By Kia
"Kiss me while I'm still alive
Kill me while I kiss the sky
Let me die on my own terms
Let me live and let me learn
Now I'll follow my own way
And I'll live on to another damn day
Freedom carries sacrifice
(Three Doors Down: 'Life of my own')
***
A star in the sky, shining, sparkling, another one and so many more. I know they are there – the nights of Spira are always clear, warm, full of stars. I don't have to see them – their sight got burned forever into my memory, and I can hear them sing. Their shining light is reflecting sound of the hymns, joining it, throwing it back a thousand times stronger, their voices rising and falling like waves on a shore, softly, quietly, endless. They're singing of life, of death. They're singing of eternity. They're singing for me alone.
In my mind the echo is broken and it speaks only of loneliness, and of regret. It's throwing everything at me I ever did wrong, every mistake I ever made. All the words I said that I shouldn't have, all the words I should have said and never did.
There is no wind tonight and the sea is reflecting the stars like a mirror. I know. You can't see into the water, only the blackness of the sky it reflects and the little sparkling lights, dancing on the surface, dancing…
In the darkness of the night the voice speaks of people. People I knew and loved and that loved me or pretended to do so, in a place where those differences don't matter any more and the hand that reaches out for them will only touch my own shadow on the wall.
When I close my eyes I see a woman, my woman, my wife. Sweet, caring, devoted. Devoted to me, and me alone.
When I open my heart I don't know. I don't know if I ever truly loved her, or if all I admired was her admiration for me. I want to believe that I loved her, still love her. I always thought I did, but now, looking back, I can't tell.
It's so hard to lie when the only one to listen is your own heart.
I know, for sure, that she loved me. More than anything, more than she should have, perhaps. And I'm sorry – truly, honestly sorry – that I left her alone for I know it will break her, completely. I did not want to leave, never wanted to see this place and yet I want to say that I wished I had never come here and I can't.
When I cover my ears I hear the crying of a child. My child. The cry-baby.
I don't know weather this thought makes me smile, or cry as well. I can understand. I do.
The truth is that he was my world. I guess I should have told him that but then again I always thought there was so much time left to do so. I could tell him later. Someday. I would do it later. Thinking about it now it wouldn't have been so hard, it seems. You'd think just a few friendly word are easy to be said. Or encouraging, at least. "You did fine, boy!" But the words never left my mouth. They were there, on my tongue all the time, but I swallowed them. They got stuck in my throat and sometimes, when the night is silent and the stars are dancing on the waves I can still feel them there, tasting bitterly of regret.
The stars, I was one of them once, a bright one, so high up in the sky. I tried to live a life without limits and I did, but when I fell the way down was long and the ground hard. I wanted to be the best and I wanted everybody to know that I was.
No consequences. No doubt. No morning after.
It was like a dream. No. It was a dream, and now I'm standing here, in the cold darkness of reality, wishing I would wake up.
The hymns are always stronger at night.
They're ringing back and forth the land but no-one else can hear them and what sense do my apologises have if they only reach my own ear, not my wife's, not my son's, not –
But wasn't that what I always wanted? Only me, no-one else, only me. I alone, and I am alone and it hurts so bad that I want to scream, but who would hear it but me, who –
If I touched the sky now it would break, for sure. It's shards would then fall to earth like the crying splinters of bleeding jewels.
In the starlight the voice speaks of places. It whispers the names, softy, and the memories come, unbidden yet welcome, some of them, not all.
Killika, Luca, Macalania.
Bevelle.
I met them there. In my memory it seems like a dream. Oh, how I despised that city. Oh, how I love what it gave to me.
Love. Yes.
The Moonflow. I never drank again, it's true. I don't know why, if t was because Auron didn't believe in that promise, or because Braska did. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
The truth is that I couldn't stand Auron being angry at me. And I couldn't stand Auron being disappointed in me. If there ever was a person whose opinion mattered to it was Auron. Of all people.
And I told him. I had learned, after all. That you can't do everything later, because sometimes 'later' doesn't exist.
I'm sorry, Tidus, that I learned it too late.
But Auron and Braska, they knew. Time was precious and they used it. Braska used it, at least. He lived his life like everyone should, without regret, and without doubt.
Damn you, Yevon!
Besaid. Small, calm and peaceful. I thought it was the most boring place I'd ever seen. Braska thought it would be a good place or his little daughter to grow up. He asked Auron to bring her there and I did not understand then, why he wouldn't do it himself. Auron promised. I wonder if she's there, now.
