Here With Me
Couple: Auron/Rikku
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X or Dido.
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"Oh, I am what I am
And I'll do what I want
And I can't hide
And I won't go.
I won't sleep.
And I can't breathe.
Until you're resting here with me."
-'Here With Me' Dido
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She lay, timeless, emotionless against the torrents of information that buzzed amongst her brain like flies amongst a watermelon, thirsting away and annoying her. It was high summer and her birthday had just pass days ago.
She was a meager twenty something child when she had started looking up into the sky at the Moon Flow around the week of her birthday. Giving a tribute there as it was to a man no one seemed to remember.
To anyone she spoke to, mentioned the name to, they seemed to give her a blank stare as if she was crazy, talking about nothing more than a legend in the archives of the now reborn Spira. Who was she to tell them that he was not a legend but a man? One that she remembered easily as he was still a vivid and bright presence even in his undead life.
Tasting the sweet peach drippings, the woman licked her lips lazily, sweeping the liquid with a pink tongue into her sighing mouth. Her eyes were unfocused as she lay lazily at the side of the Moon Flow in a hammock in the back of her home.
Swinging side to side, reaching neither side of the balance entirely for a moment, the woman glanced over to a noisy child, crying in the background, in a playpen nearby. Getting up, the woman wrested back a few long strands of golden blonde hair, eyes resting upon the childish form of her cousin's daughter, Wren.
Wren was only two years old and very dependant upon her mother since Tidus practically lived in Luca for half the year. Yuna tried her best to go back and forth with Wren to see Tidus in his blitzball matches, but sometimes, she had to leave Wren with Rikku to go into Luca and stay with Tidus.
Rikku didn't protest much. She never did, not to Yuna anyway. She knew better than to try to argue with her set minded cousin. The Al Bhed princess had left her home in the sands, knowing her father was rebuilding it with the help of her brother, heading the operation in Sanubia. She had decided to live in his favorite place, rosy in her reminiscing of who he was the ghost, the legend of a man, and a man of the legend.
She had decided shortly after her heart broke with Gippal, the engineer at Djose Temple to move away from her people. She had needed the break and so had Yuna and Wren. Eventually, Wren and Yuna lived nearby part time of the year with her here. She hadn't known the real reason why she had decided to stay but she knew it would have to be because it was his favorite place.
"The Moon Flow." He was a bit ahead of her, red coat moving in the breeze of nothing, eye focused on the world in front of him. They were walking to Zanarkand, at the fool's path of ruin already, everyone already so far ahead of them.
"What?" Those words were random coming from him as he glanced back at her with that one eye, an eye of hopelessness, resolve, and death. Many could say that his eye was brown, dark as the dirt she walked on in fertile ground, however for her that was never the case. That eye spoke of many things, but it was never the color of plain dirt. It shimmered with the colors of the pryeflies, dancing into the darkness of his pupil.
"You asked me at Rin's place, in the Thunder Plains, what my favorite place in all of Spira was. I never answered. It's always been the Moon Flow." She stared at him, watching his fingers grasp towards his stubble, subtly pulling the high collar down to show his visage, which in all was a rare sight for the blond indeed.
"Why?" He seemed to slightly grin, taking note of her curious stare at him. His eye smiled, twinkling with the lights of the farplane that she saw. Rikku had been gifted with the sight years ago and had gotten used to hiding the ability even from herself. Everyone had their secrets.
"My grandfather lived at the wharf and when I was younger I lived with him until I decided to go to Bevelle. Then I visited when I could. Summer was the best time to go." Amazed, Rikku gaped in awe. That was a speech for him. Giving her a kind hearted look over, the man in red began walking towards the front of the group again. After a moment or so, his gloved hand holding the hilt of the re-strengthened shimmering blade, he looked back. "Are you coming?"
The memory was brief as she heard another cry, breaking the short reverie. Getting up, walking over to the play pen that housed the angry and probably hungry two year old Wren. The child was adorable with her mother's soft lockes of brown and her father's bright stormy eyes and smile. Most of all, the child was anything but demure. She was a spoiled little thing.
"Oh, what's the matter? Are you hungry?" The child cried even more towards the woman. Her blue eyes blustered in rage as she held out an injured arm in the air. She was a down right spoiled crybaby and took after Tidus in almost all of that respect. Rikku sighed as she took in the sunny and lazy afternoon then glanced at her younger family's injury.
