Survivors
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X and its characters are the property of Squaresoft, not me.
A/N: Reviews and constructive criticism are most certainly welcome and appreciated. Thanks.
*****
Lulu hated the Farplane. She didn't hate it for what it was, for allowing people to remember their lost loved ones, to see them whenever they wanted. She didn't hate it for being a paradise where souls could find eternal rest and peace, free of the pain and suffering that comes part and parcel with life.
No, she hated it because it seemed she had been spending far too much time there lately; and that could only mean that too many people she had known and loved had died. Too many people had moved on to greener pastures, leaving her behind to endure without them. Too often she had been left to pick up the pieces and find a reason to continue living. If "living" had been what one would call her existence these last few years.
"Survivors" had been what Sir Auron had called those left behind. Ironic, then, that she should be making a visit this day for exactly that reason.
The Farplane in Guadosalam was deserted, not a soul in sight, and for that Lulu was glad. It had been difficult for her to find the nerve to come there once more. It would be even more difficult for her to say what she thought she needed to say with others around. Although that was her main problem at the moment, that she wasn't quite sure what exactly she needed to say.
The pyreflies reacted to her strong memories for a man that had done more for Spira than anyone would ever give him credit for; a man who did more good in death than in life; a man that had changed her life forever - though she still wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Within seconds, his form manifested itself before her, his appearance exactly as she remembered it to be - his arm slung within his red cloak, the ever-present sake jug residing on his right hip; the sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose, covering up the majority of the dashing scar that rendered his right eye useless, the russet color of his sole remaining eye that conveyed an infinite amount of pain, tragedy, and nobility within its bottomless depths; the grey collar covering a substantial portion of his face, and the streaks of white in his wild raven hair that had caused him to look so much older than his thirty-five years.
He was exactly the same, and Lulu felt the ache within her just conjuring up his image, a harsh reminder that he no longer walked amongst the living; that she still did.
Still unsure of what exactly she wanted to say to him, she said the first thing that came to mind. "I knew you'd be here."
Then the strangest thing happened. The floating image of Sir Auron spoke, even though he shouldn't have been able to. Or maybe Lulu only imagined he spoke. Either way, she heard the familiar words distinctly. The words were contemplative, spoken aloud so she could hear them, but they hadn't necessarily been directed at her. Instead they were nothing more than detached and partial musings of a man lost in his own reverie. "The house for the dead. A shrine to the relics of the past. Memories of that which no longer exists. The remains of a world that exists now only as a dream."
The words he spoke were an adequate description of the Farplane. They even made sense in that context, given where his soul now resided, and where she had come to find him. Yet Lulu knew that he had not been referring to the Farplane, but somewhere else: Zanarkand.
Instantly her mind was transported to the past, to the external deck of the airship, a few hours after they had altered the course of Spira's future forever by defeating Yunalesca and desecrating the traditions of Yevon; back to a time when they had spoken those very same words they had just spoken now. The Farplane transformed itself into that very scene right before her eyes, and she found herself standing just outside the airship's hatch, Sir Auron, his back turned to her, standing near the edge of the deck, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind, open sake jug held out as a toast to the ruined Zanarkand that looked almost surreal in the setting sun, a painting on the canvas of the horizon.
As if prompted to do so, she continued the conversation, as it had gone before, her inflections mimicking the ones she had used those few weeks ago. "Dreams fade," she had said, although even now she was not entirely sure why she had said that. Though it seemed somehow fitting now, as she recalled Tidus' fate.
Sir Auron's head turned very slightly for a brief second, as if to acknowledge her presence, though he did not turn fully around to catch sight of her. Instead he continued, lowering his tokkurri and speaking once more to the vast expanse before him, though his response was specifically aimed at her, his voice burdened; his mood somber. "Only because they are not real."
He had been correct. Dreams were not real, and in Spira, they rarely came true. There were only two things in Spira she had known to be real. "Only pain and death are real."
She had been sure that Sir Auron had felt the same way, having seen the tragedies of his past; understanding that the rock-hard exterior he presented to the world only covered up countless open wounds that had never properly healed. She had found a kindred spirit in Sir Auron. Yet his answer still to this very day surprised her. "Reality is what you make of it," he had said, and Lulu had been reminded in that instant that he had been a man who had seen and done much in his life, perhaps more than anyone else could claim to match. The silence that ensued for what seemed like an eternity only served to reinforce that notion.
Sir Auron had been the first one to break the silence, his back still facing her. His gruff voice was filled with a trace of amusement, yet still remained heavily weighted by the ghosts of his past that had traveled along with him from the ruins of Zanarkand. "I must admit; you are the last person I expected to come pity me."
Sir Auron had always been one to keep to himself, but Lulu remembered that after Zanarkand, the others had been conscious about keeping their distance with him, out of respect for his feelings, and the pain reliving his past must have caused him. But Lulu had intentionally sought him out, intentionally looking to speak with the legendary guardian. Not because she pitied him, but for reasons that were her own. "I am not here to pity. I am here to sympathize."
Sir Auron had spoken of pity, yet his words did not convey the need for it, his body language not demonstrative of a wounded animal. He was as hardened and determined as ever, his posture projecting its usual aura of strength and confidence, the cynicism and self-loathing perhaps only a tad more noticeable than before. Yet he remained the same, direct, his intelligent responses never seeming to quite make sense at the time he would give them. "The dead do not sympathize."
Yet what hadn't made sense then started to make sense to Lulu now. "I am not dead," she had countered, evenly and with conviction. But she saw now that perhaps she had been wrong.
"Yet you are not alive." Sir Auron's accusation continued, yet his tone was not cruel. It was matter-of-factly, one of knowing. "You may as well be dead."
She had taken several steps forward, the wind whipping around her, blowing her hair into her eyes, more so than usual. She could not believe the nerve Sir Auron had in accusing her of such things, of the way he had interpreted her to be. She had turned defensive, hurt. But the truth hurts, doesn't it? Suddenly she knew how Wakka felt every time she had directed it at him. "You think me heartless?"
His response was calm and even, lacking any sense of critical judgment. If anything, it contained nothing but respect. "No. I can see you have a beautiful heart, but it does not always beat."
Lulu had never heard anything in her life that had been so flattering and yet so hurtful at the same time. "What is that supposed to mean?" She had been confused as to why Sir Auron had been saying these things to her. She shouldn't have been, she now realized.
His voice was steady, a certain levity to it suddenly. "It means we are not so different, you and I."
Suddenly the sting of his previous accusations subsided, as she realized that any accusations he had aimed at her were also aimed at himself. If only she had known then what she knew now, the remainder of their conversation would have made so much more sense. "I had started to realize that not too long ago. That is why I am here."
He knew. He had always known that they were very much alike. He had probably realized it before she had, given how perceptive he was. "Because you understand." His words were a statement of fact, not questioning.
"I understand." She understood why he had been out there overlooking the once great city of Zanarkand, had understood what lived there. The very things that still plagued his memories. They were the same things that haunted her. "But I also know that I am the only one that could understand. Just as you are the only one who could understand me."
He turned to glance at her for the first time, his lone eye taking her in, revealing the depths of his soul that he had kept hidden before. Battered and misshapen as it had become, Lulu found it beautiful, the intense glow of it hidden beneath all the darkness that fought to overcome it. It reminded her very much of her own soul.
He turned away once more, gazing at the Zanarkand that continued to shrink more and more along the horizon as the moving airship left it further in its wake. "I understand that we are stuck in the past. Consumed by the dead."
Lulu now allowed her head to hang, exactly as she had done back then on that airship, her eyelids closing slowly, temporarily removing her from the memory of the past. Only to be visited briefly by other specters of her past, if only in her mind's eye: her former love, Chappu; Lady Ginnem, the summoner she had been too young to adequately protect. And then Yuna, who was not a specter, but simply a skeleton in her closet.
She opened her eyes again, and found herself on the airship once more. Not quite sure why she had done so then, still unsure of the reasons now, she did the one thing most uncharacteristic of her. She bared her soul to Sir Auron. It was something she felt she needed to do, something that felt so right. She knew now it was the best thing she had ever done. "As we approached Zanarkand, I realized that Yuna would die when she achieved the Final Aeon. I could do nothing to stop her. And yet the only thing I could think of was that despite her task being the most difficult, she had it easier than the rest of us."
She had thought it risky at the time, something he would judge her harshly for. But he hadn't. He understood. "Because her story would end. She would feel no more pain. But your story would continue without her in it."
In other words, she would be left with the pain and emptiness that resulted from Yuna's death, just as she was left with those same feelings when Chappu died. It was difficult, heartbreaking, and yet, insignificant when compared to the fact that another person had lost their life. It was something she felt ashamed of, and yet something she couldn't help feeling. "It sounds selfish, I know."
