrateful children. Had they not understand the gift he had orchestrated for them? The world that Spira would become because of their efforts, the heroism that had carried them through it? He had built them for that future. It hadn't mattered that he had died because he should never have been a part of their world to begin with! How foolish of them! How useless! He swallowed carefully.

“I left you all with every card necessary to play your hands to win. The world was yours, and whether you made ill or success of it was up to you. I had done my job. My ill gotten time was up.”

Rikku stood up before him, forcing him to look up at her. The sparkling desert child was nowhere in the graveness of her eyes, the firmness in her cool tone. He felt as though he were seeing the Princess of the Al Bhed for the very first time, a woman proud and strong in her own right and unafraid to bare her pain to him.

“We were celebrating just having saved our world and the two unofficial leaders of our party for all intents and purposes died less than ten minutes later. We were devastated, Auron. There was no joy in winning after that. It took us months to put the pieces of ourselves back together after the shock. You threw yourself at that crazy snake lady when Braska and Jecht ditched you with their whole 'okay, we'll buy you some time. We'll be back in ten years tops so you can undo this whole mess ok bye laterz!' But there was nobody we could throw ourselves at anymore! There was no revenge, no justice! There was just us, and the absence of you and Tidus.”

“Revenge did not end well for me,” Auron snapped, standing up as well as her words fell upon him. He felt persecuted by her, as though all his shortcomings were finally being bared in the light of her words. It felt unfair, to be crippled so before her.

“And victory didn't end well for us!” Rikku lashed back. “Did you think that Spira would suddenly become some sort of perfect society just because the cycle broke? That once Sin was gone and Tidus had been all used up you'd just drift away with the pyreflies leaving us a Utopia? That it wouldn't matter to us that you were gone?”

Her words hung in the silent air as she glared up at him and he stared back, immobilized.

And for one flush, heated moment he hated this girl. He despised her attitude and her flippancy and her shamelessness and her unerring ability to strike right where he was most vulnerable because that, in his heart of hearts, was exactly what he had been working for, what he had dreamed of and pushed them all for. He had wanted to defeat Sin and save Jecht and finally rest as a hero and he had used them all, he had used that hopeful, daring, fearless, oblivious boy to get to that dream. He had known and done it anyway, convinced in his righteousness and his fury. Was this why he had been brought back then? To face the ugly truth of his actions?

“Yes,” he hissed, and without thinking he had grasped the girl by the shoulders, shaking her slightly as though he could ever force her to heed him. “That is exactly what I wished. I was as monstrous as Seymour, as Mika, as Yu Yevon himself, manipulating the living for the power I needed. I was no better than them, and I do not deserve to be here now!”

Her skin was warm beneath his fingers and impossibly silky. Something in his blood flared to life. His heartbeat quickened. Her small hands quickly came up to cover his own and for a moment he flinched and nearly pulled away but she held on, leaning closer towards him. He felt pushed upon, pressured, thrilled by the heat and energy and beauty of her and terrified of the change she represented, sickened by the things he had just admitted aloud. He fought the urge to pull her against him, to push her away, unable to bear the changes such a thing would bring to his world but his blood felt thick with the need to feel her skin against his own.

“Then do better, Auron! You want to be the hero Spira already thinks you are than earn it!” she whispered fiercely, her hands falling on his chest. She thumped him gently with her fist and he nearly felt dizzy with the realization that she was somehow trapped in the circle of his arms and he had no idea how this had happened.

“I have saved this world twice!” he bit out, his hands sliding down her back where the warmth of her skin bled into his palms, and if they trembled she didn't seem to feel it.

“Then make it three times! Make it four! If that's what it's going to take to make you see yourself the way the world sees you, the way I see you, then you pick up your sword and keep going until you feel like you've earned the title Legendary Guardian, Auron, because you can't keep living a life where you obviously despise yourself!”

“And if that day never comes?” he snapped distractedly, swaying closer to her, and her arms were sliding upwards, the fingers of one hand snaking beneath the collar of his gi and sweeping over the skin on his neck. Desire shot through him, sparking over his skin. Her body was flush against his and he had never despised clothing until now. She had her eyes focused entirely on his mouth, her other hand coming up to brush against the skin of his lips before sliding around to cup the back of his neck, tugging him downward. They tingled where she had pressed her finger and he swallowed, lowering his head towards her own mouth.

“Then we've got a lot of world saving to -”

A throat being cleared suddenly brought the both of them to their senses and they broke apart, the both of them snapping their heads towards the intruder who now stood on the bottom floor.

“You've got a way of making those rousing speeches we're all so fond of real close and personal, Cid's Girl.”

Gippal stood below, his arms crossed over his chest and an inscrutable look on his handsome face as he stared up at them.

Chapter Text

---

Rikku threw herself out of Auron's arms and lunged to the railing bordering the top floor, snapping at the other man in rapid Al Bhed.

“Didn't see you there, Spikes! Should have known you would show up in person with the worst timing ever.”

“Don't mind me,” he shrugged indolently, replying in kind. “You were busy being dramatic and meaningful and scheduling some heroic world saving, which, if I can offer my opinion, might be difficult with all the world peace we've been enjoying.”

“Says the guy sending us after military tech solely to mobilize Al Bhed buildings!”

He scoffed, switching to Spiran.

“There are far more opportunities for that tech than military strategy, Cid's Girl. Or is it Auron's Girl now?” And here he shot a hard look at the other man.

Auron, who had been standing behind the girl, utterly frozen as the speedy cacophony of their language rose around him, suddenly stirred to life at the shot he could understand. He took a step backward, uncharacteristically graceless, and met Rikku's wide eyes. He nodded to her, oddly formal, before turning and striding swiftly down the stairs. He pushed past the other man with curt haste, keeping his eyes staunchly forward and not even waiting for the elevator but instead taking the seldom used stairs. Rikku watched him go, her cheeks flaring a pained red, glad that they were in the air at least. He couldn't jump ship and disappear on her into the depths of Regret and Woe though she had no doubt he was about to go try.
She clenched her hands around the rail, leaning so far forward in her fury that her hair cascaded over her shoulders onto the rails. “Don't poke, Gippal! You have no idea what was going on so keep your big nose out of it!”

“I have a pretty good idea what was going on,” he snarled, turning on his heel and slapping his palms on the counter top the Hypello usually stood behind, “and last I checked I didn't send you out here to... to drape yourself all over a washed up legend who doesn't even belong he-!”

“Doesn't belong... here? Doesn't belong in the world he saved?!”

“Cid's Girl, we don't even know what he is yet!”

“He's Auron, Gippal! He's not Yevon reborn, he's not doom personified!”

“How do you know?” he scoffed loudly, crossing his arms.

Rikku shook her head furiously.

“We lived in a world where if you were strong enough, needy enough, death was pretty much optional for hundreds of years! There is another resurrected spirit dream living on Besaid right now. He plays blitzball with me and has a fetish for neon clothing and I know he's real because he laughed too hard and choked on pudding last time I saw him! We live in a world of walking miracles and fantasies where we measure strength in terms of magic powers, and you're acting like we've never encountered anything like Auron before.”

“So you're just... accepting it? Not questioning it?” He grabbed the ends of his spiked hair with one hand and yanked on them with irritation. “I should have known you'd take one look at that kind of potential danger and hurtle yourself directly at it without considering the consequences! I just didn't think you'd...”

He halted himself, mouth thinning with irritation.

Rikku paused, leaning back from the rail, mouth parting. “I'd what?”

He waved a hand vaguely at her. “I didn't think he'd ever... He's so much older than you. And so, so... a monk...”

“Yeah, well, nothing happened!” Her face heated and she dropped to the edge of the chair, disappointed and humiliated and still aching for whatever had been about to happen that now totally never would. “He's probably hurled himself off the side of this ship because of honor or piety or something by now! You have no idea how much damage control this is going to take!”

Gippal rounded the stairs, approaching her slowly. “You're just going to walk right into the fire, aren't you? Just headfirst, headlong, right into the heart of the flames.”

“He's not a fire, Spikes. He's a very prudish, very wound up man,” she shot him a look. “Most likely.”

“Rikku,” he said softly, and Rikku hurled herself upwards abruptly and eyed the other Al Bhed leader warily because he never called her by her name. “I need you to be careful.”

“When am I not careful?” she snorted inelegantly, uncomfortable with his seriousness.

There had been a time when she would have chewed off her own arm to be the focus of his concern, his admiration, his anything. There had been a time when she had been eaten up inside by him, her parts corroded by the gleam of his white teeth against his tan skin and the curl of his smirk. But that part had been shoved away, rejected, forgotten about, lost and tossed back in her face so many times that she knew, infallibly, that she was over it. So why was he looking at her so intensely from his stupid, smug, handsome face?

“Rikku, that man is dangerous and not just because of his skill with a sword. It bleeds off of him. He's the type of man who could swallow you whole with his misery before you even knew to look for the teeth.”

“You don't know him, Gippal. He isn't what the stories used to say, what the rumors say now. You know that. He was your hero.”

“Until he wasn't,” Gippal frowned. “Never meet your heroes and all that.”

“Well, he was never my hero. He was my leader and my friend. I know him. He's not going to gobble me up no matter how many teeth he might have.”

He stared back at her, fists curling around themselves as he fought the urge to reach out and touch her. He had no reason to. And now he had no right.

“Right into the fire,” he whispered, shaking his head.

--

Auron found himself below deck in the empty cargo hold, staring blindly at a large wooden crate pushed against a wall.

If there had ever been a time in his lives when he could have used Braska's quiet comfort or even Jecht's no doubt mocking laughter, it was now. He had carefully picked a successful path through a dizzying labyrinth of politics, warfare and religion over two lifetimes, and now he was staggering through a completely unasked for third life like a blind drunk trying to lead a blindfolded chimera through a minefield.

That is how most normal people go about it, Braska would have said.

You're just late to the party, Auron! Jecht would have boomed huskily.

He had never wanted to be at the party to begin with, but as it stood he seemed to be the guest of honor and he had immediately repaid the kind invite by becoming a lecherous goat, apparently.

You have done no ill, Auron, Braska would tell him gently. Do not punish yourself for what you have not even done.

Yet, Jecht would snicker crudely. Because boy are you thinking about it!

Kimahri. Tidus. Perhaps even Wakka would be able to help him navigate this increasingly mired pathway he was not sure he could tread. Yevon help him, his internal monologue was not doing him any favors.

He had nearly kissed the girl. He had nearly put his hands upon her in ways that could not be undone. If he was being truly honest with himself the palms of his hands still tingled with the urge to grip and smooth and tighten and hold her again.

He had wanted. And such a thing was not wise for a man such as him, who was not truly sure he was even a man at all.

He was painfully aware that he was still in the same frozen position, still staring at a random box in the cargo hold, but he could not shake himself from the daze of it all. Let someone see him staring at walls. Let it feed into the stigma of what he was and let the world think his sanity was slipping because clearly it was.

You are merely human, my friend, he can hear Braska's soothing deep voice say. Subject to all the flaws thereof.

Not to mention, have you seen that girl's legs? Right up to her neck! Jecht whistles.

If it were possible to fight a figment of his own imagination Auron would have already drawn his sword.

Drawing a deep, calming breath through his nose, Auron turned his back on the crates and slid down until he was leaning against one. He decided that the lack of dignity and strength in his pose at the moment was allowable, even preferable, to holding himself together any longer. He felt, strangely, as though everything he was was coming apart at the seams and there was something inside shaking life into dusty wings and beginning to awaken, to stretch. The question remained though. Did it have fangs he need be wary of?
He was unsure. He was embarrassed. He was confused. He was tense. Above all he was thwarted.

That was the crux of it, he realized. The heart of the matter and what upset him the most in all of this.

It wasn't that he got caught in a compromising position by a faction leader with the daughter of the leader of a formerly heretical tribe of sand people. It wasn't that someone he was swiftly realizing was a rival for something he never asked to happen was the one who interrupted them. It wasn't that there was bound to be an entire new level of awkwardness and ugly tension to navigate past now between he and the girl. It wasn't even that he had always prided himself on being far above such base and banal entanglements.

What upset him the most was that he wanted more.

Despite every iota of common sense within him beating a drum on his mind telling him to step back, to stop. He wanted to go back to her and feel the heat of her skin beneath his fingertips once again.

He wanted to kiss the girl.

He wants to kiss Rikku.

And aside from the relentless, big picture quest to change a broken system that had powered him through an endless, grueling, heartbreaking march across Spira twice over now, he has never truly wanted anything.

Alone in the bowels of the ship, Auron tipped his head back against the splintered wood behind him until all he could see was the cold metal grating of the ceiling, closed his eyes, and swallowed.

Chapter Text

Rikku wasn't an idiot. She knew that if she pushed any harder on that man's particular, prickly armor he was bound to clam up faster than he counter attacked a fiend. It was best to hunker down, try to marshal her quicksilver thoughts and figure out how to unravel herself from the increasingly tangled mess of past and present and baggage and purpose that she was getting increasingly bound up in.

She would be a liar if she couldn't admit to herself, standing now on the upper balcony of the sleeping quarters staring at the rapidly unfurling landscape below, that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. That was honest, simple fact, and about the only simple thing about the entire situation.

She had almost kissed Auron today after wanting to for longer than she should have been. Stodgy, patient, cold, strong, boring, reverent, miraculous much older Auron. And it was one thing to pine for him in the depths of her overactive imagination (and how could she not once she had got a glimpse of those massive shoulders bare?!) but it was quite another entirely to think that maybe he was pining a little back.

That was momentous and fraught with meaning she couldn't quite decipher yet. That carried weight. And Rikku was all about quick fingers and rapid darting and whipping reflexes, and heaviness wasn't something she did well. She was not sure she was capable of shouldering the burden of what he truly was. The lives he lived had scarred him and she was quick enough to see that he was free falling right now and grasping at the world around him for stability. It would be selfish and cruel to let her hormones get the best of her and start something she wasn't sure she could finish.

He meant too much to her as a friend.

A breath left her shakily as the nervous pain that had been building in her stomach sharpened like a punch to the gut when she realized what she had to do now.

And what she could not do.

--

She took the stairs two at a time, bypassing the deck or the bridge. There was no way he had run off (though she had better not call it running. How about 'Purposefully Exited at Great Speed'?) to somewhere inhabited by other crew members. Yevon forbid someone see him emotionally disheveled behind that cowl covering the majority of any possible expression. She couldn't even imagine the pandemonium that would ensue if someone caught a glimpse of him grimacing slightly harder than normal.

So she found herself in the cargo hold in no short order despite doing a bit of meandering, a bit of detouring that absolutely completely did not have anything to do with him, glancing around the metal expanse with a small frown.

He wasn't hard to spot. He was leaning back against a huge wooden crate, powerful forearms resting on his upraised knees, feet braced against the floor. The blood red fabric of his gi pooled around him on the floor and his hands were surprisingly loose and relaxed where they lay. Something inside of her trembled, nebulous and blooming, to know that she had brought such a man to this state of unrest. She took a moment to compose herself by shaking out her jittery limbs, knowing her penchant for running off at the mouth while her mind was about five sentences behind it and the utter havoc it could wreak. She needed to be tactful, cautious, and she drew in a deep breath and attempted to harness her inner white mage. Breath in, breath out, meditation and all that stuff. Calm, serenity, stillness. Another deep breath, and the energy welling within her reminded her that she had never been the still pond or even the pebble dropped silently down into the depths; she had always been the stone skipped over the surface. She bit her lip, dug her toe into the floor with her hands linked behind her back, and took a deep breath before hurling herself right back into the fire.

“I'm surprised you didn't throw yourself overboard,” she sighed, tossing herself beside him and mirroring his loose limbed, defeated pose with a careful wriggle. She tipped her head back and looked at the plain metal ceiling. “Though I get why you wouldn't want to miss this incredible view.”

For a long, awkward moment there was nothing but silence and Rikku's stomach sank with the possibility that this might not be salvageable at all. Galling considering that was her main bread and butter most of the time.

“I considered it,” his low, gravelly voice was music to her ears. “But I imagine the Fayth are growing increasingly weary of hauling my ungrateful body back to life.”

“Maybe you need a punch card,” she hummed quietly, keeping her eyes trained on the roof. “Come back enough times and maybe you'll earn something cool like wings or laser eyes.”

Even she could tell that this peace was tenuous, that it was important to keep still.

For a long time they just sat, breathing. Rikku could feel the heat of him alongside of her but he was almost insultingly careful not to let even a whisper of his gi touch her.

“Rikku,” he finally spoke, and his voice was thick with uncertainty and no small amount of regret. “I should not have... I do not know what I intended but it was not... proper. I...”

He halted and tipped his head down, turning his unsettled focus to where his hands rested still on his knees. His thumb twitched, the only outward physical sign of his disquiet.

This was just painful. Rikku knew that if she allowed him to struggle through any more throttled, mangled sentences he was likely going to make things so much worse than they were now. What was it about this man, who could inspire entire armies with his low voice, who could conquer death and religion in what was essentially one long monk sabbatical, but he couldn't just outright say I regret that we almost locked lips because even though I totally want to cause you're a sexy Al Bhed princess, that is probably a bad idea because of mysterious resurrected monk reasoning and the fact that you are a flighty brat.

He sighed harshly, tipping his head back and thunking it against the crate. Blinking in stunned surprise at Auron doing anything so overt, Rikku tilted her head to face him. The stubble lining his jaw was sharp in the florescent lighting of the cargo hold. She wondered, idly, what the line of his jaw would feel like against the slide of her tongue.

Auron turned his face towards hers, still leaning backwards. His breath fanned her cheek. She was so close she could see the creases on either side of his nose where his sunglasses had pressed in so often that the skin carried the mark. It struck her as something so painfully, sweetly normal, for this man made of legends and lies.

They studied one another for a long, heady moment with the heated ghost of one another's skin beneath their hands and all they needed to say pinned within their closed mouths.

The silence perfumed the air with need and frustration. Auron swallowed.

“You bring out something in me that I cannot abide,” he whispered hoarsely. “It will serve neither of us.”

“I know,” she replied softly, still though every muscle within her body was tense with the urge to lunge, to seize. Her jaw ached with the strength it was taking her to do nothing.

“I never expected it would be you,” he said quietly, and for a long, thrumming moment his hand reached out and caught one of the braids cascading from below her bandanna. He dragged his fingers down it slowly, and Rikku's breath caught, her body a live wire as the pad of his thumb slipped gently over her hair.

Before she could make some blindingly stupid move, before she could open her mouth to speak, before she could let out a scream of frustrated lust and loss and frantic begging for more he had risen gracefully to his feet, slid his arms through the sleeves of his gi in one smooth motion and strode away as though anything he had said had solved anything. At all.

Rikku waited a full minute after he had left before letting out a frustrated groan and stamping her feet against the metal grating on the floor. She let out a stream of colorful Al Bhed curses, baffled by his cryptic wordplay though not at all surprised.

She had come down here with the plain and straightforward intention on letting him off the hook with an old that was just a near miss, we must have been drunk, forget about it don't worry, let's never mention it again and move on with our amazing lives except maybe we could explore that avenue later when we aren't coworkers if you maybe wanna? But he had thrown her with his enticing little hook there. Never thought it would be her because... her age? Her awesomeness? Never thought it would be her to steal his heart? To cop a feel under that monk gear? What had he meant?

Rikku hung her head, sagging in on herself as boneless as a flan because this was all too complicated, too much of a maze where she felt like she was dodging and weaving absolutely nothing but had to keep running all the same. Pops didn't raise no quitter though, and for good or for even gooder she was going to see this through to the end. She just had to keep it in her pants... Which couldn't be that hard right? She just needed to turn a blind eye to those shoulders and that smirk and that touchable head of hair, a deaf ear to that low voice and his easy wisdom and that way he hummed when he was pleased with something that just curled up her spine like warm smoke...

Simple. Easy. She could do all that.

“Well, chocobos,” she huffed into the silence. “I knew this was going to be cake walk.”

--

Auron strode heavily up the stairs feeling as though he had narrowly avoided something explosive but was nonetheless still holding the detonator in his hand. All things considered he had dealt with that rather adroitly, he thought. He hadn't pulled the girl into his arms. She hadn't toppled into his lap. He hadn't ended up pulling out his hair or raising his voice. She hadn't ended up in hysterics. Even if they hadn't dealt with the growing problem – attraction, his mind refused to say – between them, they had sidestepped it for a time. And though dealing with things head on was how he generally lived his life, somehow he doubted the monk teachings of Yevon had included lessons on keeping wily Al Bhed girls from seducing ones self.

Then again, considering the history of prejudice again her race there had probably been several volume dedicated to just that in the archives of Bevelle. At least a sermon or two.

Coward, he voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Tidus snickered.

Auron headed into the elevator and moved to hit the button to direct it, then stopped with his hand hovering over the panel. For an absurd moment he was paralyzed by the thought that he might head back to the sleeping quarters where at any moment Rikku could tumble back in with the sunlight pouring through the glass illuminating the row of beds that would be so easy to spread her over and -

His hand smacked down and with numb dismay he realized he was headed towards the bridge where the fearless captain of this vessel no doubt was, alongside the very man he had hastily removed himself from the company of earlier.

Perhaps it would behoove him to face this crucible straight away rather than let the wound fester. He squared his shoulders as the doors opened and stepped out onto the bridge. His shoulders ached for the easy weight of Masamune slung across them. He flexed his hands. 

Brother let out an undignified squeak when he spotted him, doing an about face so quickly and so hard that he ended up three quarters the wrong way around. Auron ignored him, instead directing his attention to the purple clad man standing with his arms crossed staring out over the clouds.

“We've taken longer than we intended,” he drawled. “Nearly got caught by a bad storm but managed to get around it before things took a turn for the worse.”

“How fortuitous,” Auron murmured softly, coming to stand beside Gippal.

The younger man looked at him askance. 

“Sometimes storms are hard to see unless you get the right amount of distance. Hard to see the danger when you're right in the middle of it,” he pushed.

Auron nodded thoughtfully. “How fortunate for us then that you yourself have such distance that you can see all things with such clarity.”

Gippal's jaw clenched and he turned to look at the older man. “Whatever it was that I saw up there, that wasn't what I brought you into this for,” he hissed.

“Nor was it what I took the job for,” Auron frowned. “It has been handled.”

“That easy for you, is it?” Gippal scoffed, turning back to the windows. “Pick 'em up hot, drop 'em cold.”

Which did this irritatingly smug, good looking man want? For him to ravish the girl or drop her like a load of wet towels? Either way seemed to get under his perfectly tanned skin. The boy didn't look like he had ever had to shave in his life. Auron felt an odd sensation unfurling along his spine with an electric thrill. He felt like goading the younger man, like plucking at the frustrated jealousy he could feel pouring off of the faction leader. He shook it away before it could make him act foolishly though. He would do no such thing.

“You have a plan to expedite this operation?” Auron asked, as unflappable as ever. “Provided, of course, we avoid any more storms.”

Gippal hesitated, looking as though he wanted to say more but in the end he just let out a disgusted sigh and strode over to a screen with a map of Spira lit up within it.

