Hey. I know this was supposed to be a different chapter, but when I thought about it, "homecoming" and "Besaid nights" are really a lot alike. So I decided to break them up by writing this chapter and dropping it in. By the way, for anyone who actually follows the music notes, the second song in this chapter is one, well, you might not recognize the name, but you will recognize it when you hear it. It's probably the best known modern jazz piece except for the one in the Peanuts specials on TV.
So. Major spoilers. Disclaimer: FFX still isn't mine. Follows the story, but kind of AU. It's an Aurikku. (Didn't start that way.) This is about characters and a relationship. And it's rated -T-.
Last thing, like last chapter this one is dedicated to Auron's Fan. Hope you enjoy it.
Soldier of Spira
Auron:
Seven years ago...
87 Days
Auron:
I tried to open both eyes before I remembered.
It didn't work. It never does.
I lay still for a minute, looking up at the ceiling and trying to remember a dream...an island, a group of people...but it slipped away. The city outside my open window was still sleeping as I pushed myself up out of bed and onto my feet, and walked into the bathroom. I stood in front of the sink and looked at myself in the mirror.
I was still here. The scar was still there.
I scrubbed my face with cold water, and grabbed the towel from the rack to dry off. There was pad of notepaper mounted on the wall beside it. I put the towel back and looked at the pad. The top page was half full of pencil marks, eighty four of them in groups of five—four marks crossed by one with a few left over.
I picked up a fat pencil from beside the sink and drew a line across the last four.
Eighty five days.
----The City----My Hometown----Bruce Springsteen----
Refrigerators are great things—although I wish someone would think about putting little lights inside them—but they don't do you any good if you never put anything in them. I rummaged for something to eat and then decided to grab something out. I pulled on my old red coat and slung my sword over my shoulder and left the apartment. Not much...a couple of rooms, tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom. But I've lived in worse. Warrior monks don't get luxurious accommodations.
I can still hear the sergeants...
If you wanted four-stars, Chuck, you should have joined the Crusaders.
The sky over the city was just staring to lighten as I hit the mostly empty streets.
Morning in the City of Bridges.
The city has good days and bad days...just like people. There are days that you get up and the city smiles, and you could almost think that it's a sane and normal place to live, just a place where people live their lives and do all the regular things that people do. Those are the days we can all pretend that there aren't really monsters under the bed.
And then there are the bad days.
I stopped on the steps outside and took a deep breath, and smelled...
Possibilities...
Potential...
Well, that's a big frigging help.
The city is full of possibilities. Always has been.
I shook my head a little and turned left. The Al Bhed place on the corner? I've started to like Al Bhed cooking, but not for breakfast. Ramm's? I didn't feel like walking that far.
There's a bar and grill around the corner and up a couple of blocks. They know me there.
I knew I was being followed even before the small redhead fell into step beside me.
"Sir Auron?" she said.
I'm going to strangle Tidus.
My own fault, really. Once when we were talking I admitted that back home people addressed me as Sir Auron. I told him to keep it to himself, but expecting a kid to keep a secret is just expecting too much. It got out and people started calling me Sir Auron, first as a joke, and then...then not so much as a joke.
"Sir Auron?"
"Mirame."
"Feel like answering a few questions, Sir Auron?"
"Guess," I said, speeding up.
Middling-tall, middling pretty, Mirame is a reporter for one of the screamsheets. She doesn't do puff-pieces and she doesn't do openings and dedications. She's a serious investigative reporter who covers the factions. She's been trying to talk to me for years, either for an interview or just background information. I wondered how long she'd been waiting outside my place this time.
"Trade, Sir Auron?" she said, skipping alongside to keep up with me. "I've got something you can use."
"Like?"
"Not here," she said, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me to a stop. "Tonight. Meet me at the Crow Club for a drink."
I didn't much feel like it, but this is the way the game is played in Zanarkand—favor for favor, secret for secret. I nodded agreement and shook her off.
There still weren't many people out. I nodded to a few that I knew, and about a block later I was in front of the Iron Liar Bar and Grill.
Don't ask about the name. I don't know.
"Master Auron!"
"Deetok Lal," I said, turning around. "I've asked you not to call me master."
"Sorry, Sir Auron," the young girl smiled brightly.
Yes, I've definitely decided to strangle Tidus.
Bright white teeth flashed in a dark face. Deetok Lal was five-foot-nothing of smiling energy and determination. I was one of her trainers for a while at the Guard academy not long ago, her and the rest of her class of cadets. I was at a loose end at the time, and the Guards had asked as a favor. Training the eager young cadets brought back memories, good and bad. Deetok Lal was one of my best students.
