Love Her and Despair

July 26, 2008, 6:30 AM

(Welcome to the fanfic that ate my brain, a dark alternate universe set thirteen years after Yuna's pilgrimage. I'd submit it to the contest, but it's a little long!)

Quote:

"In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring

Chapter I: "Schism"

Burgundy sails snapped in a fitful wind that set the sailors muttering. The sea-witch had her ways, they said, and owned both sea and sky. Ships plied the waves by her permission, or not at all. There had been frost at sunrise, great spears of rime coating the rails and ropes. The tropical sun had banished it quickly, but it was yet another sign of Sin's proximity. That, and the lightning's balefire dancing on the mast at midnight.

"Land ho!" The call was hardly needed; all eyes not bent to shipboard tasks were fixed on the wisps of smoke billowing on the horizon, fading now like the last breath of a dying fire. The rising column veiled half the sky in a grayish-pink fume that stretched clear back to Luca, and who knew how far beyond. They had come under its shadow as they skirted the Djose shore. For six disquieting days the SS Korra had sailed under ruddy light cast by a flat orange smudge where the sun should be. A stark whiff of burning masked the usual tang of salt, and now and then white flecks of ash came spiralling down.

One of the harpooners in the bow began to sing the Hymn of the Fayth under his breath. Gradually the subdued refrain spread out in ripples, and roughened sailors' voices took up the chorus. A red-haired man in priestly robes standing on the raised deck over the wheelhouse smiled and cupped his hands in Yevon's salute, but neither he nor the pair of guards flanking him joined in the singing.

The captain, clattering up the ladder behind them, stepped onto the observation deck and raised her arm in salute. "Your Grace. We shall reach Besaid before sunset."

"Very good, Kiyuri." The man leaned against the forward rail and did not turn. "Tell your crew the danger is past. Sin is at least a day from here by now."

"With all due respect, my Lord—" she began. Suddenly, she swung round to stare at a sailor keeping watch before the mast with the exaggeratedly diligent air of an eavesdropper. "Jessik, what is that you're wearing around your neck?"

The sailor's hands flew to the bone pendant that had slipped out from the bib of his overalls. "It's... ah... it's nothin' cap'n. Just a carvin' of a pretty lady, y'know, that caught me fancy." His wind-scoured cheeks reddened.

"Sin!" she spat. Heads turned as the petite woman stalked towards him, sea-boots drumming against the planks. "The Grand Maester of Yevon sails with us, and I have an idol-worshipper who wears Sin over his heart! Hand it over. If it's not overboard in one minute, you will be."

The sailor blanched. Torn between duty and devotion, the wretched man drew the thong over his neck and dropped the pendant into her waiting palm. The captain drew her arm back to fling it far out over the waves.

"Let me see it," the maester said quietly.

For a moment it seemed that Kiyuri might feign deafness: Grand Maester Isaaru was a soft-spoken man, and the rush of the wind drummed loudly in the sails overhead. But his shorter bodyguard, a blocky, broad-shouldered youth who looked too green for such an important post, had planted himself at the maester's elbow, and was squarely blocking her throw. Scowling, the captain handed it over. "I'm sorry, Your Grace. Sailors are too far from the temples, too close to the sea. And that one came close to meeting his unholy god six months ago. The toxin—"

"He survived a Sin attack?" the other guard asked sharply.

The maester took the amulet and examined it intently. Its triangular silhouette could easily be mistaken for a shark's tooth at a distance. With economy of line, the stylized carving captured the shape of a woman's head and shoulders, square jaw and fine features. There was a haughty arch to the brows— or rather, brow, since the left side of the face was cut away at a slant. Empty space showed where the hair should be.

"The same face," he mused. "Always the same."

Kiyuri stiffened when the maester slipped the sacrilegious amulet into his robes. He chuckled at her expression. "Have no fear, Captain. A scrap of whale-bone the size of a thumb is hardly likely to draw Sin's attention...or mercy," he added to the anxious sailor. "If it returns, we are all in equal peril."

"But, Your Grace—"

"Look after your ship, Kiyuri, and let the maesters look after Yevon, no?"

"My lord." The woman gave a jerky salute, glared at the watchman and went below.

"Now," he said gently, turning to Jessik. "Perhaps you can tell us what you saw. We need to know all we can, since Sin has changed."

"Aye, it has, me lord," the sailor stammered. "That is, She don't bother any ship that leaves her waters in peace. Stray not west o' Besaid if ye sail under Yevon's seal. The Al Bhed go free of Sin's wrath, they say, all around the western isles. Me last ship, me captain tried to make the old run from Luca to Bevelle the short way 'round. Three days northwest o' Luca, the Lady put the ice to us till every sail and line were coated with it and men couldna walk the deck. Then the gale-winds came up and shattered the sheets. At th' last, lighnting struck the mast and split the hull right down into the water like roots o' tree."

"How did you escape?"

"Al Bhed ship picked me up, then, didn't it? Me and a few other souls. Dropped us off near the ruins o' Guadosalam."

"And you saw Sin? What did it—"

"Your Grace," the shorter guard interrupted, "With all due respect, can't we finish this later? You're too exposed up here. There may be sinspawn in the harbor."

"Just a moment, Pacce—"

Maroda cut in. "No, Isaaru, he's right. Yevon's your job, but ours is keeping you safe...and you don't make it easy for us! Get under cover. I'll stay up here with Jessik and find out what else he knows."

"All right, Maroda, all right," Isaaru shook his head. "One would think we were still on pilgrimage. Jessik, for Spira's sake—" he would have said Yevon, but this man clearly followed a different allegiance— "please answer my brother's questions as well as you can. May Lady Yuna bless you."

"Th-thank you, Your Grace."