“Rin informed us two days ago that another team is on the way to the ruins from a private benefactor. Someone with Gil and resources who found out about the plans after we did. We have to assume their team is coming in as prepared as we are. You may have even crossed paths with them and not known it yet.”

“Are they a danger?” Auron asked.

“Always sensible to assume yes until proven otherwise,” Gippal shrugged. “We're dropping you off at the Moonflow but you two are going to need to streamline. Get a hold of anything you can to break into the ruins and then go. We're in a footrace now, and we have no idea where they are or if they are steps ahead already.”

“You're working on that?”

“Rin is on it, but I need you two on the tactics still. You're facing Great Malboro's, mimics, and god knows what else in those ruins. You've been there. You know you need to be Stonerpoof, you know you better carry Softs, antidotes, everything. Those things pack a mean punch even if you are Legendary Guardian Auron. You're going to have to work your way up from the Moonflow to the Thunder Plains, have Rikku work her magic to get your gear Omega Ruin ready, get an abbreviated version of the explosives done, and then get your asses over there.”

“Anyone not properly prepared for those ruins will not make it far within them no matter how much gil their benefactor has,” Auron added dryly. “There is a reason the treasures within remained untouched for so long.”

Gippal muttered something that sounded suspiciously like that's not all that had better remain untouched, that Auron affected not to hear. “Yeah, well, playtime is over Auron. Time to get ahead of the game. Better get Cid's Girl ready to disembark. We'll be landing in twenty minutes and I've got better things to do with my time than ferry you slackers around Spira.”

“I'm certain you do,” Auron nodded seriously, heading back towards the elevator and ignoring the sharp look Gippal shot him.

Chapter Text

The banks of the Moonflow were as haunting and beautiful as Auron remembered as the glow of the Moonlilies reflected softly against the water and the overcast sky above stretched onward. He stood silently and gazed far across the river as the distant whine of pyreflies rose gently around him, remembering the past filled with Shoopufs and strangers from Zanarkand when the future had seemed so possible in its directness. He had not known then, but remaining mired in its regrets was beginning to tire him. Much was beginning to tire him, and as he took in how very few pyreflies remained now he could recognize the simplistic message therein of letting go. There was little to gain from staring at the horizon, unappreciative of the beauty before him while rehashing the ugliness of the past. 

He heard another indignant squawk from behind him and wondered at the hapless merchant in Rikku's grasp. She was in the process of shaking any and all of the merchants congregated along the shoreline for whatever convoluted ingredients she required for her talents. It was beyond his experience, though he did not want to admit that to her. Her ego was large enough as it was. And he was unsure his own could take the hit, he thought with amusement.  He sighed, and reached a gloved hand up to rub the kink out of his shoulder. He had not had a decent sleep in some time and it was beginning to catch up with him. Such an average problem to have but a part of him was intrigued by it, even pleased. Aches and pangs, tastes and experiences, his once more to grasp. The novelty of it was not lost quite yet though if his sore muscles and the heaviness of his lids were any indication, it soon would be.

 
They had been unceremoniously dumped here by an obviously tense Gippal and while the girl was arguing with the milling salesmen scattered along the road, Auron was surveying the area for anything out of the ordinary. If she had need of him, he would know. 

So they had competition. He felt a confident smile tugging on his lips. Between his tactics, the girl's brilliance and their combined strength, they would overcome whatever was necessary. A part of him relished the idea of a challenge, a chance to flex his muscles in this version of Spira. Perhaps this was the threat he had been pursuing all this time.  

“What are we standing here looking smug about?” Rikku asked as she skittered up beside him, amused. “Someone finally tell you you've got great hair?”

He turned to look down at her. “What? No. I was reflecting on our potential competitors.” 

“Yea, we're going to need to have a pow wow about that later. There aren't many people it could be but I gotta say I don't like the candidates I have lined up unless it's a new contender, but like.. there aren't many in Spira that could come up against us with any success, you know? And most that could are kind of, you know, leading the world government.” 

“Perhaps their goal is to avoid conflict with us entirely,” Auron rumbled thoughtfully. “If I were leading the opposition against us my greatest asset would be speed. Beat us there entirely and you never have to encounter us at all.” 

“I thought that too. Which is why we had better get steppin',” she sighed and hefted her pack higher up her back. Your gear isn't going to Stoneproof itself!”

“You didn't retain your old gear from your other two expeditions into the ruins?” he asked curiously. 

“Did you?” she snorted. 

“I think our circumstances were slightly different,” he scoffed. 

Rikku shrugged. “Most of it wouldn't fit me anyway. I'm not fifteen anymore.” 

“So I noticed,” he muttered without giving the words due consideration. 

“Did you now?” she snickered, elbowing him sharply in the ribs with her bony arm.  

Auron winced and felt his cheeks flaring with heat and a no doubt unattractive red. “In a mentoring capacity, of course,” he said firmly, eyeing her sideways and most assuredly not thinking about her lithe figure. “Strictly tactical.” 

She grinned, shrugging impishly but letting it go. “I was thinking about my garment grids too. I can strap on Mortal Coil and I have the ability to stoneproof but you don't have that luxury yet so this is an All About Auron After School Special! Your gear, Masamune and everything... There's something about it that doesn't mesh well with the garment grid magic. I'm going to have to do it old school like I used to, brush off the ol' Rikku mojo and get alchemical on your equipment if we want to stoneproof you properly.” 

“I see,” he murmured, and began walking. He did not see. 

“Soon I'll have Shinra on it for the new stuff. He's going to sup you up good, and I for one, cannot wait to see you twirling around in glitter and lights each time you need to switch from Gunner to Trainer or back again! Oh yea! Have you met my monkey?” 

“I have not,” he looked at her oddly. “Also I have no intention of becoming anything other than a Warrior Monk. I wield a sword, I do not need guns, nor do I intend to wield a... monkey.” 

“You haven't lived until you've tossed a monkey at a fiend, Auron,” she snickered. “And we'll see. Shinra is very convincing.” 

“What do I have to do to convince you to focus on the task at hand?” he muttered, shrugging his sword higher up his shoulder and quickening his pace. 

Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird, Rikku chanted internally. 

“I can totally focus!” she scoffed, darting ahead of him up the path. “I've taken these marks for everything they had so let's go find us some stuff to finish off the bang bangs so we can move onto the Thunder Plains lickity split! Guadosalam shouldn't take us long to get through since YRP solved all those Guado problems. The good stuff is in the plains and the lightening isn't so bad since dad repaired all the towers. I need to steal enough Soft's and Petrify Grenades to bury a chocobo in order to get all your stuff in proper shape. It's time to hunt some Melusine so let's show some hustle old man!” 

Auron frowned, hefting his sword up his shoulder and lengthening his stride. “Old man, is it? You did not mind my years when we were aboard the ship,” he muttered grouchily.

“What was that?” Rikku stopped abruptly in the path, swinging around to look at him with wide eyes. 

Auron arched a brow. 

“I said you will not proof the gear with such an amount of lip,” he deadpanned, overtaking the girl and striding ahead. 

After a stunned moment behind him Rikku burst into laughter, smacked her knees and ran to catch up. 

“Yea, that's what I heard,” she grinned.  

 --

Auron could not help but twist his head around  to try to take it all in as they entered the city of Guadosalam that night. It was still an unsettling mass of writhing roots and living walls, the smell of dirt and moss thick in his nostrils and the cold moisture heavy in the air. Guado and Hypello wandered the roots without paying them much attention. Bright doorways and windows of colorful stained glass filtered in some light and helped alleviate the closeness of the place, but with the darkness of evening closing in it took on a pressure that he recalled feeling the first time he had come here. Claustrophobic somehow. He did not enjoy this city, what a strange thing to have forgotten.

 
They began to ease their way along the forest floor towards the Inn. The Farplane was a presence in his mind, an awareness more than anything that made him more and more unsettled with each step. His existence was confusing. Did he belong there? Would it be a danger to him to enter it? Did he dare? Was he human enough to call upon the image of Jecht or Braska as any man could or was he ghost enough that he would be bled back into the void? So many variables he had no answers for anymore.  

Beside him Rikku seemed to be following the same line of thought as he was. She shot him a glance. "No reunions," she whispered. "We can get a room at the inn to sleep but that's all we have time for." 

"I think," he blinked and shifted his arm out of the loose hold of his gi, loosening his stance defensively, "that would be prudent."

His stomach tightened with anxiety and a cloud of dread that he could not explain and as he began moving towards the inn he was startled to feel the girl's small hand suddenly curl around his own. He halted abruptly, his heart beating hard in his chest. 

"I won't let anything happen to you," she said quietly, squeezing his palm against his own. The warmth of it settled into his own.   

"There are a great many things in life that happen despite us," he said softly. 

They stood together, the breeze rustling the very city around them far above, a thicket of wood and rich earth and vibrant life pressing close. Auron's heart rate slowed back to a normal pace. He drew in a deep, fortifying breath.  

He squeezed her hand back for a long moment before letting go.

-

Rikku shouldn't be here. She knew that. She sensed it deep in the bird hollow lightness of her bones and the heated thrum of her tanned skin. The edge of her teeth were sharp and digging into her lip. Her palms prickled with heat and her heart beat beat beat a heavy refrain against her ribs. She felt the echo of it pulsing in her temple. She breathed in, long and slow, then released it.  

The Farplane.

The whine of pyreflies encircled her, the soft light and glow of this sanctuary that the Al Bhed were not supposed to go within... But when had that ever stopped her? 

Yuna had said that the bottom was filled with purple and white flowers, that the ground was as solid as anything beneath her right this moment but Rikku remained unconvinced. She could only imagine falling endlessly through that pastel glow before her. It was a strange place even after everything Spira had gone through. The dead were settled but they still existed, strangely, in this nebulous spirit kingdom of light and silence. It gave her no peace to think about her future here.  

There was nobody else around. Nobody was calling up images of their departed loved ones tonight so she had the run of the place to herself. Good. Good... She needed it for what she was about to do. 

Rikku closed her eyes.

 
This was a betrayal. She recognized that. She had left Auron asleep in the bed beside her own, and he had needed it, the big dope. There were shadows under his eyes that even his shades couldn't hide. He couldn't keep going at her pace. Nobody could! She had an unreal store of energy that tended to exhaust anyone trying to keep up with her. She should have slowed down. Should have taken his needs into consideration. It was just... before, he had seemed unstoppable. She had to remember that now he wasn't the same man, the same Unsent. 

Right? 

But that was what she had come here to find out. 

Auron. She got a grip on herself, fidgety and itching to open her eyes again. She couldn't think about the way he had heaved himself wearily into bed and groaned with relief at the softness, the unexpected warmth that had bloomed in her stomach when he had tossed his sunglasses onto the nightstand and rubbed his eye, the way the muscles in his arm had bulged when he lifted his forearm to cover them and heaved a huge, contented sigh. He had begun to snore ever so softly a few minutes later while she bounced quietly on the edge of her own bed and pretended (kinda but not really) not to be studying him. It had been simple and easy to slip back out of the room even though her heart had stuttered painfully in her chest at the thought of what she was going to do, what she had known she needed to do the second they had stepped into Guadosalam.  
She thought of his weary sighs, his red gi, his scarred face, the low thrum of his voice, the edge of his sword, the flare of silver at his temples that begged for her fingers to brush it back. Auron. 

She drew in a deep breath. She opened her eyes. 

Chapter Text

Auron leaned against the wall, arms crossed and head bowed for a long, pensive time. Long enough for a root digging into his shoulder blade to become an annoyance. Long enough for several guado and a Hypello walking past to give him furtive looks at the lateness of the hour and the stillness of his vigil. He kept his eyes closed, his breathing even and deep and meditative. He had woken up in the loamy, damp coolness of their room without the reassuring shifting of the girl in the bed near him. He was no fool, he knew where she had gone. What he could not fathom was why. In his travels across the world it had seemed as though she was his staunchest supporter. She did not deify him, did not revere him. She had merely stood by him as he tried to navigate an internal course on this winding journey.

So why go to the Farplane? Why call him out?

Al Bhed did not put their faith for death in the plane. They had their own ways of honoring the dead and he doubted she was going to call up her mother, or Jecht or Braska for that matter. The wisdom they would have had to offer the girl had they ever been in a position to offer any would have been slim at best. All lost young men. All young men, lost.

Finally, he heard a sound not unlike chimes in the wind, a tingling blooming in the air as the gateway between Guadosalam and the Farplane opened like a shiver on the wind. For a moment he smelled rose petals and the warm heat of summer grass. Then Rikku had stepped through and was hurrying down the long staircase, unaware of his presence tucked in the shadows of the roots at the entryway. She stepped past him, drew in a deep breath. He trailed his eye over the taut yellow strings of her bathing suit and the vulnerable press of them into her skin. Down over the slightness of her hips, their pockets and the bare length of her thighs, down to her rubbery blue and white boots with their flopping ankles.

She seemed no worse for wear, no richer or poorer for the knowledge denied to him and inexplicably he was angered.

“Has your curiosity been assuaged?” he rasped harshly, gratified somehow when she jumped, startled, and spun to face him.

“Why are you hiding there Auron?” she gasped.

He stepped closer to her, crowding into her space. She took a nervous step backwards, blinking up at him with something unreadable in her eyes. He felt cheated by her somehow, cheapened. This girl had told him over and over that she was his friend, that she cared for him. To not include him in such a momentous answer in what was his story, was cruel of her. He had expected better.

“You went to the Farplane,” he shot at her, fists heavy at his sides.

“I did,” she nodded firmly.

He had expected sheepishness, distracting antics and sidesteps. Narrowing his eye he flicked his gaze over her face and tried to get a read on her.

“Why?” he asked, the word torn from him with more vulnerability than he had intended.

He had thought, out of all who had known him, that she was content to simply have him as he was, not rip off the veil. She was never content to leave well enough alone.

“To see you,” she replied immediately, lifting her chin. She met his gaze head on. “I thought there might be an answer for you there. I couldn't risk you going yourself.”

Auron opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head. “You do not get to decide which risks I take, Rikku. That is not your place.”

She shrugged, crossing her arms and tapping her foot against the roots beneath her. The whine of the Farplane swelled behind them. Indignant, Auron took his arm out of his gi and took hold of the girl's upper arms with his hands. His bare palm thrilled at the softness of her skin beneath his and he shook it away. He forced her to meet his eye, willing her to understand that she had wounded him with her thoughtlessness. His fingers pressed deep.

“Rikku, I...” he tried to articulate his feelings to the girl, the words locking tight in his throat with each attempt. He was unused to trying to make someone see his perspective. Rarely had it mattered to him what anyone else thought. “You have done me a disservice.”

He finished lamely, clenching his jaw. He looked sharply to his right at the oceanic portal surrounded by such odd filigree. He swallowed and fell silent, hands falling away from her to his sides.

Rikku's fingers immediately tangled with his own and pulled them back up, pressing their joined hands against his chest as she pushed closer to him until his sight was filled with her beautiful, earnest, fierce little face.

There was a light in her eyes, a sharpness that he had not seen before. Rikku Cidolphus, leader of the Al Bhed was calling his attention now. He met her eyes just as fiercely.

“Auron,” she said firmly. “If there was any chance that the Farplane would call you back I couldn't take it. If I messed up, I'm sorry but I'm kinda not sorry at all. You mean too much to all of us, to me, to have you get misted back to that place yet again. I had to know. I had to see.”

“And what did you see, Rikku?” he whispered, searching her face while the heat of her thin fingers bled into his, the sharpness of her bones laced uncomfortably with his own. His breath ruffled strands of her hair. Her forearms pressed into his chest.

She took a breath, the spirals in her green eyes stark and alien and beautiful.

“You weren't there,” she said earnestly. “I called you and you didn't appear.”

And she had. She had opened her eyes with a lump so heavy in her chest that she had felt sick with it. She had looked around, run to the edge and peered over in case his apparition had decided on a lower clime. Nothing. She had tried shouting his name out loud, thinking about young Auron, Unsent Auron, and Auron now. The sky remained blissfully, euphorically empty.

Her words hung in the air, pregnant with shock and meaning.

A flash of something crossed his face and Rikku recognized it instantly as guilt. She pulled back slightly, but his hold on her fingers tightened painfully. She stilled, awareness once again spilling over her consciousness like a rising sun.

Oh Auron, you great big idiot.

All this time filled with guilt and self recrimination. All this time wishing for the end. All this time searching for purpose. All this time he had thought he was still living a half life, still one foot in the grave. Not an Unsent but perhaps something else, something alien and otherworldly and somehow noncommittal to the world and people around him. A half life.

He had wanted it to be true.

He seemed to be unbending this knowledge in his mind, forcing it into a shape that aligned with his sensibilities, his steadfast morals. He was failing, his hands shook around hers.

“There was no part of your soul in the Farplane, Auron. You're not a copy. You're not dead. You're alive Auron. As alive as I am. As alive as you were supposed to be.”

He gazed down at her with his one russet eye, the scars folding over the other pulling as he blinked over and over. She fought back the urge to reach up and put her palm along his cheek. She hadn't meant to cause him this much strain, but if he was going to get past anything in his history so that he could create a present, than he deserved to know what he was. She'd be lying if she said she didn't have a personal stake in this but she had never been happier in her life to see nothing. He had the chance to put down roots, to become whatever he wanted. Whatever he might have been if he'd survived Yunalesca or stayed on as an Unsent didn't matter.

His life was now his to live. She couldn't help him want to live it.

His hands fell away from her, untangling from their vicious grip on one another. He took a step back and she watched as his throat bobbed in a swallow. He turned quietly with his usual grace, his spine straight and his head high, and he walked away.

--

Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow.

He had said those words, carefully chosen to motivate and catalyze a group of shell shocked youths into religious rebellion against a deity. There had been no true choice in his sinuous wording.

“...Fight your sorrow,” he husked, tilting his head back against the root of the tree he had scaled much earlier. It was likely he was desecrating something sacred to the Guado but he could find little motivation for concern. The trees of Guadosalam had endured far worse over the years than an old monk clambering to their heights. It had been simple to scale the strange, warping wood full of swirls and holes until he found a comfortable nook in the roots where he could stare out across the Thunder Plains. The stark, flat rock bed stretched far out into the fog, the great towers jutting upwards in supplication to the sky at seemingly random intervals. Angry flashes of vicious lighting forked powerfully down towards the ground but were more often than not diverted to the towers. The rumble and flash was hypnotic in its energy. He remembered the threatening boom of thunder rolling across the sky and the electric tingle down the spine when the bolts arced towards the ground.

He remembered his words to the girl.

This storm never stops. Better to pass quickly.

He had been irritated with the inconvenience of her fear. He had already been mentally recalculating the loss of her assets when he abandoned her at the nearest resting point. How callous he had been. How... strategic in his consideration. Scoffing, Auron tilted his head back down and watched the intermittent blast of the lightening flare within the far off clouds.

He was avoiding thoughts of far more importance though. Far more critical.

He was alive. It was no longer a question of what he was, or what his purpose was for being in Spira. There was none.

His stomach twisted with anxiety at this new knowledge. No grand purpose. No world to save. Nothing but finding a purpose to a life he did not want to live. The winds of uncharacteristic anxiety began to swell within him, the sails of panic unfurling in his chest. His self identity was blowing off course and he did not have the skill to correct it.

Allow yourself to travel this new direction, Braska would have soothed him. You seek a battlefield when all the soldiers are long dead or returned home.

Yeah, quit starting shit, Jecht would snort.

Shifting his now aching behind from the hard roots below him, Auron came to his knees, carefully folding the length of his red haori to cushion them. He settled back, hands falling into proper position. He breathed in, he breathed out, fighting the watery fear still churning in his gut. He swallowed, forcing away the rumble of the thunder, erasing the rustle of the leaves and the occasional chirp of birdsong deep within the canopy. Silence. Peace. Stillness.

I don't know why you're bitching so hard about this, Jecht's voice shoved its way into his consciousness. You should be grateful, not whining about it. You're alive, jet-setting around Spira with a hot little blonde and everyone thinks you're a war hero and maybe even a god. You were always such a stick in the mud. Enjoy it.

He was not bitching, he was unsettled. He was not ungrateful, he was uncertain. He was not whining, he was coming to terms. And he was not jet setting, he was aiding the leaders of the Al Bhed faction in obtaining dangerous technology before it fell into the wrong hands.

Sure seems like you're bitching.

Auron sighed and opened his eyes, irritated with his minds insistence on plaguing him. How could he come to terms with this unasked for reality when he had had it all sorted out and completed at the end of the second pilgrimage. He had been done. It had all been over.

And now it's not, Braska's voice would state calmly. So what do you do? Mope in a tree while gazing morosely at the thunder and lightening, or face the girl, face your fear, and live and fight your sorrow?

Again just like all those years ago, there truly was no choice.

Auron drew in a deep breath, shifting uncomfortably from his sore knees to his feet. The wind ruffled his hair, moist and cold and carrying with it the scent of rain. He pulled his eyes from the horizon and looked down at his hands. He held them for a moment in front of him, flexing his fingers and studying the lines of his palms, the flecks and jags of scars that spoke of swordsmanship and hard labor. A thin white line across his index finger from a duel in his early years against a black mage who used a whip. A circle with jagged edges like a bursting star on the back of his left thumb from a soldier's stray bullet. Each mark held a fragment of his long past within it.

Hesitantly, he touched a hand to the smooth, flat melt of scar tissue over his right eye, a flare of sadness and pain blossoming in his chest. Shakily he trailed his fingers over the ridges and hollows from his brow bone down to his cheek. The skin felt silken and tight. The phantom ache of pain that always lived within the empty socket pulsed. Grief tore through him, overwhelming and vast as he stood alone hundreds of feet above Spira in the boughs of Guadosalam with nothing but his own truth facing him. After years in a fugue state, after dying his undeath without acknowledging it, he finally took the time to mourn himself.  It yawned within him, the boundlessness of his sorrow, as immense and endless as the plains stretching before him into the fog below.

Choked with it, breathless, Auron sucked in a ragged breath and leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees for this one weak moment he allowed himself. 

Faith, purpose, failure, redemption, strength, sadness. He held all these cards within him. Now he had to decide which to play.      

He swallowed shakily, straightened his spine. His hand fell away but resolve strengthened within him. He filled his lungs deeply with the fresh, damp air once, twice, then again. 

He moved to begin the slow descent back down the tree.

Chapter Text

--

To say things were awkward between them as they traversed the Thunder Plains was a bigger understatement than saying Shuyin had been a little annoyed with how things in his life had gone. There was no downplaying the colossal mess Rikku had orchestrated by going to the Farplane, but stubbornly she held on to the fact that it was only a mess because she'd got caught.

Thief is a thief is a thief after all.

If the grouch had just stayed asleep like he should have they'd be okay right now. She'd have had to admit her discovery to him at some point but that was a bridge she had intended to cross later.

Still, since she had dragged herself out of bed and showered, then left their room and found him downstairs in the lobby, he had barely spoken to her. She was kind of surprised he hadn't ditched her entirely, but duty would probably keep Big Red tied to her till the Omega Ruins were behind them no matter how much he wanted to leave. Duty was swiftly becoming a dirty word to her.