I don't train the Guard cadets these days.
I don't do much of anything, these days.
"You are well, Deetok Lal?"
Deetok Lal is Feneree, one of the half dozen-odd tribes scattered though Spira. They all have distinctive traits. The Ice People are kind of stocky and round-faced, very strong. The Al Bhed tend toward lean and blond, with green eyes. A few have a genetic quirk that gives them swirled irises. They find that very desirable. I've never seen the attraction, myself.
The Feneree tend to be small and quick, with dark skin, and dark, dark red hair...almost black. They're formal, but friendly and quick to smile.
Cute too.
Shut up, Auron.
"Oh yes, Master Auron," she answered, bouncing a little with nervous energy. "I mean, Sir Auron. I train every day, well, almost every day, and I've learned Haste, and Slow, and my teachers say I'm ready to learn Slowga!"
"Good. And your duties in the Guard? How are you finding them?"
"Very exciting," she said, twirling her steel shod stick in her hands, passing it from one to the other. Her weapon of choice is the three-foot short stick. "Except that Sergeant Cohver is sooooo lazy! He never wants to get out on the street! Just the other day we were supposed to be patrolling and all we did was—"
Cute knees.
Shut up, Auron.
"—and I told him I thought the guy was acting suspicious, and do you know what he said? He said—"
My mind wandered as I idly watched her shaking her head, tapping her foot, tossing her hair, lifting her eyebrows, blowing out her cheeks, pursing her lips, shrugging her shoulders...she did everything but wriggle her ears as she detailed to me the many shortcomings of the training officer they had saddled her with, for no better reason that she could see than to make her life miserable.
If Deetok Lal had one great fault it was impatience.
"—so maybe I should have asked first but it all turned out all right and the people got their dog back and they even thanked me for trying to help, but Sergeant Cohver just looked at me like it was all my fault! And really, if you think about it, he was the one who—"
You try not to have favorites, but it's hard. The bright, eager ones who soak up the lessons and want more...the less gifted but more determined, who try so hard and refuse to give up...the quiet ones that remind you of yourself or your old friends when you were young.
"—likes to just sit around I don't know why he doesn't get a desk job like Sergeant Vash, I mean I know he knows a lot, but what good does it do when all he does—"
I found myself smiling down at the lively young girl, who had wanted so badly to join the Guard to protect people from Bad Things. Her impatience came from her energy and enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can't help but be attractive.
They say the average man thinks about sex every seven seconds. Auron, you're pushing up the average.
Shut up Auron. That's a myth, by the way.
"—he's in there right now, and I can't get him to come out! Right now there could be people in trouble, and it's like he doesn't even care!"
"He cares, Deetok Lal," I told the annoyed young woman. "Why don't you consider this a challenge? See if there's something you can learn from him."
She very politely did not roll her eyes as I stepped inside.
It was always dark and cool inside the Iron Liar. It never changes. It's a good place for people who like to sit, and drink, and hide inside themselves. There weren't many people in this early, but as I approached the bar I saw a large rumpled man sitting on a stool looking out at the street through the dirty frosted-glass window. I settled at the bar near him.
"Sergeant."
"Auron."
The barman Tommy came over and I ordered breakfast. As he moved away, Cohver, still staring out the window, causally asked, "So what have you heard?"
I looked at the back of his head in the mirror behind the bar. This was how Cohver worked. Cohver was one of the City Guard...a Grey. It's a kind of joke. The City Guard are supposed to be neutral, not part of any faction, white, green, or blue. No color, so...grey.
Cohver was one of the best.
"How's the kid," he asked. He meant Tidus.
"Okay. How's yours?"
He snorted. He does it well.
"You see her outside?" he asked.
"She was singing your praises."
"Wants to run me off my feet. Thinks we can stop Evil in its tracks if we just walk faster."
"She's young."
"I can't get her to understand it doesn't work like that."
I nodded. Not always.
You do need people to get out there, show themselves. But Cohver is a different kind of Grey. He knows everyone on the streets, and we all know him. What Deetok Lal doesn't understand is that sitting here in this bar—or in some coffee house, or some bookmaker's parlor—just sitting and listening, listening to what people are saying, passing along words of his own, watching what's going on, Cohver can get more work done in half-a-day's sitting than most Greys could in a month of walking around.
That would never occur to Deetok Lal. Undoubtedly, that was why the Guard had teamed her with Cohver. They wanted her to learn there were other ways of doing things, they wanted to expand her world. But...
"Interesting idea," I said, "Putting the two of you together."
"Pev's idea of a joke."
Guard Commander Pev.