A melancholy smile played across the maester's features as he descended, trying to catch a glimpse of Besaid before Pacce shuttled him back to their cabin. Sin and Yevon might be scrapping for souls these days, but oddly enough, no one had lost faith in the High Summoner, even though her Calm was coming to an end.

Lost in thought, Isaaru was nearly flung overboard himself when the ship gave an abrupt heave. Pacce lunged and blocked his fall, helping him down the last rung. Cries of Sin rang out. The harpooners leapt to their posts.

"I'll cover you!" Pacce said eagerly. He planted himself in front of his brother, shielding him as a wave crashed over the side. "The wheelhouse, it's closer!"

Isaaru shook his head and grasped a line, steadying himself. "Pacce, it's not Sin, it's—"

A flurry of scales and long fins burst from the waves in a surge of battering spray. Hulking fishy forms thudded against the deck, landing amidst the sailors and pouncing upon them with terrifying speed. Pacce drew his sword with a yell and jammed it at the nearest one, twisting the blade in a gush of pyreflies.

Blood was already running over the boards. The sinspawn had cruel snapping jaws, and were tearing through unarmed sailors despite the efforts of the ship's contingent of warrior monks. There was a cry overhead. Isaaru looked up to see Jessik with an upraised arm trying to fend off two fiends, his back pressed against the railing of the upper deck directly above Isaaru and Pacce.

Forgetting his brothers' admonitions, the ex-summoner raised his hands, letting fly a silent call to the aeon of Besaid, invoking her by the name he had given her long ago. Pterya, old friend, we need you.

Everywhere was din, panic and chaos, yet to Isaaru's inner ear there was a hollow silence. He watched in anguish as one of the sinspawn clamped down on the sailor's arm, another on his leg. Where was Maroda? A thrusting spear answered his question an instant later, but it was one instant too long. Even as Maroda dispatched one of the creatures, the other leapt off the deck, dragging its screaming victim overboard.

Pterya was not answering his summons, and Isaaru saw with painful clarity that many lives would be lost if he left the warrior monks and Maroda to deal with the threat alone. But the deck would surely buckle under Spathi's weight, assuming there was even room for the massive aeon of Bevelle. Pitch, rope and oiled boards were ill-suited for fire, but Isaaru saw no other choice. Shutting out the sounds of melee, he sketched a familiar series of gestures in the air that he had not needed for over ten years.

Few here had seen a true aeon, and there were more screams and cries of horror when the flaming hulk burst from the deck with a defiant roar. The ill-tempered spirit charged into the fray at once, snarling at its master's unspoken command to refrain from flames and restrict itself to pummelling and biting. These sinspawn had the edge in speed, but there were so many that Grothia's swipes usually found targets. It slapped them aside like an ogre swatting wasps.

Gradually the chaos died down as the warrior monks, guardians and aeon gained the upper hand. Blades and spears flashed through eddies and swirls of rising pyreflies. Pacce stoutly shadowed him and kept sinspawn at bay while Isaaru moved from one wounded man to the next, healing those he could. He would send the others later.

They cast anchor half a league out from shore. The surviving crew set to work clearing the carnage and repairing the damage. There beneath a shroud of smoke and a blood-red sunset, Isaaru performed his grimmest duty, giving the dead a sending before the bodies were committed to the deep. Jessik was not among them, but there were probably a few others who would have been comforted to know that the summoner who sent them carried Sin's token in the folds of his robe.

_________________

They spent a restless night in the island's lee, huddled to the southwest where the air was clear of ash. At dawn they weighed anchor and headed towards the village, hugging the shore. Soaring green cliffs splashed with plunging waterfalls would have made for a pleasant view, if not for the enormous, jagged gashes in the slopes of the jungle high above. They caught glimpses of shattered trees and dirt blasted away right down to bedrock.

There would be no question of mooring at the ferry's dock; that much was clear before they pulled into the shallow waters of the harbor. Rounding a point, the ship encountered a grisly soup of bobbing planks, rope, snarled fishing nets and slats of boats, all thumping and scraping past the prow. To the dismay of the crew, a few bodies were tangled in the floating debris. They were heaved aboard with nets meant for other kinds of catch. Priests who had accompanied the maester from Bevelle set to work at once wrapping the pitiful remains in funeral shrouds. At this rate, they might run through their stock even before they came ashore.

The beach had been scoured; muck and dead fish were strewn across once-golden sands. Ash coated everything. Some of the splintered and blackened trunks of the jungle behind the bluffs still smoldered. A few carrion-birds circling the cliffs were the only signs of life— almost.

There blazing red in the dawn, a man stood upon the water. No, not on the water. One scrap of dock had escaped Sin's wrath, and a few planks remained on piers far out in the harbor. Excited murmurs spread across the ship, whispering a name— or, more often, a title.

The Legendary Guardian. He was back again, from wherever heroes were stowed when the world did not need them anymore.

"It's Sir Auron!" Pacce was beside himself. "I don't believe it! It's really him!"

Maroda was silent. His thoughtful look meant he and Isaaru would be having a difficult conversation later, out of Pacce's earshot.

So then: a brief detour to pick up an improbable passenger. Isaaru ordered the ship's dinghy to be lowered. The crew's fear had evaporated at the sight of the swordsman silhouetted against the smoking treeline, and Kiyuri actually had to select rowers from among too many volunteers. While the crew were winching the boat down to the water, Maroda argued vigorously with Isaaru. Maroda seldom lost his battles. Isaaru and a frustrated, fuming Pacce were left to watch the small craft sculling across the harbor, shoving its way through debris-choked water.

As they approached the lone figure who had been standing there all this time, Maroda's query rang out over the waves. "Sir Auron! What are you doing here?"

The response was inaudible to those left aboard, but Pacce would dig it out of his brother later. "Waiting for a ship."

August 18, 2008, 5:39 AM

I can't believe nobody has replied to this.

Auronlu, I am a fan of your writing

I've read a lot of your fanfiction and I really enjoy it. This was no exception.

