Seriously, I would just about kill to own Final Fantasy X and X-2. Sadly, I do not, so I write fanfiction instead. This story is about four years in the making. I've had parts of it written for ages and am just now getting around to posting anything because I finally feel like it's going to get to a completion point I can be proud of. I hope you enjoy it! Also, I live and thrive on reviews. :p

Carried on a Farplane Winde

Prologue: Hit with Gale Force

I brushed a beaded braid away from my face and took a deep breath, steeling myself to move forward and through the gate before me. Tysh, was this always going to be so hard to do? This place still made me uncomfortable, no matter how many times I'd gone from where I stood now to the other side of the enormous gate. And I had been here a lot since that day four years ago. Fear and uncertainty brought me this time, though other things had influenced my various visits. At times, it was a bit of everything: happiness, boredom…despair. At one point it had even been hope, though the hope I'd had that day was long gone now. Zip! Off into the wild blue! I shoved my hand into my hair, wincing when my fingers caught in the top of one of my braids, pulling hard on my scalp, and took another deep breath. I walked through the stupid gate.

The Farplane. It really did have a scent to it, even if I hadn't realized it until well after that psycho Seymour mentioned the fact in his home so long ago. Actually, I hadn't even noticed it until I'd been coming here for about a month. I'd started just a week on the tail of Sin's defeat. That scent—it was comforting now. It had been the soft musk that rested just beneath his scent, the one I'd sought the night after the battle when I'd crept into his empty room on the airship and cried myself to sleep with my face buried in his pillow. I'd cut up the fabric on that pillow, weaving it into a patchwork of fabrics that I'd used to make my own quilt for the Celsius. One scrap I'd sewn onto the inside of the scarf I wore now, a fact that even Yunie didn't know.

Jeez, when did I get this morbid? Stupid question. I had come to the Farplane today because I didn't know what to do. That had happened before, though my troubles then…well, they hadn't been Gippal. We weren't exactly together and never had been, but there had been times, like shortly after Yunie beat the hell out of Sin, that he'd been sort of a comfort to me. Hell, in that first month, I'd needed him more than I could ever really explain, even if all I got from him was someone to curl up to and pretend when the emptiness threatened to swallow me whole. But Gippal…

He didn't smell like warm earth after a heavy summer rain and the faint doughy scent of sake. No, Gippal smelled like grease and static, as do most Al Bhed when they mess around with machina all the time. I smelled like that most of the time. His arms, well, they were strong, but not as strong as I wanted them to be, and his flamboyant Al Bhed clothes would never replace the heavy red coat I had spent two incredible nights wrapped up in on . It really didn't bother me that I'd been wrapped up in it alone. That comforting scent was there anyway.

So I'd come here to look at him again, talk to the image the pyreflies shot out in front of me and try to riddle out what to do about Gippal's oddly frequent visits to the Celsius or my little home in Kilika. Or maybe, to try and figure out what he'd been asking Pop that one day about three weeks ago when I'd seen him blushing and stammering before my old man while dad just stared. I was pretty sure I knew what he'd asked, because after that little conversation he'd been popping up wherever I was, trying his absolute hardest to smother me with as much attention as he could muster.

I was terrified. I mean, comfort is one thing, but love? The only love I've known was—to my knowledge—very unrequited. Admittedly, I might have let things get a little too far out of hand just after Vegnagun. I was depressed, see. Yunie had Tidus now, miraculously back from being dead or a dream, whichever it was, and Paine was heading off with her boys for another adventure tour 'round Spira the next day. They were happy and me? I was alone. Bad Rikku had way too much bad alcohol. Bad Rikku woke up next to Gippal. Clothes were on the floor. Bad situation escalated to very freaking bad.

Things hadn't been the same since. I guess we might kinda have been dating for a while now, but I really don't want to admit it. We're not exclusive, see (I don't pay attention to the fact that I don't actually have anyone else), but I get the feeling he wants to be. After all, what else would explain Paine's complaints over her CommSphere transmissions that he'd been making them stop at every available jewelry store?

Okay, enough going in circles about the poor state I was in. I walked the perimeter of the Farplane and came to stand facing out over the ledge. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could, first on his coat, and then on that ridiculous collar, and finally on the beautiful bronze eye that I'd only seen once. Tyshat cihkmyccac. I peeked one eye open as I did every time, a sort of tribute to the day we'd met. Then both my eyes shot open in alarm, my eyebrows rising to meet my hairline.

Nothing.

I shook my head frantically, jammed my eyes shut, and brought up my best memories of Keyakku. When I opened them again, there he was, goggles in place and everything. I closed my eyes again, starting to get irritated, and focused once more on the Legendary-Idiot-That-Got-Himself-Fried-By-Yunalesca, but when I opened them there was still nothing. The pyreflies wouldn't even show a faint fading glimpse. I searched through my memories, throwing out every person I'd ever known. They all appeared for me almost the instant I'd so much as thought their name. All but one.

Auron was no longer on the Farplane.

I think I screamed then, falling to my knees. Brother's voice started shouting over the radio and I had no choice but to answer.

"Ed'c yh asankahlo! Caht y saccyka du Yunie yht saad sa uidceta Guadosalam!" I shouted, coming to my feet only to turn and bolt out of the Farplane. If he wasn't on the Farplane, where was he?

The Al Bhed sentences are as follows:

1. Tyshat cihkmyccac.—Damned sunglasses.

2. Ed'c yh asankahlo! Caht y saccyka du Yunie yht saad sa uidceta Guadosalam!—It's an emergency! Send a message to Yunie and meet me outside Guadosalam!