"Don't be so sure. You have a lot to teach her, yes, but maybe he wanted her to teach you something too."
He shifted a little in the dim light and gave me a bland eye.
I turned and looked out the window. You could just make out shapes. A shape we both knew must be her was across the street, talking to another shape...maybe a junkie, or a teenaged whore, or some little street-shark looking for anyone weaker than themselves.
Deetok Lal was on the job.
"She still has the fire," I murmured.
He grunted.
The man's not stupid. He would think about what I said.
The barman came with my order, and I turned to eat. Cohver stayed looking out the window.
"This all used to be Red," he said. "Now it's Green."
I didn't answer. He meant this area belonged to the Red Faction. Back when there was a Red Faction.
The street gang in control of this neighborhood were the Cutters, a Red gang that defected en mass to the Greens about one day after I splashed another Red gang called the Red Balls (don't ask) in another part of the city. Somehow the Red Balls heard that something important was about to get moved and decided that it was their birthday. I don't suppose they knew the shipment was unstabilized dark matter. I guess they somehow got the idea that it was a cache of valuable spheres, but they never should have tried to open that case.
There wasn't enough left of the gang to fill a Dixie cup.
The Cutters decided being Red wasn't healthy, and this area has been Green ever since.
"That little girl," he said, still watching her out of the window, "She's got to learn not everything is the way it seems."
He was sneaking up on something.
"Take you, Auron," he said. "I always thought you were slick. Lots of people think you're dangerous cause you carry that big-ass sword around. But that ain't it."
I spread some butter on a biscuit.
"The thing that really makes you dangerous, Auron, is you got a mind like a snake. Like that thing you pulled with that auction...those kids...that was slick."
He was talking about...
Four years ago I fell to Zanarkand, and I got involved in a war with the Red Faction. They didn't know it was a war. They just thought they were going to kill me. That's what everyone thought.
By the second year of the killing no one thought that anymore. But they still didn't think I could win.
In the third year, the Reds were starting to doubt. That was the year the Red Balls went south, and the Cutters went over to the Greens. The Red Ball territory was on the waterfront, sort of between the Yellows and the Browns. (I guess by the time the Browns got into the act all the cool colors were taken.) With the Red Balls out of it, a turf war blew up between the Yellows and Browns.
That wasn't what I wanted at all.
So I called all of the factions besides Red to a meeting at a place called Nika. Bianca came herself. Back then she was the heir-apparent to the White Faction. The Palo brothers sent an almost-bright nephew to represent the Greens. The Stone Man was there himself for the Browns. They all came. Red tried to crash, but I had something waiting.
You might wonder why the other factions would come like that when I called. It's because they thought if they stayed behind they might just get left out. That was a message I'd been planting subtly for years...that there could be something in this war for them.
It was time to get less subtle.
I don't know what they expected, but what they got was an auction. I was selling off remnants of the Reds to the highest bidder. Going out of business. Everything must go.
The point that I made to them was that I didn't want a new round of turf wars when the Reds went down. And they didn't want that either. The best way to shut off that possibility was to divide everything up right now, ahead of time. They didn't miss the unspoken message...that I expected to win.
I told them they could participate, or leave now and miss out on the windfall.
They stayed, and we divided the remaining Red assets between them, deciding who got what after the funeral.
Like those people who put a colored sticky on the good gravy boat to say That's Mine When Grandma Goes.
Most times, Grandma's okay with it.
The Reds weren't.
You get the point, right? When the other factions bought into the fire sale concept, they also bought a stake in the Reds going down. Everyone benefits. Almost everyone.
Now, here's the thing...here's what Cohver was talking about. At that meeting we split up the Red Faction's turf, and their gang allies, and their areas of influence. What I mean is that the factions specialize somewhat. The Greens control most of the gambling in the city—not all, but most—and the Whites are mostly summoners and mages and have a lot of pull with the city government, and so on. The Reds had the biggest stake in the weapons trade, including a lot of War Ministry people on their payroll. So we decided who got to step in and take their place. We also split up the judges and officials and so on that the Reds had in their pocket. I made a profit at Nika, and a lot of people ended up owing me favors, but I mostly concentrated on keeping everyone happy enough to keep the peace after the fact.
But here's the thing.
Taken as an aggregate, the individuals that made up the Red Faction personally controlled a lot of resources. It's true of all factions.
Here's what I mean.
Take as an example, Jojo Bobbo.
Jojo Bobbo was Red Faction lower-middle-management. He ran a string of street soldiers, and also ran numbers for Sector G. People thought he was a little strange because he had two names, but he was a hard worker and still a young man and in time he would probably run all the gambling in Sector G.