December 31, 2008, 12:02 AM

Silly of me to be picking it up here after so many months, but hey... it's the best story I've written. I'm on Chapter 22, but I'll just post a couple for now.

Chapter II: "Memorial"

"So have you been on Besaid all this time? Or did you just come here to fight Sin?"

Pacce seemed bent on extracting every scrap of information from his childhood idol as soon as Sir Auron stepped aboard. Not that the legendary hero was doling out many scraps. Surrounded by a semicircle of murmuring sailors, he stood in his customary slouch with an arm tucked in his coat, a dour expression, and a crop of more white hair than Isaaru recalled from their last unhappy meeting. Warrior monks shoved forward to form an impromptu honor guard, but Maroda and Pacce, as usual, stood to the maester's right and left.

Auron shrugged. "I followed a hunch."

"A hunch?" Maroda said, incredulous. "You can predict where Sin will strike?"

"No."

"Then how—"

"Lord Isaaru." Auron cut through questions with a swordsman's efficiency. "I assume a maester of Yevon did not come all this way just for the festival."

The red-haired man shook his head. "Tidings of the attack reached us en route to Lady Yuna's anniversary celebrations in Luca. We came to aid the survivors."

"There aren't any."

Such simple words. Auron had spent a day searching the rubble of the village for any sign of Wakka, a second day sifting the corpses tossed up on the beach. A few faces had been vaguely familiar, but Auron had not spent enough time on the island to know its inhabitants. Sin would have recognized almost all.

"Not much use in going ashore then," Maroda said grimly.

"Isaaru can still send them, though, right?" Pacce said.

There was a heavy silence. Auron raised his head and looked from one to the other, causing Pacce to straighten self-consciously. They made an incongruous pair. Maroda was dark, tall and rangy, armed for speed not defense. His leather hauberk and greaves were probably Crusader issue; an old scar twisted around his right arm from elbow to wrist. Pacce was a head shorter, a burly young man of about twenty with a round and earnest face; he wore the undented, burnished armor of a warrior monk cadet. His short black hair stood up like Auron's, but instead of giving him a grizzled air, he simply looked as if he'd tried to yank it out.

Auron nodded to himself and returned his attention to Isaaru. "There's something else you should see."

"Yes, we should at least pay our respects." Isaaru raised his voice. "Kiyuri, we'll need both boats lowered this time."

"Yes, Your Grace." She took a step towards the gathered sailors and began barking orders. "Back to your posts, slack-jaws— or are you all volunteering for oar duty? Winch teams, port and starboard! You heard Maester Isaaru. Hop!"

The sailors were less keen to set foot on the ravaged beach than they had been to ferry a celebrity, but the captain was well-versed in the art of the verbal lash. Boats were soon lowered and launched. Kiyuri took charge of the rudder in Isaaru's boat, charting a meandering course between fetid rafts of flotsam snagged on the reef.

Chatter died as they breasted the breakers and shipped oars, letting momentum sling the boats up the beach ahead of the waves. Keels hissed in the sand and stuck fast. The sailors hopped out to steady the boats while the passengers disembarked, stepping carefully to avoid heaps of debris. Above the tide level, they found the bodies— or rather, one sailor gave a cry before Auron warned them what lay beneath the row of smashed boats. He had not spent all his time marooned on the shattered dock, apparently.

It was a subdued group that gathered under the bluffs near the head of the trail leading to the village.

"Now," Isaaru said, chiefly addressing the anxious knot of sailors huddled around Kiyuri, "I must ask you to do a hard thing. Sir Auron says there is no one left in Besaid to prepare the dead for sending. For pity's sake, we must give them this, since we are too late to save them. I will leave my warrior monks here to assist you and protect you from fiends—" he held up a hand to forestall Maroda's protest— "while my brothers, Sir Auron and I take the jungle road to learn what we can and tend the village's slain."

"And if we don't see you by sundown?" Kiyuri said.

Pacce huffed, but Isaaru spoke with soothing assurance at odds with his reply. "Return to the ship and look for our signal tomorrow. After two days, I defer to your judgment, captain."

"Aye, sir."

He beckoned to one of those who had come with him from Bevelle. "I would like three monks to accompany us to the village. Durren, you know some healing arts, yes? The rest of you, remain here and tend the dead."

The chorus of "Yes, Your Grace," was ragged, but more than one of Kiyuri's crew looked relieved. After exchanging Yevon's bow with those staying behind, Isaaru's party plunged into the jungle.

It was slow going, even with Auron's sword: he hewed through limbs and fallen trunks as easily as necks of fiends. Trees snapped by gale-force winds barred the path like obstacles in a particularly aggravating Cloister of Trials. Sinscales, too, had multiplied during the week since the attack, and Pacce had plenty of chances to observe his hero in action and test his recent training. It was nearly mid-day before they reached the village outskirts.

They halted outside the uprooted stockade to survey the damage. Sir Auron stood a little apart from the others, leaning on his sword and gazing impassively towards the stumps of columns on a stone platform on the far side of the village.

"Like Opration Mi'ihen," Maroda said.

Pacce had gone pale; his brothers had shielded him from seeing the carnage after that debacle. Isaaru set a hand on his shoulder.

Before them was a paved square surrounded by rings of damp, burnt timbers: the foundations of the few huts spared by the rising tide. Cables of kelp were snarled around the stumps of nearby trees. A row of fresh graves under palm fronds lined one side of the square. Auron had even buried what was left of the dog.

Stupid, happy dog. It had once brought Yuna a slobbery, drool-drenched gift that had turned out to be a cloth book on Valefor's aeon. Yuna and Lulu had spent the rest of the afternoon poring over moldy pages, trying to untangle an obscure passage that promised to unlock the aeon's sleeping powers in a new devastating attack. In his mind's eye, Auron could see the pair of young women sitting in the shade of the temple with their heads together, finishing each other's sentences in low voices punctuated by fleeting laughter, as they must have done countless times before the pilgrimage began.

