Mmmm…so I don't own Final Fantasy X, but I suppose I do own Pavia (at least the name) considering that she's only barely mentioned in the game as a nameless High Priest's daughter.

Thanks for all of the reviews!

"You were always such a stiff,

but that's what I liked about you"

-Jecht

The fireworks and celebration from Bevelle still echoed as Auron climbed Mt. Gagazet at daybreak. He hefted his sword onto his shoulder and looked down from the snowy peak. The sun was slowly warming the mountain, spreading gold and lavender hues across the icy path. In the distant twilight, the lights were shimmering and winking from the largest city in Spira.

Auron snorted in disgust and turned his back to his hometown.

"Hypocrites," he muttered hoarsely. He was certain that none of the revelers had actually expected Braska, of all people, to defeat Sin. As he, Jecht and Braska had journey across Spira, Auron had seen the attention lavished on Braska by the people, and he had also noticed their looks of disdain once Braska had left their presence. No one wanted this husband of an Al Bhed, a heathen, woman to become Spira's greatest hope.

Auron laughed dryly. And now, they were celebrating him as a hero.

Musing to himself, Auron continued to climb the mountain. The sun had finally climbed high enough to shimmer and glare brightly into Auron's eyes, reflecting off of the cold, icy snowscape.

Spira's greatest hope had actually come ten years ago in the form of a half-guado, half-human boy named Seymour. Extraordinarily talented at the young age of eight, Seymour had been lauded as both the greatest summoner of his time, and the symbol of further harmony between the human and guado races. A harmony that his father, the Yevon Maester Jyscal, had started by marrying a human woman for love.

Auron snorted again as his heavy footsteps crunched through a layer of ice that had crusted onto the snow drifts. He remembered hearing about Seymour's pilgrimage during his second year in warrior monks, but he knew that Seymour had never finished it. Instead, both Seymour, and his mother, who had been his guardian, seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Auron had assumed, while he had still been a devout follower of Yevon, that Seymour had succumbed to the difficulty of the pilgrimage and had perished somewhere outside of Zanarkand.

Now, Auron knew better. Being dead himself, he knew that something similar could have happened to Seymour. Auron also couldn't escape the nagging feeling that a boy as talented as Seymour wouldn't have been so easy to kill.

Auron laughed again, and the sound crackled through the ice of Gagazet. He placed one hand on his face, where the giant cleft in his body began. If Seymour had gone up against Yunalesca, he would be in no better shape than Auron was.

The wind, which would have been bitingly cold had he not been dead, whipped at Auron's sleeve as he continued his trudge to the summit. Auron wasn't sure exactly where he was going.

He was certain that if he was to return to any populated area, even a small one like Kilika or Besaid, he would first be celebrated as a hero for helping bring the Calm. However, after the cheers died down, Auron knew that questions would arise, especially from the Yevon clergy.

He now suspected that most of the high-ranking priests, and perhaps even Grand Maester Mika, were aware of the true nature of the Final Summoning. Auron knew that he couldn't take the risk of returning to any city or town with a Temple of Yevon located in it, in case Lady Yunalesca communicated frequently with the Yevon clergy.

Auron coughed and smirked. "It's not as if I was a favorite of Yevon anyway," he said into the bitterly cold, arid air.

After the High Priest Daubrey had offered Pavia to him, Auron had stalled, saying that he needed some time to think it over. He had even used his young age of four and twenty, and her young age of 19, as excuses, knowing full well that in Spira, people were married as young as 14. In a world with Sin, no one ever knew when their time would come, and it was best to live life to the fullest extent before it did.

Pavia and Wen had both begged Auron not to marry her. He pretended to acquiesce to their demands; however he knew, deep down, that he could never have married Pavia even if his best friend hadn't been in love with her. The truth of it was that Auron himself wasn't in love with her, and he wasn't going to rush in to a marriage simply because it would further his career.

When he had repeated those words to Daubrey, the High Priest had become very angry. He had even gone to Maester Hiram, then leader of the warrior monks, to forcibly demote Auron. Hiram had refused, saying that Auron had rightfully earned his rank; however Hiram realized that further promoting Auron would put his own status within the clergy at risk. Instead of demoting him, Hiram decided to give Auron the dead-end, and impossibly boring task of guarding the Mi'hen Highroad.

Guard duty was always a loathsome assignment for any warrior monk; however, the Mi'hen Highroad was, by far, the most dull location to be assigned to. This was because the Highroad was already patrolled by the more than capable Crusaders.

Disillusioned by the politics of the situation, Auron had handed in his resignation to Maester Hiram the next day.

As he reached the gathering of fayth at the summit of Mt. Gagazet, Auron paused. The only sounds were the slow breathing of the fayth.

Auron let out a slow, "Hummph." It echoed through the eerie quiet. He supposed that his resignation had been what Daubrey had wanted all along.