The normally aloof man that kept his back to her was surprisingly swift in defending her, in supporting her feelings. "It is not selfish. It is always hardest to be the survivor." He caught her gaze once more, a spark of recognition in his eye. "That is what you and I are: survivors. That is what only you and I could understand, having experienced it first hand." They were survivors; he with Lord Braska and Sir Jecht, she with Lady Ginnem and Chappu. They had lost much, and gained nothing but pain and remorse in return. He understood that aspect of her, as only she could fully understand his pain.
Yet, that was the irony there in the present. He had left her a survivor of his death. He had left them, had left her. Lulu felt it incredibly unfair of him to do so, especially when she suspected that he had always known how she felt about him. She wanted to hate him, to yell at him, to blame him for the pain she felt now. She wanted to accuse him to his face for leaving her a survivor when he knew what that felt like. Yet she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Because she understood all too well; just as she had understood him all too well then, if not for the same reasons. "Then you know." Her voice was low, and surprisingly soft.
His tone matched hers, his voice distant, yet intentionally designed for her to hear. "When Braska died, I couldn't accept it. I too wanted to join him in death, to end my pain. I challenged Yunalesca." He paused for a second, as if deciding on the best way to phrase what he revealed next. "For me, everything changed, yet I changed nothing."
Had she known that he was an unsent at the time, perhaps she would have understood just how careful he had been with his wording. But it was only the luxury of hindsight that allowed her to see it now, to understand that he had died, only to find that the pain did not subside, that his unfinished business kept him bound to the world of the living.
Instead, clueless, she had let her own wounds make their way to the surface. "When Chappu died, at first I too wanted to die. I think a part of me actually did. When we ran into Lady Ginnem again, somehow I knew that I didn't feel as sad as I thought I should. I was afraid it would be the same with Yuna." Selfishly, perhaps that had been her greatest fear. Not so much watching Yuna die, but the fact that she would not feel as sad as she thought she ought to when the time came. That was what scared her then, being heartless. It seemed so trivial now.
Sir Auron put her mind at ease, his words painfully slow and deliberate. "Spira is so full of death, and yet somehow we never understand the most important aspect that death should teach us. Instead we focus on death itself, becoming consumed by it. We start to become immune to it. For those of us more grounded in reality, that is especially the case."
She had missed an important point he had made at the time, too caught up in the specters of the past, instead falling into the exact trap he had been warning her about. She wouldn't realize that until later, content then to just feel soothed by the fact that he had rationalized her behavior; that he too shared in it.
But there in the present, something tingled in the back of her mind, telling her that perhaps there was something not quite right about that. That perhaps she had misinterpreted something. But she couldn't lock the pestering feeling down, so she tried to ignore it until the time when it would eventually make itself clearer.
Back in the past, Lulu finally moved forward, so that she was now standing directly to the left of the noble guardian. Neither of them looked at one another, both just stared at the reddish-orange hue left in the wake of the setting sun, the destroyed foundation of lies briefly illuminated in the distance. Lulu had been the first to speak. "I still cannot believe that Yevon's teachings were all a lie." Her tone was one of sadness, a feeling of emptiness for all the years she had dedicated to those lies. After a brief moment of reflection, she turned her head in Sir Auron's direction. "You knew, didn't you?"
His response was simple; straight-forward and surprisingly delicate. "Yes."
Curiosity, as well as a fraction of her hurt feelings, got the better of her. "Why didn't you tell us?"
His answer reminded her of the non-committal answers he often gave to Yuna, Rikku, and Tidus, about how it had not been his place to tell, or how it would have made no difference whether he told the truth or not. Yet somehow, this one felt much more revealing. "Some things must be experienced to be believed."
At the time she had felt that perhaps he hadn't trusted her, hadn't realized just how similar they were. She wondered if perhaps he didn't realize that she knew he was not a man that would ever lie. She would quickly learn the follies of thinking that way. "I would have believed you."
"I know you would have." He had acknowledged their similarities, had at that moment conveyed all too clearly the fact that he trusted her and knew she did likewise. But he had a good reason for not telling her; for not telling any of them. "But what about someone like Wakka? Would he have believed me?"
Wakka. Wakka, who wouldn't even accept that his own brother was dead, who always came up with wild, irrational theories about how Chappu may still be alive. He couldn't accept the reality of the situation, wouldn't accept the explanation that Chappu had been found bloody and broken on the Djose shore, another victim of Sin. Wakka wouldn't accept the truth because he had not seen it with his own eyes. It wasn't until he visited Chappu in the Farplane that he finally came to understand that his younger brother was dead and gone, that he wasn't ever coming back.
Just as Sir Auron was never coming back, Lulu thought to herself bitterly, there in the present.
But the Sir Auron of the past had been right. Only because Lulu thought herself a realist would she have believed a knowledgeable man like Sir Auron without proof. But like Wakka, most people in Spira were not so ready to accept that which they did not see with their own two eyes. "No, I suppose not," she finally relented.
"That is why." His tone was surprisingly remorseful.
Lulu found herself shaking her head, though she was sure that she made the gesture far more exaggerated than it had been in her memories, perhaps because seeing things now, in an entirely different context, reminded her just how true her statement was. "I feel like such a fool."
"Don't," he had urged, and for a second Lulu almost thought that his answer held far more emphasis than it had the first time around. She shook it off, deciding her mind was just playing tricks on her. He continued, his voice laced with great sadness, the burden once more carried in his inflection. "When I was your age, I too believed whole-heartedly. It took watching my two best friends sacrificing themselves for a meaningless cause to open my eyes."
Back then, they had both just stood there, finding comfort in the silence of one another's company, their mutual pain soothing that of the other, if only for a brief moment of time. At that moment they were equals, two of a kind, lost in their own dream world that no one else could be a part of. It was a wonderful feeling, one Lulu wished would never end. One she now wished she could go back to, though she knew it unwise to entertain such thoughts.
By denying herself those feelings there in the present, she instead found herself focusing on what he had just stated. His words struck Lulu as odd, how he had referred to opening his eyes. Eyes, as in plural. It seemed an odd statement, given that the entire time she had known Sir Auron he had only one good eye, the other nothing more than dead flesh serving as a memento of a tragic past. Yet, now that she thought about it, at the time he had lost his two closest friends, he had not lost the other eye. He had not yet squared off against Yunalesca, had not yet become half-blind. It was only once he had died that he lost half of his vision.
When the silence had been broken, and the bubble of their dream-world popped, it was Sir Auron that had brought things back to reality. He had been the first to speak. His voice was contemplative once more, as if he were talking to no one in particular, and Lulu noted the disdain contained within his tone. "Ten years I was gone. When I returned, nothing had changed. Nothing ever changes in Spira."
Curiosity certainly had gotten the better of her at that point, as it seemed to be the burning question that all of Spira had wanted answered, yet the one answer he would never give. It was another secret he had kept to himself, perhaps only Tidus knowing the correct answer. "Where did you go those ten years?"
Though it seemed it was a secret he was about to share with her, one she would always cherish for what it meant for both of them. "Zanarkand, as I promised Jecht. I had hoped to find a new life there. All I found was a dream." His voice had all at once sounded both remorseful and satisfied at the same time, a fusion that seemed unusual, but one only someone like Sir Auron could pull off effectively.
She hadn't understood his answer then, hadn't been able to determine the underlying meaning behind it. How could she have? Nobody but Tidus, Sir Auron, and Sir Jecht knew the secret of Tidus' Zanarkand. She knew now that Tidus and his world had been nothing more than a dream, a memory of a city that had once existed a thousand years ago, kept alive only in the collective dreams of the sleeping fayth.
But all she had known then was that it sounded as if Sir Auron had found a world that one could only begin to imagine, a place someone from Spira could only hope to find one day. Being one of those people, she couldn't understand why he would want to leave a place like that. Why he would desire to return to Spira. For all that had happened, she was glad he had, with Tidus in tow, but that didn't mean she understood it. "Then why did you come back?"
He had turned to look directly at her, emphasizing his words as if they held great significance. She had known he had intended them to be that way, though for the life of her she couldn't contemplate their meaning at the time. Only now was she beginning to realize their significance. "Because a dream is not life. Tidus needed to learn that, and I needed to face up to reality. It was time for me to return to the land of death, to fulfill the promises I had made."
What she now understood him to mean was that it had been time for him to face up to the fact that he was dead. He couldn't avoid his destiny any more, could no longer pretend that he was alive. He had one more promise to a friend left to fulfill, and then he could find peace. That was why he returned to the land of death. It was where he belonged, much as the both of them might have wished otherwise. But they were both realistic enough to understand that there could be no other way. He had just come to accept it sooner than she had.
But the Lulu she had been two weeks ago was more naïve than the Lulu she was today. She had been oblivious to all of that which she knew to be the truth now. And in her naïveté, the Lulu of the past had asked more stupid questions. It struck her as ironic that she had sounded so much like Tidus had when he first came to Spira, knowing nothing about the place. She was just thankful that Sir Auron was not as callous as she, as brutally honest as she had been with Tidus, thinking him a moron. "So then Tidus' Zanarkand really does exist?"