In the here and now, she dodged the nimble swipe of the agitated Melusine as it swept its huge clawed arm at her head. Swiftly she darted forward, her magic sliding effortlessly into her fingers as she reached inside the ether-body and curled her fingers around something, pulling it back out and into their reality. Success! Another Soft. Agitated, the beast roared, hunkering further down on its deadly clawed limbs as it prepared to attack her again. Too easy when she was such a spirited ball of incredible and she had Ultra Monk to back her when he wasn't busy moping! Rikku dodged away and felt the powerful rush of a sword through the air she had just left. Auron stepped in and cut the monster down without a word.

“Phew!” she cried out, sweating lightly with the continued exertion of fiend gathering. They'd been at if for hours now, and between the Cactuars relentless needles (she was getting low on grenades), the Beur's glaring her down and the Elemental's adding insult to injury, she was getting a decent workout. She collapsed onto her bum for a moment on the dusty ground, slightly comforted by the presence of a slipshod metal lightening tower twenty feet to her right. If a bolt decided to aim itself for her head, chances are it would be caught by the tower instead. And if not, and it killed her, well so be it. Might be less awkward.

Wiping her sleeve over her forehead Rikku caught her breath, spilling out her wealth of Soft's and the odd assortment of detritus the dead seemed to carry with them. Marbles of light and darkness clicked softly against the stones, soft yellow feathers and sharp fangs. An inexplicable spoon she had yanked out of a Cactuar.

Footsteps crunched towards her and Rikku glanced at the boots that stopped in front of her sprawled form than went back to counting. He wasn't in a very talkative mood. In fact he had been downright stony. And yea, she could admit that her stomach was a knot of anxiety because she had broken that glittering, golden thread of camaraderie and feeling between them but she was nothing if not determined. She would fight her way back to him. She was unstoppable when she wanted something, and she wanted him to laugh with her again.

“Still gotta get more,” she sighed gustily. “But we're making progress. I can do up your chest plate and bracers with what I have here. Just the gauntlet since you won't let me at your sword.”

“You are fatigued,” he murmured curtly, ignoring her comment.

This was the first thing he had said to her aside from roughly worded orders in battle since they had left the roots of Guadosalam and moved onto the outskirts of the Thunder Plains. She had said plenty! Babbled really, with lots of play by plays about the weather and the strangers they saw and that one bumblebee that had dizzily wobbled by that she couldn't stop laughing at.

Her eyes shot up to his face where he was standing above looking down at her with one expressionless eye. She blinked, inexplicably pained by the sight of his face.

He gestured negligently at her arm. “You're becoming uncoordinated. More so.”

Ouch, come at me like that why dontcha.

She glanced down at her arm and finally noticed the burning sensation from a shallow cut. The bows of her sleeves were stained red. She swore in Al Bhed, pinching the fabric in her other hand and pulling it away from the pained area.

“Yeah, well, we can't all sword dance or whatever it is you do,” she groused and nervously regathered the materials from the ground. Her arm stung, and she blinked away a sheen of unexpected tears. She had been getting used to the wall of silence she had been getting from Auron. Just like old times! What was he getting all wordsy for now? He was practically writing a sonnet.

Clambering to her feet she grabbed a potion from her pouch and popped the top. She swiped a hand over her mouth, grimacing at the taste but feeling the soft warmth of the magic glow over the damaged skin. Auron was looking distantly at the horizon, apparently. Too bad there was so much fog he could probably only see like thirty feet ahead of them. Good, she thought petulantly. Let him stare dramatically at the mist. Or the rocks. Or the lightening tower. Have a stare down with a Cactuar King! Anything is better than acknowledging that I exist.

Above them the clouds roiled violently, the rumble of thunder booming loud enough to rattle her molars. Lightening flashed in the clouds, forking though the darkness above them. Auron was now watching her silently and Rikku tossed the bottle aside. It smashed, tinkling over the stones. He did not flinch in the slightest.

“Let's get a move on,” she groused. “We're not going to gather more Softs by standing here trying to play who is the tallest in this lightening storm. Spoiler alert, you win. Enjoy your prize.”

She moved to push past, jostling him, but was halted by a gloved hand catching her arm roughly. Pulling her towards him he studied the mended skin for a dizzying moment before meeting her eyes. She lifted her chin defiantly. She still wasn't sorry. She'd do it again in a heartbeat because it had gotten him answers and it had kept him safe. Reading the defiance in her face his eye narrowed and for a heart stopping moment he yanked her closer, opening his mouth to speak but hesitating as he searched her face. He breathed in sharply, it caught in his throat as the moment washed over them. The warmth of his hand bled through the leather of his gloves, his grip softening. She felt breathless, an un-wordable dare in her eyes that she knew he'd be unable to answer.

“We will rest there,” he rasped, throat bobbing as he swallowed and pointed to the nearest tower. He let go of her arm and stepped away, his jaw tightening.

“I can keep going. We're almost done,” she scoffed. “This storm never stops, remember?”

“One lucky swipe to the throat from one of these fiends and not even Yuna could save you, Rikku. Be sensible for once. We rest.”

A jagged flare of lightening forked to the nearby tower, illuminating the lines in his face, the tension in his shoulders. The silver at his temples lit up in the light and she looked away as the urge to brush her fingertips over it tingled through her.

He's so tired, she realized. He could fight for hours more physically but inside he's collapsing all over himself like a dying star.

She was being unfair, and juvenile, and stupidly stubborn like she always was. She wanted him to stop being angry with her and forgive her for leaving him out of the Farplane Fiasco as she had privately dubbed it, and she was acting like she had no reason to feel wrong about what she'd done, and yes, she kinda hadn't thought it all the way through. She kinda hadn't given enough weight to how he would feel. A mistake. Her stomach twisted with guilt. When was she going to grow up? This wasn't a game and she knew that... But the thought of him drifting back into that soft swell of pyreflies, of walking that purple carpet of flowers endlessly... Swallowing, Rikku looked away. The wind picked up, scattering the small stones and dust along the ground. She could hear the creaking groan of an Iron Giant in the distance and those jerks never left her alone. She sagged with defeat.

“Hmph, let's go,” he groused, heaving Masamune onto his shoulder and striding away.

They made their way to the nearest stone and metal tower through the dreary fog, skirting around the base for somewhere suitable to take shelter. Someone previously had built up a low wall of stones into the curvature of a sloping stone making up the base. It offered some protection against being snuck up on by the tireless fiends of the Thunder Plains. Auron stood watch until she had slumped against it, slinging her bag down beside her and resting her head in her hands. She sighed gustily and ran her hands over her hair, wincing when they caught in the messy braids.

Deftly she began tugging out the colorful spheres, tucking them quickly into the pouch at her waist. She dragged off the bandanna and then the high ponytail spiking up the top. Her scalp ached with relief and she sighed, the mix of straight golden hair and braids cascading messily around her shoulders. She leaned her head back against the stone and whimpered absently at the relief.

Coming back to herself, she felt his eyes upon her and flushed pink.

She opened her eyes after a moment to find Auron's gaze focused entirely upon her where he still stood sentinel. The flash of heat and awareness in his eyes made desire bleed through her. He looked snared by it, surprised somehow like he just walked into a room finding her up to something naughty and didn't quite know where his feet were to get back out. Her nipples tightened in the cool air, the thin yellow nylon of her bikini no true protection against the elements or her response to him. His gaze dropped to her chest and true to her nature she hid nothing. He swallowed. She watched the long bob of his adam's apple as he dragged his eyes away.

“I should have told you what I was going to do,” she said softly, confused and apologetic and full of want for what she couldn't have.

“Rikku, I...” he coughed slightly, turning from her for a long moment as he marshaled himself. Such things were becoming increasingly difficult.

Auron chose one of the many cards he had left to play, slowly and with great deliberation. Faith.

Relenting with a sigh, he came to sit beside the girl, carefully arranging his hoari and placing his sword within easy reach. He needed to be ready for anything that might arise, as always. A part of him, a large part, was hoping a massive Cactuar would attack them with its thousands of spiking needles and spare him from this misery of feeling.

He did not know how to say what he needed to say to her, had been curt and cold all day despite her every clumsy attempt to repair the bridge she had set alight between them. He was justified in this, processing methodically his anger and hurt into something constructive as the hours plodded by. He would glean a lesson from this, as he did in all things. Auron had never been good with broken faiths and though she had truly made him no specific promises he could not help but feel betrayed. This was nothing new to him.

What had him hesitating was that he was not used to the desire for reconciliation. He had never had the luxury of time to fight with those he cared for. He had never had the need to mend the bonds with those surrounding him. This girl was netting him in an increasingly tight web of affection and respect, concern and trust, admiration and awe. She had meaning to him. He had affection for her. He desired her despite his incredulous dismay, was concerned for her, wanted to aid her in her path to leadership because he believed in her potential, was aware of her nearly every waking moment in ways he had never observed anyone. The wealth of words that usually spun from his tongue with power and grace were gone from him in this, seated beside a small Al Bhed in the darkness and stone of the Thunder Plains.

“My... displeasure,” he tried, “is that you did not consult with me in what could only be a revelation for me concerning my very existence. Does that strike you as fair? ”

“No,” she whispered, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “Not when you put it like that.”

“It is exactly like that,” he murmured, thawing far more easily than he would have supposed. “You betrayed a trust by doing so, I will not express it otherwise. I had the right to choose.”

“Would you have wanted to... not know, maybe?” she asked softly.

He pondered his answer, staring into the middle distance. “Perhaps. It is better for me to know such a truth, but I would be lying if I said a part of me was not at ease with not knowing.”

“But why?” she asked plaintively, turning her face to his and trying to catch his eyes, her own beseeching. He turned to look at her, distantly struck by the prettiness of her dainty features. He met her eyes steadily.

“I lived two lives as an observer, someone on the outskirts of what others would call a normal life. I lived first for Bevelle, than Braska, than in another life, a rebellion. I did not walk the paths of normal men or seek the things they sought. A home, wealth, a family.”

He snorted, rueful, as he remembered the man he had been before death. “Righteous and pleading with the skeptical luck of more strength than I knew what to do with. I wonder what Spira would be today had I not been born with the magic and power to wrestle change into the world as I did. As it was I lived for belief, than I lived to topple belief entirely. Two extremes, neither which afforded me the time to gather the creature comforts men seem so fond of,” he said tiredly.

He met her eyes carefully. “I did not have the luxury of wanting.”

She bit her lip, unable to hide the blush flaring into her cheeks to hear him admit something so simple, and so momentous, while admitting nothing at all. 

Turning back to the fog before them, his gloved hand reached out and smoothed over his beautiful sword.

When he spoke again his voice was soft, contemplative. He offered her a piece of himself, however small. She had stolen many more despite his resistance, he could recognize that.

“I thought that if I remained only a part of Spira like I did as an Unsent, I would not have to commit myself to such banalities as finding a home, or a job even,” he laughed to himself, the edge of it pained. “What kind of career path does the man who died overthrowing religion have in such a world? Every lifetime I have lived revolved around gods I did not believe in. Perhaps the Ronso need another mutiny. I have some experience.”

Rikku spoke hesitantly, moving her eyes back to the empty grey landscape. Lightening flashed in the distance, a glow and spark surging through the bellies of the clouds.

“Well if you decide that mutineering is your thing, let me know. I wouldn't mind having your back for a little longer. Or a lot longer, even,” she said quietly, stretched on a wire of honesty and offering. 

Auron chuckled, the rich timber of laughter heady and deep in his chest. She was destined for far greater things than that, but the sentiment moved him deeper than he wanted to examine. Between them, her small hand crept closer until her pinky finger lined up with his own and pressed close. The warmth of her touch swept over him like a wave even with such a small point of contact. Slowly, carefully, he lifted the smallest finger of his own hand and wrapped it over hers. They watched the lightening blaze white paths in the distance, saying no more.

Chapter Text

--

Alchemy, Auron quickly decided, was only for the maddest of Spirans. The eccentric assortment of items and their myriad of magical properties remained an elusive riddle defying logic to him. The magical equation of combining a hard fish scale with an antidote to create a destructive waterfall hardly seemed sensible to him, but he had seen the girl jam together amulets and shadow gems to manifest spiraling black holes or cure their entire party near miraculously by dumping a rare dark matter into a common potion and hurling it at them with distressingly little warning. One needed a large measure of imagination and perhaps an even larger dose of mayhem to master such a sporadic art. Rikku, he'd learned, had both these in spades.

So as she finished her rapid, exhaustive explanation about the benefits of Lunar Curtains and the inability of alchemical materials to be stored for any length of time due to the deterioration of their special properties, he was truthfully no wiser than he had been when she started. It was a nebulous, winding arcane form. Properties seemed to have no baselines, no fundamentals. It seemed to take a great store of memory for so many varied items and recipes with their potential for disaster and suspension of a fair amount of common sense. He did not like handling volatile bomb cores at the best of times, let alone shaking one up with a hi potion then dousing his team members with them in the hopes of a good effect. She did all this with gusto, and as he contemplated their journey together and her immense capability for both magical chemistry, engineering, and fighting itself, he felt a touch of awe light within him once more. She was an impressive woman and would only grow more so as the years passed. The thought panged within him, echoing hollow. Where would he be to bear witness to her own path unfolding?

They had made their way out of the lonely, besieged paths of the Thunder Plains collecting bits and pieces as they went until the girl had declared it enough. The sloping green vistas and empty miles similar to the Calm Lands began to overtake the stone. The sky opened up over head, released from the clouds, the soft and smooth emptiness of it the color of a pale blue eggshell. He had to admit he was as glad to be rid of the place as he had been to leave Guadosalam. It was as restless a place as it was barren, beleaguered by the constant onslaught of the skies, cold and dusty and uninhabitable. It reminded him uncomfortably of himself on his poorer days. Still, it got them one step closer to their end goal, a goal that was now a matter of hours. The Omega Ruins. Which brought up another uncomfortable matter.

“You should contact Gippal,” Auron said, eyes very much focused on scanning the horizon for... anything. “Once we are done here, we can be flown to the ruins straightaway.”

“I already sent him a message but he knows that for me to do what I do best takes time. He'll head our way in the morning,” she said. She peeked up at him, grinning. “You can't rush genius!”

Auron looked at her askance, needing to say no words at all to relay his skepticism.

“Hey! You even said I was the greatest alchemist possibly ever!” she gasped, affronted.

Auron shrugged idly, nodding and seeming to find a small mark on his bracer that he very much needed to rub off. His mouth twitched behind his cowl.

“Auron! Auron!” she squawked, mouth falling open as she goggled at him. “This is my element! My wheelhouse! Out of all the things I'm amazing at, this is my thing! I'm the Alchemical Queen! A Transmutation Tactician! The Empress of Experiments! Should I go on?”

“Yes, one more please,” he requested solemnly.

“The Mistress of Mixing!”

She crossed her arms over her chest, huffing and turning away from him. She snorted, blowing her bangs away from her face with a large, irritated breath.

Behind her, Auron chuckled, relenting. She was such a live wire of a creature, such an explosion of life and emotion in every direction. He wondered if she ever found it tiring to live so hard and so vibrantly. His fondness for her surged upwards gently as he studied the rigid straightness of her spine, every inch of her body screaming irritation at him. Her little booted foot tapped against the ground.

Reacting only on instinct Auron reached his bare hand out to her shoulder and turned her to face him. She came willingly enough, arms dropping to her sides, her face mutinous as she glared up at him. Her cheeks reddened.

“You are without a doubt a genius alchemist, Rikku. The best I have ever read about, or seen, or known in the history of Spira which I am well versed in. You hardly need my validation to know that; your confidence is obvious,” he murmured, his hand sliding slowly from her shoulder down her arm over the knots of each bow, carefully brushing against the lengths of each tiny fingertip. He hesitated, keeping his hand there in the lightest of holds before letting go.

“I know,” she breathed, eyes following the slow path of his hand down her arm until it fell away. She swallowed. “But what girl doesn't like to hear it?”

He breathed, stilling and allowing the feelings within him to come to light, to breath with him. Desire, affection, longing, exasperation, apprehension, lust. He relented and tentatively allowed himself to enjoy the mix of sensations bursting within his chest with an electricity he had never before felt. Rikku lifted her gaze to his and seemed to catch hold of the same fire, a heated glint in her eyes. She recognized this gift for what it was, forgiveness, a return to their version of normal, but the tension she felt was so far from normal it was practically an alien entity. She could hardly catch her breath for the happiness and relief and lust exploding through her for his serious face and broad shoulders and smooth voice. She wanted to clamber all over him like he was a tree.

“Should I tell you again, then?” he asked softly, feigning curiosity.

The breeze swept between them, the scent of grass and stone heavy within it. Rikku shook her head, dazed by the soft smile on his face, and shot him a suspicious, playful look. Was Auron flirting? This was even better than the bubbles! She gave herself a little shake and stepped back, shaking her finger at him. Who knew she would have to be the sensible one? But alchemy didn't just explode from her hands like a Firaga. It had to be woven from the magic within her, grafted to the objects with skill and precision. She had to breed it into the bones of whatever she was working on. They were on a deadline and she was supposed to be keeping a lid on all this!

“Alright Legendary Guardian Tease, I'm about to work some chemical mysticism on your stuff and show you just how genius I am so I'm going to need space, time and silence,” she huffed, deeply disappointed in her own responsibility. “Actually, scratch that. I require singing. Tons of it. I need you to be a one man orchestra back there otherwise the spells won't work. It's just science.”

He arched a brow, which she didn't see as she was now skittering around their encampment, clearing away rocks and debris and giving herself a good working space, secretly venting off some steam. When she was satisfied and the butterflies that had been bursting within her dulled to a mere flutter, she moved back to him.

“Gear down, Big Guy!” she said with far too much relish, coming to stand before him with her arms akimbo. Her cheeks remained a pleasing shade of rose, he noted.“I need your bracers, the pauldron, your chest piece... If you had greaves I would do them up so good. Next time we see Gippal put that on order. I'll settle for your glove for now, too, since you only wear one, you fashionista you.”

Auron took it in stride, and with great dignity and some hesitation at her proximity, he began to disrobe.

“The glove provides me with better grip,” he explained unnecessarily, annoyed now with how easily she had reclaimed the upper hand, with how distantly disappointed he was that she had retreated, “and the other is bare to enable more efficient casting.”

“I thought it was to add to the drama,” she snickered, taking the glove in question and looking it over with a critical eye. “you know, for that little move you do where you toss that big ol' red coat off one shoulder and get all battle- stancy.”

“Well,” he admitted with a small smile. “Confidence is very intimidating to an opponent. One must be able to wage a mental war as well as a physical one.”

Rikku laughed, the sound washing over him as it always did, like bubbling water, like a spring releasing from the ice and thawing it rapidly. He felt awash with it, afloat with it, disoriented and off kilter and glad of it.

“When are you going to write a book?” she grinned. “Battle Tactics with a Legend, a Four Part Series! The Art of Auron: Motivational Quotes for the Masses! Legendary Logic: How to Topple Religion in Three Easy Steps!”

Auron huffed, unstrapping his chest plate and placing it carefully on the ground with his other accessories. “Perhaps five would be a more reasonable estimate.”

Rikku laughed again, delighting in this side of him. He seemed lighter somehow, more at ease in his own skin. It made her feel as though an invisible step had been taken, and in the right direction.

“How can I be of help?” he asked when he had finished removing his gear. He stood in his black sleeveless top and pants, the sleeves of his haori loose around his waist.

“I just told you,” she sighed, wrenching her eyes away from the sculpt of his chest, “but if you still don't want to show me the majesty of the Bevellian Monk chants than I suppose you could get started on dinner.”

“I... yes,” he hesitated, watching her back as she began to systematically and chaotically uproot their packs and heap piles of random (what he would call) garbage together in some seeming semblance of order known only to her. “What should I prepare?”

Rikku shrugged, concentrating on her things. “Look in your bag! I put the food in there.”

He watched her for a moment more before turning to where their gear was piled.

Opening his bag Auron was confronted with a series of silver foil packages and several pieces of fruit and vegetable jammed into the side, no doubt bruised by his less than careful travelling. Uncertain, he removed a few packages and held them in his hands, frowning. Perhaps it was time to confess to her that his cooking skills were limited to buying and handing out rations. For most of their trip she had thrown together their quick meals or they had been lucky enough to find themselves in populated areas where prepped food was available. He understood the basics of it but had very limited experience in putting his mostly theoretical knowledge to practice. Glancing behind him to where Rikku now knelt doing whatever she needed to to succeed in her casting, Auron knew it was time to acquire a new skill.

Taking a handful of the packs he moved a fair distance from the girl and began building a low fire. This much, he was well versed in. Time passed, the girl remained in her own world of concentration and study on the far side of the camp. He watched her silently as she picked up his chest plate and flipped it over, moving her hands slowly over it in a way that had his own cheeks heating. Mouth dry, he cleared his throat and turned his eyes back to his own task with focused determination. He waited until he had a low bank of embers, placed their cast iron pot atop a relatively porous stone he placed near the heat, and than reluctantly opened the silver wrapped foodstuffs. Dried strips of meat, dried oats that he hastily re-wrapped, some sort of dried green leaf and another portion of what appeared to be a vegetable powder, which he carefully sniffed. He assumed she would not put anything hazardous with their food. Frowning, he poured a flask of water into the pot and carefully set the strips of meat within then heaped about half the green powder into it. He stirred, sighing. It looked awful. Runny, dark green liquid with tough hunks of meat floating within it. Hoping to salvage the meal he chopped up a starchy orange sweetroot he found in the bag alongside a utility knife and tipped it into the mess alongside the green leaves. Now to let it boil. The idea was that the water would soften the meat and the powder might provide a bit of seasoning. In theory it could work but he was not hopeful. Let it never be said, however, that he shied away from the unknown.

After a time, whatever he had added appeared to be thickening up the green water and he looked on approvingly as steam began to emerge from the pot. Soon it was boiling merrily and he poked and prodded with his knife, pleased when the meat did indeed appear to be softening. Confidence growing, he looked again within his bag and tossed in some of the salt he found in a small container. Rummaging about, he found a spoon and dipped out a portion. Blowing on it, he carefully placed the stew in his mouth.

Salty, plain, and the green powder was overwhelmingly green, but it was passable. It was edible enough.

He leaned back on his haunches, nodding slowly to himself, pleased.

Taking the pot from the heat, he poured the soup into two containers that the girl had used before during other meals and approached her across the camp.

“Dinner,” he murmured gently.

Rikku blinked, pausing what she was doing and taking the proferred bowl. Auron stood above her, seemingly waiting for a reaction and she could see he was radiating pride, from the pull of his shoulders to the planting of his feet, even more so than usual. She glanced down at the muddy green muck filling her bowl, taking in the unevenly chopped chunks of root vegetable and the huge uncut strips of meat and the soggy remains of what had once been a very nice tea herb. She looked back up at him, and grinned.

Auron did not know how to cook.