Here, too, Braska had uttered words that unwittingly shaped the fate of Yuna and her guardians.

"When this is over...could you bring Yuna here? I want her to lead a life far away from this conflict."

Little had they known.

You shouldn't have chosen a place with a temple, my lord.

There was no temple now.

Isaaru halted at the foot of cracked steps and stared. "What force of machina or nature could do such a thing?"

The brunt of the maelstrom's fury seemed to have been unleashed against the temple. Huge blocks of stone were scattered over a wide area, some of them flung into the crowns of distant trees. Mosaic floors were laid bare to the sky; some parts had melted and fused into a glassy, blackened mass. Here and there, spears of palm-leaves and ceramic tiles had embedded themselves in stone blocks as easily as harpoons into blubber. The rear of the temple platform had collapsed, revealing the maze of the Cloister of Trials hidden beneath. At the far end was a smoking crater where the Chamber of the Fayth had been.

"So that is why," Isaaru sighed.

Sir Auron raised an eyebrow. "The aeon?"

"I tried to summon her yesterday, when our vessel was attacked. I could not reach her."

"Interesting."

"Interesting?" Isaaru took a few steps towards the Cloisters' rubble-choked stairwell. "It is rather more than that, when a fayth is lost. I shall not forget her. She was a girl of uncommon courage, much like Lady Yuna. She had lost her whole family, but rather than yielding despair, she joyously offered herself to Yevon so that others might not suffer."

Auron gave a noncommittal grunt. "And now she can rest."

"I hope Sin's not getting smarter," Maroda said. "That's the last thing we need."

"Hey, look at this!" Pacce called. "Lady Yuna's safe!"

Auron grimaced, although he knew what the boy meant.

Gazing down from the retaining wall, they saw Pacce on the hillside below, where Yuna's statue had miraculously landed on its base intact. The others hurried over to peer up at the slender, dancing figure, around whose shoulders a few tattered garlands still fluttered. Frozen in stone, the youngest High Summoner twirled on the slopes of of her childhood home with staff held high.

"It's a sign!" Pacce said excitedly.

Isaaru smiled. "You may be right, Pacce."

"Yes, but of what?" Maroda said.

Isaaru knelt before Yuna's statue and cupped his hands together in prayer, remaining motionless for several minutes. At last, he rose and turned to Auron. "An overdue apology. When last we met, it was my sad duty to carry out Yevon's orders for Lady Yuna's execution. I have never been more gratified by my own failure. But I never had the chance to beg her forgiveness, before she was gone." He bowed low. "I owe you an apology as well, Sir Auron."

Auron shrugged dismissively. "What do you intend to do?"

"We must bring tidings back to Bevelle. I shall discuss the matter with my fellow maesters. Along the way..." He gave a sidelong glance to Maroda. "I think it is time to resume the pilgrimage I put on hold some years ago. Sir Auron, I would be honored if—"

"Fine," said the legendary guardian.

_______________________________

Chapter III: "Broken Bones"

The Story So Far: Maester Isaaru and his brothers arrive at Besaid to investigate a Sin attack. There they find Auron and learn that the village, its temple and its fayth have been wiped out.

The sea-breeze buffeting the headland had faded. The air felt pinched and still, as if Sin's passing had peeled away part of the atmosphere. In the village square, smoke-trails spiralled upwards in straight columns. The torches' blue flames barely flickered. In ones and twos, drifting pyreflies chased the smoke like furtive children stealing out after curfew to play in the fiend-haunted jungle.

Below, guardians and monks kept vigil while Isaaru circled the graves, his solemn gestures a restrained echo of Lady Yuna's whirling dance. Maroda watched intently, but for less than pious reasons: he had noticed his brother's knit brows and taut face. The summoner was waging an inner battle far from his guardians' aid. At last, Isaaru halted and sagged against his staff. Maroda started towards him.

The maester waved him off. "It is done. They are free." He nodded to the monks, who bowed and fanned out to clear away the trappings of ritual.

"Leave the torches," Sir Auron called from the temple platform, keeping watch. "We'll need them tonight."

"What?" Pacce said. "But if we hurry, we can reach the beach by sunset!"

Maroda raised his eyes to the sun setting beyond the snaggle-toothed roof of the jungle. "If we hurry, we could run straight into the jaws of fiends," he said. "Sir Auron's right. We don't want to get caught in the forest after nightfall. Don't worry. The ship's not going to leave without us."

"I'm sorry, Pacce," said Isaaru. "I've put us in some peril in order to perform a proper sending. But I have faith in my guardians." He winked. "It's like old times together, no?"

Pacce managed a strained grin. "Yeah. I suppose."

"Come on," Maroda said. "There's cots and mats in the lodge we might be able to salvage. We can spread them out by the fire ring—"

"Out in the open where nothing can sneak up on us. Right."

Isaaru sank onto a block of stone, smiling faintly at the give and take between them that was almost on equal footing now. He propped his staff against the ground and rested his forehead against the lacquered wood.

Gravel crunched nearby. "A hard sending," Auron said at his shoulder.

"Indeed. The only spirits clinging to their bodies after so many days are those who don't want to leave— and they are bitter, stubborn or in pain. But we were in time for a few."

"Maester thirteen years, yet you still think like a priest," Auron said. "All Spira needs you. You may not have the luxury of saving a few."

"Perhaps not." Absently he reached for the bone pendant tickling his skin under the stiff collar of his robes. "But I think High Summoner Yuna would have done the same."

"Yuna made mistakes."

"As have I," Isaaru said. "I trust, Sir Auron, you will share with us what you know of the journey ahead, so that I may avoid other mistakes."

"You're awfully quick to trust."