It was her turn to feel like the moron. Turnabout was fair play, she supposed, and the Lulu of the present wanted to cringe for asking such a foolhardy question.
Yet Sir Auron had not judged her as harshly as she now judged herself, instead resorting to the classic Sir Auron manner of answering questions. That would be to say, by not answering them to anyone's satisfaction. His answer was relatively simple, yet completely contradictory. "Yes.and no."
As frustrating a response as it may have been, she did not find herself irritated by it. She found herself curious, her playful and sarcastic side awakening. "What kind of answer is that?"
Sir Auron continued to remain as elusive as ever. "An honest one."
It had turned into a game, a test of wills; one Lulu had not desired to lose. One that even now she did not wish to lose, despite already knowing that it was inevitable that she would; because she had already lost it back then. But still she tried, knowing that she could not derail her active involvement in the memories that she had been forced to replay until they ran their course to the end. "Yet not a very revealing one," she countered.
Auron was determined not to lose either, it seemed, and he understood that he had the upper hand. "It's the only one I have to give."
Lulu had found herself thoroughly amused by his cagey nature, attracted to the mischievous quality of his guile. She called him on it. "How appropriately cryptic."
She had nailed him to a tee, and he knew it. But still he had not relented, instead turning the tables on her, using her lighthearted accusation to his advantage. "I do have a reputation to uphold." He chuckled softly, his trademark laugh of self-amusement.
It was infectious, and Lulu soon found herself laughing along with him; a rarity, that was for sure. She never had gotten a concrete answer out of him, yet then, as now, she realized it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. That little exchange had simply served to remind her of why she had sought him out in the first place. "The mysterious, enigmatic Sir Auron. You are something of a puzzle, full of secrets that I could not even begin to imagine."
He glanced back at her knowingly, and she knew that there was a smirk of satisfaction hidden behind that collar of his. "Irritating, I know."
Lulu countered with what she could only imagine to be a furtive smile, tilting her head a fraction as she studied his visage. "And yet not." His cryptic explanations and puzzling intellect had been what she loved most about Sir Auron, what she had found the most tantalizing and alluring about his character; that even when she thought she knew all of his secrets, she would soon learn that there were far more he had hidden up his sleeve. This had just been one of them. "'Intriguing' is the word I would have used."
Sir Auron had seemed to smile in return, though his tone remained serious. "Because you understand that what you see on the surface is not always what lies within. The same could be said of you." His insight clearly conveyed his respect, as if sizing up a worthy adversary. Or even a kindred soul.
Lulu found herself subtly shaking her head, not allowing herself to believe she was quite on his level yet. She wondered now whether that was a good thing or not. "But I am much easier to read."
Sir Auron shook his head much more noticeably than she had. "Only when you allow yourself to be. Only because you are honest with the others."
He had meant it as a compliment, and she had taken it as such. But even then she had known that perhaps it was not as admirable a quality as he thought it was, as she had thought it to be. It was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, others thought her strong in the face of adversity and tragedy. On the other, she was thought to be unfeeling. On the surface there was seldom an in-between. Yet on the inside, she, like Sir Auron, resided upon that in-between, that fine line between being alive and being dead.
They were so alike. Yet something at the time struck her that perhaps that was not entirely correct in that particular case. She felt it even stronger now, that fleeting thought nagging her once more, though she still could not tie it down.
"But not always about my own feelings. That is where you and I are alike." That was where they were tragically flawed. She knew that now. She suffered because of it.
"That is because we understand that our feelings would be a detriment to Yuna's pilgrimage. We understood our roles. We played them well." Once again he had become the voice of reason, the pillar of support, and it was not difficult to understand why they all followed him when he took charge.
He was right. It seemed he was always right. But still Lulu felt slight remorse for having been forced to play the role she did, even if it had been the one she was most qualified to play. "Too well, perhaps."
She felt even more remorse for Sir Auron, that despite his painful past that Lulu could obviously see ate away at him a little more every day, the role he was forced to inhabit was one that he had no choice but to play. His status and his experience would accept nothing less. The world was often cruel like that.
But he had never fought it, had never shirked his responsibility. "I have no regrets." Yet his voice, for the first time perhaps, betrayed him, telling her otherwise. She just never had learned what his one regret was, though she had her suspicions.
She also had her regrets. "I do." Many of them in fact; the majority, not coincidentally, involving Sir Auron. She had confessed to one of them back then, yet sadly, it was not the one she had wished to reveal, both then and now. "You were always in such a rush to reach Zanarkand, always so eager to ensure Yuna continued her pilgrimage."
"You thought me heartless." Again, he presented it as a statement, not a question.
She had answered it as if it were, using his own cryptic response from earlier against him. "Yes.and no."
Perhaps she had phrased it in that manner as a means of lightening the mood, or perhaps using humor to cover up her vulnerability, as she was often predisposed to do. It was even possible that she had done it subconsciously as a way of bringing the regret she most wanted to confess to the fore. Even now, she did not know.
Sir Auron had smiled then, playing along with her game, repeating her answers from before. "What kind of answer is that?"
Lulu had smiled back, and was determined to win this time around. "An honest one."
"Yet not a very revealing one," he teased.
It had been Lulu's turn to smirk in satisfaction, almost certain she would win this one. But the Lulu in the present knew the truth. "It's the only one I have to give."
"How appropriately cryptic," he countered, the amused smile still playing across his lips, knowing he could not win.
Yet he had won, because in her admiration for him, Lulu had given him the game. She had given away her one and only secret. She had revealed her heart. "I learned from the best."
To this day she had no regrets for revealing her hand. Well, maybe one. That was, after all, the reason she had come to the Farplane this day.
The memory seemed to freeze in time, and perhaps she would have believed it had if not for the wind whipping through her hair, causing it to dance in rhythm with his coat. She was lost in the moment, captivated by the sparkle of his eye, the softening of his features; just as he seemed lost in her. An impenetrable silence had fallen upon the two of them again there in the past, neither moving for the longest time. They had just stood there, gazing directly at each other, into one another, through one another. It was the moment when everything between them changed. Yet she knew now that nothing had really changed. Not for her, in any case.
Lulu had lost her resolve first, breaking her gaze away from his to look the other way, hugging her arms to her chest, as if fending off a chill. She gave into his earlier line of questioning, noting that it was something he never would have done. She spoke of her regrets, instead of speaking of the one thing she to this day wished she had. "I was not in a rush to see Yuna die, but I understood the need for haste. Perhaps I felt that if I thought you the heartless one, it would absolve me of the guilt for being the same." She paused briefly, and risked looking back at him. "Yet, at the same time, somehow I knew that you would not allow Yuna to openly embrace death."
Sir Auron's resolve had only gotten stronger, though his voice had seemingly gotten softer. "It is not my wish to allow anyone to openly embrace death. Spira revolves around death, and I have no desire to let the cycle continue."
She had been correct in her assumption of his ulterior motives, had always suspected that to be the case, even when others thought him heartless, seemingly rushing a young girl to her death. But that was the problem with suspicions. They had no basis in fact, and so she had been just as guilty as the others, because she couldn't fathom the possibility that there was another way. No one who had spent their entire life in Spira could have. "You would have forced Yuna to reject the teachings of Yevon?"
Again he shook his head, and his answer had served to remind Lulu just how complex this man really was. "No. Like you, I was willing to let Yuna make her own decision. It was her story, her privilege. I only brought an alternate perspective to the table. That, and Tidus."
From the beginning Sir Auron had seemed forceful, constantly pushing Yuna to continue her pilgrimage, handling Tidus in a rough manner - a manner that Lulu had secretly approved of. He had a no-nonsense approach that he held fast to, up until the moment they reached Zanarkand. There he had given up the reigns, had handed complete control over to Yuna. It seemed so contradictory, and yet was not a difficult concept to fathom coming from this man. Like his carefully thought out words, his actions had almost always been deliberate and precise.
The greatest mystery was in knowing just how far in advance these actions had been planned out. "Yet, you knew she would make the right choice."
He nodded, a gleam of respect in his good eye, obviously intended for Yuna's benefit. "Yuna is easy to read. And she is strong. Stronger than you and I. She will need to be, for what is to come." He had turned his head away once more, gazing out into the distance, his thoughts far away from where he stood. She now found it almost ironic that what he had been referring to then would actually come to pass in the very place where they stood, on the deck of that airship, despite where his mind's eye may have projected the future. "Yevon may have been based on lies, but it held one truth: Life requires sacrifice."
"You know something?" she had asked, obviously concerned. It seemed the logical question to have asked at the time. Yet in hindsight, given the nature of the man she was asking, it seemed silly, almost like something Tidus might have asked. Of course Sir Auron had known something. He knew more than anyone else about what was to come. He had probably known what would come to pass the day that he decided to bring Tidus to Spira. That would prove to be his most well guarded secret, the one question no one would ever be able to answer factually. It was the secret that would most likely cause Spira to forget the role he played. Lulu understood now that perhaps that was what he had intended all along.