“Looks great, thanks! Let's dig in!” she crowed, scrambling to her feet while keeping careful hold of her first ever taste of Legendary Guardian Slop.

She moved to the fire pit and sat cross legged on the ground. With only a tiny bit of hesitation, she popped a spoonful into her mouth.

Bland, a bit bitter. The vegetables weren't fully cooked and the meat was going to be impossible to get into her mouth with any dignity at all since he'd left it in its full ration strips. Luckily she wasn't big on dignity. She took another mouthful, smiling secretly to herself because she now knew another secret about Auron and she was going to horde it away with the rest of them. She felt warm within and it had nothing to do with the salty herbal broth she was shoveling away with only a wee bit of a struggle.

“So,” she said, chewing and swallowing a tough hunk of tuber, “after dinner I'll be ready to start the casting. I know you're going to do it anyway, but make sure I'm not interrupted by any fiends. I think they're drawn in by the energy or something. Usually I do my work in a camp so there aren't too many fiends around but out here, who knows. Just do what you do, and I'll have your gear ready and rearing to go pretty quick.”

“Protect the girl,” he murmured, spooning his own dinner into his mouth. He seemed immune to any deficits within it, which was making her second guess her own cooking skills. She was no Yuna, with her perfectly poached eggs and unbroken cream sauces but she was decent, and he always had eaten her meals with the same careful methodicalness he was enduring his own attempt with. Her eyes narrowed, wondering if she should somehow take offense.

“Well, yea, that would help things,” she shrugged. “But I'd like to point out that I also protect myself super well ninety nine percent of the time. Well, eighty-five on an off day.”

“I...” he trailed off, hand holding his spoon falling idly to the bowl. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “Yes, Rikku, you do.”

Rikku managed to shove a wad of dried meat into her mouth while he was busy apparently having his epiphany, and when he glanced back at her she was furiously chewing, cheeks pouched. She looked back, unrepentant. He huffed, smiling slightly and shaking his head.

They finished their meal, and Auron quickly washed the bowls and placed the foodstuffs back into his pack, watching as the girl went back to her impromptu work station and placed his breastplate in the middle.

“Ready?” she asked him gleefully.

He nodded, supposing he was. He took up Masamune and went to stand a safe enough distance from her area. It likely wasn't far enough, considering the sheer amount of Petrify Grenades she had piled before her.

Rikku breathed deep, centering her jittery energy as best she could, shaking out her limbs and shoulders like she was squaring up for a fight. She was nervous. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the half dressed, hulking swordsman standing on the outskirts of her vision with his arms crossed so that the muscles tightened in a distracting way, and how his stance reminded her of an instructor waiting to pass sentence on her latest project. Nothing at all. Should she go for more flare? Maybe change into her Alchemist dress sphere to really look the part? Nah, she thought with a sigh. That wasn't the kind of stuff that impressed Auron.

Things like standing in front of him by the Moon Flow and daring to meet his eyes despite waiting for the sting of rejection, of prejudice, and putting her fifteen year old life at risk to save her cousin, that impressed him.

Things like standing by his side and throwing everything she had at the powers destroying their world on a ten year cycle, that impressed him.

Things like scrabbling up the insides of a mechanical Goliath and powering it down as quick as a whistle, that impressed him.

Things like spouting off homespun, simple wisdom in her own girlish way that never seemed to have occurred to him but now it sunk in because he was taking the time to listen to her, that impressed him. And her, if she was being honest.

“Time to get Al Bhed on these things!” she sighed, lifting her chin and closing her eyes.

She, for lack of a better word, pulled from the pile of magical grenades on the ground, holding her hands above them and tapping into the something within herself, the vortex of threaded energy coiling within them that created the power within the people, the fiends, the plants and objects and life of Spira. For some it manifested in the ability to call giant spiritual guardians to heel. For some it enabled them to cast black magic using voodoo dolls, or to coil those abilities around a weapon and use it as an extension of themselves. For Rikku it had always been a wild and chaotic channeling into speed and deft hands and the intrinsic knowledge of how to untangle the threads of energy in the magic around her and pull it into herself so she could weave it differently, weave it anew, weave it better.

She shifted her focus to the black chest plate, tugging the magic she had unknit from the grenades, filtering it through herself and bending it to what she wanted and layering it over the metal. The spell of Stoneproof was familiar to her, a heavy weight to it that took the properties of petrification and channeled it out. She shaped it over the scrolling in the black metal, and a slight tugging at the back of her mind that she followed the instinct of drew her attention. A golden thread, to weave within the grey. Something belonging solely to her, not the grenades, that she happily wove into the complex meshing of the spell. She felt the closure of the loop, the knotting, that told her the breastplate was now Stoneproof, and she drew back her hand, moving to repeat the process with his bracers, his pauldron. Over and over, pulling the network of power from the grenades and casting it over the armor until shaped itself over it, grafted deep within the metal itself.

She opened her eyes.

“Am I ever good,” she breathed.

She turned to look at Auron only to see he had shifted by now, was now on her right side instead of her left. He approached her.

“It has been several hours,” he rasped. “Perhaps you should sit down?”

Rikku blinked, and sure enough the sky was black overhead of them now and studded with white stars, the embers of their fire low and hot in its pit. She nodded, bending down to snatch up his armor with only slightly shaky hands. It hummed within her fingers, the magic settling, and the strength of it made her proud. Coming to stand by the fire, she looked over the pieces one by one before handing them over to where he was now sitting on his knees by the warmth.

“These now have the Al Bhed seal of approval!” she smiled.

He took them gingerly, feeling the reassuring weight of them in his hands with pleasure. The sense of stone, of solidness, of weight deep within them that meant they were Stoneproof was offset by something he couldn't quite yet grasp. It glittered on the edge of his admittedly limited magical perception. He focused on it, tugged.

“Rikku, you...?” he glanced up at her, awed.

“Yup! I threaded Haste into every single piece of your gear. You're not going to be running around like a chocobo in a race when you put that back on but in battle you're going to be faster.”

“But how?” he asked quietly. “We had few chocobo feathers.”

“I used mine,” she shrugged. “My speed. My haste. My Rikkuness. There's a little bit of me in every single piece of your armor now.”

“Rikku, that's...” he fumbled over his words, hands clutching at the armor.

A blessing I do not deserve, his mind supplied.

A heck of a badass job, Jecht's voice interrupted.

An unbelievably precious gift, Braska murmured warmly.

The man he had been before would have thanked her for her service and given her a nod, trusting that she would understand the respect within the gesture. The man he had been before would not have been moved by the offering of self to him, the gift she had given by unspooling a fragment of her essence and imbuing his armor with something of her specialty. The man he had been before would not have been able to recognize the meaning of it beyond the strategics in battle let alone react to it.

He was not the man he had been before.

He placed the armor on the ground and reached for her hand, pulling her down beside him. She came willingly, a happy smile spreading over her face as she got comfortable on the ground. She looked tired, pleased.

“Thank you, Rikku,” he said earnestly.

She blinked at him, blushing red, and shrugged. “Just consider it a thanks for putting up with me all this time.”

“Rikku,” he chuckled, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. He looked so pleased and happy and soft, Rikku almost didn't know what to do with herself.

His eye was warm and bright in the firelight, the corner of his mouth twisted up in his signature smirk, his hair spiking messily where he had run his hand through it. Still as pent up and straight laced and reverent as always but somehow blurred at the edges, softer. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she was convinced he could hear it.

“This journey with you has been an honor and a privilege,” he said carefully, nodding at the fire as though it had imparted the words to say to him. “I would not have chosen anyone else to embark on it with.”

She giggled, because some things never would change and Auron speaking as though he was sermonizing to a squadron was probably one of them.

“That makes two of us,” she said, yawning hugely.

She left him then, unrolling her bedroll and crawling into it because even though she wanted to stay beside him listening to how great travelling with her was (as if she didn't know), the spells had taken something out of her pretty fiercely and she needed to get a good nights rest if she was going to face Gippal's pouting disapproval the next day.

But she went to sleep that night with the glow of the fire in front of her closed eyes, and the last thing she saw was Auron holding up his pauldron as though it were something infinitely precious, as though it were suddenly wrought in gold and dripping with rubies instead of the same beat up leather and scuffed fretwork it had always been, because she had put a small piece of herself within it.

Chapter Text

--

The command deck was tense, but Rikku was doing her best rendition of Ignoring It All in favor of harassing the unflappable Shinra into getting Auron a garment grid. Only there was no way to sell it to Auron if it was called that. Grid of Respectful Wardrobe Changes maybe? Shinra was having none of it though and she was pretty sure he had merely turned the volume up on his headset in order to become impervious to her wheedling. Behind her and across the deck Auron was doing his best impression of a wall support, arms crossed and head down, though for all she knew he had fallen asleep standing up. Across from him and to her right Gippal was mimicking the same pose but with a foot pressed against the wall jauntily. They were both very intent on looking nonchalant but if it was this obviously weird even to her than that showed what a terrible job they were both doing.

What was their deal anyway? It couldn't all be about her, seeing as she had spent ages pining for Gippal while he pretended it wasn't embarrassingly obvious, and she wasn't even sure what was happening with Auron. They'd been doing a lot of hand touching and some intense staring, and there was that whole intense sexual tension thing but she had put as much of a halt as her flighty heart could on that particular run away chocobo, she thought begrudgingly. Maybe her near (yep, there went her knees going all noodlly again just thinking about it) lip lock with Reticent Red being witnessed by Spikes had shaken him up some, but that didn't change the fact that in all their years working for the Al Bhed together, he hadn't ever made a move. In fact he had hit on Yuna harder in the first five minutes of meeting her than he had ever flirted with her.

No, while it definitely had a flavor of jealousy to it, this tension had to be about more than her because surely boys weren't that stupid. Leadership? Plain dislike? She really wasn't sure.

Brother, being Brother, was cowering near the view ports by Buddy, refusing to look or speak to any of them.

They were waiting for Rin to come to the Command Deck, and after Gippal had come and snagged them from the bleak, empty grasslands near the Thunder Plains they had swept towards Bevelle where Rin was waiting to be picked up on the outskirts under the no doubt watchful eye of Baralai.

They would spend the night aboard the Celsius as they headed towards the small, broken islands that hid the Omega Ruins within them, but it was time for that little pow wow she'd mentioned to Auron. Now with Improved Rin Information!

“Ec ra Gheddehk y cfaydan? Dygehk y pydr? ” Brother muttered from his undignified crouch.

“Oui sayh oui't keja res dra desa du ryja uha?” Rikku huffed, shooting her brother a glare.

He spluttered, throwing up his arms in indignation and knocking himself backwards onto his rear end. Buddy chuckled at the other mans antics and reached a hand over to help him up.

The hum of the lift drew their attention, and after a moment of more awkward silence the doors opened and Rin stepped through, bowing graciously at first Auron than Gippal. Rikku bounced over, linking her arm through the other man's and steering him inward and down the curving staircase.

“Thank goodness you got here, Rin! These two just won't shut up! It's impossible to keep up with their crazy chattering!”

“Yes Rikku, I can see as much,” the merchant king smiled, amused as both men leveled narrow eyes at the girl, who ignored them.

“You bring intel?” Auron asked pointedly as Rikku let him go, shooting her a look.

Rin nodded, his expression turning grimmer. He reached into a satchel strapped to his side and removed several scrolls of paper and a slender leather book. He placed them on the edge of the raised navigation station in the center of the room and stepped away. Rikku leaned over the papers, frowning.

“Is that... blood?” she asked uncertainly.

The leather book, neatly bound with twine, was splashed with a dark liquid. Two of the scrolls were stained the same way. She glanced over her shoulder and met Auron's eye for a moment. He moved his gaze to Rin. Gippal, stepping forward, lifted one of the scrolls and unfurled it. His frown deepened and Rikku took the initiative and snatched up the book and began flipping through it.

“What is this, Rin?” Auron questioned, gaze intent on the other man. He cared little for theatrical build up.

“It is, for all intents and purposes, religious propaganda,” Rin replied softly, glancing away.

Rikku's mouth fell open as she looked at what she now knew was a notebook in her hands. It was filled with scribbled quotes and sketches and paragraphs of what appeared to be disjointed sermons.

He will walk amongst us, Undying, and in the unburning fire of his footsteps the path of ash will clear the way.

No man of Spira has returned from death thrice. He is a god amongst us, a sword of fire that we must take into our hands to cut the swathe through the world that will alight it in his image.

He will burn away the corruption and dissent of the heretics. The gears they grind to crush our beliefs to dust will lay wasted in the sands of their corruption and we will be born again as well in the storm of fire that he brings down.

“This is...”

Rikku's fingers stalled on a sketch of a man, tall and broad shouldered, wearing the long robes of a priest and carrying a bladed staff. His face was covered in a mask. The old symbols of Yevon were obvious within the patterned robe.

“You have heard the whispering, the rumors. We saw that they were being formalized when we intercepted a bundle of such scripture on its way to Luca. My man managed to infiltrate this congregation for several days before he was discovered. We know his name is Paaj, but I am afraid my scout could find out little else before he was attacked by this so called priest. He managed to get his book and papers to a runner before succumbing to his injuries. I wish I could have brought you better news but the evidence is there. That man is trying to resurrect the church of Yevon and use the plans we seek to build an artillery capable ship that he would use to slaughter any who oppose his beliefs.”

Gippal stepped close to Auron and shoved the scroll he had been reading into his chest. Auron met the younger man's cold gaze silently before taking the paper himself.

“Looks like you've fostered a new religion, Big Red,” he snorted.

Auron unrolled the paper with a sadly resigned sense of dread, dropping his eyes from his contest with Gippal.

“The red of his cloak is the burnt offering of the bloodied fallen,” he read aloud, solemn and numb.”Those lost to us in the purge of Sin have resurrected themselves through him in power to be passed on to the worthy when the time arises. His blade is the reflection of blackness that hides in every Al Bhed soul made manifest to turn back against them. He will slaughter the dissenters and stem the tide of their heresy in a wave of flame. He keeps the temptation of the enemy close to his side so that he might teach us to resist its lures and strike when ready. His eye remains to temper us with his righteous fury, and his scar is the sacrifice gifted to Yunelesca so that he may be reborn of fire. Auron the Undying, the Unburning, He Who Will Blaze the Path.”

"People are actually listening to this garbage?" Rikku asked in complete shock. 

"It only takes one small match to light a forest on fire," Rin said. 

"You have seen the smoke of this beginning Rikku," Auron said quietly. "In Kilika."

She remembered the woman tossing flower petals in Auron's wake, the reverence as they had bowed before him like he was a king, a prophet. She had laughed back then. She had thought that it was weird and gross and kind of funny and she had dismissed it all so fast.  

"You should have just let me grab your butt," she muttered distractedly, looking through page after page of sermons and bible thumping, all talk of fire and bearing the sword. At least Yu Yevon had been all about letting the whole doom and despair and death thing happen on a ten year punch card. This guy was talking about just lighting everyone against them on fire and being done with it.  

“You know you were not returned to life for this,” Rin said quietly, staring levelly at the rigidly held monk.

Auron turned that over in his mind, shaken and angered by what he had read, yet strangely blank. Would this life too, be a never ending river of mistakes that led to the death of those around him?

“No,” he murmured, “this is a result of my return, not the cause of it. I should have expected something like this and moved to mitigate it. I have not moved tactically. I have been... distracted.”

“No Auron,” Rikku said angrily, slapping down the book and coming to stand before him, poking him squarely in the chest. His hand automatically came up to catch it but his eyes remained elsewhere, inward, no doubt cataloging all his perceived failures yet again. “You shouldn't have assumed that some lunatics were going to build a cult around you! Why would anyone assume that? Nobody declared Tidus a holy symbol when he came tumbling out of the ocean! You can't blame yourself for someone else's crazy! You can't blame yourself for living your life instead of moving through it like... like some cyborg general parroting military strategy and battle plans with every reboot!”

“I can blame him,” Gippal snapped, stepping forward. “We knew this was happening. The whispers were there the moment Rin picked him up in Zanarkand! We should have moved to snuff this out earlier, put him in protective custody or hidden him away somewhere! Once again the Al Bhed are being painted like heretics out to ruin Spira and who by? The blown up memory of an Unsent Bevellian monk travelling Spira at the side of our Princess.”

Rikku wheeled on him, fury bursting through her at his audacity. “You brought him into this!”

“To protect you!” he shouted, “to make sure you didn't get your fool self killed in a cave in and cost the Al Bhed everything they have left!”

“I'm just one girl!” she spluttered, insulted and furious.

Gippal stepped closer, hands on his hips as he shook his head with disbelief at her naivety.

“No, you're not just one girl, you're a symbol of the old ways meeting the new! A hope! You're our future, but you were the only Al Bhed alive who had been to the ruins! We couldn't both go and leave our people in the lurch! I couldn't trust you not to dash off half cocked so I brought him in because Rin said he was the clear choice to make sure you didn't get killed!”

“As if you wouldn't have stepped right into my shoes,” Rikku accused. “As if you haven't been waiting!”

Gippal blinked at her, pained.

“Never,” he whispered.

“This fighting changes nothing,” Auron said, voice low and angry. He stepped beside Rikku, placing a hand on her slender shoulder.  

“Had I still been Unsent I would have taken your words and flayed myself upon them, the guilt of such belief would have been the final nail in what was a coffin of grief,” Auron said quietly, russet eye meeting Gippal's unflinchingly. “But I am not Unsent, and I am not a god. I am merely a man given another chance at life. It is time to prove I've earned it.”

He turned his head towards Rikku who still stood beside him, practically on her toes with agitated tension. “We must go over the supplies once more before we reach the ruins, Rikku. We have much to prepare for tonight.”

“What about Paaj?” Gippal called at his back as he began to walk calmly up the stairs, knowing he had lost ground in almost every way possible but unable to stop running his traitorous, belligerent mouth. “Don't you even want to go after the guy whose turning your name into the next Yu Yevon? Or is that just too much for you in your autumn years, Sir Auron?”

“There is no doubt that he will come for me. Power to be passed on to the worthy when the time arises,” Auron said tiredly, inclining his head at Rin who bowed respectfully once more. “After all, it is written in the scripture.”

Rikku stepped forward onto her toes and shoved Gippal so hard he was forced to take a step back before spinning away and running to catch up with the Legendary Guardian who looked as though the weight of the world was once again squarely, inevitably, irrevocably upon his weary shoulders.

–

The hypello, Auron was relieved to see, was nowhere in sight as he stepped into the crew quarters, because he was distantly certain that he was losing his famed calm sense of composure and restraint and was about to punch a hole in something and he wanted as few witnesses as possible. What was it about him that fate seemed so insistent on making the religious entanglements of Spira a pivotal focus of his life? For every step he took in what he thought was the right direction two different paths sprung up to trip him. The path untaken, the path none dare tread, the blazing path. Such fallacy!

Incensed, Auron dragged in a ragged breath and ascended the stairs at a careful, even pace, stubbornly hanging onto his sense of self-command in the face of this latest catastrophe. There was little else he could do. At the end of all things his composure was all he had left. A broken, embittered, tired monk shoved back into life and stumbling clumsily through it while fate jeered. When would the wisdom he had accumulated finally be enough to dine out on? When would the effort he had put forth finally be enough to balance the scales and allow him the freedom to either die or just be?

They were nearly upon the Omega Ruins and had to finish the mission before... what? Embarking on yet another journey to overthrow the religion of Spira? When was he finished? He was so tired of this endless crusade alone!

Halting, Auron closed his eyes, standing in the far side of the room by the chairs, his fists balled at his sides. The low thrum of the engines sounded cacophonous, menacing, and judging from the racing staccato of his heart he knew he was beating back the frantic wings of panic. He breathed in shakily, feeling a sting behind his lids that he would allow no further. He had not shed a tear when he had mourned his own death, he would never shed one in mere frustration at a frustrating world. Tipping his head forward he forced himself to breath, trying not to choke on the dizzying, sickening reality that he was being used to resurrect that which he had died twice to bring down. The weight of loneliness and futility crushed down upon him, so heavy with duty and import was he.

Things never change.

So lost was he in his grief that he startled slightly when a pair of slender arms circled him from behind, unaware of her approach. The girl pressed herself against his back, her little chin poking him between his shoulder blades as she hugged him fiercely. He did not return the embrace in his surprise, truly did not even think to try.

“What say you and I overthrow religion once more Auron, for old time's sake?” she jested weakly against the fabric of his back.

Auron opened his eye, blinked and drew in one breath, then another as his heartbeat slowly calmed. The panic thrashing within his chest eased its struggle.

Tidus, Wakka, Kimahri, Lulu, and above all this girl... They had accepted his reasons for doing what he had done on their pilgrimage and forgiven him, but not forgotten him. They had welcomed his return with joy and open arms. He had spent so many years fulfilling promises he had made to the dead that he had forsaken the living still surrounding him. These foolish, bright, incredible, colorful people. They were the friends he had never had the chance to be with, the family he had never had the chance to have. They had been here, in Spira, waiting.

He had never been alone at all.

He smiled ruefully for it seemed as though he never stopped learning, glancing over his shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of the girl who had brought him back to himself before he drifted too far. He still ached with sadness, he still trembled within with frustration at the endlessness of it all, he still felt the cold thread of fear tangled around his heart at the thought that he might not be able to stop it again, but it did not seem as daunting. The future held possibilities unknown. 

“For old time's sake then,” he murmured huskily as he hung his head once more, his voice rumbling against her cheek as she clung to his back and pressed her face closer.

–

The extremes of the biomes of Spira were a never ending source of discomfort for him, from the frozen climes of Gagazet to the burning sands of Sanubia to the dusty stoneways of the Mi'Hen Highroad and back again. And The Omega Ruins, he was quickly reminded, were just as cold and inhospitable and windy as every other cold, windy, inhospitable part of Spira.

The Celsius had spat them out along a lonely stretch of forsaken beach, the sands grey and gritty and littered with broken white shells as the wind tore at them. The oceans roiled restlessly, a never ending onslaught against the jagged cliffs before them as they slogged their way towards the pathway that had brought them into the ruins once all those years before. Auron scanned the horizon constantly, his eyes flickering over the high cliffs and low shrubs, searching. 

They had gone over their supplies once more before being jettisoned, including the rope they'd picked up in Luca and the myriad of gems the girl had stolen over time, and Gippal and Rin had assured them they would maintain a holding pattern over the island in case of an emergency. A small comfort, Auron knew, for if something disastrous occurred within the crew would need to fight their way down to them through Great Malboros and Demonolith's and time was critical in cave-ins as precious things like oxygen dwindled.

It was little use wasting time on supposition though when the mouth of the cavern was rising into sight as they crested a hill, an old familiar threat in its black depths. Better to face the problems before them. Fayth knew they had enough.

“I'm really glad we already did this song and dance,” Rikku said, voice high pitched with nerves as they entrance yawned before them. “I don't exactly have warm and fuzzy memories about this place. I remember the stone walls, the ramps, the creepy purple glowy stuff, and those stupid Malboros always burping all over us.”

