003 retelling legends
"When this is all over, I will leave. I have played at life too long."
--Auron, FFX
She brings it up by accident to Lulu one day while they are sitting outside her house on Besaid, Lulu mending a hole in one of Vidina's jumpers. It is odd to see Lulu in such a domestic setting, but her long fingers seem perfectly suited to the in and out swooping motion of sewing, moving rhythmically and beautifully. Rikku doesn't even realize she has spoken until Lulu's hands stop dead, and her pretty amethyst eyes are confused.
"Sir Auron, come back from the dead? He wasn't a faythling, Rikku. He was Sent by Yuna, at his request. Why would you want to bring him back?"
Rikku tries to cry sewing hypnosis as an excuse for insanity and throw her off the trail, but Lu won't buy it.
"The only one of you entitled to any kind of reward after that pilgrimage was Yuna," Paine says tiredly across the table in the cabin of the Celsius, "and she's gotten it."
Rikku sets her jaw firmly and narrows her eyes. She loves Yunie and all, and doesn't begrudge her anything, but she's tired of waiting on the sidelines and watching her cousin get handed happy endings.
It is Wakka, finally, who shows her the pointlessness of her waiting, in the ghosts of his old prejudices. And he's right, of course—the fayth aren't about to do an Al Bhed any favors.
So for a while, she moves to Bevelle, sleeping in a tiny apartment, unbraiding her hair into wavelets and putting on respectable clothes, and going into the temple every day. But no matter how many times she leaves flowers at the feet of Lady Yocun, or polishes Lord Ohalland's statue, each sunrise the horizon is empty.
She should have known better than to pray to dead gods anyway.
No matter how many times she explains it to him, her father does not understand why she cares so much about the dead monk who never promised her anything outright. Her pops never has been one to know about the unspoken anything, especially promises. To him, it must be written in stone to be true, while for Rikku the world is made up of the shifting of sand in the breeze, always a what if or a maybe.
She finds she wants something solid, sometimes, and she can't find anything that can replace the constancy and safety provided her by a man who was neither constant nor safe.
The irony delights her.
Gippal sends her flowers while she is in Bikanel helping rebuild Home. They're beautiful, a riot of color, orange waxy lilies, velvety purple irises, stately pink orchids and big red roses dripping petals onto her dresser when she comes in from a seven hour dig shift.
She feels very guilty as she pushes them into the trash can.
Because Gippal is her friend, and in a world without Auron, it might have worked out, but she can't give him false hope.
She finally decides to take things into her own hands, all at once, one afternoon while she is at Djose with the Machine Faction. One minute she is ratcheting a bolt into place; the next, she is catapulting forward into the gaping hole left by the fayth, her tiny body crashing through the boards they nailed over it like a cannonball through flesh, and she is tumbling into the darkness toward the Farplane for the second time. Only this time, it's personal.
The Al Bhed she leaves behind exchange confused glances for a moment, and when the shift captain says that maybe Cid shouldn't be informed of this just yet, he is met with a unanimous series of nods.
When the fayth finally appear to her after what feels like hours of waiting (and as always it is Bahamut who comes, his tiny form shrouded in purple and gold, eternal child, spokesman of the dead) there is silence for a moment, and then Rikku speaks.
"I polished Lord Ohalland six times in a row one day. And I threw away the most beautiful flowers, and my pops is gonna kill me for this stunt. So give me Auron."
At this last she extends her hand like a child and makes a grabbing motion, and she could have sworn Bahamut chuckled before he spoke.
"We offered. He does not wish to return to Spira."
And her sudden flash of anger and confusion causes tall dark and sinister himself to materialize in a flash of pyreflies, looking put out that he can be commanded so easily, and Rikku wants to slap him but she knows her hand will go right through anyway so she settles for glaring through her newly- born tears.
"You were the one who once said that memories were nice, but that's all." He growls at her during a pause in her tirade. The dead watch, silently, unable to help their fascination with the display of life before them, all tan legs and beaded braids. They have gathered in droves to watch her rage.
"I never meant you." she responds, starting to cry again, and a sigh, soft as a whisper, ripples through the dead.
"I am tired, Rikku." He says finally, and the sorrow and exasperation in his voice finally call to her attention just how selfish she's being.
He leans forward to kiss her goodbye, solid for a moment amid all the vapor (she secretly promises to go leave presents at Bahamut's old fayth in thanks for that little trick) and she keeps her mouth open against his and holds her breath even though he has none.
He disappears in a burst of pyreflies, and she starts the long walk back up to Spira alone, strapping her targe to her wrist and firmly telling herself not to look back.
They pick her up in the Calm Lands, sitting cross legged outside the entrance to the Lost Temple, her hands and face stained with the fiendblood she spilled fighting her way back out.
As the Celsius opens up to her the first ones she sees are Yuna and Tidus, standing at the top of the gangplank. She passes them wordlessly, averting her eyes, because she can't help but hate them just a little.
Gippal sends flowers again, simple this time, long branches of cherry blossoms. They are accompanied by a note this time, asking her to dinner.
She does not throw them away, but it's hard to admire them through the tears.