Chapter 16
All those years ago, when I first met Jecht, I'd felt so superior standing outside the cell that contained him. After all, I was the kind of person that would never see the inside of one of those cells, right? I was a guardian to Summoner Braska, a man of faith and standing in Yevon's heirarchy, Jecht a mere ruffian and a drunk. Wrong. Bevelle always has plenty of space in her dungeons for criminals, but also the political enemies of the Maesters and your good old-fashioned heretics. I wonder which they fancied me. At this point, probably both a rebel against the Maesters' authority and a heretic. What other possible reason could exist to lock me up in preparation for Yuna's wedding?
My jailers had chained me, arms spread wide, to the rear wall of a semi-private cell. The cool draft of the early evening breeze played down from the narrow, barred street level window, bothering the bare skin of my upper body. The taste of dried day-old blood still lingered in my mouth. The warrior monks had seized me almost immediately after entering the city. I'd never claimed to be good at infiltration, but I never really appreciated how easily I was recognized either. Was the "legendary guardian" label always going to be such a hinderance?
Rikku could have slipped into the city unnoticed, she was good at this type of thing, but she was also back on the airship. If I had known my decision to take Cid's wrath completely on myself was going to land me here, I would have approached that meeting differently. Not that Cid had planned my capture. If possible, the man had even less love for Yevon than I. Pondering the situation wasn't helping, the truth of the matter was I was useless to Yuna in this state.
As if to punctuate that thought, the cell door opened to admit a lithe, graceful female form in the elaborate robes of a high priestess of Yevon. The cut of the garment emphasized everything feminine about its wearer, every stitch and fold meticulously placed for maximum effect. An intoxicating perfume, reminiscent of my own youth, wafted from the exposed skin of her wrists and neck. If there was a perfect woman...she would have been it.
She carried herself with the grace and confidence of a being that tolerated no failure, no refusal. Indeed, she'd always gotten everything she ever desired...save one thing. Me. Not long before I'd been assigned as Braska's guardian, I'd turned down this woman, Legasa's, marriage proposal. Not a thing had changed about this woman. She was still as addicted to power, beauty and worldly pleasure as she'd been when I last saw her. Her father's position had passed to her, and no doubt she'd come to taunt me with what might have been mine had I made the "right" decision all those years ago.
When she proposed, she told me unabashedly, "I have a weakness for pretty things, Auron...I collect them. You will take your place in that collection, or it will be your downfall." She'd had no need to veil her intentions behind flowery words. Her father's power would see to it that she was satisfied, by possessing her prize, or by destroying it if she could not have it. I never once regretted my decision to turn her down. I could not have brought myself to live as her caged pet, comfortable though that life might have been.
Legasa walked toward me, her feet making only the barest sound on the floor. One small, perfect hand placed itself underneath my chin and lifted my head, forcing me to look at her. She considered me carefully and shook her head slowly.
"Auron...It's good to see you again, though I wish we could have been reunited under better circumstances." Sarcasm dripped from her honeyed voice.
I didn't answer her. Her hand gripped me roughly by the chin and rotated my head a bit to the left, and then to the right. I didn't resist. "The years have not been kind to you, I see." She paused to emphasize the clear differences between us. Legasa seemed not to have aged a day. "A pity...you were such a dashing young warrior monk. Those eyes..."
Her hand released my chin. I knew what was to come next. She reached toward the right side of my face and her fingertips traced the path of my scar. I forced myself to weather her touch without giving her the satisfaction of wincing beneath those hateful fingers. I'm not sure how she interpretted my lack of reaction, but she repeated the gesture. Please, stop touching me!
"You should have married me, Auron. This never would have happened. You would have been spared the suffering of the last ten years." Her voice was gentle, enticing, and reprimanding, all at once.
I could not allow this to go on any longer. "I have no regrets about my decision, Legasa. It set me free in a way you could never understand. There is more to the world than baubles and tea parties," I said coldly.
She withdrew her hand from my face, and her coutenance formed into a mask of feigned shock. "You still possess a voice! I was beginning to wonder, Auron, if you'd lost that as well."
"I still have those things that are most important to me."
Legasa smiled sadly. "Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night? You cling to your dead Summoner and your 'duty to defeat Sin' because that's all you've got left. You could have been somebody, Auron. You could have changed the world in a meaningful way at my side." Her words showed more insight than I'd ever attributed to her although the fundamental self-centeredness of her thought process and worldview had not changed.
She had struck closer to home than she could have ever guessed. I struggled to maintain control over myself, tried not to relive the sequence of events that had driven me back to take my revenge on Yunalesca. I really had failed to do what I'd wanted most. I stood by and allowed Jecht and Braska to die for naught! There was no way Legasa could have known this, but her words didn't hurt any less for it. I hated myself for my failures and I hated her for making me relive them. But I still did not regret refusing the priestess.
Her voice became soft, almost a whisper. "I loved you once, Auron. But the creature you are now..." She shook her head.
"No, you lusted after me, and I, you. But there was never any love between us. The difference is, I outgrew it. You never did."
Anger flashed across her features and she backhanded me across the face, her sharp nails opening a series of parallel cuts on my cheek. "How dare you! You should have taken what I offered you, Auron. That face...no woman will so much as look at you now, much less offer you love and acceptance the way I did."