“We spent much of it confused and being knocked out until we grew wiser. Until you grew wiser,” Auron smiled ruefully, recalling the girl frantically shoving customization after customization on their gear as quickly as she could. The draw it must have taken on her magical reserves was staggering. Had he even remembered to thank her then? He had been so callous in his need for their skills, taking each as though due while offering little in return save for cryptic hints and a sword arm when needed. "Thank you for all you did for us Rikku. We would not have survived without you." 

She tossed him a cheeky grin. "Tell me something I don't know. First Strike is an awesome addition to any arsenal, and being Confuseproof is handy as heck! I would have slapped it on your gear last night but you don't need it anymore, you're faster than you were. Stronger than when we first came here. We both are, otherwise we wouldn't be able to two man this zoo!”

“You are so confident in our abilities?” he asked, glancing at her askance.

She smirked at him. “As if you aren't.”

He shrugged indolently, denying nothing.

“Still, if we hadn't had to ramp up this mosey to a sprint, I could have really used those Arctic Winds and Shining Gems. I can make it work but there's going to a bit more risk involved. Exploding massive stone walls in a way that isn't going to kill us both in a collapse ain't easy, even for me.”

“I have faith in you,” Auron said. He was no longer doubtful that the girl would be able to accomplish exactly what she set out to do.

They halted in front of the entrance, hovering on the edge of this momentous final stage in this harebrained journey. Auron felt as though he should say something to the girl, impart some safe wisdom and mark the moment in the way he always had, but no words were coming to him. There was no need. This was not about him guiding her into the future, this was about both of them finding their own way through it and making the best of it that they could. That, he was slowly understanding, was living. 

“Ready, Big Guy?” she asked, shrugging her pack higher up her shoulders.

“Ready,” he murmured, scanning the dark stone maw.

They headed within.

Chapter Text

--

The way through the Omega Ruins was paved with unsettlingly smooth stones still serviceable after hundreds of years and the rock walls bled upwards into the shadowy caverns ahead. The only lights were that of the eerie purple crystals atop the slim stone pillars, casting the beautiful stone carvings lining the walls into dusky relief. Around them the silence yawned as though the air itself boomed against the stone.

Their steps echoed. In the distance Rikku was very sure she could hear the slimy slither of Malboro tentacles sneaking up on them and she shuddered. Bad Breath was awful on just about every level.

“There aren't as many fiends as there used to be,” she added unnecessarily into the silence. “That whole world saving thing we did kind of calmed things down. Works out pretty nicely in a dungeon like this.”

Auron grunted affirmatively, his eyes scanning the darkness relentlessly for new foes. They dispatched several wily zaurus with their rattling claws and several vicious, misty wraiths whose existence only served to make Rikku sorry for them. Imagine dying and getting stuck as something that depressing.

They had made their way deep into the depths of the ruins with only the sound of their feet and the hush of their breathing for comfort when a small lamp in the darkness appeared and began to sway towards them.

“This guy,” Rikku moaned, a full body shiver coming over her.

Sure enough, the diminutive Tonberry shuffled into the light, eerie blank eyes focused on them, the glint of the butcher knife in its hand an ominous threat as he moved inexorably closer.

“Rikku, hasten us,” Auron ordered sharply.

Reaching quickly into her pouch she pulled out a chocobo feather and tossed it above them with a tug, releasing the inherent magic into the air. It rained upon them, instantly speeding up their limbs and giving her a sense of time slowing outside their awareness.

“Sleep!” he ordered next, and again Rikku obeyed his command confidently, pulling a vial of dream powder out and giving it the little tug that alchemists has mastered so completely, so that the contents shattered above the tiny fiend and instantly he stopped his shuffle forward and fell deeply asleep.

Immediately Auron struck hard and deep at the monster, Masamune cleaving the air and into the vicious creature.

Rikku pulled out as many gems as she had that would work against the little green menace, tossing a few at the fiend until it slumped to the ground and wafted away in a sweep of pyreflies. It helped that Auron hit like a stampeding machina.

“Remind me why I was worried about this place?” Rikku grinned, preening.

Auron lifted a brow, shouldering his sword and once again leading them into the dark.

“Because you should be,” he murmured, and Rikku scampered up behind him, sighing dramatically at his consistent ability to rain on her parade.

-

They had walked for nearly an hour when they came to one of the cavernous dead ends housing the beaming lights that had triggered the platforms their first journey through, this one lit bright enough to blind. Rikku was feeling a little rough around the edges after a few of the fights they'd had. Malboro's made it their life (death?) mission to try to belch on anyone they came near and tonberry's and their nasty karma was definitely a kick in the teeth she'd rather avoid. She was itching to put her feet up, maybe snack on a couple strips of jerky and talk spelunking with Big Red, but he'd been distracted and distant. Rikku could hardly blame him. He'd had some pretty miserable information thrown his way what with the whole Auronite coven trailing after his hoari folds thing and she didn't exactly know what to say to make it easier. She knew that it went beyond Big Deal to him, that this was just the thing to send him off on another tiring crusade backwards in time where he was all hung up over his dead buddies. The sad part of it was that for every memory she'd seen of Uncle Braska, of Jecht, she knew neither of them would have wanted him to stick his boots so deeply in the muddy past. They would have wanted him at least yank his feet out and jump in a few puddles further down the path! They'd been his friends. They would want every happiness for him after all he went though. 

Unfortunately sticking in the mud was kind of his thing.  

Auron approached the alter carefully, his steps wary as though careful where to place his feet. Rikku didn't remember the floors being booby trapped last time but spent a second carefully checking around her feet for suspicious stones or triggers, even lifting up her heels to check beneath each one. 

The glyph was a burst of teal and white patterning atop the stone, almost blinding after so much dimness.

“They're still glowing after all this time?” Rikku asked, impressed.

“No,” Auron frowned, his head cocked as though listening. Rikku was beginning to be real suspicious that there was more going on than she knew. “This is recently triggered. Be wary.”

“More recent than even you might have supposed, Sir Auron.”

A deep voice boomed slowly through the shadows behind them and while Rikku jumped and spun to face the threat, Auron turned smoothly, unsurprised.

“I wondered when you would show yourself,” he called loudly across the cavern. “Your trail has been clumsy, your steps clear.”

Rikku glanced at Auron, mouth falling open slightly. “Yeah!” she cried.

A huge man stepped out of the darkness, very obviously over six feet tall, his shoulders broad and muscled in a way that would have put Kimahri to shame. He wore ornately patterned sleeveless blue and red robes and in his hands he held a long, wickedly bladed glaive carved with intricate glyphs. She could distinctly see the symbol of Yu Yevon within it. His face was covered in an almost tribal metal mask, feathers adorning the back of it and mixing into his long black hair. He looked dangerous, malevolent. She could not see his eyes behind it but she knew from the bite of magic threading around them, the same bite that had always proceeded Seymor, or Sin, or even Anima, that this man was more powerful than she'd like. He radiated dark magic, it bled into the void around him, eating at the air.

“I have waited for you,” the stranger intoned, bowing slightly at Auron even as he settled himself into a ready fighting stance. “For longer than you could possibly know.”

“I was not aware of such an appointment,” Auron replied warily, shifting Masamune off his shoulder and crossing it over his chest in an answering stance.

“You're that Paaj guy, aren't you?” Rikku threw at him, dragging out her daggers. Mentally she double checked that she had on a good sphere grid and did a tally of items she could, you know, explode at him.

His expressionless mask turned towards her.

“Maester Paaj to you, heretic queen,” he corrected coldly.

Rikku threw a look at Auron, shrugging. “I kinda like that,” she whispered. “Sounds edgy!”

“I have waited for you to walk this world again, Sir Auron. You have inflamed us with your return and once more Yevon's teachings will light up Spira in the fires of your rebirth. Auron the Undead, the Unburning, who will cleanse my path with flames that I might walk within him. I will ignite. I will become. From the ashes I will lift a new church and cleanse this world from above with fire and blood. Through you, Yevon will be restored to us.”

“So wait, you want to worship him? Kill him? Get the same haircut? You're not being clear what with all the religious babble!” Rikku cried impatiently. “I read the scripture! You gotta work on your prose!”

“He wishes to kill me, “ Auron said, keeping his eyes upon this enemy. “So that he may assume the mantle of Unburning, one that he has apparently created for me from whatever madness lurks in his head. He intends to steal the plans we're looking for to create a garrison he will use to rain artillery fire down on whatever part of Spira he deems unworthy. He will raze the world and build the religion of Yevon anew with him at the head of the church.”

“Thank goodness you speak Religious Fanatic Auron,” Rikku sighed gustily, “because I wasn't getting any of that besides you apparently standing him up for your date.”

“Your mouth is a never ending stream of Al Bhed filth and heresy, desert witch! Still your tongue lest I cut it from your mouth and sew your venomous lips shut,” Maester Paaj said carefully, that emotionless mask tipped towards her.

“See, I like that one too! Desert witch sounds sexy,” Rikku chirped. “You're really not selling me the insults here Paajy.”

“Rikku,” Auron warned tiredly, “try not to antagonize the religious zealot.”

“Zealot!” Paaj chuckled darkly. “I am the architect of belief! The future of rightful religion. I am a visionary, Sir Auron.”

“I have met many visionaries in my lives,” Auron replied coolly. “I have also ended many so called visions.”

“Through you I have restored belief in the hopefuls of Spira crying out for their god!” Paaj burned with fervor, his low voice rising in his passion. “In your name I have wrought a new faith from the bones of the old! Auronites line the streets of Spira waiting for a glimpse of you, Sir Auron. You have seen them. They listen to my teachings! They pray to your name in the lost depths within their souls that you might save them from a life of emptinesss! And I have taught them that when I have cut you down and bathed in your blood, I will take up your sword and they will call me Auron, god among men.”

Rikku's eyes darkened, her mouth hardening. She drew the line at the whole bathing in Auron's blood thing. That wasn't going to happen and she'd throw everything she had ever had at this creep to protect him. This religious fanatacism was the old way, the dead way. It had no place in the world Auron had built with his sacrifice and using his name to breath life into it seriously ticked her off.

Letting go of his glaive with one hand, Paaj lifted it to his face and pulled off the metallic mask, tossing it aside with an echoing clatter. Behind it the right side of his long, square jawed face was irrevocably marred by a long, twisting scar crawling from his eyebrow down to his cheek. His right eye was completely gone, leaving an empty socket that looked as though it had been sewn shut with wide, clumsy stitches.

He had blinded himself to look like Auron.

Auron dragged in a deep breath, feeling such a sick wash of burning fury that he was nearly dizzy with it. To be used as a callback to the very thing he had made it his life's mission to topple. To be seen as a religious stepping stone in a fanatic's path. To be upheld as the very thing he had fought against, to make Auron an enemy to his very self that he was only now discovering. Rage exploded within him, the heat of it flaring outward from his bones, scorching his veins, his muscles, his skin. He grit his teeth, jaw clenching.

And the gall of this man to think that he would be able to take him down after all Auron had done, all he had been. Hubris.

“I have brought down far stronger foes than you, Maester,” he spat. “I have taken down Sin itself. Beside that you are nothing.”

Paaj smirked, the pull of ruined muscle on his face twitching. “Your numbers have dwindled, Sir Auron. There were seven of you then.”

Auron looked to his side to where Rikku was hunkered down in her shifting ready stance, twitching side to side as though she longed to slice into this fool as badly as he did. He turned back to Paaj.

“I foresee no difficulty,” he scoffed.

The dark magic that Maester Paaj had been gathering into himself exploded outwards with his first volley as he surged into the air, glaive raised above him as he struck down, slamming it into the ground between them. The shock-wave was enormous, shaking the walls of the cavern, rocks rattling from above. Rikku tucked and rolled away from it, timing her lunge so that the impact washed beneath her. Auron hunkered his stance low, absorbing the force of it and shaking his head derisively at their foe. Darting forward and behind, Rikku slashed into him with her daggers and he spun, thrusting towards her with his deadly glaive as she leapt back and Auron stepped in to parry his advance with a huge swipe of Masamune. A lancer, rare enough in their world. They needed to get in close and stay out of range of his sweeping attacks but the both of them getting in close was just going to get hazardous. Rikku met Auron's eye across the battlefield for a split second and nodded.

Flinging herself out of range and activating her dress sphere, Rikku yanked hard on the gunner node, feeling the magic cloaking over her and shifting the air in flare of glitter and perfume. Okay, so maybe there were times (such as fighting a self-mutilating religious maniac intent on murdering Auron in a cave to eat him or whatever) when Shinra's indulgence of her more girlish impulses didn't exactly fit it but there wasn't much to do about it right then. She found herself standing in her yellow and blue leather outfit, the weight of the pistol heavy in her hand.

“I'm gonna pump you so full of lead,” she muttered, glaring at Paaj.

Auron was a blur of red and rage as he and the zealot swung mercilessly at one another in the darkness of the cavern with nothing but the glow of the abandoned glyph wall and the purple crystals to light them. He was moving with the strength and determination she always saw within him but it was edged with something hot and cutting. This was personal to him, she could easily recognize. This was a battle for his pride. Narrowing her eye she shifted her stance and took careful aim, waiting until the two had circled one another for another clash and Auron had stepped back, retreating, before she fired her first shot, deciding that it was more important to support from afar and cause damage than risk getting in the way of that heavy spiked sword. Support services for the win! Cheap Shot. It landed solidly in Paaj's shoulder and he jerked with pain. Auron immediately took the offensive, stepping in gracefully to slash his sword down and across. It cut deeply into the other man's chest and a splash of blood cascaded across Auron's face.

“I have been waiting!” Paaj roared, lunging forward and sweeping at Auron's legs as the blood began to soak his robe. “I will rebuild Spira anew in the likeness of your image! This is a gift eternal and you deny it!”

“Do not seek to rope me into your pilgrimage of insanity!,” Auron bit out as he swung his sword hard towards Paaj, “ Your gods are false, I am no prophet. I am a mere man and I am tired of your rhetoric!”

Enraged, Paaj spun, the entirety of his substantial weight behind it and the glow of the glaive become a painful red as he swept it forward, a swell of fire sweeping forth from the blade towards Auron. He swung it up over his shoulder and the glaive smashed downwards into the stones, shattering them as Paaj wrenched it back out and readied his stance once more. Back and forth they fought, retreating and gaining ground, parrying and striking in a vicious circle where neither could gain much distance on the other. Auron cast any and all Breaks he could land. Paaj countered with devastating fire magic that singed his jacket and reddened his skin when it got too close. Auron could feel sweat bleeding down his spine, his arms shaking with the force of Paaj's massive blows. In return, he could read the tremble in the length of the glaive as the charlatan priest's hold wavered.

I have been the fall of many, he thought darkly. Let the one who would twist my name into blasphemy be the next.

The well of mana within him roared to life, energy surging through him as Paaj stumbled and he saw his opportunity. He pulled the magic around him like familiar armor, the wind of it rushing around his ears in a wild torrent as he leapt forward and drove Masamune into the ground, power thrumming through the legendary sword in a blinding swath of golden, fiery light intensified by his fury. The heat of it drove into his hands and he pushed the force of it beneath the stones and up below where Paaj had staggered. It erupted from the ground in an inescapable blast of heat and energy, rupturing the stone and sending shards in every direction. The maester caught the full brunt of it, his skin blistering with the intense heat and force of the attack as he staggered backwards.

Still the other man did not fall. He pulled himself back upright, a fervent light in his one eye, grimacing and twisting the scarred side of his face horribly. Around him, behind him, before him, Rikku continued to whittle away at him with a seemingly endless stream of bullets, never staying close enough to allow Paaj to land a strike on her while Auron kept in front of him as the more obvious threat. He got to his feet once more and came at Auron with a roar, stepping into another blow. Auron's mouth tightened and he said nothing, stepping adroitly aside as the glaive came back up. Slower, but with their heavy weapons and musculature, this was a weakness they both shared. He stepped back as Paaj stepped forward, thrusting, but did not gain the distance he intended and felt the tip of the glaive puncture the skin of his upper chest near his armpit as it stabbed in an inch. He did not react but he heard the girl curse loudly in Al Bhed and heard the now furiously rapid firing of her gun though he dared not look and merely hoped her aim was superb.

Paaj took the shots in the back and his arm and dropped to one knee, slamming the glaive downwards into the ground again as blood soaked the stone below him. Magic, thick and black and furious began to rapidly pull inwards towards the self proclaimed maester. He saw several flashes of white light and ridiculous glowing ribbons of light coming from Rikku's direction as she continued to rant and rave in her rapid native tongue but could not spare her a glance during her apparent wardrobe indecision.

“I was going to make you immortal,” Paaj spat, blood and spittle coating his lips as he stared up at Auron, who sensed the change in the air and took a step back. “Instead I will make us all martyrs. You, me and your apostate whore.”

“Rikku -” Auron shouted the warning across the cavern at the girl who was sprinting towards him, the absurdly pretty sparkle of her sphere change already glowing around her like a beacon in the night, turning even as the explosion of deadly magic erupted outwards like a tidal wave, launching him off the ground and forward, tumbling across the floor. His sword clattered forward, away from him, and rocks began to tumble down from the ceiling, the walls, a deadly crush of stone and carvings piling inwards atop them and his stomach pulled with cold, dark fear. Fast, too fast to think, too fast to react, too fast to stop. 

Protect the girl, he thought as a stone glanced off his temple and his world went black.

–

“... I've got it under control!”

Rikku's voice was the first thing he heard and he forced himself upward on his elbows, unsure of how much time had passed but the fist of fear squeezing inside his chest eased at the sound of her speaking. There was no longer an ominous rumbling and crash of stones from above, instead there was silence and the occasional small clatter as rock continued to shake over itself. He coughed violently, lungs filled with dust and debris, wincing as he opened his eye and pressed a hand to his head. Even Legendary Guardians could get rocked by explosions of suicidal magic, he now knew.

He became aware of a presence above him and blinked through the dust in front of him to see a giant golden, strangely avian machina crouched protectively over him sheltering him from the worst of the fallen stones. Rikku crawled from beneath its legs apparently having taken shelter the same way. She was now dressed in an utterly scandalous blue bodysuit that he could only blink at with his hand still pressed to his bruised temple, thoughts derailed despite the dire situation.

“This is....” Auron fell short, coughing again and waving dust out of his face as he firmly turned back to the business at hand, stoutly dismissing the distraction of her skimpy attire.

“Machina Maw, my little metallic baby,” she cooed, scratching the thing along a metal plate as though it were a docile pet. A stone thudded against its side and onto the ground. “I had to think fast or we were going to get smushed.”

“Yes,” he frowned though he didn't know quite what she'd done, casting a glance around for his sword. He saw it caught beneath a large stone and moved to his knees to retrieve it. He shoved aside several rocks, heaving a relieved sigh when the weapon was once again in his gloved hand. “Paaj. Is he...?”

“Dead as a door nail. Even if he managed to survive your blood duel back there and his explosive little deathplosion, the huge rock that fell on him was having none of it.” She pointed back towards the center of the room. “I saw the pyreflies. We might want to get Yuna out here for a Chocobo Dance Party Ultra Star session. I've always wanted to test my theory that it doesn't matter what dance a summoner does, its going to Send them anyway. If not, in a few years this place is probably going to have another Omega Weapon. That kind of crazy never just disappears.”

“Indeed,” he rasped, blinking warily around the room as he came to stand close to the girl, running his eyes over her as inconspicuously as he could as he checked her for injuries. “How long was I...?”

“Thirty seconds or so? I was going to heal you up using this bad boy if you were out any longer but you started stirring,” she sighed, her hand coming up to touch the edge of his sliced coat where he still bled from where Paaj had managed to stab him. She reached into her endless pouches and uncapped a potion, carefully folding back the torn fabric to bare his skin and gently pouring it over the bloody gash, offering him an apologetic smile. The skin knit itself back together and he nodded in thanks, grasping her hand distractedly for a moment as he looked around. His thumb stroked over the back of her hand absently. 

They had survived the cave in. Indeed, the room had not completely caved at all. They had been fortunate. He looked around, and let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the entrance back the way they had come still remained clear. They were not trapped here. Rikku took the moment to dismiss Machina Maw in a splash of light, switching to her regular dress sphere which required minimal effort from her reserves. They weren't out of the water yet.

“Rikku, I...” he trailed off as he looked towards the area he had last seen Paaj, his soul weary. They may have cut the head off the snake but the chance remained that it was yet a hydra.

“You don't have to talk about the whole deification by a zealous psycho thing just yet, Auron,” she said gently. “Let's get this topsy turvy mission done and we can boil that kettle of fish later.”

“The path out is clear,” he said, nodding, and brushed the dust off his jacket as best he could when it was still thick in the air.

“That's not all,” Rikku huffed, and when Auron glanced at her he could see new irritation in her face and thrumming through her wiry body and she tapped her foot on the floor. “Look.”

He did as she bid, following her outstretched finger to the opposite side of the room where a breach in the wall was now open behind the formerly glowing transport glyph, purple light spilling forth from a revealed corridor. Beyond it he could see ornate patterns worked into the walls, as beautiful as any he had ever seen in this maze of tunnels.

“If I'd known that all it took to find the hidden chamber of the Omega Ruins was a violently religious extremist whose life goal was to steal your stuff and make you the poster boy of a new religious order,” Rikku snapped with an agitated swish of her braids, hands on her hips, “I'd have just made an appointment and not bothered to spend the last few weeks traipsing around Spira getting all those highly specialized, annoyingly hard to create, now completely redundant explosives together!"

Auron turned to her, slinging his sword back over his shoulder and mentally preparing himself to face the next leg in this journey as he held her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

He did not give voice to the words in his head, that he would have chosen the same journey at her side again, and again, even if he had known the explosives would never be needed from the very beginning. He would take every step the same; every exasperated sigh and every puzzling of her rapid fire babble, every blown bubble and inch of golden skin, every touch of her hand and every stark truth revealed with her bright eyes upon him for he had learned of himself and he had learned of her. He would do it all again. 

“Hmph,” he breathed tiredly, nodding his head towards the exposed doorway. “Let's go.”

--

Chapter Text

--

“There's going to be something worse down here,” she chattered nervously, arms held close to her body and her little fists pressed near her mouth. “There's always something worse in spooky places like this.”

Auron could not argue with her, indeed was expecting it. Time and time again Spira had taught them that there was always something bigger lurking in the dark. They began to make their way down the rubble strewn staircase lit by violet sconces. The stones walls were lined with the same ornate carvings as the rest of the cavern but they seemed shabbier somehow, crumbled and in disrepair. If spiritual purgatory caverns had caretakers, they had failed to look after this section as they had the rest. The stairs themselves were an ankle twisting guessing game of loose stones and rubble and he kept his hand close to the wall ready to catch himself.

“Stay alert,” he cautioned.

“What do you think I'm doing? Catching up on my beauty sleep standing up?” Rikku shot back.

Auron chuckled, conceding the point.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, a long corridor opening up before them that must have been ornate at one point. To their left and right were shorter corridors that terminated in a elaborate stone walls inset with more glyphs.