"Yes and no." The maester gave him an odd smile. "I wonder, Sir Auron, if you are still a traitor. If so, I should like to know what you make of this." He drew the necklace over his head and cupped it carefully, shielding it from the view of the nearby monks.

Auron arched an eyebrow. "An odd talisman for a maester of Yevon."

"It belonged to a sailor on the ship that brought us here. I believe he carved it from memory. He had encountered Sin before. Do you recognize the image?"

"May I see it?" Auron always sounded gruff, but there was a certain strain in his tone that Isaaru noted and filed away. He placed the delicate triangle of bone in the man's gloved hand, watching him closely.

After a moment, the guardian shrugged. "Another of Sin's victims, no doubt."

"You think so?" Isaaru lowered his voice. Pacce and Maroda had returned, and were arranging cots and mats in a semicircle nearby. "There are those who call Sin the Lady now, and hold her in greater awe than Yevon. Sin's cult is growing. They thank her for the good harvests these last few years, for the gardens of Djose and the rains on Bikanel. Those who breathe Sin's toxin see this face... say she is Sin. Yet according to other sightings, Sin is the same as ever, a behemoth covered in loathsome scales. Who is she?"

"Sin." Auron's fist closed loosely around the image.

Isaaru waited for the man to go on, but the stones of the ruined temple would probably speak sooner. The warrior's attention seemed fixed on the simple token. A few bars of white shone through the cage of his fingers.

"Ah." The maester leaned forward. "Then...who was she?"

Auron raised his head and squinted towards the jungle. For a moment Isaaru thought the guardian was still ignoring him. Then he felt it: the earth was shuddering beneath them. Before Isaaru could frame a question, the pulse crossed hearing's threshold, and from the heart of the forest came a tramping, splintering sound of trees groaning and breaking. Something massive was churning through storm-tossed trunks. There was a sliding crash as whole bank of broken tree-tops, upheld only by a snarl of limbs and thick vines, gave way at the crest of the hill. The jungle canopy tossed and thrashed in the path of something unseen. Limbs and leaves began raining down from the eaves.

"Durren!" Isaaru called, rising to his feet. "Get back! Come away from the trees!"

His monks had laid aside their gear and reached for their rifles— one innovation of Kinoc's he had not canceled— and were lining up at the edge of the village clearing.

Sir Auron jammed the necklace into his belt and marched towards them with a terse, "Don't summon yet."

Pacce and Maroda dropped what they were carrying and snatched up their weapons, jogging towards Auron. "What've we got?" Maroda said.

A rattle of gunfire broke out as the monks fell back. The nearest trees gave way and fell outward with splintering crashes as a hulking form lurched into view. Branches and vines trailed from the iron giant's joints. It reached the stupefied monks in four strides. A huge blade flashed in the dusk. Guns clattered to the ground as three torsos jerked and fell sideways like heads of grain.

Isaaru cried aloud in anguish, but his guardians took no notice, converging on the foe from three points. Maroda's spear glanced off with a clang. Pacce lunged beneath another scything stroke; Sir Auron, slower, caught the brunt of it. Somehow his armor held: he skidded backwards across the flagstones and fell to his knees, parrying some of the force of the blow with his sword braced before him. He barked something, but his words were drowned out by the ring of battle and the screech of ancient machina. Maroda and Pacce darted in and out, harrying the creature while Auron hammered at its knees. Yellow sparks flew from the older guardian's blade. Suddenly all three broke and ran for the cover of the woods. The behemoth roared and swung around, stomping after them.

Praying he had understood, Isaaru pointed his staff at the sky, gathering himself for the most difficult of summons. Green fire leapt from his shoulders. He felt a breath of benison on his upraised cheeks as the amber-streaked heavens split open, seared by a mighty star plummeting through glyphs etched in living light. The ground quaked again as Bevelle's aeon alighted with a roar, great wings beating the air as it lunged towards the fray. Spathi, youngest and eldest, a child taken captive from Zanarkand who might have become the greatest summoner of all had he not been bound: he never failed to make Isaaru feel like a child before him.

This aeon could dwarf a giant. There was no contest between the two, with Auron's gift for turning armor to eggshells. Ancient plates buckled under Spathi's massive fists. Curlers of rising steam turned abruptly to a shimmer of pyreflies as the iron giant toppled backwards and hit the ground with a final teeth-jarring concussion. Spathi roared in victory and hurtled upwards, swiftly vanishing from sight.

Isaaru whispered a silent prayer of thanks, then made his way wearily towards the sad remains of the monks. Maroda and Pacce emerged from the wreckage at the forest's edge and stumbled towards him.

"We're fine," Maroda said, answering his keen glance.

"Speak for yourself—" Pacce said, and stopped short.

"It should not have been here," Isaaru said dazedly, barely able to hear his own voice after the deafening din. "Do you remember? We fought such creatures on the Thunder Plains." He shook his head and stooped over the bodies, stomach clenching at the puddle of warm blood that immediately began seeping into his shoes. "Forgive me, old friend." He closed the monk's eyes and moved to the next corpse, barely registering Maroda's hand clamping onto his elbow to steady him.

Out of the corner of his eye he noted the tears dribbling down Pacce's grimy cheeks. Usually he had sure words of comfort to bolster the youth's bright spirit, but now that well was dry.

Durren had been a fine tutor.

One more summoning. One more sending. Spira's next Calm could not come too soon.

_________________________

I'm too old for this.

Auron tasted blood and irony on his lips as he lowered himself with a grunt onto a leaf-plastered bench set in a clearing well back among the trees. Dimly he registered the struts and shredded canvas of a ruined hut looming behind and partially overhead. Drawing a small flask from the inner pocket of his coat, he pulled the cork with his teeth and spat, then drank deeply. The cool potion slid down his throat.