"It's not that bad. You got what you deserved for tinkering around in the power box. This force field is hard for a two year old to try and pick her way out." Rikku scolded the child, shaking her finger at the angry visage. The toddler frowned as tears marked the ways of her cheeks.
"I'm going to tell Mommy on you." It seemed like the biggest threat a child that age could make. Rikku frowned in thought as she heard the doorbell ring out loud. Turning to the sliding plasma door of her home, the twenty-three something blonde began to move to the sound to only glance back before she went in. She was going to get the last word in no matter how childish it sounded.
"I knew your mother and father well before you were born, Wren Syd." The child gave her the most shocked look that was possible for her youthful age. With that, Rikku walked through her home, past the guest bedroom that never housed anyone, past the green and yellow kitchenette, the black, red, and gold bedroom, and the blue and pale pink sitting area to the fore way, where a few pairs of boots lay in wait.
Giving her attention to the door, she saw that it was Yuna, smiling with that shy smile of hers, the one that perceived her gentleness at all times.
"I came to get Wren."
"She's out back." With that simple explanation, Yuna trekked her way through the lonely home, to the outside yard where a shocked child lay in wait. Rikku smiled as she overheard Wren telling her mother what happened in those last few moments. Hearing Yuna's laughter only added to the pleased feeling that the Al Bhed woman received from utterly leaving the brat speechless.
Rikku really didn't hate her bratty niece. She just wished the child wasn't dumped on her most of the time though she could bet that her friends in Besaid, the other two guardians who had children of their own, had the same complaints, especially since they had children to take care of as well.
"Here are her toys. I'll see you later, Yuna. Bye bye Wren Syd!" Giving a bag that was conveniently placed by the waiting boots; she gave out her goodbyes to her family, efficiently shutting her door as much as she was barring herself away from them. They could drive her nuts at times but she loved her family.
Too bad she didn't have one of her own.
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It was night when she awoke from the hammock after having given her cousin the child back. The lights danced around her, as if she were back in the sphere that Seymour had shown Yuna when she was on the pilgrimage in Guadosalam. The lights danced in merriment with the moon lilies as search lights for the stars.
It was beautiful and something that she had been privy to every year around this time.
It was her tribute to a man who had become a legend, a broken man of death and despair, a man who had loved perhaps, but she was not too sure. She was never sure of that man, except for one thing.
'He was right when he said that summer was the best time to be here.' She had learned that, but there was so much more to have known from him. An experienced being who she could never realize was so much more than the titles that were given to him at any one time during his life and unlife.
Closing her eyes once more, the woman curled up into herself as the tears began once. She couldn't help herself at times. She always cried whenever she really began to wonder upon her life and the end of his.
He had a name and it was Auron.
All of his words impacted her, expected nothing of her, and yet most of lessons she taught others and herself by now. Without anyone by her, she felt lonely, unneeded. She didn't work, didn't play. Her hobby was mechanics and electronics, but little else. She practiced her fighting style, but she had no one.
Gippal had left her with a smile telling her of what he had when he left. His future had been bright while her glory blazed no more. She was just Cid's daughter now and no longer the heir to the leadership of the Al Bhed. Brother had taken it up with her father's leading.
To Yunie and Tidus and the others she was nothing more than a babysitter and bright eyed friend that could be counted on to write many times a year, telling of her not very exciting life.
In fact, she never wrote how she was in all of her letters. She spoke of her people but never of her.
No one noticed or cared to.
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It was the middle of the night now. Surprisingly, she was warm in the colder summer night. The Moon Flow nights were always as cold as Mt. Gagazet, sometimes even cooler. In the summers it felt as if it were the wind from the autumnish Calm Lands. But she knew in the winter it was tough to live here.
Blinking, as she found herself to be waking, the warmth shifted with her, lying down still as she sat up. Turning, more so in surprise and a bit of fear and apprehension, Rikku could barely make out the form of a being lying beside her on the hammock. The moon lilies lit up very little with their pryefly candles.
They illuminated red and gold and black.
"W-Who are y-you!" Rikku's squawk awoke the trespasser on her hammock, sharing the space with his own body. She could tell it was obviously male. Rikku still had great deduction skills. He raised himself as well as he could upon arms so strong that Rikku's seemed to tremble in comparison. Okay maybe he wasn't that big but this was Rikku and she was going to exaggerate!