“We totally have to push those,” Rikku sighed. “What's with magical interior design? Why can't the path just be straight ahead? Why is it all 'push this button and that will activate this magical lock then you have to go find this other switch to get to the panel to get to the platform to teleport to the tower to get to the top!'”

“It would be far too easy otherwise,” he replied, cautiously approaching the left glyph.

“For who?! It's not like the guys who built this place thought that one day an incredibly talented and cute Al Bhed princess was going to break in and take their stuff.”

“I believe that's exactly what they thought,” Auron said absently, listening for any oncoming threats. “How fortunate that you were able to come this far alone.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she sighed as he pressed his hand to the glyph and it came to life in bright green and white. No terrifying fiends sprang up to attack them though, so that was a win. “An incredibly talented and cute Al Bhed princess and her ultra strong and wise Warrior Monk partner.”

Both of them paused, a nervous chuckle from Rikku while Auron glanced stoically away.

Pausing for a moment in wait of certain doom, Auron glanced around the alcove but nothing else happened. Wary, he set forward to the opposite corridor and repeated the same, pressing the glyph until it lit up like its pair.

Walking back to the center, they both looked silently down the long hall to the end where a platform was now lighting up, humming with renewed magical energy.

Rikku arched a brow at him. Auron shrugged. It was the way of such places in Spira.

“Makes you wonder how these guys designed their houses,” she muttered as they set down the corridor side by side. “Honey, I'm just going to run down to the kitchen for a snack. I just have to activate six random lights in weirdly specific sequence and make sure the magical rock pillars lift up to close those strategic gaps I had built on purpose, so I'll be back in like two days. Want anything?”

The platform loomed ahead and Auron quickly stepped upon it, Rikku hopping nimbly after him before it began its slow crawl downwards.

Auron took in their surroundings suspiciously as they reached the descent of this strange, forgotten section of ruins. This final floor was even worse than the one before, crumbling pillars and broken, oddly smooth stone half walls jumbled over the cracked floors.

The markings and old sculptures laying cracked about the place put Auron in mind of a place of worship and perhaps learning. There were long shelves built into the walls and the scattered scraps of bound volumes and parchment littering the floor.

“Omega's study, perhaps?” Auron wondered aloud.

Rikku shook her head, squatting down to pick up a dusty tome from the ground, brushing off strange black shards of something. The paper crumbled apart in her hands but the cracked, dried leather cover remained. “Look at these symbols. Al Bhed. And that one over there? I don't even recognize it. This looks even older. What was this place before it became Omega's purgatory?”

Auron had no answer and thus he did not offer one. Instead he scanned the room before them, seeing nothing save another doorway with large, brightly patterned doors. One of them had fallen from its hinges and lay upon the ground while the other still held.

“Rikku,” he said quietly, nodding at the entryway.

“With ya, Boss,” she nodded, standing up and brushing the dust off her hands.

Carefully they approached the shabby doorway, easing through until they stood in a wide hall, far vaster than Auron would have supposed from outside. It looked like it might have been a library or cathedral, with high shelves along the sides and broken tables and benches strewn about. The ceiling had crumbled long ago in sections, with large piles of colored stone and tile smashed upon the floor where there had once been a mosaic. The walls and ceiling were covered in black radials of ash that looked as though they'd been blasted by something over and over again. There were casks and boxes of different shapes and sizes scattered about as well, and Rikku leaned down and picked one up, flipping open the busted lid to find a cache of papers so brittle with age that they crumbled in her hands.

“If those were the blueprints I'm gonna -” she started furiously, halting immediately when Auron lifted a hand to silence her, his face turned to the end of the room. Rikku turned to look as well, bouncing nervously on her toes.

A violent crackling light began to hiss and spit itself out of the pile of stones crumbled there, swelling upwards in a vicious morass of lightning and energy. It snapped outwards towards the walls and roof in deadly arcs, forking forward like grasping hands until it had heaved itself into being, coalesced in a massive lightning fiend of no true form, just an overwhelming sense of raw power.

The only word Rikku could use to describe the thing was nightmarish. It was a monstrous, twisted, seething riot of electricity, a low rumble of thunder booming beneath it. It arced hungrily at the old stone walls, blackened and worn with years of its abuse. The ground was littered with what she now knew was crackling black glass. She felt a wash of the familiar cold terror rise from her stomach and plummet through her knees, race up her spine, freeze her fingers.

Auron was looking at her, his sunglasses reflecting the strands of lightning as they jumped chaotically between the stones. She could sense his unvoiced question and in response she straightened her spine. She threw him as cocky a grin as she could muster and if her hands were shaking she was confident her jaunty posture hid it just fine. Even spending a week camping solo in the Thunder Plains hadn't prepared her for this but there was no way she was backing down!

“Now it’s payback time!” she crowed, tapping her wrist and feeling the magic flare over her skin and leave her dressed as a black mage. She shifted her rod firmly into her hands and centered herself by planting her feet on the ground.

Auron refocused his attention solely on the gigantic roiling mass of lightening before them. It was as though an elemental had sat below the surface in these ruins and glutted itself on anger and hatred, growing more and more colossal in size below the bowels of the Spira. It had become something momentous, cataclysmic.

“Prepare yourself!” he shouted loudly more to Rikku than the monster.

It seemed to be gaining speed within its crackling; the power burgeoning outward and filling the air with static so heavy the hairs on his arms stood on end. He settled Masamune before him in a defensive stance and drew deep within himself for the magic waiting in thrall. He ran forward, swung outward, casting mental break towards the crystalline shards of lightening and hoping against hope it took. He felt the reassuring shatter in the air around the creature and backed away, keeping his stance shifted towards the girl in order to defend.

He needn’t have worried she would become a target.

The lightening colossus reacted violently to his attack and he heard a gigantic rumbling of thunder as it drew power from the very air surrounding it, channelling it into a great bolt of brutal lightening it sent straight through him. It felt as though every one of his bones was molten liquid, than rigid stone, than shattered, bolting him to the floor and charring the breath in his lungs. He gagged on the agony, eye tearing, but forced himself to shrug it off as he did all things. He was hurt but not incapacitated. This was nothing compared to the agony Yunalesca had wrought upon his flesh when she struck his young self down, the sensation of his chest bending inwards around her strike, organs shifting and spilling and giving way before her power, his eye being burned from his socket, the sick melt of it running down his dying face.

He could hear the girl calling him from a distance, recognized that his hearing had been affected by the strike, and turned around in time to cast Magic Break and deflect some of the damage the elemental had cast upon him a second time. He grunted, the air shoved forcefully from his chest as he was buffeted by some sort of physical attack the thing sent at him with a lashing fork of lightning. He straightened his spine, the girl was still calling to him and he shifted his eye towards her in her ridiculous witchy hat; a child playing dress up with death.

“Auron! Back up so I can cast!”

Ah, he thought. She lacked Lulu’s spell precision brought on by a dedicated life as a spell caster. He retreated two large steps, than a third and she immediately sent forth a massive deluge of water, an immense wave of sparks flying from the thing. It trembled but did not fall, and after a moment it seemed to suck back within itself, a core of lightening growing deep within its center bigger as each second passed.

“Down!” he roared, knowing even as he did that there was nowhere in the room to escape the spell the elemental was charging up. He did not have the spells, the magic to repel this thing.

All he could do was take the brunt of it.

Protect the girl, the tiny mess of lean limbs and blonde hair that hid such wild wisdom and spirit within her. It had always been his duty to protect, to offer himself up as a shield for those with less strength, to aid his friends and bondsmen, those he was sworn to, those he dedicated himself to. But never before had he felt the anxious, panicked drive within him to protect a woman because he cared for her and could not bear any other alternative.

Tidus, what misery I put you though, he thought ruefully.

He threw himself forward in front of the girl, protect her, protect her, protect her, and stood sentinel even as she shrieked something into his ear and tugged uselessly at his arm with one tiny fist.

Unleashed, the massive lightening spell was flung outwards from the beast in all directions and he caught the radius of it, Rikku tucked safely behind him. It flung him backwards, he felt the impact of his shoulders against her body and felt rather than saw her roll with the instinctive speed of the thief she truly was. He slammed hard against the wall behind them, he felt the stones rumble and crunch beneath his bones or perhaps it was his bones themselves breaking. He could not move to tell but the agony was intense and prolonged. Instead he slid down the wall, uselessly, he realized. He was stunned and paralyzed as tremors wracked his body. Had lightening magic always hurt this much?

He lifted his head an inch, than another, fighting off the pain because that was what he did. He tried to wrap his hand around his sword, was comforted by the weight of it against his fingers. He was not near death yet but fighting the effects of lightning, he realized, though a few more such strikes and this third life would be as over as the other two. Rikku needed him. She needed him to stand sentinel and take what came her way in order to free her up for casting. But, he realized with dull horror as he tried to force his twitching muscles into order, he could not move.

A movement caught his eye and he swung his eye upward to her skinny legs, the purple fabric dim in the torchlight, all the way up to her massive, old fashioned hat that black mages had not worn since the early ages.

She was standing protectively in front of him, twirling her rod and casting spell after spell both against it and renewing the NulShock she had cast upon them until finally something hit and shattered over the elemental. She was fast, far faster than he was and hastened besides, and was only struck by a bolt of lightening once where the heart he could still feel beating leapt into his throat, avoiding the others with a liquid adroitness that he could barely follow with his weary eye. She kept herself between him and the fiend even as he continued to try to force his body to cooperate. She was screaming angrily at him continuously though he could hear nothing with his burst eardrums. He could see her mouth moving whenever she turned her head his way. When the lightning illuminated the tears streaming down her cheeks as she flung another spell forward a surge of something bright and sharp and fierce flooded his veins. It blindsided him, swelling in his chest with an edge of adrenaline, a near panicked excitement and pain speeding up his heart and bursting within him as he kept his gaze upon her. She was young, and vibrant and so undeniably beautiful.

I want to live.

I want to live .

I want to live.

Finally Rikku hurled a final massive Waterga towards the thing and it slowed, drooped, and collapsed upon itself in a huge wash of pastel pyreflies. They escaped the cracks and crevices of the broken walls in a flurry of soft color and gentle whines, a final act of sad beauty after who know how long spent in anger and pain before leaving them in the dim glow of the magic orbs still powered in the walls.

She pivoted on her heel shouting something he still could not hear. The blast had likely deafened him; he could feel liquid trickling from his ears. He was still too groggy with pain to tell and inside where she could not see he quaked with his realization. Falling to her knees beside him she flipped back the edges of his jacket, undid the buckles of his cowl and pulled it aside. She touched her bracelet and was wrapped in soft white, hooded robes edged in pink, still yelling at him, nattering on furiously. He had to smile but that only seemed to horrify her because she immediately began casting white magic over his body. Indeed, the metal in his mouth might be blood, the crumbled bits in his mouth were no doubt teeth and he did not imagine he was pleasant to behold at this moment even as the magic knit his face back together. If he had been a different man he would admit to himself that he wanted to reach up and brush away the tear tracks drying on her cheeks, cup her little face in his hands. As it was he leaned as far off to the side as he could and spit out the blood from his healed mouth.

“… and I can take care of myself! You said so! That thing hit you hard, so many times I can’t believe you’re not ashes! I don’t need you to defend me anymore like some... some meat shield!”

“...y-you,” he coughed, broken ribs grinding sharply, and tried again. “You were afraid…”

“Not anymore,” she said, voice softening. She dropped to her knees beside him and cast another spell, blunting the edge of the trauma he could feel deep in his abused muscles, his poor bones. He groaned with pain and relief when he tried to lift his sword arm and it responded accordingly.

“You’re the king of bad choices,” she said worriedly, helping edge him away from the indent he had made in the stone wall, scooting her knees beneath his head until he rested in her lap. “and all I want is for you to live.”

“I’ve managed,” he panted, breathing easier with each spell. His lungs no longer felt as though they'd been charred black. He rolled sideways onto her knee and yanked his cowl off and dropped it to the ground, uncomfortable with being in her lap when he felt as though the revelation within him was buzzing like a live wire she would see and he wanted so badly to touch her, “to go about that the entirely wrong way twice now.”

“Idiot!” she whispered tremulously, “Big dumb Legendary Gaurdian Death Wish! If that thing had kept at you, had killed you a third time, I would have gone to the Farplane myself to kick the shupoof out of you!”

“In this state you might have even stood a chance,” he groaned, sitting upright with a long sigh.

He waved off another healing spell and was glad to have done so when he noticed the paleness in her face and the shaking in her hands. His own hands trembled but the electric sensation rising within him he recognized as excitement, of thrill. The same type of feeling he had when he defeated a particularly difficult foe or outmaneuvered a clever enemy. This was deeper though, thick and pulsing in his blood.

I want to live.

“A potion. Replenish yourself,” he urged firmly.

With a weary shrug she touched her garment grid and switched down into her thief attire, apparently too tired to maintain anything higher level. Searching through her packs she retrieved a blue vial and downed it quickly, followed by another red, tossing him a large red hi-potion which he obediently uncapped and drank. The healing magic flooded through him, the damage fading slowly from his body.

“Goes down smooth,” she coughed, eyes watering.

He watched her for a long moment, appearing dispassionate while inside his heartbeat continued to race. He took a breath, urging calm. Rikku avoided his eyes, still furious with him, still all bent out of shape inside that he had stood in front of her like a wall and taken attack after attack like that was all he was good for. How was it that a guy that smart never seemed to learn?

“Rikku,” he said, the smooth, hushed rumble of his voice snagging her attention faster than the hand he placed on her shoulder. He forced her to meet his eyes. “I am sorry.”

She blinked, frowning. Within her, a thread of deep emotion trembled as she met his intent gaze and saw the dust and blood still staining his jacket, the threads of silver glinting at his temple. She ached for things she couldn't articulate.

“Without you we would not have won. I should have listened to you sooner. It is difficult for me not to command on the field.”

“Everyone should listen to me, always,” she said, swallowing as her face reddened. He was still staring at her squarely and delight and dismay had taken roost inside her stomach and spread their wings.

Scrambling to her feet, cheeks hot, she moved over to the pile of stone and dust the elemental had emerged from. She kicked around for a minute, than began tossing stones aside, intent.

“What is it, Rikku?” he asked quietly.

“There’s something here! Something big. It was protecting it. Can’t you see the markings on these stones?”

Indeed he could not and he did not try, content to rest and let the girl scurry over the rocks, tossing rubble aside until she dragged forth an old, battered wooden box.

“Treasure hunting pays off again!” she crowed, bringing the thing back to where he now was standing up. He straightened his shoulders. “Shall we take a little look see?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes locked upon her.

She flipped open the lid and inside was roll after roll of old parchment, brittle with age and dust. She had been treasure hunting long enough to know not to touch them, especially after that little pre-battle refresher with the other box. She turned to him, smiling brightly with spiraled eyes greener than grass, covered in dust and grime and fatigue paling her skin and impetuous youth flowing through her every action… Auron was awed, stilling his tongue in favor of admiring this creature before him.

“We got them!” She crowed.

“How do you know these are the right plans?” Auron cleared his throat and questioned reasonably.

She pointed eagerly to the carvings on the lid of the box, noticeably stark with their curvature.

“It's all feathers! Wings! There are Al Bhed symbols on here too! File numbers by the look of them. What else could a chest this deep down in the Omega ruins covered in wings, gaurded by that Omega-Electrical-Jerk be?”

“We will be sure to add its official name to the bestiaries than,” Auron murmured, his gaze still rapt upon her.

She turned her face to his, her mouth going dry as she blinked slowly, awareness charging the air between them. She put the box down and straightened up slowly. The rip in the red fabric of his hoari and the bloodstain right at her eye level galvanized her, sending a bolt of something untamable and thrilling and desperate through her here, deep in the darkest cave of the Omega Ruins with nothing but the scattered rubble of a past best left behind between them.

He didn't understand what he meant to them, what he meant to her. But she did. Seeing him crushed against the wall with blood spilling down his chin, too broken to pick up Masamune, had caused a brittle web of panic to snare her heart. It beat against it even now, knowing that she cared for him far beyond friendship and didn't that just beat all? Of all the jokes fate wanted to play on her, falling for a man heavier than all the stone in the Omega Ruins was the best of them. How was she supposed to keep her emotions together when he was standing there looking at her like she was the only glass of water in the Sanubian Sands? How was she supposed to pretend like her heart didn't throb in her chest every time he turned her way? She was tired of being responsible, of holding back what made her her. That wasn't her gig. She was tired of acting like it was okay that their journey was almost over and they would go their separate ways because they had no excuse to keep going when she wanted to, badly.

She was tired of wasting time.

She tilted her face upwards, opening her mouth to tell him, finally, how every look he gave her shot through her like a thing alive, how every time he spoke to her she melted inside, how every touch he gave her was like quicksilver in her hands, burning for a brilliant moment but always gone too soon and she wanted more, more from him, more for him, more for them. She wanted to listen to his sober stories and coax smiles out of him when he fell too far into himself and watch him shrug out his shoulders after a long battle and tell her that's how it was done. She wanted to help him discover every facet of himself and share in it all, good or bad. She wanted him, so much it was kind of scaring her because she was young and dumb and desperate and he had to know that by now. And if he turned her down with gently worded caution or shut up tighter than a mimic before a fight or turned around and walked away never to speak to her again than so be it but at least she had given it her patented All-In-Always Rikku shot and been true to herself.

“Auron,” she breathed, meeting his eye bravely. “I -”

The smell of dust and leather was suddenly thick in her nose and all around her as he cupped the back of her neck in his hand and swiftly pressed his lips to her own.

Rikku startled, shocked into utter stillness for one long, perfect moment that she wanted to hold onto and savor before she pushed against him enthusiastically, exhausted by the battles they'd just fought and the one they'd been fighting between them and desperate to convey to him everything she felt, had been feeling since she saw him standing in the sunset way back in Bikenal and had watched the wind shiver through his hair. He tasted like coppery blood and smoke and herbal potion, his mouth eager and clumsy against her own as he delved into her with the passion of a man long starved that she could only return tenfold. His stubble stung her fingers as her hands came up to skim his face, to wind their way into his hair the way they'd always wanted to and press him closer to her. It was damp with sweat, with dirt, and better than anything she had ever gotten her clever hands upon.

Hungry, struck, stunned by his own impetus but empowered by it as the runaway train of her hands caught in his hair and carded and tugged and threaded and his ardor blistered through him, Auron pulled Rikku against him and allowed himself the privilege of being neither focused on the past nor strategizing for the future but simply caught within the blinding present. He allowed himself to be anchored by her quick darting tongue and eager mouth and wily, shifting hands; to touch and taste and feel someone as he never had before. Here with his feet planted squarely on the ground, with Masamune abandoned beside him deep in a lost chamber full of stones and grit and the bones of some long forgotten power, lit by violet and covered in the dust of ancient knowledge in his third run at living, Auron finally took something into his hands that he wanted solely for himself without strategy or artifice or tactics to motivate him. Such a simple thing, lips upon lips, to make his own and yet so devastating. He inhaled as he opened his eye to see the little thief in his arms, undone as he had never been before. 

“Rikku,” he rasped her name softly against her mouth, tasting the new flavor of it between them as his hands came to encircle her tiny waist.

Still on her tip toes with her hands wound tightly through his hair, Rikku whimpered and pulled him back to her, sealing her mouth across his once again.

Chapter Text

--

“We must leave this place,” he breathed, pulling away reluctantly after far more time than was probably appropriate had passed. His lips stung. His heart raced. “We are not safe.”

They stared at one another for a long moment, his hair spiking wildly from her frantic mussing, her skin littered with his fingerprints where she could feel where each one had pressed into her back, her waist, her arms, never lighting anywhere for long as though he couldn't quite decide where to put them. Rikku's heart was tripping wildly while the urge to just jump all over him and climb him like a tree remained. There was so much of him to touch and he had kissed her, so technically she had permission, right?

Dazed, lips swollen and wet, Rikku sighed and knew he was right, letting her arms fall away from where they'd been wrapped around his neck. There were still fiends wandering this place and the ever so relevant danger of possible cave ins at any minute. They had fought not one but two explosive battles in this place and while she wasn't the Spiran expert on caverns she did understand explosives pretty darn well.

Desire was pooled low and hot in her belly and she drew in a deep breath, holding his eye as she carefully rubbed a thumb over her lips, smudging away the dampness. His eye followed the motion and her eyes dipped down to his Adam's apple when he swallowed hard.

“Rikku,” he murmured, almost a plea, smoky voiced and husky and she shivered despite herself.

“Okay Auron,” she sighed, knowing there was going to be a time when they had to unpack all this between them but not when the excitement and thrill of Legendary Guardian Auron leaning down and kissing her was still buzzing within her like a shaken hive of honeybees. He released a long breath but there was no exasperation behind it. Especially not when she could see his cheeks flaring a ruddy red even in the dimness.

Auron was reeling though the world would never know it, something he had always prided himself in. His hands were trembling when he picked Masamune back up and heaved it across his shoulders though he would firmly have told anyone who asked it was solely because he had just been electrocuted multiple times by an... Omega-Electrical-Jerk. Luckily there were few people in Spira who would dare such commentary. He took a moment to gather his composure as he gestured for Rikku to head back the way they'd come, the shock of lust and desire painfully novel to his body. He had been raised to deny such urging, to forget it. He had spent his youth tamping them deep down away in a reserve of shame and piety where he would not be tempted from his path to the clergy, and his journey with Braska had freed up no time for such dalliances. And then.... as an Unsent walking through this world in a haze of faded sensations with a drive for revolution there had been much else on his mind.

Perhaps he should feel foolish that that had been his first - his only - kiss by his age, but he did not.

His hands had been full of heated skin, his mouth had delved and tasted. Her thrilling response had been more than worth the wait and the scent of her, desert lilies and sweat and dust still lingered in his nose. It had been as perfect as anything in his world had ever been. His body had responded, indeed had not abandoned that particular reaction yet, but instead of shame and self recrimination he was fighting the urge to reach for her again. It was foreign but not unwelcome, something limned with a sharp joy and a relief. He had wanted to kiss her since the Celsius. He had done so and the world had not imploded. He wanted to kiss her again.

The memory of the feel of her heated tongue tangling with his stalled him mid stride for a moment as he took a step towards the doorway, his mind blanking.

“Forget anything?” Rikku chirped, glancing over her shoulder at him. The box was held carefully in her hands.

“Not one thing,” he said, glancing at her carefully, and something in his tone must have clued her in because she giggled, hugging the box to her chest and staring back at him with glittering focus.

“Me either,” she breathed, glancing for a mere moment at his lips.

--

Gippal was waiting for them at the shoreline, the wind ripping heavily at his gelled spikes and the grey skies bringing out the green of his eyes as he watched their approach. He struggled to appear nonchalant with his arms crossed, leaning back as though that giant wave hadn't just splashed seawater deep into his boots and soaked his feet.

"About time, Cid's Girl. I was about to send out a search party," he called, fighting to be heard over the wind.

Rikku ran forward, feet digging deeply into the rocks with each step, stopping with a hop in front of the Machine Faction leader. Auron had the absurd urge to stop her, to snag her bows and pull her back beside him but instead he adjusted the weight of his sword on his shoulder and maintained his even pace.