Except that he was on my list.
Now, besides all the trinkets and trash that everyone collects in their life, Jojo also had sixty thousand shares of Troykill Industries stock. That's a very valuable resource. Of course, it was only sixty thousand shares, but like they say, sixty thousand here, sixty thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. And in the case of Troykill, maybe control of the company.
So who gets Jojo's sixty thousand shares when I send him home? Well, in the normal course of things, his wife. Except that his wife's name is right there next to Jojo's on the list. So where does it go when she takes the high jump?
Jojo had a son named...something. About eight years old.
So the question isn't who gets the stock.
The question is who gets the kid.
We split the children of the Red Faction up at the meeting at Nika.
I think that's what really broke the Red Faction. When they heard that we were deciding who would get their kids after they were all dead.
I think that's what brought it home for them like nothing else ever did, that the Red Faction was going away, and there wasn't anything they could do about it.
It was a given.
The Reds stated leaking people. They fell away in dribs and drabs, then in floods, making the best deals they could with other factions. I let them go. At that point I didn't want to kill any given person. I wanted to destroy the faction. Once it started to splinter, there was no way to stop it. The latest leaders offered to negotiate for the first time, but even if I had wanted to, it was too late.
Of course, there are always some who won't give up. I sent a lot of people home that year. And their kids...went wherever.
That's what Cohver was talking about.
I chewed, and swallowed.
"Got something to say, sergeant?"
"Those kids...the ones whose parents got sent south. They're getting older now. The kids are growing up, and they know who it was put their mommies and daddies in the ground."
Yeah.
Hadn't thought of that.
It never really ends, you know.
Monsters under the bed.
Now I have to watch for murderous preteens.
So be it.
It was understood that now I owed him one, middle-sized. I shoved the plate away, left money.
"Poker tonight," he said, still looking out the window, "You interested."
"Your place?"
"Yeah. Paul'll be there. Jixx too."
"Well slap me with a fish," I muttered.
"And call me Shirley," he half-grinned.
"I swear I'm going to kill him one day."
"Back of the line. But wait till after the game...lord, he's bad. That guy Vedec play poker?" he asked.
"Vedec plays bridge."
Cohver snorted again.
"Yeah, I can just see him, swanning it with Bianca and the city councilors and the commissioner and them. You still boinking Bianca?"
I shook my head and slipped off the stool. Cohver is Cohver. You're not going to change him. You aren't and I'm not and neither is his new little partner.
"Take it easy," I said.
"Take it any way I can get it."
I was at the door when he said, "Auron, how long, now?"
I turned and looked back at him, but couldn't read his face in the dim light.
"Eighty five days," I said after a minute.
"Damn."
"Problem?"
"I had eighty two in the pool."
Auron:
I went down to the park and trained for a few hours with some Ngyung Sword Elders who are there every day. I usually practice on the roof of my building, or at the Fighter Guildhall, but sometimes I like to come down here or go the gymnasium at the New University. The Ngyung are another of Spira's minor tribes. The city is nothing if not diverse. The Ngyung religion is the Path of the Sword. They believe that their swords are their souls. Personally, I think that's taking weapons fetishism a little too far, but it does produce some superior fighters.
And sometimes I need to be around people.
Sometimes especially when I don't want to be.
There was a time, a while back, when I started to cut myself off from people. And I found my thoughts starting to drift in...odd directions. I started talking to myself...inside my head. Which I suppose is the best place for it.
Got that right, Auron.
Shut up, Auron.
By the time I decided it might not be such a good idea, I wasn't sure how to get back...how to reach out to anyone.
It was Tidus who saved me then. And—I'm ashamed to admit this—his mother dying. He reached out to me. There was no one else...no one else for him, and no one else for me. And so I let him cling to me.
It didn't last long. A few weeks. But it was enough to start me back. I'm not sure what waits at the end of that road that I was on before, but I don't think it's human.
Of course, I'm not really human anymore.
Am I?
I'm more human than Mika. I guess that's enough for now.
All of which reminded me that I needed to buy some food. Tidus was going to be staying with me this weekend. Cohver had asked me how Tidus was doing. Should I have told him that Tidus was...what?
Dealing with his ghosts.
My vision seemed to waver, and for a moment I was looking at a ruined landscape...fallen buildings, the city's proud bridges collapsed into rubble. Then I blinked, and there were children playing around me, and old people sitting in the sun, and a living city, even if it wasn't quite sane.
We all have ghosts.
I stopped at the market on my way back to my place and picked up some things, and I was putting them away in my tiny kitchen when I remembered...