"I know many things." He had known that Tidus was a dream, that when Yu Yevon was destroyed he would fade away, as if he never existed. He knew that Yuna's heart would be broken. But Sir Auron also knew that he too would finally cease walking amongst the living. That he too would fade away in a swarm of pyreflies. What he might not have known was that his leaving would also leave someone heartbroken.
"Yet you will not tell me." That had been a statement, not a question. She really had learned from the best.
Like her before, Sir Auron answered anyway. "The final chapter has not yet been written, nor is it my story to tell."
Again, it was his trademark cryptic and non-committal answer. It had not been a lie, as even he could not truly predict the future course of events, even if he did have his suspicions. What Lulu understood now, though, was that it wouldn't have mattered whether he told her or not. Their course had already been set in motion, and to turn back would have been counter- productive. Knowing what was to come would just have made it all the more difficult to succeed. Sir Auron understood that, and he knew it was not his place to reveal such things.
Lulu knew that now. She understood his reasons, as heart-rending as they may have been when all was said and done. But back then she had been worried, puzzled by that which she hadn't known, but that he certainly had. But the Lulu she was then was still intelligent enough to know that she would not get a straight answer from him, that it was something best not to concern herself with, much as she may have wanted to. So she did the only thing she could have done. She let it slide and moved on. "It will end when Sin is defeated?"
His tone became weighted once again, pained. "Yes."
"And you would be willing to fight your friend to do so?" She could tell he was hurting inside, that the confrontation with Sir Jecht was inevitable. It was obviously something he was not looking forward to - not that she could blame him for that - but it was a duty his honor and his word would force him to carry out.
"It is the last promise I must fulfill. He wants me to help him end his pain." He turned his gaze towards the horizon once more, and for a second back then, Lulu was sure she had seen a glint of hopeful longing in his eye before he finally finished his answer. "The dead should be allowed to rest."
At the time, Lulu had wondered why he had said that last statement, seeing as how technically Sir Jecht was not dead. She had passed it off for meaning that Sir Auron considered Sir Jecht dead because he was no longer human. He was no longer himself, and therefore ceased being Sir Jecht. He had become Sin.
But only now did it occur to her that he had intended no such thing. He hadn't been referring to Sir Jecht at all. He had been referring to himself. Once he had laid his friend to rest, granting Sir Jecht a release from his pain, his final promise would be fulfilled. He would have no reason to remain in Spira, and he would finally find his own release from the pain. The dead should be allowed to rest. That was the reward they had earned. That was an honor that Sir Auron had earned thrice over.
But back then, what he had said about the dead had made her suddenly recall something he had said earlier, the important piece of information he had been trying to impart that she had been so pre-occupied to take notice of. She had taken note of it then. "Earlier you mentioned that we don't pay attention to what death should teach us. What lesson is it that we do not learn?"
He turned his gaze back on her, a look of regret in his features, sadness in his lone russet orb. His soulful look burned a hole in her heart, pierced her soul. "That life, no matter how cruel and harsh it may be, is something to be cherished." Uncharacteristically, he reached towards her with his gloved right hand, tenderly brushing her bangs away from her face, away from her left eye that normally hid behind the veil of onyx-colored tresses. "That it should not be thrown away callously."
All at once, both in the past and the present, she felt her inhibitions slip away, her desire burning brightly, her heart rising from the ashes. Her hands grabbed hold of his collar tightly, and she pulled him down towards her as she tilted her head up, locking her lips onto his. He did not resist, and she hungrily tasted from him, greedily partook of that which she knew she should not have taken. Yet she couldn't resist, couldn't stop herself, could not force her craving for him to subside. She felt the icy vise around her heart melt from his warmth, felt the darkness within her soul dissipate, and for the first time in forever, she remembered what it felt like to be truly alive. It was truly something to be cherished.
But that was all it could ever be, nothing more than a cherished memory. For just as soon as he was there, his passion radiating in tempo with hers, he just as suddenly was gone, distant and out of reach once more, having broken the contact, shattering the dream they had enveloped themselves in for the second time that evening. That had been when the Lulu of the past had suspected that she had discovered his one regret, though she hadn't been able to make sense of it at the time.
He had left her with two words that meant everything, and yet nothing at the time. But it was two words that would be forever etched on her heart, forever haunting her dreams. Two puzzling words that could have meant anything: "If only," he had said. Then he walked away.
She felt it unfair, cruel of him to walk away from her, leaving her with nothing just after he had given her a taste of life; just when she had found the nerve to act on her desires, to bury her regrets. She now found herself left with only one.
Just as he reached the hatch, she called to him. "You were wrong," she had said. "My heart does still beat." She had seen him stop mid-stride, hesitating, and she could only hope it was because his resolve was wavering. "It beats for you." Even now, it still beat for him.
Lulu shook her head forcefully, sealing her eyes shut, trying to will away the memory of those words she had spoken, the rending of her heart as he had walked through the hatch, leaving her behind on the deck of the airship, alone with her suspicions and Sir Auron's half-truths.
After a difficult struggle to gain control over her emotions once more, she opened her tear-filled eyes, and found herself deposited back in the Farplane, the ghostly image of Sir Auron floating emotionlessly and wordlessly in front of her once again, her memory having run its course.
She had never gotten an answer, had never discovered how he truly felt about her. At the time, she had thought he felt the same for her as she felt for him. But in hindsight, having now discovered the true meaning behind half of his words, she wasn't so sure anymore. She had interpreted his affection for her to mean he loved her. But it wasn't love. It was regret for that which he couldn't cherish in life, what death had denied him.
But still she wanted an answer; felt she needed to know the truth. That was why she was here, that was why she had relived that memory, why she had re-enacted it.
But she had found no answer to her question. So now she resorted to pleading to the lifeless image that hung before her, imploring it to give up one final secret. "Would it have been so terrible to tell me how you felt about me, knowing how I felt for you?"
But there was no response. Of course there wouldn't be. The dead could not talk, could not impart any more information to those in the present. They were of the past, of a world that no longer existed anywhere but in dreams and memories. She would never know the truth. That would be one more secret that Sir Auron had managed to take with him, forever kept hidden up his sleeve.
Yet it suddenly occurred to her that if he could talk to her now, somehow she knew what his answer would have been. He would have said, "Would it have made a difference had you known?"
Sad as it may have been, the truth was that he was correct. It wouldn't have mattered. Had he loved her or not, he knew there was no way around his fate. He was an unsent, and he knew one day he would finally have to give in to his lifeless body's desire for rest and peace. Even if he loved her, he still would have been forced to leave her. He had tried to make it as easy on her as possible. Or perhaps, he had tried to make it as easy as possible for himself. She would never know for sure. Yet she knew that it didn't matter either way.
Because suddenly she understood. Now she knew what he had been telling her the whole time, what that buzzing in the back of her mind had been trying to reveal. It was the reason she had replayed the memory of her final conversation with Sir Auron. She had learned from it, but it changed nothing. Because memories were the only thing that was left of him; and the only things he could now impart to her were things she had already lived through, events that had already happened. He could no longer speak of things he had not already spoken of in the past; because he did not exist in the present, and he had no future.
She, like Auron, had been stuck in the past, consumed by the dead. She had been so consumed by her painful past that she had failed to live for the future. She had become the walking dead, alive and yet not really living. Sir Auron had been the opposite, and that had been what he was trying to tell her. He had been dead, but pretending that he was alive. But the inevitable truth was that at the end of the day, he was still dead, and he had no second chance at life. He regretted having thrown away his own life so callously and wished he could have been given a second chance at it.
She did not share the same fate as he. She was still alive, and still had a chance to live her life, if she chose to exercise that option. She needed to look ahead to the future, and not live in the past. The past held nothing but memories. Just as the Farplane was a place of the past: the house for the dead, a shrine to relics of the past, memories of that which no longer existed. Sir Auron had become part of a world that existed now only as a dream. It was where he belonged.
Lulu now knew what it was she needed to do here, what it was she needed to say, difficult as it may be.
She looked up at the astral image of Sir Auron and brushed her hair away from her face, so she could gaze upon the man she had loved once more with both eyes unobstructed. She swallowed her doubt, and straightened her posture to one of confidence and strength, ironically an imitation of the way Sir Auron had always carried himself in life.
Then she said her piece. "I do not belong here anymore. So this is goodbye, Sir Auron. I will not be coming back here in the future. You will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will love you for the rest of my days and beyond. And maybe one day, when my time has come, I can rejoin you in the Farplane, and we can have that chance that we were denied while you were still here. But for now, I have responsibilities to attend to, promises to keep. and a life to live."
Then she spun on her heels, a great weight lifted from her heart, a burning within her soul, striding confidently and proudly towards the exit as the image of Sir Auron evaporated into a swarm of pyreflies once more.
As she started to descend the steps, leaving the Farplane and the dead it housed behind her, she could have sworn she heard Sir Auron's voice one last time, imparting encouraging words she had never heard him speak while he had been among the living. "My story ended long ago. Yours still has many chapters yet to come. Tell it well."