She leapt at Gippal, throwing the arm that wasn't wrapped around the box around his neck and yanking him downward with a jerk in an ecstatic hug. The box jammed into his ribs painfully and he grunted.

“Got the goods right here, Spikes!” she thrilled. “Got the plans, fought like, electricity incarnate and took down that religious nut job trying to date Big Red here in one weekend getaway! Auron and I need a team name or something because the stunts we just pulled off were like, professional grade! Al Red? Aurikku? Speedy and The Bulwark? Whatcha think, Big Guy?”

Auron stood silently behind them as Rikku untangled herself from Gippal and shoved the box into his waiting arms. He gripped it tightly, shaking his head ruefully and meeting the other man's eyes.

“Have to hand it to you, Sir Auron. You were the right man for the job,” he sighed.

Auron nodded once, knowing this but feeling no need to rub it in. He sensed that he had already taken much from the younger man.

“Paaj was waiting for us within the ruins,” Auron explained, the wind capturing the words from his mouth as the waves crashed against the rocks. They began to walk towards the waiting airship. “He intended to kill me and take my sword, assume the mantle of Auron, whatever he intended that to mean. He would have killed Rikku as well given the opportunity. We did not give it to him.”

They walked, Rikku running ahead to get out of the wind and waving wildly at Rin, who stood within the ship awaiting them. The immediate halt to the bombardment of the wind was a relief to all as the hatch shut behind them. The engines thrummed to life, and Brother's babble crackled to life over the speakers. Gippal moved to a panel and pressed a button, calmly replying.

“There was a massive fiend below the ruins in the chamber we found,” Auron continued.

“Without my help,” Rikku called back sourly. “What am I supposed to blow up now?!”

“Spira just loves those little surprises,” Gippal sighed, handing the box off to the waiting Shinra who took it with great reverence and moved away without a word.

“We defeated it and retrieved the plan,” Auron finished lamely, flashing back to Rikku's arms around his neck and her slim body pressed against him and her mouth... He pressed his lips closed, glancing at her. “... then returned.”

She shot him a coy look, knowing exactly what he'd been thinking than she shot him a blinding smile.

“Mission complete! When do I get my gil?” she demanded, sticking her hand out to Gippal, who spluttered, dragging his gaze away from his study of Auron.

“I owe Sir Auron but I'm not paying you for helping your nation, Cid's Girl!” he snorted.

“Cheat! Charlatan! Miser!” she gasped, bouncing around him and smacking him lightly everywhere she could reach. He laughed, ducking away from her. “After all that work I totally expect to get paid! Do you know how many Melusines we had to fight?!”

Rin came to stand beside Auron who watched to two bicker. “Is it true? You killed the false prophet?”

“Yes,” Auron nodded, carefully placing Masamune down and standing solemnly, rolling his shoulders. His burned pride still scalded him from within.

“We will root out the sects, spread the knowledge that he was a sham tainted by madness, warmongering between the Al Bhed and the rest of Spira. We will do this for you,” Rin pledged quietly.

“And for the Al Bhed,” Auron murmured, throwing the other man a sidelong look.

Rin shrugged, unrepentant for his motives were always partly on behalf of his struggling people.

“What now?” he asked the warrior monk, whose focus remained on the girl, studying her carefully as she laughed, high on victory.

Rin had known Auron for many years, indeed had been one of the last to ever see the young monk alive and had welcomed him back to this world twice now, and while nobody could consider themselves an expert in Things Auron, Rin could sense the sea change in him, the slight shift in the wind that spoke of bending, of ease. He seemed lighter, less drawn within his own maelstrom of pain and regret.

“I think I am finished with crusades across this world,” he offered quietly in response.

Rikku came pattering over, swinging her elbow into Rin's and twirling them forcefully around.

“We've got one more thing to do Auron!” she grinned, breathless and came to stand before him with arms akimbo. “It's super important and you can't say no because you owe it to me for my saving your hiney so many times this whole mission.”

“Oh?” he asked, curious and content to hear her out. Truly, he was in no rush to leave her, could admit to himself that any excuse to stay was welcome. The future was tenuous, unknown and dark when he was by himself within it. With her it felt... bright.

“Yunie hasn't stopped sending me Commsat messages and I think its time I paid a visit to Besaid so I can tell her all about how I saved the world a third time.”

“You are an impressive woman,” he murmured, smirking.

“Us,” she snickered, smacking him in the shoulder. Her hand slid down his bare arm where it hung in his haori. “How we saved the world. Us.”

He inclined his head towards her with a slow, respectful nod.

“Us,” he agreed softly.

--

Stillness, Auron had rapidly learned, was nigh impossible when around the Al Bhed. He had managed to shake off Rin, avoid Brother's awkward yammering, and acquire about twenty minutes of peace when Rikku had bounced off to find a shower before he was interrupted.

“Never thought an old timer like you would be the one to pin her down,” Gippal snorted, throwing himself down on the couch opposite Auron and splaying out. “Our fearless leader isn't known for settling in for the long haul.”

Auron resigned himself to this awkward confrontation and withdrew his mental hands from the calming solace of meditation in favor of meeting the man's green eye.

“Perhaps because I sought to do no pinning,” Auron replied smoothly.

“Then you're doing it wrong,” he retorted with a lascivious grin. It fell flat against the stone of Auron's face and Gippal rolled his eyes.

“See? This is what I mean. You're such a stiff (a joke, don't kill me!) Are you secretly funny? Is it the Legendary part? Does she have a thing for scars or emotional backstories or guys who can't let go of the past?”

And Auron could offer no response because he was just as baffled as his rival. His appeal was not readily apparent to himself, either. Perhaps this blossoming thing he was still hesitant to name was because they complimented one another, her rapid current to his quiet depths. Her crackling fire to his silently glowing embers.

“Me and Rikku,” Gippal sighed, leaning forward onto his knees and shaking his head, “grew up together and by the time I stopped being a wise-ass and realized she was someone worth noticing she'd already saved the world and there was all this political upheaval to untangle - thanks for that, no really - and every time I thought, maybe now she was off on some harebrained idea or another; scheduling dives off the coast or searching for buried treasure or anything that took her away for a bit more freedom before Cid steps down. I kept putting it off but those were all excuses. I didn't want to unbalance what we had, that little give and take. I thought I had more time before she sorted herself out and wanted to be an adult. It seemed inevitable, and a part of me wanted it, and a part of me fought it. It seemed like shooting fish in a barrel, I guess. I'm a jerk.”

“Inevitable?” Auron asked, discomfited. He glanced back at the ocean.

“Until it wasn't,” Gippal shrugged, “and then you strolled in and saw that she was an adult the whole time and I'd just refused to see it. Accepted her for herself and all that which isn't the easiest pill to swallow some days, believe me. She's like a hurricane of, of... sunshine some days. Can't say I'm not a sore loser though.”

Auron wasn't sure what he was supposed to say here so he said nothing at all. His words always carried weight, he would not cheapen them by offering platitudes he was still unsure were his to even offer. There had been no declarations, no intentions made. He had no footing to get beneath him for he had never even taken a step to stumble from. He was free falling amidst this confusion but somehow did not mind.

“Don't have a stroke, gramps,” Gippal snorted, watching him. “I'm not asking you to pledge your undying love to her before the world leaders, to Cid. I'd just feel better if I knew what you wanted.”

Auron thought carefully, his eyes still firmly on the sea though he no longer saw it. He thought of the girl's cheeky smile and earnest care and wild energy and of his own want. That had been his hardest lesson these past weeks, to acknowledge that he was no Soldier of Spira anymore, no tactician moving pieces into battle, no walking wounded trying to orchestrate rebellion, just Auron; and there was something wonderful to be found within such simplicity. He was allowed to be, to find, to know, to learn and discover. The Fayth had given him such wealth to choose from and he would not squander it.   

“To be the eye of the storm, I think,” he murmured softly. “The calm between the winds, if she'll have me.”

Gippal blinked, arching a brow behind his eye patch. “Okay, what?”

Auron chuckled, shifting back in his chair and straightening his spine. No more would he allow this man to see him lost and uncertain about his relationship with Rikku. There was nothing to fear in that uncertainty, only to learn and grow from no matter the outcome. He was not lost now, he was leading the way.

“Tell me of the Al Bhed strategy for building this city around the blueprints we retrieved,” he offered, a thin olive branch. “I understand you have the financing but what of the long term economics, the possible locations, the political structuring?”

Gippal nodded, sighing and sitting forward to begin the complicated explanation of the Al Bhed economy and political processes, taking the extended branch.

--

By the time the Celsius had drawn away, flaring wind and sand towards them where they stood on the beach, it was the stunning orange and purple melt of sunset pouring over the darkening sands. Auron took a moment to appreciate the beauty of it, the glowing orange shifting over the fishing huts and boats abandoned for the night along the coast. Besaid was quieting, the trill and caw of birds hidden within the shadows of the jungle and the lap of the gentle waves before them their only company. The warmth of the air blanketed him, the sea breeze heavy in his nose. Rikku yanked off her boots and shrugged off her bag and tossed them into the sand, splashing forward into the waters that no doubt still held the heat of day. 

"Get in here," she called, "Legendary Guardian Cactus! I've never even seen you swim!" 

Smiling slightly at her antics but refraining, Auron put down his sword and settled down in the warm, soft sand to watch her, unfastening his cowl and shifting his hoari down to his waist to allow the air to cool him. The evening air was gentle on his skin, feathering his hair lightly. The weight of his braid jostled slightly against the nape of his neck as he gazed out over the shallows to where Rikku kicked the waves in glittering arcs of gold. 

There is a peace here, is there not? Braska would have said, content. A sense of belonging to ones self and to others.

If you like that sort of thing, Jecht would snort. 

I do, my old friends, Auron thinks. 

He knew that Tidus, Yuna and the others waited in the village of Besaid for them, eager for stories and gossip and the myriad of other things that friendship cost, but tonight they would wait a little longer.

Tonight he had nowhere to be other than here on a warm stretch of beach with the sea before him, nothing to do other than sit before it and take it in, nothing to see other than the girl dousing herself in the ocean and trilling happily to herself. He rested his forearms on his knees and laced his fingers loosely between them, leaning forward to take in her happiness at such a simple thing. He felt the tension leaving his shoulders. 

I do. 

Chapter Text

--

The sun was nothing but a dim purple glow on the line of the horizon and the stars began to blink to life by the time Rikku had exhausted herself in the surf. Her bare little feet were covered in white sand as she hauled herself up the beach and came to stand before him. They captured his attention for a long moment where he resisted the urge to reach out and brush the grit away. She threw herself into the sand beside him and awareness bloomed hot and tense within him.

“So, it's kind of late,” Rikku began, falling back on her elbows and crossing one leg over her knee. She bobbed her foot and sand dusted over the edge of his red coat.

“It is indeed,” he agreed.

“And I was thinking maybe we could camp under the stars one more time before we head into Besaid. Kind of a last hurrah thing after we did such an awesome job, spending a night without Gippal cracking the whip behind us... Plus those guys are going to be so noisy and Tidus will ask a billion questions and I could use the down time... To figure out a few things.”

“I assume that's why you had Gippal deposit us in such a secluded strand of beach instead of right in the village, Rikku,” Auron said, shifting a sidelong glance her way.

She shrugged, unrepentant. “Subtly was never my thing,” she chirped.

She shifted closer, and Auron refused to lie to himself and say that his breath hitched because of any other reason than her. He turned his face towards her in the darkening evening, mouth dry, heartbeat picking up pace.

“This whole time with you... I just... could it not be over?” she asked, the words tumbling clumsily from her lips, heavy as boulders, light as feathers.

“That depends,” he shrugged, settling his gaze carefully upon the night sky. “You mentioned something of a mutiny and my services. Had you one in mind?”

“You know....” she tapped her finger against her mouth thoughtfully. “I just might if you don't mind stopping mutinies just as much as you like starting them. The machina we work on sometimes malfunction like the compacter you fought in Bikenal. I could use your help keeping an eye on them, protecting the workers and such as we build our home... I could use your help in a lot of ways, not just the revolutionary kind. ”

“I see,” he said, weighing the idea.

“You do?” she squeaked, and he caught the motion of her fingers drawing nervous patterns in the soft sand.

“Are you sure?” he asked warmly, shifting to his knees and turning to look at her face in the dark. His hand reached out and he cupped her cheek.

She clambered to her own knees before him, leaning into his palm.

“One hundred percent,” she breathed, leaning forward to kiss him.

He pulled back slightly to meet her eyes, needing to bare himself to her scrutiny despite the wounds it may cause his pride. In his life he had never taken things lightly, and this was no different. If he was to have her, she was to have him as well.

“Rikku, I have never...” he halted, unsure of what words to choose. He felt uncertain, clumsy.

She cocked her head as she met the amber of his eye and his hand fell from her face.

It occurred to her slowly, a sad and cold blooming of frost on the windowpane as his fingers hesitated over her collarbone, that he had never done any of this before. The giggle died in her throat, her smile faded and out of it came a sharp, painful reverence. There was an uncertainty she had never experienced in him, a hesitation and a stiffness that while so very like him, was unlike him too. Of course, she thought sadly, he had been a monk before his pilgrimage, tied down to the staunch rules of Bevelle, the strict regulations of the Church of Yevon. Don’t love. Don’t live. And then he’d died and lost the hope and drive and yearning for those precious, casual treasures. Unsent, there must not have been a need for hands sliding through hair, for warm lips pressed to his, for fingers sliding over waists and thighs, for soft giggles and softer sheets. She wished she could go back in time and tell her sticky fingered, knobby kneed fifteen year old self that she should take his large, cold hand in her quick little warm one, and hold it and hold it and not let go, just for a moment in time.

He had been so cheated, so hopelessly focused on an ageless march for death. This was uncharted territory for him and as painfully fragile as a spider web frozen in the snow. She had to be careful, something she was not particularly good at, to thaw him and not shatter them both. Inside she trembled, terrified by what he was giving her, but her greedy thief hands and her greedy thief heart couldn’t turn away something so much more valuable than the ghost bones and teeth and treasures of a hundred Unsent souls.

Sensing her pause his fingers fell short of their mark, falling away from her shoulder, that great fist slowly closing finger by finger. He was withdrawing, protecting himself by simply drawing inward and away from her. She couldn’t let that happen and with a gasp she caught that hand in both of hers, spread his fingers wide with her own skinny ones, threaded them together and pressed so that the smooth warmth of their palms slid over one another. She could feel callouses on his skin, the strength in the muscles of his arm. He was ridiculously male and muscled and the sight of him kneeling so formally in front of her in that dusty red coat with his ash touched hair and focused, reverent frown made her ache so hard. No matter how much Auron had discovered about himself, would discover about himself, he would still be Auron. He was as heavy as storm clouds thick with rain and he was weighted with importance and stuffy with ritual and dense with an impenetrable wall of sorrow and regret that would never fully leave him no matter how many lives he lived and in a blinding flash of brilliant, terrifying clarity she could admit to her commitment avoidant little self that she was in love with him.

“Makes sense,” she thought dreamily, headily, swaying forward on knees she was very much ignoring the discomfort in. If she wasn’t careful he might still crush her beneath him with everything he was but what was life if not a risk? She couldn't predict that future. She didn't know why the Fayth brought him back other than to be kneeling before her in Besaid right now, couldn't say if it was world saving, or repentance or just a Fayth-y whim. World weary, stone souled, tiredly trudging Auron had the potential to be a bigger bite than she could chew but he also had the potential to be everything to her; and at the end of it all she was only twenty one years old and he was before her with the wall of his chest and the width of those strong shoulders, staring at her with a steady focus that stole her breath. Her skin was tingling, lightning across every inch of her and she was so glad it didn’t frighten her anymore, and he still hadn’t even touched her yet.

Auron was locked in a standstill, frozen within himself because he did not know what steps to take from here. Want was so alien to him, and now there was a loose limbed, golden skinned little blonde swaying on her knees before him. She was gazing at him like he was the softest of all sweetness and he wasn’t entirely sure there was anything left within him but stone and cold granite but she made him want to find out if there was more. He had never wanted before but she had taught him over and over how easy it could be. He had been driven, he had been pushed. He had purpose stamped all over him like a letter that had traveled the world twice over. He had religion and scarcity and piousness bred into his bones. An upbringing of reverence and silence and ceremony and even if the pieces were jumbled up and broken and reforged into a new picture – one of determination and strength and the power to move forward – they were inherently the same pieces underneath.

He had never wanted solely for the sake of it. Such a dizzying thrill.

“Are you sure?” he asked once more, smoke and stone in his voice and though he addressed the question to the bright eyed girl kneeling before him it was truly a question for himself. He knew his answer, now it was time to hear Rikku's.

She answered by throwing those skinny arms around his neck, her bows catching on his shoulder armor, snagging on the ornaments and jerking him forward. She extracted herself as gracefully as she could (which wasn’t very) with a light laugh.

“I’m sure,” she said, and lifted her hand to his cheek, stroking the stubbled edge of his jaw. Lined, hard, scarred and rough, there was so much in his face to love that she nearly shivered with it.

She sidled closer to him and he drew back slowly, settling himself on the ground. She took it as an invitation to crawl into his lap and quick as a wink she straddled him, wrapping her lanky legs around his waist. Startled, he jerked his legs in and settled himself cross legged. He cradled her in his lap, brutally intimate as he had never been with anyone before. His hands drifted down to her hips, his fingers spreading over the edge of hot skin and warm fabric. He stared at her, and she grinned at him, bumping his nose with her own.

“Stop looking at me like you think I’m some new fiend you’ve got to find the weakness for,” she laughed.

He said nothing and decided the best course of action here was to enjoy the feel of a warm, twitchy little Al Bhed in his lap. It was admittedly distracting and he ran his hands up the dip of her waist, circling her rib cage and down again. Whipcord muscles and velvet skin. She squirmed, “it tickles,” she sighed.

Her braids clicked around his face, surrounding him in the heady scent of desert lilies and salt water, he could feel her soft breath on his cheek and he closed his eye, savoring. His body reacted as it naturally would and with effort he pushed away the instinctual withdrawal and shame that accompanied it as a life set in the mind of a Warrior Monk.

“Rikku,” he murmured and she pressed harder against him, shivering, and that was good. She slid her arms around his neck, pulling him closer until her lips danced over the sensitized skin of his neck, and that was better.

“When you talk it’s like melted chocolate,” she whispered.

“Oh?” he laughed lightly, a low rumble in his chest. He had heard such things about his voice before, knew some of the power that lay within it. It pleased him more than it ever had to know she had taken note.

She loosed her arms and her hot little hands slid down, down, down his bare arms. She slid her fingers over them once, twice.

“Oh, oh, wow,” she sighed in appreciation and he felt a measure of vain pride swell within him. Such foolishness. He flushed with embarrassment but his mouth curled upwards despite his efforts, pleased.

He moved his hands to her shoulders and allowed himself the luxury of tracing the collarbones he had often found himself coveting. Such bird frail bones beneath golden skin, an appearance of fragility that hid beneath it enormous strength. He dipped slightly lower, to where he could feel the rapid flight of her pulse, her heart strong beneath it. His hands, rough and hard and calloused upon her body brought him a sense of desperate need he could not decipher to his satisfaction. She shifted her hips closer to him and his drew in a shaky breath then drew back to look at her.

She tilted her head to the side, index finger pressed to her chin, smiling at him like he was the coyest flirt ever while he was truly the worst, all blunt edges and terse words. Whatever she saw in his face she approved because she leaned in and pressed herself into his neck, her hand sneaking into his hair and running through it.

“I think I was hoping to find myself here the second I saw you standing in my desert,” she whispered.

He turned his head slightly, pressing his inarticulate mouth to her cheek, down her neck when she let her head tilt away in welcome. He brushed aside her hair with a bare hand, ignoring that he seemed to shake with the newness of all this and touched his mouth more firmly to her, tentatively swept his tongue against her pulse and felt it speed up beneath it. She was soft and sweet and salty, warm and fragrant and bare. He could feel himself becoming greedy, becoming unchecked, could feel the chains snapping free within himself as he began to imagine the length of his body sliding over hers. The heat of her, the silk of her, he was catching fire.

Rikku knew an opportunity when she saw one and drew her head back, reached her palm up to his cheek and slowly, carefully pulled him to her for a scorching kiss. He froze, rapt and blinded as her mouth slid against his, her tongue flicked out and swept over his lips. Electrified, he drew in a sharp breath and she coaxed him out of himself, teased him into tasting her mouth too as he had in the ruins. In a moment he had gained the rhythm of it and gave as good as he got until they were both lost in wet mouths and shaky breaths and grasping hands and Rikku was quite sure she was whimpering shamelessly and trying to pull out his hair as he ran those strong hands over her thighs but who was checking? She could feel how hard he was pressed against her and the fact that they still had all their clothes on seemed like the worst crime ever committed but she had to go slow, had to respect this for him. This changed things, meant something monumental and even if she had been terrible so far at the whole responsibility gig, had routinely skipped the whole getting tied down and chained thing, this was Auron.

This was Auron.

She smiled against his relentless seeking mouth and broke apart from him a bit, shrugging off her sleeves and heaping them on the ground beside her. She urged him to return the gesture and lift his arms so she could pull off his chest plating and black shirt. Leaning back, she felt herself shudder with a dizzy, heady excitement when the breadth of his chest was exposed, thick muscle and pale scars mapping out years of battle to her expert eye. She let out a long, grateful sigh before wrapping her bare arms back around him, pressing close.

The shock of hot skin against hot skin had Auron releasing a shuddering breath, his own arms coming up to surround the girl, only hesitating for a moment. The yellow tie of her top brushed against his fingers and he pinched the end softly, tugged, and when she didn’t seem phased he pulled the knot loose, his breath catching at his own daring. Her tricky little fingers reached swiftly for the tie around her neck, undid it, and promptly tossed the scrap of yellow away. She shrugged cheekily.

“I like the way you think,” she shrugged.

Auron said nothing but took the time to study the smooth golden curve of her shoulders, the path that led to her tiny collarbones and down her body. He pressed his lips first to one than the other as he did all things, with careful reverence and due respect. The slightly paler skin of her breasts was heated as he brushed his hands up the swells, over the sensitive peaks as he captured her thrilled little gasp in his mouth. She moaned softly and pushed on his coat until he took the hint and undid his buckle, laying the red fabric down behind him and stretching back over it, pulling her with him.

She was straddling him completely now and she wasn’t too modest a person to admit that her pride was swelling to be the one straddling this man in particular.

“Rikku, there is no point of no return. If ever you are in doubt you need only speak it,” he said slowly, breathing shakily.

“I’d say the same to you but I think if you stop I’ll fall apart,” she breathed, kissing her way down his jaw, loving the burn of it against her sensitive mouth.

“An exaggeration,” he chuckled low, hands sweeping over her smooth back. But neither of them were sure it truly was.