Her words did hurt, despite the fact that I knew they were not true. Rikku loved me, Rikku wasn't shallow in the same way this woman was, I told myself. Legasa's barb made me second-guess myself, though. Why did Rikku love me? What did she see in me?
"Did you come here merely to torment me? Or did you have some other use in mind for me?" Hints of my own feelings showed through in my words, try as I might to prevent it. I knew it immediately for a mistake on my part. Legasa's skill in manipulating people was the only facet of her that had grown since I last saw her.
She played upon the response she'd gotten from me. "Hideous though you may be, Auron, you still have your uses. I will order your release from this place if you agree to help me further our common goal."
I ignored the insult this time. "And, what exactly is that goal?"
Legasa walked as far off to my right as the cell would allow, making me twist uncomfortably to maintain her in my field of vision. "I'm not fond of the path the Maesters are leading us down. I desire...more influence among the Yevon clergy, the Summoners, and the people. That means eliminating a certain powerful person and soon, before he causes any more trouble."
It irked me to admit that our common enemy took precedence over our personal history. But, if allying myself briefly with Legasa could achieve both the Sending of Seymour and Yuna's freedom, it was worth enduring. I knew to whom she referred without naming him,. "I have some...unfinished business with that person as well. Tell me what you have in mind..."
Her smirk and quick reply caught me off guard. "Marry me."
I regarded her with total disbelief. "That discussion ended years ago, Legasa."
She shook her head. "You've never had much of a sense of humor, Auron. Some things never change..."
Legasa reached into a hidden fold in her robe and withdrew a ring of keys. "This is an issue better discussed in a more...private location. You never know who reports to whom in a place like this." She gestured in the direction of a warrior monk making his rounds of the block.
She waited until the monk passed my cell and unlocked the chains that held my arms and legs in place. The skin beneath the unpadded metal bands was chafed and raw, bleeding in some places. To my surprise, she took one of my arms and placed it across her shoulders and behind her head, attempting to lend me some support. Bevelle had never been known to be humane in the treatment of its prisoners. At least I hadn't been tortured. My blood inevitably smeared all over the shoulders of her pristine robe, but she didn't seem to care.
Legasa directed me to a disused corner of the prison level and triggered a door hidden in the wall. So...she had invested the time to learn all of Bevelle's secret passages and trap doors. She must have been planning this move for quite a while, but then, that was like her. If high ranking members of the Yevon clergy weren't involved somehow in the battle with Sin, they usually spent most of their time jockeying for power among themselves, or forming tenative alliances to shore up the influence of the priesthood as a whole.
She led me up a narrow, winding flight of stairs and we finally exited into a wider hallway. My feet dragged a bit on the thick, luxurious carpeting that lined the corridor. Legasa forced me forward. "We're almost there," she whispered.
We stopped in front of an elaborately inlaid door, which the high priestess opened with another key on the keyring she'd used to free me earlier. These must be her personal quarters. Looking around, I took note of the lavish decorations and expensive trinkets that adorned every available surface. There was not a bare patch of wall in sight - they were covered with either paintings or tapestries everywhere I looked. The priestess helped me over to her bed, a construction of ornately carved wooden posts, no doubt with the softest mattress her underlings could procure, covered by only the finest in lace and linens.
"How will you explain my absence when they count the prisoners this evening?" I asked as she gestured for me to lay down. I did so, hesitantly. Legasa disappeared into an obscenely large closet, emerging with an armful of linen bandages, canisters of various salves, and several potions.
Setting down her materials, she responded. "Officially, I'm interrogating you on the location and plans of your comrades. With all the attention being given the wedding preparations, it should be enough to keep them distracted. Very few people have the audacity to question my actions...and I have a bit of a reputation for being good at extracting information from prisoners."
I held myself perfectly still as she cleaned and tended the wounds opened by the shackles. The creams and salves she applied helped to dull the pain somewhat, and it felt good to have clean bandages over the raw flesh. Why was she doing this? The same reason she does everything, I realized. Legasa only expended effort on someone or something when she expected to get a much greater return.
She mixed a couple of potions into a cup and held it out to me. "Drink this." Dare I trust her? Did I really have a choice?
I took the proffered cup and downed the foul-smelling contents. Legasa sat down beside me on the bed. "I'll have one of my more loyal servants bring your belongings. We must be ready to act when the moment comes."
I raised one eyebrow. "It would help if I knew the plans..."
She smiled confidently and raised one hand to my face to brush back some of the strands of my disheveled hair. "In time, Auron..."
"You're the one who remarked how little time we have to prepare..." I heard my words slur slightly, and a feeling of lightheadedness began to overtake me. She must have drugged me.
Legasa stretched out next to me. "We have a bit of time, certainly enough to get a good night's rest first." Her hand caressed my cheek. "You know, Auron, I never really got over you."
It took a lot of effort to shake my head slightly. Everything appeared to be happening in a fog. "Legasa...no, there is someone else." I struggled to pull her hand away from my face and return it to her side. I didn't hear her response, and what she did next, I was unable to recall. I didn't fall asleep for quite some time, although I was sure that I lay there helpless to defend myself against whatever she decided to do to me. Would she try to claim what had eluded her all those years ago? Forgive me, Rikku...