~ End ~
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X and its characters are the property of Squaresoft, not me.
A/N: Reviews and constructive criticism are most certainly welcome and appreciated. Thanks.
*****
Lulu hated the Farplane. She didn't hate it for what it was, for allowing people to remember their lost loved ones, to see them whenever they wanted. She didn't hate it for being a paradise where souls could find eternal rest and peace, free of the pain and suffering that comes part and parcel with life.
No, she hated it because it seemed she had been spending far too much time there lately; and that could only mean that too many people she had known and loved had died. Too many people had moved on to greener pastures, leaving her behind to endure without them. Too often she had been left to pick up the pieces and find a reason to continue living. If "living" had been what one would call her existence these last few years.
"Survivors" had been what Sir Auron had called those left behind. Ironic, then, that she should be making a visit this day for exactly that reason.
The Farplane in Guadosalam was deserted, not a soul in sight, and for that Lulu was glad. It had been difficult for her to find the nerve to come there once more. It would be even more difficult for her to say what she thought she needed to say with others around. Although that was her main problem at the moment, that she wasn't quite sure what exactly she needed to say.
The pyreflies reacted to her strong memories for a man that had done more for Spira than anyone would ever give him credit for; a man who did more good in death than in life; a man that had changed her life forever - though she still wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Within seconds, his form manifested itself before her, his appearance exactly as she remembered it to be - his arm slung within his red cloak, the ever-present sake jug residing on his right hip; the sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose, covering up the majority of the dashing scar that rendered his right eye useless, the russet color of his sole remaining eye that conveyed an infinite amount of pain, tragedy, and nobility within its bottomless depths; the grey collar covering a substantial portion of his face, and the streaks of white in his wild raven hair that had caused him to look so much older than his thirty-five years.
He was exactly the same, and Lulu felt the ache within her just conjuring up his image, a harsh reminder that he no longer walked amongst the living; that she still did.
Still unsure of what exactly she wanted to say to him, she said the first thing that came to mind. "I knew you'd be here."
Then the strangest thing happened. The floating image of Sir Auron spoke, even though he shouldn't have been able to. Or maybe Lulu only imagined he spoke. Either way, she heard the familiar words distinctly. The words were contemplative, spoken aloud so she could hear them, but they hadn't necessarily been directed at her. Instead they were nothing more than detached and partial musings of a man lost in his own reverie. "The house for the dead. A shrine to the relics of the past. Memories of that which no longer exists. The remains of a world that exists now only as a dream."
The words he spoke were an adequate description of the Farplane. They even made sense in that context, given where his soul now resided, and where she had come to find him. Yet Lulu knew that he had not been referring to the Farplane, but somewhere else: Zanarkand.
Instantly her mind was transported to the past, to the external deck of the airship, a few hours after they had altered the course of Spira's future forever by defeating Yunalesca and desecrating the traditions of Yevon; back to a time when they had spoken those very same words they had just spoken now. The Farplane transformed itself into that very scene right before her eyes, and she found herself standing just outside the airship's hatch, Sir Auron, his back turned to her, standing near the edge of the deck, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind, open sake jug held out as a toast to the ruined Zanarkand that looked almost surreal in the setting sun, a painting on the canvas of the horizon.
As if prompted to do so, she continued the conversation, as it had gone before, her inflections mimicking the ones she had used those few weeks ago. "Dreams fade," she had said, although even now she was not entirely sure why she had said that. Though it seemed somehow fitting now, as she recalled Tidus' fate.
Sir Auron's head turned very slightly for a brief second, as if to acknowledge her presence, though he did not turn fully around to catch sight of her. Instead he continued, lowering his tokkurri and speaking once more to the vast expanse before him, though his response was specifically aimed at her, his voice burdened; his mood somber. "Only because they are not real."
He had been correct. Dreams were not real, and in Spira, they rarely came true. There were only two things in Spira she had known to be real. "Only pain and death are real."
She had been sure that Sir Auron had felt the same way, having seen the tragedies of his past; understanding that the rock-hard exterior he presented to the world only covered up countless open wounds that had never properly healed. She had found a kindred spirit in Sir Auron. Yet his answer still to this very day surprised her. "Reality is what you make of it," he had said, and Lulu had been reminded in that instant that he had been a man who had seen and done much in his life, perhaps more than anyone else could claim to match. The silence that ensued for what seemed like an eternity only served to reinforce that notion.
Sir Auron had been the first one to break the silence, his back still facing her. His gruff voice was filled with a trace of amusement, yet still remained heavily weighted by the ghosts of his past that had traveled along with him from the ruins of Zanarkand. "I must admit; you are the last person I expected to come pity me."
Sir Auron had always been one to keep to himself, but Lulu remembered that after Zanarkand, the others had been conscious about keeping their distance with him, out of respect for his feelings, and the pain reliving his past must have caused him. But Lulu had intentionally sought him out, intentionally looking to speak with the legendary guardian. Not because she pitied him, but for reasons that were her own. "I am not here to pity. I am here to sympathize."
Sir Auron had spoken of pity, yet his words did not convey the need for it, his body language not demonstrative of a wounded animal. He was as hardened and determined as ever, his posture projecting its usual aura of strength and confidence, the cynicism and self-loathing perhaps only a tad more noticeable than before. Yet he remained the same, direct, his intelligent responses never seeming to quite make sense at the time he would give them. "The dead do not sympathize."
Yet what hadn't made sense then started to make sense to Lulu now. "I am not dead," she had countered, evenly and with conviction. But she saw now that perhaps she had been wrong.
"Yet you are not alive." Sir Auron's accusation continued, yet his tone was not cruel. It was matter-of-factly, one of knowing. "You may as well be dead."
She had taken several steps forward, the wind whipping around her, blowing her hair into her eyes, more so than usual. She could not believe the nerve Sir Auron had in accusing her of such things, of the way he had interpreted her to be. She had turned defensive, hurt. But the truth hurts, doesn't it? Suddenly she knew how Wakka felt every time she had directed it at him. "You think me heartless?"
His response was calm and even, lacking any sense of critical judgment. If anything, it contained nothing but respect. "No. I can see you have a beautiful heart, but it does not always beat."
Lulu had never heard anything in her life that had been so flattering and yet so hurtful at the same time. "What is that supposed to mean?" She had been confused as to why Sir Auron had been saying these things to her. She shouldn't have been, she now realized.
His voice was steady, a certain levity to it suddenly. "It means we are not so different, you and I."
Suddenly the sting of his previous accusations subsided, as she realized that any accusations he had aimed at her were also aimed at himself. If only she had known then what she knew now, the remainder of their conversation would have made so much more sense. "I had started to realize that not too long ago. That is why I am here."
He knew. He had always known that they were very much alike. He had probably realized it before she had, given how perceptive he was. "Because you understand." His words were a statement of fact, not questioning.
"I understand." She understood why he had been out there overlooking the once great city of Zanarkand, had understood what lived there. The very things that still plagued his memories. They were the same things that haunted her. "But I also know that I am the only one that could understand. Just as you are the only one who could understand me."
He turned to glance at her for the first time, his lone eye taking her in, revealing the depths of his soul that he had kept hidden before. Battered and misshapen as it had become, Lulu found it beautiful, the intense glow of it hidden beneath all the darkness that fought to overcome it. It reminded her very much of her own soul.
He turned away once more, gazing at the Zanarkand that continued to shrink more and more along the horizon as the moving airship left it further in its wake. "I understand that we are stuck in the past. Consumed by the dead."
Lulu now allowed her head to hang, exactly as she had done back then on that airship, her eyelids closing slowly, temporarily removing her from the memory of the past. Only to be visited briefly by other specters of her past, if only in her mind's eye: her former love, Chappu; Lady Ginnem, the summoner she had been too young to adequately protect. And then Yuna, who was not a specter, but simply a skeleton in her closet.
She opened her eyes again, and found herself on the airship once more. Not quite sure why she had done so then, still unsure of the reasons now, she did the one thing most uncharacteristic of her. She bared her soul to Sir Auron. It was something she felt she needed to do, something that felt so right. She knew now it was the best thing she had ever done. "As we approached Zanarkand, I realized that Yuna would die when she achieved the Final Aeon. I could do nothing to stop her. And yet the only thing I could think of was that despite her task being the most difficult, she had it easier than the rest of us."
She had thought it risky at the time, something he would judge her harshly for. But he hadn't. He understood. "Because her story would end. She would feel no more pain. But your story would continue without her in it."
In other words, she would be left with the pain and emptiness that resulted from Yuna's death, just as she was left with those same feelings when Chappu died. It was difficult, heartbreaking, and yet, insignificant when compared to the fact that another person had lost their life. It was something she felt ashamed of, and yet something she couldn't help feeling. "It sounds selfish, I know."