Another kitchen, in another small apartment, years ago.
About a year after I arrived in the city, while I was still fighting my faction war, I had taken Willa in. Just until I could find her someplace safe to stay. She was about fourteen then, as best she could remember. The first night I sat on the couch and held her while she shivered herself to sleep. She was still asleep when I left the next morning to go the market. There wasn't much in the place, but pleasant food smells met me when I let myself back in, and Willa looked up and gave me a big smile from the kitchen, wearing an apron.
All she was wearing was an apron.
We had a somewhat awkward conversation as I explained why this couldn't happen...yes, I knew how she'd been earning a living on the streets, but she was just too young. And she didn't have to do that here. She nodded. I thought she understood.
I spent the day meditating and training while she puttered around the place.
That night she crawled into my bed.
I slept in the bathtub, with the door locked.
I tried to explain to her that this was something that just wasn't going to happen, that I cared about her and wanted her to stay, but that she was just too young for anything else. It would be wrong.
She slept on the couch after that, and didn't try to get into bed with me. She cooked for us, and picked up around the place. We talked together.
By the end of the week she had moved back out.
I still see her sometimes...out on the streets.
I still remember sometimes, when I'm putting things away in the kitchen.
We all have ghosts.
I meditated until evening.
Auron:
----The Crow Club----Take Five----The Dave Brubeck Quartet----
It was early evening when I got to the Crow Club. The doorman and the hostess both looked at me with some unease, but both knew better than to try to stop me going in. I could sense her mixed feelings as I walked by the hostess. It made her nervous that I was here, but it would help the club's reputation as the place to go and be seen.
The Crow Club is...not a theme club, exactly, but it is heavily atmospheric. Everyone is supposed to dress in black and white.
No red coats welcome.
Tough.
A jazz band was playing as I settled at the bar. I was about to ask the bartender if Mirame was in, when a hand landed on my arm.
"Hey, Sir Auron, you're a little early."
"Let's sit."
She was wearing a dress for the first time since I'd met her, and her hair was up. She...cleaned up good. I had an idea that she didn't bother to dress up often. We found a quiet table with a good view of the place. A waiter came over saying, "Sir, this table is reserved tonight—"
"What would you like?" I asked the reporter, cutting him off.
She ordered wine, and I ordered nog, and the waiter went away someplace. Mirame was looking at the couples on the dance floor.
"Do you want to dance?" she asked, turning to me with a shy smile. It looked odd on her face, like it didn't quite know how it had gotten there.
"No. What do you have for me?"
"Hmp. You need to work on your social skills, Sir Auron."
"Yes. What do you have for me?"
But the waiter was back with our drinks already. She took a sip of wine. I left my nog untouched. Mirame was scanning the room, toting up the clientele.
"Some movers and shakers are in tonight," she said. "There's Delina Albok, dancing with Councilman Khine. I hear she's looking for husband number three. And Gevvy is sitting up front, from the Blues."
She was right. There were some powerful people here. Those three and a double-handful of others. Gevvy is high up in the Blues. We've dealt before. He's married, but not to the woman he's with tonight. Khine is an up-and-comer on the council—rich, good family, good looking. Delina was the oldest Albok daughter, almost twenty eight.
Troykill Industries was the largest arms manufacturer in the city. It was a publicly held company, immensely influential, especially with the Armed Forces. Most of the factions and the most important families had someone on the board of directors. Control of the company shifted. I've done some work for Troykill. There are a handful of smaller companies in the same business, but the only one of note is Albok Arms. It's not as big as Troykill, but it's privately held, entirely owned by the Albok family. Troykill concentrated mainly on physical weapons systems...firearms, missiles, defender robots and so forth. Albok Arms specialized in magical weaponry. It's a big clan, but the family at the center includes three daughters. All wild, the stories say. Delina's been married twice, widowed twice. She could be measuring Khine for a wedding suit.
They say her weddings are to die for.
This is the city. Movers and shakers and people keeping track and significant looks and shifting alliances and subtle power plays and favors exchanged and sharp smiles and sharp daggers slipping into someone's back before they even notice there's anyone behind them.
Evening in the City of Bridges.
"Sure you don't want to dance?"
What is it with women and dancing?
"No. What do you have for me?"
She sighed theatrically, brought out her bag and rummaged inside. I watched her pull out a sphere.
"Here," she said. "You take it, and watch it, and decide what it's worth. You know what I want."
I did. She wanted details about the war with the Red Faction. I bounced the sphere a little in my hand, and discretely inhaled.
The smell of hot copper, the taste of blood in my mouth.
This thing was death.