When I think of Spira I think of Sunshine, of warmth and a blue sky. When I think of Djose I think of dark night, of starlight, lights dancing on the waves and Braska dancing with them. On the water. I remember the pyreflies circling around him, up to the sky. I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and that I never wanted to see it again.
I did. Often. But it was then, during the very first sending I witnessed, that I finally begun to understand the tragedy of this world.
Places. Guado Salam, the Thunder Plains, the Calm Lands. Gagazet.
Zanakand.
Zanakand.
Not my Zanakand, no. The crumpled remains of a city that had died a thousand years ago, leaving nothing but stone and dust, and ashes. Not the place where my family lived. Not my Zanakand.
Braska's Zanakand.
Did you tremble inside when we stood on the mountain path and you looked down to the showdown of your life? Did take a look over your shoulder and were faced by all your mistakes, all your regrets? Did you, even for one second, wish that you had never come?
You didn't. I know you. Always straight forward, never looking back. You did what you had to do and stayed on your chosen path. You couldn't leave it, could you? Not even when Auron asked you to.
Auron… He loved you, you know.
Not like I loved him. It was different. It wasn't that kind of selfish love. It was like the love Braska held for the whole world, concentrated on one single person. I don't know if there was any love left in his heart for me.
I wish I could ask him.
The night will pass, and another night will follow. Many nights, they will turn to months, to years. The sea is silent, it doesn't sing for me, never, only the stars in their passing glory.
In the cold, endless depths of water the voice speaks of reasons.
It speaks of doubt. I don't want to heat that. I want to believe, I want to believe that it was right.
I could never have made it back. I know it. And yet, I wonder. What if there was a way? What if I had said No? What if.
The darkness is thick here, it catches all your doubts and they scream into your face like sirens. What if.
I told Auron to take care of my boy. I need him to do so. Because I can't and no-one else will. He promised. Auron always keeps him promises. There is a way then. And I could have taken it.
But someone had to do it. And when I imagine Auron, my Auron, in my place all doubts are gone and I regret nothing. Because I know if I hadn't done it, he would.
My heart cries out when I think of him and that cry echoes endlessly through this empty, cold darkness.
Other than me he had known how the journey would end hen he accepted to become Braska's guardian. He had known that his summoner would die so before he agreed he made sure that he could handle it and believed himself as long as he could. But as time passed his summoner became his friend and the closer to Zanakand we got the clearer was the pain in his eyes. At night I could almost hear him thinking, desperately searching for another way when there was none. I often caught myself staring at him, wishing that I could help him but I couldn't even help myself.
When I came to him that night he welcomed me. I was surprised then, but now I think that he only needed something to hold on to while everything he held dear was slipping through his fingers.
It was hope, only hope I saw in his eyes, and joy, when that ghostly woman told Braska that he had to choose one of his guardians to become his Final Aeon. For he knew that Braska would never have asked anyone for such a sacrifice.
So If he got no Final Aeon he would not fight Sin and thus would not die. Simple as that.
Forgive me Auron, for what I had to do.
Because I could not stand the look on Braska's face when he realised that everything had been in vain. And because I knew that he only had to look at you like that to make you do it. I could not, would not have let that happen.
Never.
And, stupid as it may sound now that I know what becoming the Final Aeon truly means, because I thought it was the right thing to do.
It's true what I said. I'm not getting any younger and I like the thought that like this I could do something useful. Help a whole world. I really wanted it then.
To help Braska, to save Auron. To give peace to this world, even if it was just for a short time. Treasure every moment, ne, Auron? Maybe give Braska's daughter a chance to grow up safely, for all the things I owe him. For him having faith in me.
I didn't say goodbye to Auron. Not like I wanted to. I simply didn't dare. And if I had, maybe I wouldn't have found the strength to let go.
I wouldn't. For sure.
Yet this refusal, it haunts me like so many things. Braska… I hope you made it to the Fareplane, at least.
Peace… I can't see it, can't see anything anymore, not like that, but sometimes, in the air, I can taste it, smell it, and the wind the laughter of happy people. It's short lived, they know it and I know it for I will be the one to destroy it, but it is peace, and it was worth it.
It was worth it. I tell this myself, Braska's words, over and over again, and when I'm almost able to believe it there is a little voice in the back of my head, reminding me that I had never told my son that I loved him.
That voice is always louder.
-fin-
July 31, 2003
This is my part of another fanfic-trade I did with my friend Mirri. And I'm sorry. I know this is not exactly what she probably hoped to get, but I really, really did my best. My very best. Even though it may not have been good enough.