The normally aloof man that kept his back to her was surprisingly swift in defending her, in supporting her feelings. "It is not selfish. It is always hardest to be the survivor." He caught her gaze once more, a spark of recognition in his eye. "That is what you and I are: survivors. That is what only you and I could understand, having experienced it first hand." They were survivors; he with Lord Braska and Sir Jecht, she with Lady Ginnem and Chappu. They had lost much, and gained nothing but pain and remorse in return. He understood that aspect of her, as only she could fully understand his pain.
Yet, that was the irony there in the present. He had left her a survivor of his death. He had left them, had left her. Lulu felt it incredibly unfair of him to do so, especially when she suspected that he had always known how she felt about him. She wanted to hate him, to yell at him, to blame him for the pain she felt now. She wanted to accuse him to his face for leaving her a survivor when he knew what that felt like. Yet she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Because she understood all too well; just as she had understood him all too well then, if not for the same reasons. "Then you know." Her voice was low, and surprisingly soft.
His tone matched hers, his voice distant, yet intentionally designed for her to hear. "When Braska died, I couldn't accept it. I too wanted to join him in death, to end my pain. I challenged Yunalesca." He paused for a second, as if deciding on the best way to phrase what he revealed next. "For me, everything changed, yet I changed nothing."
Had she known that he was an unsent at the time, perhaps she would have understood just how careful he had been with his wording. But it was only the luxury of hindsight that allowed her to see it now, to understand that he had died, only to find that the pain did not subside, that his unfinished business kept him bound to the world of the living.
Instead, clueless, she had let her own wounds make their way to the surface. "When Chappu died, at first I too wanted to die. I think a part of me actually did. When we ran into Lady Ginnem again, somehow I knew that I didn't feel as sad as I thought I should. I was afraid it would be the same with Yuna." Selfishly, perhaps that had been her greatest fear. Not so much watching Yuna die, but the fact that she would not feel as sad as she thought she ought to when the time came. That was what scared her then, being heartless. It seemed so trivial now.
Sir Auron put her mind at ease, his words painfully slow and deliberate. "Spira is so full of death, and yet somehow we never understand the most important aspect that death should teach us. Instead we focus on death itself, becoming consumed by it. We start to become immune to it. For those of us more grounded in reality, that is especially the case."
She had missed an important point he had made at the time, too caught up in the specters of the past, instead falling into the exact trap he had been warning her about. She wouldn't realize that until later, content then to just feel soothed by the fact that he had rationalized her behavior; that he too shared in it.
But there in the present, something tingled in the back of her mind, telling her that perhaps there was something not quite right about that. That perhaps she had misinterpreted something. But she couldn't lock the pestering feeling down, so she tried to ignore it until the time when it would eventually make itself clearer.
Back in the past, Lulu finally moved forward, so that she was now standing directly to the left of the noble guardian. Neither of them looked at one another, both just stared at the reddish-orange hue left in the wake of the setting sun, the destroyed foundation of lies briefly illuminated in the distance. Lulu had been the first to speak. "I still cannot believe that Yevon's teachings were all a lie." Her tone was one of sadness, a feeling of emptiness for all the years she had dedicated to those lies. After a brief moment of reflection, she turned her head in Sir Auron's direction. "You knew, didn't you?"
His response was simple; straight-forward and surprisingly delicate. "Yes."
Curiosity, as well as a fraction of her hurt feelings, got the better of her. "Why didn't you tell us?"
His answer reminded her of the non-committal answers he often gave to Yuna, Rikku, and Tidus, about how it had not been his place to tell, or how it would have made no difference whether he told the truth or not. Yet somehow, this one felt much more revealing. "Some things must be experienced to be believed."
At the time she had felt that perhaps he hadn't trusted her, hadn't realized just how similar they were. She wondered if perhaps he didn't realize that she knew he was not a man that would ever lie. She would quickly learn the follies of thinking that way. "I would have believed you."
"I know you would have." He had acknowledged their similarities, had at that moment conveyed all too clearly the fact that he trusted her and knew she did likewise. But he had a good reason for not telling her; for not telling any of them. "But what about someone like Wakka? Would he have believed me?"
Wakka. Wakka, who wouldn't even accept that his own brother was dead, who always came up with wild, irrational theories about how Chappu may still be alive. He couldn't accept the reality of the situation, wouldn't accept the explanation that Chappu had been found bloody and broken on the Djose shore, another victim of Sin. Wakka wouldn't accept the truth because he had not seen it with his own eyes. It wasn't until he visited Chappu in the Farplane that he finally came to understand that his younger brother was dead and gone, that he wasn't ever coming back.
Just as Sir Auron was never coming back, Lulu thought to herself bitterly, there in the present.
But the Sir Auron of the past had been right. Only because Lulu thought herself a realist would she have believed a knowledgeable man like Sir Auron without proof. But like Wakka, most people in Spira were not so ready to accept that which they did not see with their own two eyes. "No, I suppose not," she finally relented.
"That is why." His tone was surprisingly remorseful.
Lulu found herself shaking her head, though she was sure that she made the gesture far more exaggerated than it had been in her memories, perhaps because seeing things now, in an entirely different context, reminded her just how true her statement was. "I feel like such a fool."
"Don't," he had urged, and for a second Lulu almost thought that his answer held far more emphasis than it had the first time around. She shook it off, deciding her mind was just playing tricks on her. He continued, his voice laced with great sadness, the burden once more carried in his inflection. "When I was your age, I too believed whole-heartedly. It took watching my two best friends sacrificing themselves for a meaningless cause to open my eyes."
Back then, they had both just stood there, finding comfort in the silence of one another's company, their mutual pain soothing that of the other, if only for a brief moment of time. At that moment they were equals, two of a kind, lost in their own dream world that no one else could be a part of. It was a wonderful feeling, one Lulu wished would never end. One she now wished she could go back to, though she knew it unwise to entertain such thoughts.
By denying herself those feelings there in the present, she instead found herself focusing on what he had just stated. His words struck Lulu as odd, how he had referred to opening his eyes. Eyes, as in plural. It seemed an odd statement, given that the entire time she had known Sir Auron he had only one good eye, the other nothing more than dead flesh serving as a memento of a tragic past. Yet, now that she thought about it, at the time he had lost his two closest friends, he had not lost the other eye. He had not yet squared off against Yunalesca, had not yet become half-blind. It was only once he had died that he lost half of his vision.
When the silence had been broken, and the bubble of their dream-world popped, it was Sir Auron that had brought things back to reality. He had been the first to speak. His voice was contemplative once more, as if he were talking to no one in particular, and Lulu noted the disdain contained within his tone. "Ten years I was gone. When I returned, nothing had changed. Nothing ever changes in Spira."
Curiosity certainly had gotten the better of her at that point, as it seemed to be the burning question that all of Spira had wanted answered, yet the one answer he would never give. It was another secret he had kept to himself, perhaps only Tidus knowing the correct answer. "Where did you go those ten years?"
Though it seemed it was a secret he was about to share with her, one she would always cherish for what it meant for both of them. "Zanarkand, as I promised Jecht. I had hoped to find a new life there. All I found was a dream." His voice had all at once sounded both remorseful and satisfied at the same time, a fusion that seemed unusual, but one only someone like Sir Auron could pull off effectively.
She hadn't understood his answer then, hadn't been able to determine the underlying meaning behind it. How could she have? Nobody but Tidus, Sir Auron, and Sir Jecht knew the secret of Tidus' Zanarkand. She knew now that Tidus and his world had been nothing more than a dream, a memory of a city that had once existed a thousand years ago, kept alive only in the collective dreams of the sleeping fayth.
But all she had known then was that it sounded as if Sir Auron had found a world that one could only begin to imagine, a place someone from Spira could only hope to find one day. Being one of those people, she couldn't understand why he would want to leave a place like that. Why he would desire to return to Spira. For all that had happened, she was glad he had, with Tidus in tow, but that didn't mean she understood it. "Then why did you come back?"
He had turned to look directly at her, emphasizing his words as if they held great significance. She had known he had intended them to be that way, though for the life of her she couldn't contemplate their meaning at the time. Only now was she beginning to realize their significance. "Because a dream is not life. Tidus needed to learn that, and I needed to face up to reality. It was time for me to return to the land of death, to fulfill the promises I had made."
What she now understood him to mean was that it had been time for him to face up to the fact that he was dead. He couldn't avoid his destiny any more, could no longer pretend that he was alive. He had one more promise to a friend left to fulfill, and then he could find peace. That was why he returned to the land of death. It was where he belonged, much as the both of them might have wished otherwise. But they were both realistic enough to understand that there could be no other way. He had just come to accept it sooner than she had.
But the Lulu she had been two weeks ago was more naïve than the Lulu she was today. She had been oblivious to all of that which she knew to be the truth now. And in her naïveté, the Lulu of the past had asked more stupid questions. It struck her as ironic that she had sounded so much like Tidus had when he first came to Spira, knowing nothing about the place. She was just thankful that Sir Auron was not as callous as she, as brutally honest as she had been with Tidus, thinking him a moron. "So then Tidus' Zanarkand really does exist?"