What was recorded here? Or maybe it was the sphere itself that I smelled—booby-trapped, perhaps? My eye flickered back to Mirame. She was looking out at the dance floor again, and around the room.
"I'll give it a look," I said, standing up. "I have someplace to be."
"Well, that isn't very gallant," she said with a raised eyebrow and a smile up at me.
I almost said something clever and cutting, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just turned and walked out. Heads turned and people watched me leaving.
At least I stiffed her with the bill.
It was a cool night, and I stopped to take a deep breath as I stepped outside. There was a breeze off the water. I started walking. I would grab a taxi eventually, but for now I felt like walking.
I didn't want to think, but...something was bothering me. Some thought was gnawing at me. I slowed to a stop, and stood as people walked around me, glancing at me.
Something had happened. Something...
What...?
I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out Mirame's globe. I inhaled...
I whirled around and sprinted heavily back the way I came, colliding with people, bouncing off them but not letting them slow me down.
I charged up the steps, past the doorman and the hostess, racing back to the table. She wasn't there. I slowed, looked around, everyone was looking back at me. There she was, on the dance floor with Khine, staring at me. I opened my mouth to tell them all to Get The Hell Out...
Charging out of nowhere, crunching into my side, I twist, ribs snapping, pyreflies putting me back together unnoticed, I whip around, my sword in my hand, people are running, screaming...
The dual horn rears up, tries to crush me, I dance away, the edge of my sword scoring along its side. It pulls back fast, too fast for something that big, turns and throws itself at the crowd, I leap in its path...
It smashes into me and something inside me breaks and I cough blood and come up swinging from the soles of my feet, putting everything I have into it, slashing deep and hard, and it cries out like it's human and backs away...
I'm attacking now, cutting it up, cutting it open, sword flashing again and again and pyreflies are drifting up all around me and I pound my blade into the floor a few more times before I realize that it's gone...
I hurt, but the preflies are doing their job, quietly putting me back together, and I do mine, looking around.
Mirame is there, shocked and wide-eyed, one of the ones who didn't run. And close behind her, another who stayed, but now his eyes go wide and he turns and runs and I'm after him, brushing her aside. I grab a bottle of something from a table that's still standing and I throw and he goes down, rolls to his back, his hands are moving, sparks between his fingers, and my sword is at his throat...
A punk, breathing hard and staring up at me through the hair in his face.
He shouldn't have run...I'd never have noticed him.
"I don't want to kill you," I said. "And you don't want to die. There's a convergence."
His fingers twitched.
Do young people ever believe that they can really die...that it could ever really happen to them?
"Don't try it..." I said.
Believe, I thought. I willed the thought down my arm, down the blade straight at him. I desperately wanted him to believe that this world will really keep going without him, keep right on going when he's just meat on a slab.
It was true, I didn't want to kill him.
I got a belly-full in the Red Faction war.
"Auron...?"
Mirame, hesitantly from behind me. His eyes flicked to her over my shoulder.
It never occurred to me.
When I was outside, and I took a deep breath of the cool air...I never got a glimmer of the hot copper smell. I had assumed inside that the smell was coming off the sphere, and the violence was aimed at me.
It never occurred to me that it was something inside, and aimed at her.
Maybe it was something he saw in her face that convinced him.
All three of us knew I really didn't want to kill him.
But all three of us knew that I would.
He believed.
Auron:
"What do I do now?" she asked a little shakily.
She was really holding up pretty well. Wilting flowers don't make a living poking their unwanted noses into faction business.
"Go with the Greys," I said. "They'll keep you safe until we figure out what's going on."
I held the punk until the Greys showed up, warned them that he was some sort of summoner and get him stuffed into a suppression cell. Told them to self-insert when they wanted to drag me down to give statements all night.
"I'll ask around," I told her as she was getting ready to go with them, "I'll look at the sphere, see what I can see."
"Um...yeah," she said, looking down. I think she wanted to say something, but didn't want to at the same time.
I get that a lot.
In the end she didn't say anything, just thanked me again and went with the Greys.
Auron:
I woke up the next morning, and tried to open both eyes before I remembered.
I don't know why I'm doing that so much lately.
Maybe it'll work one day.
I got up and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and brush my teeth.
Toothpaste. Wonderful stuff.
I checked myself in the mirror.
I'm still here.
Scar's still there.
I looked at the pad hanging next to the sink.
I picked up the pencil and drew a mark.
Eighty six days.
I made breakfast, cleaned a little, watered the flowers. They don't need much care. When I fell to Zanarkand four years ago, I found some seeds caught up in my coat, and managed to get them to grow. They're white and blue and small and they remind me of home.