No words passed between them for there was no need. He was a phantom, wasn't he? His fingers, though they faintly touched her face as if she was a piece of glass to be coveted, weren't really touching her, were they? They couldn't!
There was the far plane staring straight back at her in two russet brown oculars, colored with the myriad pryeflies in his gaze. It seemed as if his eyes lit up with her touch, as they seemed to shine slightly brighter. He was slightly younger than she remembered him.
But the most disconcerting thing, so far, was that he had not said one word. His collar was not on him and neither were the sunglasses or that large jug, the one she had more than once tried to taste. He seemed to have gotten over the fact that her face was once coveted and firmly placed both hands on the sides of her face, his own hovering above her, hunger and fear in its place.
His black hair was not tied back, sweeping his shoulders as he stared at her eyes, the never ending spirals of the green wrecked plains. He had no idea how he ended up here. All the wishful thinking in the world could not have gotten to him this bad that he was now in the far plane drinking her in, watching in awe as he felt her skin for what seemed like ages from a long sleep.
He tried to voice such to her, but the words just wouldn't come out, nothing rubbed against the vocal cords of his youth. Was this a new life for him? Secretly, the man knew it wasn't a new life, just a glimpse.
"Is it really you?" Her hands reached to his face, holding onto those sharply defined edges without the feel of stubble. It was soft, a bit rough in some areas, but mostly soft to the touch. Her eyes sparkled with such an emotion that she began crying for all she was worth.
There was no reason for this delusional dream. Auron was not here, not even a legend could really come back from the dead……..but he had twice. This really could not be the one man she celebrated for a week, not the one man she promised to never hide from.
As the tears coursed down her face, the once legendary man, with both eyes opened, sadly realized why he was sent to come. Reaching over, his forehead rested against hers. He wanted to reassure her, but he could feel his own reserves breaking. He really didn't have the same fortitude he had years ago when he was unsent, when he could brush her pain away from him.
"I……I'm sorry….." He shook his head against hers, gently, nuzzling her petite nose, then diving down to the depths of the world she embodied in her voice. Rikku's eyes widened as he tasted her with his pink tongue, his body revolving into a physical form. As she deepened the forbidden trespassing, he broke away.
He had to say it. The fayth demanded it of him to speak as he felt himself beginning to ebb into the Moon Flow and the essence of a far plane.
"Your wish…..Do you want it? Don't regret your answer." He raised his fingers to wipe away her tears as he talked, harshly low tone, vibrating throughout her being. What had she wished for?
"What do you want after the pilgrimage, Aurie?" He paused in his steps, turning to look over his cowl at the young Al Bhed princess, unsure what to answer. He supposed he could tell her the truth even if it meant that she would not understand until it was too late. He enjoyed their talks, or rather more of her talks and his listening.
She always brought something new to the table in a manner that surprised Auron and even most of the others at times.
"I want……..to rest. " He smiled at the type of rest she thought he would talk about after all, she didn't know as of yet and he preferred to protect her innocence until then. If he could leave her untainted then he would be able to leave without regrets. The one thing he would miss though would be her out of everyone. Don't get him wrong, he would miss everyone yet she never called for him to love her, never called for him to be there because he was and he did. "What are you going to do?"
"I want a family of my own. I want to be able to see the world too and have adventure, but I want kids of my own. Sadly, it can't happen." Her usually bright demeanor dampened a little as she remembered the incident when she was a little younger than she was already. He stood there unsure if he wanted to tread these unknown waters.
Without knowing it himself, he took the leap of faith and decided that he could understand, after all someone who's unsent couldn't have more problems than that.
"Why?" For the first time, Rikku smiled sincerely in kindness and a sort of thanking him. No one ever wanted to know why she couldn't have children. They just assumed she couldn't because it was a deformity in her genetic coding or something. Which was completely untrue.
"Some illness when I got sick once. Completely destroyed my uterus. I can't have my kids but no worries! Tidus and Yuna are going to give me a lot of nieces and nephew." Dancing up and down, Rikku led past him with that sad smile, not sad by much any more.
"Do you want it granted?" Those eyes burrowed into her, hypnotizing as she readied her unsteady heart in her hands to be handed to the slaughter of the fayth. Would she really be given this chance to bear life from her womb?
Would they be Auron's children as well? Would they look like him, act like him?
"Will they be yours as well?" The answer came unbidden to his mind, images of children, triplets, running along the Moon Flow, laughing and smiling, wanting their mother to come over. They resembled him and yet didn't, a strange mix of legendary guardian and Al Bhedine princess.