It was her turn to feel like the moron. Turnabout was fair play, she supposed, and the Lulu of the present wanted to cringe for asking such a foolhardy question.
Yet Sir Auron had not judged her as harshly as she now judged herself, instead resorting to the classic Sir Auron manner of answering questions. That would be to say, by not answering them to anyone's satisfaction. His answer was relatively simple, yet completely contradictory. "Yes.and no."
As frustrating a response as it may have been, she did not find herself irritated by it. She found herself curious, her playful and sarcastic side awakening. "What kind of answer is that?"
Sir Auron continued to remain as elusive as ever. "An honest one."
It had turned into a game, a test of wills; one Lulu had not desired to lose. One that even now she did not wish to lose, despite already knowing that it was inevitable that she would; because she had already lost it back then. But still she tried, knowing that she could not derail her active involvement in the memories that she had been forced to replay until they ran their course to the end. "Yet not a very revealing one," she countered.
Auron was determined not to lose either, it seemed, and he understood that he had the upper hand. "It's the only one I have to give."
Lulu had found herself thoroughly amused by his cagey nature, attracted to the mischievous quality of his guile. She called him on it. "How appropriately cryptic."
She had nailed him to a tee, and he knew it. But still he had not relented, instead turning the tables on her, using her lighthearted accusation to his advantage. "I do have a reputation to uphold." He chuckled softly, his trademark laugh of self-amusement.
It was infectious, and Lulu soon found herself laughing along with him; a rarity, that was for sure. She never had gotten a concrete answer out of him, yet then, as now, she realized it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. That little exchange had simply served to remind her of why she had sought him out in the first place. "The mysterious, enigmatic Sir Auron. You are something of a puzzle, full of secrets that I could not even begin to imagine."
He glanced back at her knowingly, and she knew that there was a smirk of satisfaction hidden behind that collar of his. "Irritating, I know."
Lulu countered with what she could only imagine to be a furtive smile, tilting her head a fraction as she studied his visage. "And yet not." His cryptic explanations and puzzling intellect had been what she loved most about Sir Auron, what she had found the most tantalizing and alluring about his character; that even when she thought she knew all of his secrets, she would soon learn that there were far more he had hidden up his sleeve. This had just been one of them. "'Intriguing' is the word I would have used."
Sir Auron had seemed to smile in return, though his tone remained serious. "Because you understand that what you see on the surface is not always what lies within. The same could be said of you." His insight clearly conveyed his respect, as if sizing up a worthy adversary. Or even a kindred soul.
Lulu found herself subtly shaking her head, not allowing herself to believe she was quite on his level yet. She wondered now whether that was a good thing or not. "But I am much easier to read."
Sir Auron shook his head much more noticeably than she had. "Only when you allow yourself to be. Only because you are honest with the others."
He had meant it as a compliment, and she had taken it as such. But even then she had known that perhaps it was not as admirable a quality as he thought it was, as she had thought it to be. It was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, others thought her strong in the face of adversity and tragedy. On the other, she was thought to be unfeeling. On the surface there was seldom an in-between. Yet on the inside, she, like Sir Auron, resided upon that in-between, that fine line between being alive and being dead.
They were so alike. Yet something at the time struck her that perhaps that was not entirely correct in that particular case. She felt it even stronger now, that fleeting thought nagging her once more, though she still could not tie it down.
"But not always about my own feelings. That is where you and I are alike." That was where they were tragically flawed. She knew that now. She suffered because of it.
"That is because we understand that our feelings would be a detriment to Yuna's pilgrimage. We understood our roles. We played them well." Once again he had become the voice of reason, the pillar of support, and it was not difficult to understand why they all followed him when he took charge.
He was right. It seemed he was always right. But still Lulu felt slight remorse for having been forced to play the role she did, even if it had been the one she was most qualified to play. "Too well, perhaps."
She felt even more remorse for Sir Auron, that despite his painful past that Lulu could obviously see ate away at him a little more every day, the role he was forced to inhabit was one that he had no choice but to play. His status and his experience would accept nothing less. The world was often cruel like that.
But he had never fought it, had never shirked his responsibility. "I have no regrets." Yet his voice, for the first time perhaps, betrayed him, telling her otherwise. She just never had learned what his one regret was, though she had her suspicions.
She also had her regrets. "I do." Many of them in fact; the majority, not coincidentally, involving Sir Auron. She had confessed to one of them back then, yet sadly, it was not the one she had wished to reveal, both then and now. "You were always in such a rush to reach Zanarkand, always so eager to ensure Yuna continued her pilgrimage."
"You thought me heartless." Again, he presented it as a statement, not a question.
She had answered it as if it were, using his own cryptic response from earlier against him. "Yes.and no."
Perhaps she had phrased it in that manner as a means of lightening the mood, or perhaps using humor to cover up her vulnerability, as she was often predisposed to do. It was even possible that she had done it subconsciously as a way of bringing the regret she most wanted to confess to the fore. Even now, she did not know.
Sir Auron had smiled then, playing along with her game, repeating her answers from before. "What kind of answer is that?"
Lulu had smiled back, and was determined to win this time around. "An honest one."
"Yet not a very revealing one," he teased.
It had been Lulu's turn to smirk in satisfaction, almost certain she would win this one. But the Lulu in the present knew the truth. "It's the only one I have to give."
"How appropriately cryptic," he countered, the amused smile still playing across his lips, knowing he could not win.
Yet he had won, because in her admiration for him, Lulu had given him the game. She had given away her one and only secret. She had revealed her heart. "I learned from the best."
To this day she had no regrets for revealing her hand. Well, maybe one. That was, after all, the reason she had come to the Farplane this day.
The memory seemed to freeze in time, and perhaps she would have believed it had if not for the wind whipping through her hair, causing it to dance in rhythm with his coat. She was lost in the moment, captivated by the sparkle of his eye, the softening of his features; just as he seemed lost in her. An impenetrable silence had fallen upon the two of them again there in the past, neither moving for the longest time. They had just stood there, gazing directly at each other, into one another, through one another. It was the moment when everything between them changed. Yet she knew now that nothing had really changed. Not for her, in any case.
Lulu had lost her resolve first, breaking her gaze away from his to look the other way, hugging her arms to her chest, as if fending off a chill. She gave into his earlier line of questioning, noting that it was something he never would have done. She spoke of her regrets, instead of speaking of the one thing she to this day wished she had. "I was not in a rush to see Yuna die, but I understood the need for haste. Perhaps I felt that if I thought you the heartless one, it would absolve me of the guilt for being the same." She paused briefly, and risked looking back at him. "Yet, at the same time, somehow I knew that you would not allow Yuna to openly embrace death."
Sir Auron's resolve had only gotten stronger, though his voice had seemingly gotten softer. "It is not my wish to allow anyone to openly embrace death. Spira revolves around death, and I have no desire to let the cycle continue."
She had been correct in her assumption of his ulterior motives, had always suspected that to be the case, even when others thought him heartless, seemingly rushing a young girl to her death. But that was the problem with suspicions. They had no basis in fact, and so she had been just as guilty as the others, because she couldn't fathom the possibility that there was another way. No one who had spent their entire life in Spira could have. "You would have forced Yuna to reject the teachings of Yevon?"
Again he shook his head, and his answer had served to remind Lulu just how complex this man really was. "No. Like you, I was willing to let Yuna make her own decision. It was her story, her privilege. I only brought an alternate perspective to the table. That, and Tidus."
From the beginning Sir Auron had seemed forceful, constantly pushing Yuna to continue her pilgrimage, handling Tidus in a rough manner - a manner that Lulu had secretly approved of. He had a no-nonsense approach that he held fast to, up until the moment they reached Zanarkand. There he had given up the reigns, had handed complete control over to Yuna. It seemed so contradictory, and yet was not a difficult concept to fathom coming from this man. Like his carefully thought out words, his actions had almost always been deliberate and precise.
The greatest mystery was in knowing just how far in advance these actions had been planned out. "Yet, you knew she would make the right choice."
He nodded, a gleam of respect in his good eye, obviously intended for Yuna's benefit. "Yuna is easy to read. And she is strong. Stronger than you and I. She will need to be, for what is to come." He had turned his head away once more, gazing out into the distance, his thoughts far away from where he stood. She now found it almost ironic that what he had been referring to then would actually come to pass in the very place where they stood, on the deck of that airship, despite where his mind's eye may have projected the future. "Yevon may have been based on lies, but it held one truth: Life requires sacrifice."
"You know something?" she had asked, obviously concerned. It seemed the logical question to have asked at the time. Yet in hindsight, given the nature of the man she was asking, it seemed silly, almost like something Tidus might have asked. Of course Sir Auron had known something. He knew more than anyone else about what was to come. He had probably known what would come to pass the day that he decided to bring Tidus to Spira. That would prove to be his most well guarded secret, the one question no one would ever be able to answer factually. It was the secret that would most likely cause Spira to forget the role he played. Lulu understood now that perhaps that was what he had intended all along.