I'm going back, you know.
I have a plan.
I did okay at the poker game. I usually do okay. I won a bit, taking it about evenly from Jixx and a White Faction summoner named Heron. They had all heard about the happenings at the Crow Club, but no one asked. You don't talk shop at Cohver's poker games. They did ask about Tidus. Families are fair game.
What could I say? I said he was fine. Crazy about blitzball.
And that's good.
It hit Tidus hard when his mother died three years ago. He went to stay with his aunt and uncle, his mother's sister and her husband. I was in the middle of my war with the Red Faction, and there was no way he could stay with me.
Salli's sister had always hated Jecht, and so had her husband. They hated him when he was here, and they hated him when he was gone. Salli's sister thought that marrying him had ruined Salli's life, and they both thought that Jecht's drinking was making Salli and Tidus miserable, and they resented that he seemed to ignore Tidus.
And then Jecht was gone, and then Salli was gone, and who could they blame?
They resented Tidus.
They didn't do anything, or really say anything. It was never overt, but he knew. He didn't understand. They hated his father, and so did he. He didn't understand how that somehow meant they resented him, because he was his father's son.
Just by being there, he reminded them of Jecht.
And there was no one else to resent.
And then he started getting more and more obsessed with blitzball, and that just reminded them of his father even more.
I've never cared for the game, but...
His mom and dad gone, living with an aunt and uncle who wished he was somewhere else, no real friends because they were only interested in who his father had been...Tidus hadn't turned to drugs or sex or any of the other things kids do when the world isn't what they need it to be. He turned to blitzball, and for that I will always give thanks.
He was staying over with me on weekends more often now, sleeping on the couch. Tidus and I had never really gotten along very well, but then after his mother died I somehow obtained the status of Not Quite As Bad As Other Adults. Now we were talking about him staying the summer with me.
We'll see.
I decided to spend a couple of hours meditating, then go out for lunch, and spend the afternoon training over at the Fighter Guildhall. I was thinking it might be time to find Tidus a trainer. I'd talk it over with some people there. With his speed it's obvious that he should be a light fighter.
Speed kills.
I locked the door behind me. I don't know why I bother. Only Tidus, Willa, and a few others can even find my place. Anyone else who tries gets badly confused and tends to wander off. It's something the Dreamer Fayth worked up.
Nice, but I still don't trust them.
I think I'll go to the Al Bhed place.
When I got there, Cohver was established at a table, and Deetok Lal was squirming with frustrated impatience next to him.
"Auron."
"Sir Auron!"
"Sergeant...Deetok Lal."
"Siddown, son. Join us."
I sat, and ordered when the waitress came over.
"Sir Auron! I heard what happened last night! They say you beat up six fiends! Was it the Guado? Was it the Yellows?"
The Yellows have some Guado mages working for them (who do not look good in yellow by the way) and I'm not surprised the rumor mill has them involved.
"I don't think it was the Yellows, Deetok Lal, and there weren't six fiends, there was only one, although it was powerful and dangerous."
"We should go over there, the three of us! Or if the sergeant wants to stay we could—"
"Kid, drink your tea. Auron, you know you'll have to go give a statement eventually. Sooner you go, the more useful Chavek will find it."
Deetok Lal subsided, fuming.
"Chavek got the case?" I asked.
"You know how it works," he said. "We'll all pitch in, but it's his baby."
"He find anything yet?"
"Couple of things."
"Like?"
"Like, witnesses say you got a sphere from the girl before it all started."
Hm. Yeah. I'd looked at that sphere.
"Nothing much there."
I expected his skepticism, but not hers. But it was true. I had looked at the sphere last night, and again this morning. There were some interesting things, but nothing to write home about. Nothing worth trying to murder anyone. And I knew I wasn't missing anything, because I just couldn't smell anything that dangerous about the sphere.
"Seriously," I told them. "There's a couple of useful things, but nothing more than you could hear sitting right at this table all morning, Cohver."
"But then why—" Deetok Lal started before Cohver cut her off, "That's what Chavek said the girl said. So then, what's it all about?"
"As far as the girl goes," I answered, "My best guess is that it wasn't about me at all. Think about it. She and I are seen together at the Crow Club, she's seen passing me a sphere, and she probably planned on people seeing us leaving together."
"Why—?" she started again.
"He thinks the reporter was using him, girl," Cohver answered her. "Someone sees them together and gets nervous. She was trying to get someone to put the dots together wrong."
"I think she almost told me last night before they took her away. But she didn't. Maybe she was embarrassed, maybe she thought there might be more on the sphere than she knew. But I'm pretty sure she was using me to push someone else."