She tested the limits of him, sliding against him lightly enough to tease but with intent. He breathed in sharply, his hands tightening around her arms as she slid over him, endless barriers of cloth between them. She had to fix that. Quick as a wink she wriggled down to his feet, planting her knees between his ankles and pulling on the loose black pants that were irking her so. He hesitated for a moment, green as a boy, before pushing off one boot, than the other, than lifting his hips to her insistent hands that tugged the pants off and tossed them aside. His legs, she found to her amusement, had only the finest stubble of hair to mar the smoothness of the heavy muscled thighs and calves. She patted the outside of his thighs as she slid her way back up his body.

“You’ve been hiding these beauties from the world,” she giggled.

“Rikku,” he muttered, embarrassed to be so exposed as he lay there on his back, hard and bare and at attention.

She seemed to sense his uncertainty because the smile slid from her face and very deliberately, she stood and brought her hands to the fastening of her little skirt. It dropped around her ankles and she quickly untied the strings of her bikini bottom that clung to each hip before it dropped too. She kicked it away into the darkness and stood for a moment above him, naked and self-assured in warm air and the moonlight. He was quietly awed; grateful and relieved to see the final remnants of the girl in the rubbery orange top and frilly green shorts subsiding into this wild, unchecked sand siren standing bare and confident before him in the starlight.

She carefully dropped back to her knees and scurried up his body, bumping his nose lightly with her own. She was such an expanse of smoothness and warmth that he hardly knew where to put the hands he was always so sure of. The overload of skin on skin had him shivering despite himself, breathing fast, trying to keep control over everything he was. She kissed him, igniting the fire once more with tongues and lips and heavy breath and so much soft skin to explore.

“Auron,” she murmured in reply. She wanted to tell him, wanted to show him, wanted to learn him and help him and be with him. She wanted, and she hoped that was enough. His hands came up and teased her breasts, clumsy and rough for only a moment before he remembered himself and gentled them. Rikku refused to let him hide behind composure though. She wanted him raw and she tightened her thighs around his waist and slid over him, bare and wet and triumphant when he gasped, jerked forward. She laughed lightly, wonderfully at ease with him, in control, and Auron’s pride was stung even though he saw the pleasure and the humor of it. He sat up with her squirming in his lap and brought his head down, captured her nipple in his mouth gently, and listened with no small degree of triumph as she moaned. Her hands came up to run through his hair, losing that teasing edge as a bit of desperation shone through. Apparently he’d found her weakness in this particular battle after all.

She was driving him mad with the heat and closeness of her though, so deliriously close and he fought the instinctual urge to press his hips forward, to drive into her. She sensed some of his desperation, shared it, because she pulled his head gently from her breasts and, breathless, looked him in the eyes.

“Ready?” she panted, reaching gently for him.

“I am,” he replied solemnly as he could and kept his one eye open intent and upon her as she positioned him at the source of that white hot heat and sunk onto him, whimpering happily as she did so. Auron could do nothing but close his eyes at the sweet shock of it.

She was tight and hot and wet and everything he had denied himself for years and years and lifetimes. He tipped his head back for a moment, dragging in a shaky breath as he finally understood all the dirty jokes Jecht had told and the looks his old friend had shared with even Braska when they spoke of women those dark nights by the fire so long ago. He drew in breath after breath until he sensed the thrumming impatience of the girl he was currently enjoying the sensation of being within. He lifted his head and she snaked a hand around his head, dragging him upwards to kiss her. She took control with her lithe little body and lifted up, sliding him slowly in and out of her until he saw stars bursting behind his eyes.

Rikku was gasping and she was pretty sure she was moaning some pretty stupid things, maybe even praying a little to whatever Al Bhed prayed to in times like these. But he felt incredible after wanting this for so long and she was angled just right and it wasn’t going to be long and thank goodness she wasn’t a boy because she wouldn’t be very good at this otherwise. She was sliding over him, faster and faster, dragging herself in just the right angles to get what she wanted when his fingers came up and his thumbs swept over her nipples. She cried out, grabbing his face in both of her hands and kissing him for all she was worth as she shuddered and broke and wept and burst all around him. It was glorious and she felt him reaching the same peaks himself and kept up the pace with him, shifting her hips in order to allow him deeper, and he was panting, he was sweating, he was fisting his hands in her streams of golden hair and she was seeking out his mouth because she wanted to swallow him while he exploded within her. He came with a hoarse cry, with a groan, spending himself within her, still moving in spastic, jerky motions because the goodness of it didn’t want to end. He didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to untangle himself from the heat and sweat and wildness of her.

He grew aware of his heavy hands knotted in her hair, beads clinking against them. She was breathing heavily, limp and boneless and breathing against him. Gently, he unthreaded the blonde from his fingers, touching her cheeks lightly, reverently, as he withdrew. Her lips were bee stung, wet, her cheeks flushed and eyes soft as she met his own in the moonlight.

“Wow,” she sighed, pushing him down gently into the sand.

He was glad of her lead because he did not know what to do with himself now. He leaned back, sensitized skin still sending out little waves of pleasure. His thighs twitched and she giggled, leaning forward atop him as he leaned back. She slid to his side, wet smearing over their thighs but he did not have it within himself to be dismayed when she was tucking her head under his arm and he felt as though every single muscle in his body was floating and relaxed. He could feel her smiling and tentatively he wrapped his arm around her. Their rapidly cooling skin was going to become an issue very soon, but laying in the dark outdoors of humid Besaid with the clear night sky pollinated with stars above them, out of breath, sweaty and satisfied, he could not bring himself to mind.

“Yes,” he murmured, for words failed him in this.

“You sure are a quick learner,” she grinned, her hand coming up to sweep over his chest, trace a scar with one tiny finger. “Good thing, to.”

“Oh?” he asked. “Why is that, Rikku?”

“Because I have loads and loads to teach you, Legendary Guardian Sexpot.”

And he found himself smiling foolishly in the dark where nobody could see him, and pulled the wily girl closer to his side while his other hand fell atop her own on his chest. Of all the things he had been called in his lives...

Rikku could feel a low vibration against her ear where it was pressed atop his chest, growing in strength until she lifted her head to peek up at him and saw that he was laughing, laughing, silent and strong, all sharp white teeth and scars twisted tight, and she put her head back on his chest and laughed with him until they were both out of breath and words and worries, and the night sky was the only witness as he pulled her back up so he might kiss her once again.

--

When Rikku awoke it was to the damp warmth of the tropical sunshine pouring over her face and shoulders, quite rudely, she thought. She kept her eyes closed, smiling contentedly and burrowing herself deeper into the thick softness of Auron's overcoat. The quiet slap of the waves washing against the shore drew her further from sleep and she relented, opening her eyes and sitting up with a luxurious stretch. She didn't forget that she was still completely naked, but it didn't bother her either. The sand just about everywhere did, but that was remedied easily enough.

Plucking her discarded yellow bikini from where it had been tossed she quickly tied it on and yawned, jaw cracking, before setting down the beach towards a familiar figure.

Auron was standing near the waterline in his pants and shirt and even his plated armor, but his feet were bare and toes dug into the sand, long and pale and square. She approached, stomach fluttering nervously as she took in the broadness of his back and the thick ropes of muscle in his shoulders. So... What now? She should be elegant, coy, entice him back into the sand with seductive words and come hither eyes. Or she should be flippant, nonchalant, try not to weigh him down with expectations or call him her boyfriend or tell him she would like them to spend the rest of their lives together. There were a hundred things she could be, but she settled on herself.

“Trying to see if you could swim for it? Hijack a boat? Because between you and me the third fishing shack down the beach has a busted lock and he keeps the oars to the left of the door. Not that I've checked.”

Auron turned his head slightly towards her and she caught the quirk of his lips before he returned to his apparent vigil of the deep blue sea.

Anxious Rikku waded forward into the water to her calves, cool still from the night, and began scooping the water over her body to get rid of the clinging sand. He wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? Did he regret it? Had she forced herself on him and he was angsting over his lost innocence? Ravaged by an Al Bhed heathen. Political scandal! Shame! Maybe he could turn it into a novel and sell millions. Apostate Attraction; a Legendary Guardian's story of corruption by a heretic. She giggled uncertainly, cheeks flaring red as she stood soaking wet in the shallows, shivering slightly. She had never done this before the few times she'd done it at all, the staying around afterwards. She had never had to gauge what her partner was feeling because she had always cut and run before they tried to broach the subject of partner at all. Was she doing this all wrong? She was pretty sure last night wasn't something he did on a whim what with the whole virginity thing they'd surmounted but maybe it hadn't meant what she had hoped it meant, which was everything.

She startled slightly, stirred from her spiraling thoughts as a hand came to rest on her shoulder and turned her around. Auron stood in the water up to his ankles, pants now rolled up around his calves, his hand warm on her skin. He drew her closer, sliding a bare arm around her back and the other hesitantly through her hair, pulling her head to his chest. Despite the weeks of travel culminating in the passion of the night before they were still new to one another, there was a fragility to that newness for the both of them. It trembled between them, both unsure of quite how the pieces were going to fit.

“Rikku,” he said, and the warmth of his voice on her name sent her doubts skittering across the ocean. He pressed his mouth to her temple, breathing deeply of her hair for a heady moment. “Rikku.”

Her arms came around him in reply as she sighed, melting against him and sliding her fingers up into his hair to play loosely with the strands as the waves rocked gently against them in the shallows.

--

As they approached the by now bustling village of Besaid, Tidus came barreling out of the cozy hut he shared with Yuna, forgoing the stairs in favor of lunging down all of them and hitting the sand at a dead run.

“Auron! Rikku! Hey!” he yelled and Auron sniffed, hoping that nobody had tried to sleep late this particular morning.

Yuna followed at a much more sedate pace, smiling beatifically as she always did. She was wearing a much more casual outfit than her robes, one of denim shorts and a white top and half of a long blue skirt. Familiar again the way Rikku's outfit had been despite knowing she had never warn it during their pilgrimage. He let the vague unease go in favor of nodding to them both.

“Rikku!” she called breathlessly and the girl lunged forward and threw her arms around her cousin, squeezing her tightly. "I'm so glad you're okay!" 

“Yunie!”

Tidus stopped short of doing the same to Auron, laughing self-consciously. Auron relented, placing his free hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezing firmly.

“I heard you guys got into all sorts of trouble together,” Tidus grinned. “How come I wasn't invited?”

“Because it was a job for Speedy and The Bulwark!” Rikku cried, bounding up behind Tidus. He turned around and dragged her into an enthusiastic hug, the two of them like excited puppies patting and jumping all over one another.

“Speedy and the what?” Tidus asked, laughing as he tried to avoid Rikku's attempts to muss up his hair.

“That is... not happening, Rikku, “ Auron arched a brow, frowning tiredly.

She shrugged, escaping Tidus's hold and setting her hands on her hips.

“See if you can stop it,” she grinned.

They began to head back towards the village, Yuna explaining to Rikku all the changes that Besaid had been undergoing lately as they walked. A rope swing seemed of particular interest to Rikku. Lulu and Wakka joined them, holding the hand of little Vidina.

“Hey, glad you found that jerk tryna make you a god,” Wakka said angrily. “Rin told us all about it and I gotta say I'm glad it was you who found him and not me, 'cause I woulda...” he trailed off, shaking his head in disgust.

“We sort of crushed his dreams of world domination,” Rikku snickered, looking pleased with herself as she shot Auron a look. “You might say they fell kind of flat. You could even say we won by a landslide!”

“Rikku,” Auron admonished. “It is in poor taste to disrespect the dead, even one such as he.”

“Okay, okay, I'll bury the urge,” she said, nodding innocently. 

The others were looking at them, uncertain of their banter, and Auron felt a frisson of apprehension coil in his stomach. They might not accept him for her, these sunny island children and the closest he had to friends in all of Spira. He was so much older, so much weightier than they had probably imagined for her with his bitter past and sordid deaths and the trials he had made them all face. The thought of their disapproval roiled in his guts but the edge of Rikku's happy smile was a string to follow and he grabbed hold of it, pulling it close and allowing himself to follow it, to trust in her and in those he would call friend.

“Yes, completely squash that urge,” he replied solemnly.

Rikku blinked, snorting ungracefully and slapping her hand against his chest as laughter overtook her. He caught her hand for a moment, squeezing it before letting go.

“Auron!” she giggled, pleasantly aghast.

“I think we missed something,” Lulu murmured, shifting a sideways look at her husband who was staring, baffled, at the laughing Al Bhed and back to the monk. Tidus was blinking, bemused, at Rikku's hand.

“Come on Rikku, Sir Auron, let us show you the new blitzball area Tidus set up for practicing,” Yuna snaked an arm through Rikku's and guided her down one of the narrow paths that led back to the beach.

Auron noticed that the women broke away, walking ahead together in a very obvious bid for gossip. Tidus shrugged, throwing Auron a blinding white grin.

“I'm glad you came to see us Auron, I was getting a bit worried about you out there.”

“Oh?” Auron asked, skeptical. “I've been known to be able to take care of myself a time or two.”

Wakka grinned, urging his son to walk a few steps ahead of them where he could keep a watchful eye. “Ya, but you got a habit of findin' trouble, Sir Auron. Though it looks like she found you,” he joked, nudging his chin towards Rikku who was still being cheerfully dragged down the path by Lulu and Yuna. Tidus continued to look confused but gamely trotted on.

The sand soon spread out before them, already baking in the early morning sun as fishermen pushed their cheerful boats out to sea. The birds in the jungle surrounding the cove let out a sporadic cacophony of sound that somehow managed to be beautiful despite the varied din and the ocean glittered a clear turquoise that was almost painful to look at. Wakka hurried after his curious son who had apparently spotted something of interest near one of the huts, leaving Auron alone with Tidus. They stood side by side, Tidus laughing quietly with his hands on his hips as he surveyed his home and friends. Auron quietly shared this with him, thinking of how far the boy had come, how much he deserved this happiness. How, just maybe, they both might deserve it.

Rikku had thrown off the chains of her captors and dashed down the shore towards the water, Yuna darting after her while Lulu walked sedately behind. Auron could hear Rikku's raucous laughter on the breeze.

“So you found trouble after all, hey?” Tidus asked, shaking his head. “I should have believed you. You always did know everything.”

“There is far more that I did not know than what I did. It's more that I caused the trouble,” Auron replied ruefully, “despite my best intentions.”

“I hear the road is paved with those,” Tidus joked, arching his back and crossing his arms over his head. He rocked back on his feet, glancing happily at Auron.

“You, uh, figure out what the Fayth are up to?” he asked curiously.

Auron mulled over his answer, watching Rikku splashing water savagely over the now retreating Yuna. He observed Lulu surreptitiously cast a water spell that doused the blonde and sent her spluttering backwards into the waves. She was up in a heartbeat, slogging through the water towards the snickering black mage who was retreating to the skeptical neutral zone of Wakka and her son. 

“I may never know the reason the Fayth brought me back,” he said quietly, his voice a warm, husky smoke across the sand, “perhaps it does not matter. But I can see it now, the shape of my own story.”

“Yea? What is it Auron?” Tidus asked eagerly, leaning forward to look into Auron's face with his eyes wide. Auron moved his gaze from the girl who was now fleeing down the beach from Lulu, a cactuar doll clutched high over her head, to the blue eyes of his once charge.

“Hmph,” Auron scoffed, smirking enigmatically as he placed his gloved hand upon the young man's neck and pushed him forward, setting an unhurried pace across the soft drifts of sand. Tidus caught his footing and looked at the older man, baffled but happy for the change. The warrior had the Masamune slung over his shoulder and the red of his coat was a brilliant crimson against the white sand, the tail of his braid catching in the soft wind. He held himself with the pride and strength and sense of purpose he had always done but there was something light to his steps now, something that Tidus had never seen in all the years Auron had watched over him in Zanarkand. He was happy, Tidus realized wonderingly. Auron was here and he was happy. 

He glanced back at Tidus, arching a brow at the blonde from behind the dark tint of his sunglasses.

“No time to waste,” he said, turning his head towards Rikku and the others. He smiled slightly, the corner of his lips tugging upwards.  “Let's go.”

Chapter Text

Epilogue

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Rikku finally managed to shake Gippal after he got another Commsat call from Nooj regarding the potential meteorological repercussions of terra-forming the Thunder Plains. It sounded long, dry and boring and he was the head of the Terraform Division anyway so let him at it! She had ditched him in the conference room with a cheeky wave while he glared balefully at her. It was with no small measure of relief that she had shut the heavy glass doors behind her and dashed before any of the waiting aides, pages and assistants could capture her.

She hurtled herself down the sunny corridors, clicking the sphere grid at her wrist and transforming from her traditional Al Bhed politician wardrobe (aka not a bikini) into her Thief sphere (aka a bikini). Either outfit she kept the heavy mass of braids atop her head. She had a aesthetic to maintain after all. A trendsetter if ever there was one!

A group of dignitaries from the Guado community were murmuring quietly as they came towards her and she ducked to the side, pressing herself behind a pillar and hunkering down into a ball with her arms over her head as they walked past, shooting her uncertain glances. When their voices were far away she clambered up and ran ran ran towards the large open doorway that promised sweet freedom, congratulating herself on her sneaking skills.

“Rikku! Might I have a moment of your time?” Baralai's quiet voice called out to her from behind and she spun on her heels, pointing at him as she jogged backwards.

“Can't stop now, woman on a mission! Important Al Bhed Leadership stuff!” she lied loudly and brazenly. “Gippal was totally looking for you earlier though! He's in the Conference room!”

She didn't even feel that guilty. She'd been doing the boring leader stuff all week with the budget meetings (she only fell asleep once, a new best) and the Kilika import negotiations and her feet were itching to move! Cut a girl a break sometimes, leader or not!

The scorching heat of the desert crashed over her as she stepped out of the shadowed corridors and down the stone steps of the Usaky Vmoehk Ruica, the official seat of Al Bhed government, sucking the breath from her lungs. She grinned, pulling one happy breath right back in for good measure as she waved happily to her people and continued hurtling pel mel towards her destination.

The small sandstone buildings of the Al Bhed town sprawling around her were bleached nearly white by the unforgiving sun, broken apart by dozens upon dozens of small raised gardens and potted plants wherever they could be placed. Feathery purple Paintbrush Plumes and yellow cupped Sand Bells, onion skinned Ladies Hats and brittle red Oasis Lilies poured from the beds and windows as the Al Bhed slowly, diligently made their barren homeland something better with the clever irrigation systems she had had no small hand in engineering. She jogged through the shady alley between two houses, enjoying the pale green Cactuar Cushions, pink spotted Al Bhed Lilies and trailing blue vines of Sin’s Lament that crossed the beams overhead. She reached out and snagged a small yellow Fool's Rose, tucking it into her bandanna.

The blinding sun hit her with a wall of heat again as she left the shelter of the buildings and began to cross the sand towards the green oasis of tropical trees they had built their small city near. She pushed her way into the undergrowth, sighing happily at the immediate change of temperature. Tiptoeing forward she walked a ways until she could see the light flaring though the green that meant open space. She peeked carefully through the bushes, trying to be as quiet as a sand mouse and pretty much failing, standing on tip toes to get a better peek.

Six or so children sat quietly before her in the sand beside a wide, deep pond. Each one sat on their knees or cross legged, breathing deeply and carefully while the birds trilled softly above them in the thin canopy and a light, sand heated breeze skimmed the water and their hair. All was still and peaceful. Rikku glanced around her, frowning, then dropped to her knees and scurried through the brush and circled around them until she was directly in front of their focused, intent little faces.

A little black haired boy of about five was squirming uncomfortably at the edge of the group, his little face scrunched up tight as he kept his eyes closed with great effort.

“Psst! Yinuh!” she whispered loudly, and he cracked one green eye open, catching sight of her where she waved from the bush. “Come on, I'll spring you out of this joint and we'll make a mad dash for freedom!”

He looked tempted, biting his lip and even uncrossing his legs before he caught sight of something above her head and immediately screwed his eyes shut again. Rikku knew instantly that the jig was up.

“Will we now?” a deep voice rumbled from behind her and Rikku scrabbled to her feet and crossed her arms behind her back, digging her toe innocently into the ground. She looked up, up, up at Auron, who looked back down at her, possibly amused. Or irritated. She never could tell behind that poker face, but the narrowed eye wasn't a great sign.

“I thought you were meeting with Baralai today to discuss the trade routes between New Rusa and Bevelle,” he asked mildly, raising a brow.

Rikku deliberately pushed the image of Baralai attempting to flag her down away from her mind.

“They maybe had to push it back to this afternoon, maybe,” she hedged. “I came to see if Yinuh could come out and play?”

“Our son is attending to his lessons, Rikku,” Auron frowned, crossing his arms over his chest and studying her narrowly.

“Yeah, but an hour off isn't going to cost him the Monkdom, you know?” she wheedled, smiling winningly. “And it's so hot. You look hot. You're really hot, right? Feel how hot it is!”

Appearing relatively unruffled by the heat, Auron shrugged, keeping his stare upon her.

“I'll be your best friend?” she tried. “I'll clean your haori? Oh! No, I'll add haste to those new greaves I gave you for your birthday!”

She blinked up at him with her wide green eyes and Auron's carefully gathered facade of resolve crumbled.

He lifted his gaze back to the children on the beach who hastily shut their eyes again as though they had not been watching the entire negotiation between the leader of the Al Bhed and their teacher. Several eyes squinted back open. Sighing, he waved a hand in dismissal and they immediately clambered to their feet, squealing and whooping and darting in every direction through the trees and back towards the town. Yinuh flopped backwards into the sand with a relieved sigh.

“Did I ever tell you that I love you and you're the best thing since garment grids?” Rikku laughed, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his. He bent down slightly, sighing, but returned the soft kiss.

“And I love you. Perhaps you should tell me such things more,” he murmured against her mouth.

“Oh, I'll do much more later,” she winked, yanking him down by the back of his neck and smacking one last blistering kiss on his lips before springing away and running headlong into the sand to tackle their child.

The boy shrieked with laughter as his mother hauled him up beneath his armpits and threw them both into the fresh, cool oasis that had been way too inviting to ignore any longer. Auron watched the two cavorting wildly in the shady water, chuckling ruefully to himself as the peal of their laughter drifted over his ears.

“Come get us, Legendary Guardian Auron! Gotta lose sight of the shore and all that other dusty monk stuff you say!” Rikku taunted from the shallows, every inch of clothing she wore soaked, hair heavy with water and dripping into her face and utterly, unshakably brilliant.

He paused, taking her in for a deep, satisfying moment while the heat of the desert pressed around him and the cool water lapped gently against the thirsty sand. 

“As you wish,” he said warmly, relenting.

He swept along the small beach, dropping his ever present Masamune, his red haori, his chest plate, his bracers and leather glove, his grog and beads and sunglasses, piece by piece by piece into the soft sand until he was bare from the waist up. He pushed off his boots and his bare feet pressed into the pleasant grit below them and he drew in a deep breath, watching their son dive below the surface in search of the treasures only children in the wild thrall of innocence and imagination could find.

Rikku held out her arms to him, sunny and laughing and wild with her easy, dizzying light.

He returned her smile as he waded into the cool water, reaching for her.

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