Auron sagged as the stabbing ache of a cracked rib subsided. He allowed himself a fleeting memory of this place, glancing up and filling the shadows above with curved beams and a dome of tapestries backlit by moonlight. Below, the blush of candlelight played across her shoulder-blades where Lulu lay draped in casual elegance across a surprisingly plain bed. The scent of the damp jungle and the dried bundles of herbs and spell-components hanging from the ceiling mingled with the musky hint of a perfume he had despised for the first half of the pilgrimage. He remembered the murmur of her voice rising and falling as she read to him the tale of two pagan gods that a follower of Yevon ought not to know. Despite the title, it had not provided many clues for their sigil-quest.

"And Venus born of sea-foam renewed her virginity each year—"

"Some trick."

"—bathing in the waves by the grotto where first she had come ashore. There he waited for her, and for one night only war was in abeyance. For then did Mars put off his shield and panoply to help her renew her womanhood."

"Not much use in the bath, then."

She opened her hand, and the scroll rolled itself shut with a crack. "We should be heading back."

"I thought you said you'd burn through the hull of the airship if you were cooped up in that machina one more night."

"Yes, but your thick skull is starting to look tempting."

"My skull?"

That languid laughter had always been more dangerous than her barbs. "Among other things."

A slithering rustle in the underbrush drew Auron's mind back to the present. The jungle darkened as the vision faded away. He'd taken more than enough time for ribs to knit. Lifting his sword and laying it across his knees, he ran gloved fingertips along the edge, finding a few notches. There was no nimble-fingered Al Bhed to sharpen it for him tonight.

"Sir Auron?" Pacce's anxious calls filtered back through the trees. The summoner must have finished the sending. Heaving himself to his feet, Auron started back towards the village.

Something snapped under his boots when he stood up. He looked down. Peering through the gloom, he could just make out the broken bones of a wicker cradle. Someone else must have moved into the mage's old home when she did not return.

Auron knelt, fishing the sailor's charm out of his belt. He stared at the face of bone gleaming in the darkness. After a moment's hesitation, he draped the necklace over the cradle's shell with care, rose quickly and stalked away.

January 1, 2009, 8:54 PM

Moved to Fan Fiction.

January 5, 2009, 11:16 AM

Whoops! I'm not sure there was a separate fanfic forum when I first posted this, sorry! If any mod could add [FFX] to the beginning of the thread title, I'd be ever so grateful.

Chapter IV: "For the Fallen"

"You have my thanks. And Lady Yuna's as well, you may be sure. May she guide our path and shield us from Sin's fury. For now we sail... to Kilika!" The maester raised his hands and drew them together in Yevon's sign with a graceful bow.

There was a ragged cheer from the sailors and priests gathered at the waterline. They scattered at once to make ready the rowboats, even before the torches had reverted from blue to orange. It was disrespectful to the dead, but Isaaru did not begrudge their eagerness to quit this marred island paradise.

They had worked hard. The beach was swept clean, and they had even washed down the trunks and leaves of the trees facing the sea to remove clinging ash. Brightly-colored prayer flags— many of them products of Besaid's skilled weavers— fluttered on poles thrust into the sand. The blue ocean sparkled under a fierce noonday sun, masking the last few pyreflies drifting up from submerged coffins jostling on beds of coral. Besaid's harbor had been too choked with flotsam to use for the sending, but they had ferried the dead around to a more sheltered cove using the ship's rowboats and a few salvaged fishing-canoes.

"Will somebody rebuild here, do you think?" Pacce asked Maroda as they headed for the rowboats.

"In the next Calm, maybe," Maroda said. "Not before."

Both looked to their brother, but Isaaru seemed to have missed the exchange, although he walked between them. Wordlessly they held a boat steady for him to board, then joined the sailors in dragging it down into the lapping waves until the stern floated free.

"Hey," Pacce said, tumbling into his own seat, "Where's Sir Auron?"

"For a guardian, he sure doesn't seem to guard much," Maroda muttered.

Isaaru smiled faintly; a commanding figure was just striding out from the edge of the trees. Sir Auron sloshed out to them and stepped into the bow without breaking stride.

"No sign of Sin," he said. "We should have clear running tonight, although it may be another story in Kilika."

Kiyuri, taking her place at the rudder, shot Auron a jaundiced stare over the backs of the rowers that told plainly what she thought of the legendary hero: landlubber.

It was a subdued company that ferried the maester and his guardians back to the ship. Isaaru had not spoken a word since his speech. He sat with chin lowered, gripping the sides and swaying jerkily as if struggling to match the rhythm of the swells. Halfway across the open water, Kiyuri ventured a soft, "Are you all right, my lord?" barely audible above the chop of the oars.

"My heart is heavy, Captain." He turned in his seat with a well-honed smile. "But I am also pleased. The dead of Besaid will rest easily, and we have gathered much that should assist my pilgrimage. Our trip was not in vain."

"We have?" Maroda mouthed behind him.

"Yeah, and we've got Sir Auron, now!" Pacce said cheerfully.

"Yes." The maester glanced at the man's broad back and shoulders, wrapped as usual in his imposing red coat. "Ah, that reminds me. Captain, no need to hoist my sigil. In fact, if you can, fly no symbol of Yevon at all."

"My lord?" Kiyuri's voice rose in astonishment. "But it is an honor to convey the Grand Maester, and ill luck to sail without Yevon's blessing!"

"Yevon's blessing you will have, Kiyuri, so far as it is in my power to grant it as Maester," Isaaru said. "But your crew have faced perils and sorrows enough. If Sin is truly roused against Yevon, then I shall not needlessly endanger them. Yevon will bring Sin to account, but that battle is for summoners and guardians, not ordinary sailors and soldiers."

There was a faint humph from Sir Auron. Maroda's somber nod conveyed more: he knew which old battle haunted all four maesters.

"Aye, Sir." Kiyuri braced her elbow against the tiller to give Yevon's prayer. "And thank you."