"So where does that leave us?" Deetok Lal asked.
"The sphere was irrelevant. Someone was after her for some other reason. What else did she tell Chavek?"
I got a Cohver patented Bland Smile.
"I'm sure Chavek would be pleased to discuss that and other things of mutual interest at your earliest convenience."
Deetok Lal covered her mouth to smother giggles.
My food came then, and I started to eat while Cohver launched into one of his long tales from the far-away days when he was a common foot-patrolman. The side of my mouth quirked up as Deetok Lal banged her head on the table and he dismissed her outside with a flick of his hand. She bounced up smiling and headed outside eager to defend the sidewalk in front of the restaurant from all evildoers.
"I was never that young," Cohver sighed heavily.
He might be right. Some people are born middle-aged.
"It wasn't like this when I was a kid," he said, watching the passing people through the window. "All this weird crap we see these days...murdered fayth...water that talks back to us. Seems like it just gets worse every year. Hell, maybe I'm just getting old and sour."
"Five miles uphill..." I said around a mouthful of food. "Both ways."
"Yeah. In the snow."
Yeah.
He isn't wrong though. It has been getting worse.
The city's been going insane for...let's see, I got here...for about four years now.
I pushed my plate away. Suddenly I didn't feel like eating. I felt sour, and all the taste was gone. And it smelled like...
It smelled like...
I pushed myself up and away from the table. I turned around slowly, scanning the dining room.
"Auron?"
I was walking toward the door.
"Auron?"
Hot copper.
I opened the door and stepped out...the smell of hot copper...people passing by...I look around...I'm looking for...
People passing, looking, yelling, running...trying to get out of the way...a sword coming at me...too many people in the way...I see her slash at some woman and a stick covered in steel knocks her blade aside...
My world goes cold and clear as ice and I see Deetok Lal and the girl circling each other, arms blurring...they're cutting and smashing and blocking and flailing...the unknown girl is better than the young Grey...hold her, hold her for four seconds...
Three seconds...
People are getting out of the way, running, scrabbling on their hands and knees, the two girls are hacking at each other...Deetok Lal is bleeding...
Two seconds...almost there...
One second and I'm there and I can pull her down from behind and we can take her alive...and the girl cuts Deetok Lal's hand, and her stick slips from her fingers...and the girl comes around in a wild, wicked slice at Lal...and...
And...
Life is made of choices.
If you hesitate too long, if you can't decide, you lose your chance, and all your decisions are made for you.
I cut off the girl's arms, and then her head.
This time I went with them to give a statement. In the days that followed, the Greys would learn that these two—the girl today and the boy last night—were part of a...a club, I guess. They were from all different factions, but their parents had all been Reds. The girl had been fifteen.
Sergeant Cohver was right. The children of the meeting at Nika were growing up. They had sworn vengeance. They had been after me both times.
Deetok Lal told me that in those last seconds I had shouted her name...Lal. Just Lal. I never called her that before. Mirame came out of hiding, and wrote the story for her paper, adding to my legend. The other children were gathered, and the Greys took them down into the basement of the justice building, and had them look at the body for a long time. They learned that this wasn't a game. I addressed them after, and told them that when they came of age, any of them could challenge me formally. There was no great danger from them as assassins now that I knew. I would keep an eye on them, and so would the Greys, and the factions, and the Dreamer Fayth.
And all of this, all of the killing and the entire war with the Red Faction...it all started because on the day that I fell to Zanarkand someone tried to kill me because I was wearing red.
Sometimes...I hate people.
Auron:
I woke up the next morning and tried to open both eyes before I remembered.
Didn't work.
I pushed myself up out of bed and went into the bathroom. I stood in front of the sink and looked at myself in the mirror
Still here...still there.
I turned the tap and scrubbed my face with cold water. I looked down into the sink. There was...there were faint traces of red, here and there. Blood on my hands. I didn't get it all when I finally washed up last night.
I grabbed the towel off the rack and dried off. When I put the red-stained towel back, I looked at the pad of paper mounted next to it.
It was covered with pencil marks...groups of four, crossed by one.
Five marks...and five more...and five more...and five...and five, and five, and five and five and five and five and five and five and five and five and five...and five...and five...
...and one...
Eighty six marks.
Today would have been...
I reached up and tore off the top sheet of paper.
I killed someone yesterday.
But maybe I won't today.
And maybe I won't tomorrow.
I picked up the pencil from beside the sink, and drew a mark on the clean blank page.
One day.
-----End Credits----Better Days----Goo Goo Dolls----
Next: Besaid Nights