Returning to the present, he nodded, her hands feeling the nod quite softly against her fingertips. Looking into those eyes, ignoring all those voices of what would be proper and what would not, ignoring her father and Brother, and everyone else; Rikku came up with her answer. This was her last chance the fayth could give her.
She would take it. Carpe Diem.
"Then yes." He was slightly surprised that she didn't take long to wonder about what would happen, what those consequences might entail. But then again, the once legendary guardian had long since loved that part of her just as he could love every single one of those mannerisms of hers. A boon companion who needed his protection as well as his summoner had.
"Why?" His voice whispered as he felt the pull to finish the story he was told to finish by the higher powers that be. His eyes lowered to her lips in hunger and a taste of the sweet sunshine she held in her heart, the beating guitar strumming to a tune that bellowed to the skies in earnest.
"Some one needs to know the real story of a man named Auron besides me and the others." In all of his unlife and life, no one besides maybe Braska had ever spoken such strong words that could break a man in two without a weapon. Placing a quick kiss, a quick grab for the steal, he paced himself back, his visage snapping to her eyes, a gentle smile, one rarely seen, if ever, spread across his visage.
He had one last message before he was to fulfill her in more ways than just wishful thinking.
"Thank you. Come. See." She didn't answer as her lips were taken by the brazen fool beside her. He lifted her up, out of the hammock, fingers grasping and holding her as close as possibly able. They were melding to each other, shifting from Al Bhed to Yevon in a dance possibly fit for no one but them.
One was neither Rikku nor Auron in the entirety, just patches of each other as the Moon Flow finally had the moon show itself on this once frigid night. The light of the moon rose to shine upon the pryeflies from the moon lilies and then came to rest upon the welding essences of a legend and a fact.
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"MOM! Fnah won't stop picking on Nas!" A girl around the age of eight ran towards her mother, furious and scared for her runtish sister, Nas. Her mother, in particular, looked towards the four children, well three children and one preteen. Wren or Fnah as her brood tended to call her, picked on Rem, the smallest of her triplets, with her dark hair and bright green eyes.
Syd, Cot in Al Bhed, was angry at Fnah, but she really couldn't do anything since the child was easily able to defeat her in any sort of combat. Taking in some of her blonde hair and wrapping a few tendrils around her fingers, she glanced worrisome to her otherwise much disinterested mother.
"Yinuh femm dyga lyna uv ed mega ymfyoc. Ev ra tuach'd drah kad du lnylgehk uh ouin pyddma cgemmc un ouin pmedwpymm. Fnah lyh nacbald oui ev oui payd ran un ev ran sudran dammc ran du." Rikku sighed as she heard the distinct sound of a blade slapping a certain crybaby Wren's thigh. For some reason or another, Wren felt she always had to prove herself when it came down to Rikku's children, especially to Auron or Yinuh, as she preferred calling him.
Rikku knew it was a silly girl crush that Wren had for Yinuh, but it didn't mean that she had to so mean to her daughters, who, unlike Fnah, were more into feminine things such as magic studies and thieving skills. Getting up to face the crying Wren, sobbing Rem, an angry and sullen Auron, and the mothering gaze of delicate Syd, fit more to magic than mechanics.
As the wind blew past, Rikku felt a strange presence for the first time in many years and smiled. He was right that the Moon Flow was beautiful this time of year. What he forgot to ever mention was that he had stayed on there, within the essence of the life all around them.
'Yeah, I know. Always here with me.'
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WHOOOT! I finally wrote a decent Aurikku. It's a one shot that came up randomly while I was watching the Family Stone with my mother. I really hope you liked it! I really hope Auron wasn't ooc but this is my first actual fiction done on this pair that I've fully done. So let's hope for the best.
Translations:
Yinuh-Auron
Nas-Rem
Cot-Syd
Fnah-Wren
Yinuh femm dyga lyna uv ed mega ymfyoc. Ev ra tuach'd drah kad du lnylgehk uh ouin pyddma cgemmc un ouin pmedwpymm. Fnah lyh nacbald oui ev oui payd ran un ev ran sudran dammc ran du.- Auron will take care of it like always. If he doesn't then get to cracking on your battle skills or your blitzball. Wren can respect you if you beat her or if her mother tells her to.
READ AND REVIEW! LOVES TO ALL WHO DO!