_________________

Back aboard the SS Korra, Isaaru remained on deck just long enough to be sure all were safe aboard, and that the sails had been changed to plain canvas sheets from the ship's stores. Then, yielding to Maroda's urging, he retired to his cabin.

"For I am weary," Isaaru admitted. "Five sendings in three days is a record I hope never to repeat."

Freed from duties for a while, Pacce joined Sir Auron on the upper deck. The veteran guardian acknowledged him with a spare nod, and side by side they watched Besaid shrink and fade into the blue haze. Tongue-tied, it took Pacce some while to muster up his courage and a question.

"Sir Auron? Do you really think Sin is after Isaaru?"

"Not directly," Auron said. "Or not yet. But your brother's guess is correct. Sin is targeting Yevon."

"Wow," Pacce said. "I didn't know it could think."

Auron gave an odd smirk, but said nothing.

Pacce folded his arms along the railing and rested his chin on his forearms. "I don't get it," he said. "Sin's the punishment for our sins, right? Isaaru says that good deeds can be enough to atone for lack of faith, so we can't just blame Sin's return on the Al Bhed, but still— why does Sin leave them alone and attack us? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"Yevon opposes Sin," Auron reminded him. "The Al Bhed avoid it."

"Hunh." Pacce ran a hand through his hair, leaving it flattened on one side and straight up on the other like a half-mowed field. Wrestling with the teachings and coming no closer to a solution, he finally gave up and changed tack."So, um...what happened to Lady Yuna's other guardians, anyway? Is Sir Tidus still alive?"

"No." His voice held a painful note of finality.

Pacce was wracking his brains for another question when Auron added with more gentleness than was his habit: "He died protecting the one he loved." It was a pointless platitude, but Pacce seemed young enough to notice romance more than stupidity.

"Aw." Pacce sighed. "I liked him. He was cool. The Final Summoning, huh?"

"Seymour," Auron growled.

"Maester Seymour? Wasn't he... dead? Though I guess Lord Mika was, too." Pacce's round face blanched at a memory. "But you did get him finally, right? Lady Yuna sent him?"

"Yes." So much could be packed into one brittle word: a summoner's tears, the death of hope, a holy fury that had reduced Auron's last bellowing charge against Yunalesca to a mere squeak. Lulu must have been proud of Yuna, through the teeth of her own bitter rage.

"And the others?" Pacce said. "The other guardians?"

Auron grimaced. "I never found a trace."

"Aw, man." The younger guardian kicked at the deck-boards. "I'm sorry."

Auron roused himself, finally seeming to focus on the young man beside him. "I didn't see them fall, Pacce. Yuna's last command was for us to stay well back when she performed the Final Summoning. I didn't listen, and nearly paid the price. If they obeyed, there's a good chance they're still alive." There. A lesson. It was partly a lie, since Kimahri had refused to leave Yuna's side. But Auron's task now was to prepare these people for their own pilgrimage, not brood over the last one. There was one other matter of ancient history, however, that Auron could not leave unexamined.

"Pacce," Auron said. "What happened to Mika?"

"Oh!" The youth's round cheeks reddened. "Lord Mika? He, uh...Didn't you hear the proclamations? Maybe you were still coming back from the pilgrimage. He died. Isaaru said his heart gave out when he learned how Seymour had killed the other maesters and the Ronso."

"Hmph." The white-haired guardian stroked his chin, eyes suddenly narrowing. "Was that before or after your brother was appointed maester?"

"After...no, before, I think." Pacce ducked his eyes. "I'm sorry, sir; I don't really understand everything that happened back then. I was just a kid. You should ask Isaaru or Maroda about it."

Auron nodded minutely, preoccupied once more.

Fidgeting, Pacce abandoned the railing and pulled himself up in a self-conscious salute. "Well. Speaking of Isaaru, I'd better go check on him. It was, uh, nice talking to you, Sir Auron!"

Hurrying forward, Pacce failed to notice Maroda lurking behind the mast until an arm shot out to check him. "Isaaru's asleep," Maroda said in a low voice. "Pacce, did Sir Auron say anything about how he got to Besaid?"

Pacce shook his head. "I didn't ask."

"Or why he knew Sin was coming?"

"Not really." The youth raised his eyes, troubled. "You don't trust him, do you?"

Maroda gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. "Don't worry about it. Just...be careful. I know he's Sir Auron, and Isaaru wanted him as guardian. But he's not telling us everything."

"Yeah, well." Pacce shot a guilty grin over his shoulder. "Who does?"

________________

A clear, star-drenched night sent the SS Korra flying on the wings of a pure, cold wind that blew them towards sunrise. Only a few wisps of haze hung in the southwest. A lacelike curtain of lightning had flickered and danced there for an hour or so, but it had faded away before dawn.

By mid morning, Kilika's green spur was rising out of the sea like a prow against the burnished sky. White gulls flew out to escort them. A few leagues out from land, the Korra passed through a far-flung necklace of fishing boats floating in a wide arc where the ocean changed from jade to blue. Fishermen dropped nets to gawk and wave, hailing her with cries of welcome and wonder. The stately three-masted vessel dwarfed any ferry that had plied these waters in living memory.

Isaaru and his guardians joined the captain in the wheelhouse to discuss plans for the brief layover.

"We only need to re-water," Kiyuri was saying. "But I wouldn't mind a few hours to inspect the hull. There's a slow leak somewhere; the hold's damp."

"Very good," Isaaru said. "Meanwhile, my guardians and I will pay our respects at the temple."

"Wait, are you serious?" Pacce said. "A leak? That's not good!"

"You'll find the same in any old ship, boy," said the captain, giving the cabin wall a sturdy rap. "We're not going down, don't worry."

As if in response, there was a hollow boom underfoot more felt than heard, and the ship gave a disquieting lurch. All the lanterns suspended from the ceiling swung slowly to one side. Compartments and trunks rattled. On the upper deck, the ship's bell began to clang wildly.