"I know many things." He had known that Tidus was a dream, that when Yu Yevon was destroyed he would fade away, as if he never existed. He knew that Yuna's heart would be broken. But Sir Auron also knew that he too would finally cease walking amongst the living. That he too would fade away in a swarm of pyreflies. What he might not have known was that his leaving would also leave someone heartbroken.
"Yet you will not tell me." That had been a statement, not a question. She really had learned from the best.
Like her before, Sir Auron answered anyway. "The final chapter has not yet been written, nor is it my story to tell."
Again, it was his trademark cryptic and non-committal answer. It had not been a lie, as even he could not truly predict the future course of events, even if he did have his suspicions. What Lulu understood now, though, was that it wouldn't have mattered whether he told her or not. Their course had already been set in motion, and to turn back would have been counter- productive. Knowing what was to come would just have made it all the more difficult to succeed. Sir Auron understood that, and he knew it was not his place to reveal such things.
Lulu knew that now. She understood his reasons, as heart-rending as they may have been when all was said and done. But back then she had been worried, puzzled by that which she hadn't known, but that he certainly had. But the Lulu she was then was still intelligent enough to know that she would not get a straight answer from him, that it was something best not to concern herself with, much as she may have wanted to. So she did the only thing she could have done. She let it slide and moved on. "It will end when Sin is defeated?"
His tone became weighted once again, pained. "Yes."
"And you would be willing to fight your friend to do so?" She could tell he was hurting inside, that the confrontation with Sir Jecht was inevitable. It was obviously something he was not looking forward to - not that she could blame him for that - but it was a duty his honor and his word would force him to carry out.
"It is the last promise I must fulfill. He wants me to help him end his pain." He turned his gaze towards the horizon once more, and for a second back then, Lulu was sure she had seen a glint of hopeful longing in his eye before he finally finished his answer. "The dead should be allowed to rest."
At the time, Lulu had wondered why he had said that last statement, seeing as how technically Sir Jecht was not dead. She had passed it off for meaning that Sir Auron considered Sir Jecht dead because he was no longer human. He was no longer himself, and therefore ceased being Sir Jecht. He had become Sin.
But only now did it occur to her that he had intended no such thing. He hadn't been referring to Sir Jecht at all. He had been referring to himself. Once he had laid his friend to rest, granting Sir Jecht a release from his pain, his final promise would be fulfilled. He would have no reason to remain in Spira, and he would finally find his own release from the pain. The dead should be allowed to rest. That was the reward they had earned. That was an honor that Sir Auron had earned thrice over.
But back then, what he had said about the dead had made her suddenly recall something he had said earlier, the important piece of information he had been trying to impart that she had been so pre-occupied to take notice of. She had taken note of it then. "Earlier you mentioned that we don't pay attention to what death should teach us. What lesson is it that we do not learn?"
He turned his gaze back on her, a look of regret in his features, sadness in his lone russet orb. His soulful look burned a hole in her heart, pierced her soul. "That life, no matter how cruel and harsh it may be, is something to be cherished." Uncharacteristically, he reached towards her with his gloved right hand, tenderly brushing her bangs away from her face, away from her left eye that normally hid behind the veil of onyx-colored tresses. "That it should not be thrown away callously."
All at once, both in the past and the present, she felt her inhibitions slip away, her desire burning brightly, her heart rising from the ashes. Her hands grabbed hold of his collar tightly, and she pulled him down towards her as she tilted her head up, locking her lips onto his. He did not resist, and she hungrily tasted from him, greedily partook of that which she knew she should not have taken. Yet she couldn't resist, couldn't stop herself, could not force her craving for him to subside. She felt the icy vise around her heart melt from his warmth, felt the darkness within her soul dissipate, and for the first time in forever, she remembered what it felt like to be truly alive. It was truly something to be cherished.
But that was all it could ever be, nothing more than a cherished memory. For just as soon as he was there, his passion radiating in tempo with hers, he just as suddenly was gone, distant and out of reach once more, having broken the contact, shattering the dream they had enveloped themselves in for the second time that evening. That had been when the Lulu of the past had suspected that she had discovered his one regret, though she hadn't been able to make sense of it at the time.
He had left her with two words that meant everything, and yet nothing at the time. But it was two words that would be forever etched on her heart, forever haunting her dreams. Two puzzling words that could have meant anything: "If only," he had said. Then he walked away.
She felt it unfair, cruel of him to walk away from her, leaving her with nothing just after he had given her a taste of life; just when she had found the nerve to act on her desires, to bury her regrets. She now found herself left with only one.
Just as he reached the hatch, she called to him. "You were wrong," she had said. "My heart does still beat." She had seen him stop mid-stride, hesitating, and she could only hope it was because his resolve was wavering. "It beats for you." Even now, it still beat for him.
Lulu shook her head forcefully, sealing her eyes shut, trying to will away the memory of those words she had spoken, the rending of her heart as he had walked through the hatch, leaving her behind on the deck of the airship, alone with her suspicions and Sir Auron's half-truths.
After a difficult struggle to gain control over her emotions once more, she opened her tear-filled eyes, and found herself deposited back in the Farplane, the ghostly image of Sir Auron floating emotionlessly and wordlessly in front of her once again, her memory having run its course.
She had never gotten an answer, had never discovered how he truly felt about her. At the time, she had thought he felt the same for her as she felt for him. But in hindsight, having now discovered the true meaning behind half of his words, she wasn't so sure anymore. She had interpreted his affection for her to mean he loved her. But it wasn't love. It was regret for that which he couldn't cherish in life, what death had denied him.
But still she wanted an answer; felt she needed to know the truth. That was why she was here, that was why she had relived that memory, why she had re-enacted it.
But she had found no answer to her question. So now she resorted to pleading to the lifeless image that hung before her, imploring it to give up one final secret. "Would it have been so terrible to tell me how you felt about me, knowing how I felt for you?"
But there was no response. Of course there wouldn't be. The dead could not talk, could not impart any more information to those in the present. They were of the past, of a world that no longer existed anywhere but in dreams and memories. She would never know the truth. That would be one more secret that Sir Auron had managed to take with him, forever kept hidden up his sleeve.
Yet it suddenly occurred to her that if he could talk to her now, somehow she knew what his answer would have been. He would have said, "Would it have made a difference had you known?"
Sad as it may have been, the truth was that he was correct. It wouldn't have mattered. Had he loved her or not, he knew there was no way around his fate. He was an unsent, and he knew one day he would finally have to give in to his lifeless body's desire for rest and peace. Even if he loved her, he still would have been forced to leave her. He had tried to make it as easy on her as possible. Or perhaps, he had tried to make it as easy as possible for himself. She would never know for sure. Yet she knew that it didn't matter either way.
Because suddenly she understood. Now she knew what he had been telling her the whole time, what that buzzing in the back of her mind had been trying to reveal. It was the reason she had replayed the memory of her final conversation with Sir Auron. She had learned from it, but it changed nothing. Because memories were the only thing that was left of him; and the only things he could now impart to her were things she had already lived through, events that had already happened. He could no longer speak of things he had not already spoken of in the past; because he did not exist in the present, and he had no future.
She, like Auron, had been stuck in the past, consumed by the dead. She had been so consumed by her painful past that she had failed to live for the future. She had become the walking dead, alive and yet not really living. Sir Auron had been the opposite, and that had been what he was trying to tell her. He had been dead, but pretending that he was alive. But the inevitable truth was that at the end of the day, he was still dead, and he had no second chance at life. He regretted having thrown away his own life so callously and wished he could have been given a second chance at it.
She did not share the same fate as he. She was still alive, and still had a chance to live her life, if she chose to exercise that option. She needed to look ahead to the future, and not live in the past. The past held nothing but memories. Just as the Farplane was a place of the past: the house for the dead, a shrine to relics of the past, memories of that which no longer existed. Sir Auron had become part of a world that existed now only as a dream. It was where he belonged.
Lulu now knew what it was she needed to do here, what it was she needed to say, difficult as it may be.
She looked up at the astral image of Sir Auron and brushed her hair away from her face, so she could gaze upon the man she had loved once more with both eyes unobstructed. She swallowed her doubt, and straightened her posture to one of confidence and strength, ironically an imitation of the way Sir Auron had always carried himself in life.
Then she said her piece. "I do not belong here anymore. So this is goodbye, Sir Auron. I will not be coming back here in the future. You will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will love you for the rest of my days and beyond. And maybe one day, when my time has come, I can rejoin you in the Farplane, and we can have that chance that we were denied while you were still here. But for now, I have responsibilities to attend to, promises to keep. and a life to live."
Then she spun on her heels, a great weight lifted from her heart, a burning within her soul, striding confidently and proudly towards the exit as the image of Sir Auron evaporated into a swarm of pyreflies once more.
As she started to descend the steps, leaving the Farplane and the dead it housed behind her, she could have sworn she heard Sir Auron's voice one last time, imparting encouraging words she had never heard him speak while he had been among the living. "My story ended long ago. Yours still has many chapters yet to come. Tell it well."
~ End ~