"Sin," Auron said. Outside, sailors began taking up the cry.

Kiyuri swore and lunged for the door, flinging it open just as a huge wall of spray crashed over the deck and blasted into the wheelhouse, knocking her back into Maroda's arms. She jammed an elbow in his gut to extricate herself. "Well, don't just stand there, man; defend the ship!"

"Stay here," he said, setting the woman on her feet and grabbing a harpoon from the wall; he'd left his spear in his cabin. "Pacce, come on!"

Following them grimly, Isaaru and Sir Auron stepped out into all-too-familiar chaos. The ship was heeled over at a terrifying angle. Towering waves broke over the rails. A seething tide of snapping Sinspawn had spilled across the deck, covering it with squat hard-shelled creatures armed with jagged, crablike claws. They darted and caromed off curbs and walls, tearing into the legs and limbs of anyone who held their ground. Sailors who let go of ropes and spars to dodge them risked being swept overboard.

The three guardians waded into the fray, clearing a swath through the swarm. Auron took point, whirling his sword in a great figure eight and hammering tough shells until they cracked and split in a shower of sparks; Maroda and Pacce closed ranks behind him to skewer and hack the weakened fiends to pieces.

"Above you!" Isaaru cried, following in their wake as he sought a clear space to summon. Pacce skidded to a crouch and stared upwards, aghast. A small fishing boat, raised on high by the surge, hung suspended at the level of the mast-head for a surreal moment before plunging down, down, smashing full force upon the deck. The trio scattered, barely leaping clear of the wreckage in time.

Before they could regroup, a few gunshots rang out from the upper deck in an anemic salvo. Either most of the warrior monks had been swept away, or their their rifles had been damaged by seawater. There was no time to find out. Just off the starboard bow, the white curtain of water had parted to reveal a looming wall of scabrous gray flesh, the body of Sin itself driving on a course nearly parallel to their own. Its vast shadow blotted out the sun.

"It's heading for Kilika," Maroda shouted.

"I have to turn it," said Isaaru. He seized a metal cleat bolted to the mast, bracing against another fleeting deluge.

"But that'll bring Sin back on us!" Pacce cried. He still had his hands full with sinspawn, pouncing on one of the crab-creatures to drag a sailor out from under it.

"No good." Auron's black blade sliced through its arms at the joints. "His aeons are too weak."

The bulk of Sin had nearly passed. The ship quivered and groaned with a long, rattling vibration as something huge rasped against the hull. They could hear Kiyuri's foghorn voice bellowing orders in the wheelhouse.

"I won't let Kilika follow Besaid," Isaaru said stoutly, raising his staff to begin his most potent summons.

"So be it." Auron banked his weapon across his shoulders, broke from the melee and charged towards the prow where the sides drew together; the deck between them sloped upwards in a steep ramp. The big man picked up speed, oblivious to the bucking of the ship.

"Sir Auron!" Pacce cried. He stared in horror as Auron barrelled towards the bowsprint and vaulted over it, vanishing into the surf. "He'll drown!"

Sunlight streamed through the curtain of water off the bow. Sin had passed them by. A ragged cheer went up as the spray cleared. Sir Auron, a tiny red figure against the sky, was climbing a horny peak of scale and bone. He held his sword above his head, fending off sinspawn tumbling down on him from above. Abruptly he dropped to his knees, raised the blade high and slammed it downwards, crying out a name.

The mountain convulsed beneath him. Huge green waves rolled forward off the sloping snout. Sin's forward momentum abruptly slowed.

For a moment a collision seemed certain, but the captain's orders had come just in time. The ship canted in a steep turn. One of the rowboats hanging over the side was sheared off and tumbled into the frothing sea, but the Korra staggered clear of Sin's mass and rode out the swells beyond it, righting herself with a final heave. Her crew saw the green surge racing ahead of them to crash over Kilika's high stone seawall, built to shield the port against such assaults. Many of the fishing vessels were dashed against the breakwater, but the town was spared the brunt of the onslaught— for now.

Sin halted. Vast and menacing, it loomed high above the Korra's main mast, brooding over the sprawling fishing port laid out on the water before it. A hive of gigantic round eyes roiled on Sin's brow below a shelf where strange spires and barbs resembled a city. Human sight seemed to slide off Sin's sides. For an inexorable moment it seemed to gather itself for some cataclysmic assault that would vaporize everything in its path. Then, suddenly, the field burst. Bracing themselves for dissolution, watchers found themselves bathed in in a fine drizzle of warm, gentle rain, salty like tears. An improbable shower of rose petals came whirling on the wind, sticking wetly to cheeks and hair, deck and masts and stays. A rainbow arched overhead.

Murmurs of The Lady rippled across the battered ship.

Sin was once more wreathed in a soft cascading mist. Above it reared a wavering vision familiar from temple statues, yet on a far grander scale: High Summoner Yuna dancing on a flowerlike pillar of water, whirling and dipping with her staff to paint ribbons of pyreflies on the wind. Higher and higher she danced, hypnotic, dreamlike, achingly joyful: an image of innocence so pure it burned the soul as the sun seared the eyes. At the apex of her dance, there was a white flash and a thunderclap. A bolt of lightning— no, not a mere bolt, a massive treetrunk of light branching in all directions— carved a blinding path overhead, stabbing towards Kilika's highest point. A fireball mushroomed up over the tops of the trees in eerie silence.

Isaaru gasped and clenched a hand over his heart, sagging against the mast.

Boom. The sound of distant devastation buffeted their ears many seconds later.

With a mighty inrush of water and a mournful wail at the edge of hearing, Sin sank beneath the waves and vanished, leaving only a vast drift of rose petals bobbing on the surface of the sea to mark where it had been.

Of Auron, there was no sign.