Hello! Thanks for the reviews everybody! In this chapter the mountain is conquered and the hunt for Sin continues—that is, they rest up a bit, do some more talking, and decide on what course to follow. I promise that next chapter will have some more action and less talk. Oh, and…any suggestions on where they fight Sin?

6.

Ifrit had been too annoyed to even greet when Braska had come outside, and his profuse excuses and apologies the Aeon had received with a superior snort, and when Braska released the bond, it disappeared without its usual bark.

He only just calmed down again, Braska thought to himself. I can't ask him to do such a thing again. He would refuse anyway. He sighed. Jecht was snoring softly beside him; Auron was quiet, but it was the quiet of deep sleep, and Braska's was the only conscious presence in the tent. At least he had gotten a bit warmer with the heat lamp and the food and the warmth of their three bodies, but his legs were soaked and small puddles gleamed on the floor where snow had molten. What I wouldn't give for a Luca sphere right here…He leaned against the solid mass of the memorial stone, smiling despite his discomfort. The day in Luca—or rather days in Luca—had been amusing and frustrating, with Jecht playing Blitzball and Auron bored out of his mind, but most of all it had been old-fashionably pleasant. Whenever Jecht came out of the stadium for a quick drink or something to eat, Auron and he bantered about everything they could think of, but nevertheless the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable, and when they had dinner that evening with the complete Al Bhed Psyches team, it was as if Sin did not exist, and the whole of Spira was happy and content.

"This may be the last time you played Blitz," Braska said to Jecht, when the team was gone and the three of them were the only ones left.

"I know."

"Does that make you feel sorry?"

"Sorry? After today's game?" Jecht grinned. Then he took a sip of wine and shrugged. "Of course I feel sorry, but…ya know, Blitz'd stopped to be a challenge a long time ago. I mean, I love to do it, and I'm still good at it too, even after all the shit I've been doing. But…I got the Pilgrimage now. And without that little runt standing out there at the edge of the dome…well, somehow the game doesn't seem so interesting anymore."

"I'm sure Auron will find your boy," Braska whispered, suddenly painfully reminded of his own child—but Yuna he could see, whenever he wanted. If only in the one sphere he brought with him. Yuna, Ditto, even a few seconds of Auron when he was a child, practicing with one of his friends at the temple.

"Of course I will, even if I don't know how." a voice interrupted his ponderings, and when he looked up from his clasped hands he noticed Auron observing him from where he lay. "I promised, didn't I?" He pushed himself to his knees and was silent for a while, listening. "I don't hear anything. How long have I slept?"

"A few hours, maybe two or three. It must be night."

"I don't hear anything at the moment. The storm must have lessened." Careful not to wake Jecht, who lay sprawled out on his blanket and took up more than half of the space, he stood up and began to unzip the opening. "I'll go outside and check."

"Be careful." Auron laughed softly.

"I do not think there will be any fiends about, my Lord. I will be back in a few minutes." He pushed the flap open, letting in a gust of icy but fresh air, and disappeared into the darkness.

"Huh?" Jecht muttered ineloquently, and bolted straight up. "Whuzzat?"

"That, my friend, is called fresh air," Braska said with a smile. "A welcome entity, I might add."

"It's cold." Jecht complained, and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. "Auron went out and check?"

"Yes. I think…" But at that moment Auron thrust his head inside already, and grinned widely.

"We should pack immediately. The storm is over for the time being, and the moon shines like the sun. It's beautiful outside. Not a fiend in sight. If this weather keeps up, we'll reach the Ronso village in less than three days." His Summoner nodded, and he poked Jecht in the side. "So move it, Zanarkand man! Get your stuff together. We leave in ten minutes."

            A few minutes later Braska had stuffed all his belongings back into his backpack, Jecht had bound all the blankets together and Auron had shaken all of the snow off the tent, and was now rolling it up. He was right: it was beautiful outside. As far as the eye could see there was the whiteness of the snow, rendered faintly bluish in the pale moon light. Blue and white and black where the only colours one could see; all other colours were sucked away and replaced with greys and blues and whites. Even Auron's vivid coat looked grey now, and Braska looked a scaled wraith in his black-red robes.

"You're right. It is beautiful," Braska echoed Jecht's thoughts. "Almost unbelievable that the storm was raging only a few hours ago." He wriggled his fingers in their leather gloves. "It is not even cold. We should be able to make great progress tonight."

"As long as it lasts," Jecht said gloomily, but the Summoner laughed at him.

"I know the air. I've lived in the desert for three years, Jecht, and I know whether we can expect storm or not. And tonight's air is as smooth and empty as…as…"

"His head," Auron provided, as he fastened the roll on his back. "We won't have any more snow tonight. Let's go."

As Braska had hoped, they came a long way that night. A soft breeze blew in their back and helped them forward as they ascended the mountains, which enabled them to move on with hardly any rest. They only paused, briefly, to eat something, and to drink some warming potion. After that, they walked until sunrise, without meeting a single fiend. Even though Braska said he could walk on for another hour at least, both Auron and Jecht then deemed it time to rest again, so they put up the tent again and took turns in standing guard.

Afternoon found them still without seeing any fiends, but with a steadily darkening sky.

"There's another monster storm coming up," Jecht predicted, when Auron crept out of the tent and handed him a cup of tea. "Air's black as pitch. We should either move on quickly or tuck in safely." Auron looked up, the dimple between his eyebrows deepening.

"Yes," he agreed. "I'll wake Braska. The first few days of the Storming Season can still be a bit wavery, but if it starts for real we won't have any more days like this." He ducked back into the tent, and some time later they were on the road again.

            They passed the zenith, and were going down when a sudden gust of wind from the peak literally blew them to the ground and sent them rolling through the snow.

"Whoa!" Jecht screamed when he came to a stop against a rock. "What the hell was that?" Next to him, Auron was pulling Braska out of a snow hill.

"The Season is rising! Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Are those camp fires, or is it the village already?" Braska peered into the distance, eyes almost squeezed shut, and said, "I think it's the village." He started as a flash of lightning lit the black sky like fire, then cowered a little when the thunder followed. "Damn! It's really starting. We need to get down as soon as possible."

"Isn't it dangerous to…"

"No more dangerous than crossing the Thunder Planes." Auron grinned. "Although you must have unpleasant memories of the Planes." He brushed the snow out of the high collar of his armour and wrung his dripping pony tail. The thunder growled again; it grew to a continuous rumble in the distance, but he ignored it, and led the other two men down as fast as he could. "As long as the thunder and the lightning are still separate, I don't think we'll be in any danger. We'll just have to keep our footing. Just follow…aah!" Jecht reacted just in time to grip his arm and keep him from falling into a ravine as the wind slammed into him.

"Right. We'll follow, and I'll make sure you won't fall."

"Perfect cooperation," Braska murmured with mock-emotion, before tottering dangerously and grasping Jecht's shoulders for support. "Whoo! Let us move on!"

"Right. Jecht, you can let go now."

The only fiend they met was a confused and panicked elemental, which they dispatched off in a few seconds, but nevertheless they were all trembling on their legs when they finally reached the Ronso Village a day later. The wind had acutely fastened their way down, blowing down the slopes so hard they hardly had to walk. But this speed had taken its toll, and Summoner and Guardians alike all but collapsed on the doorstep of the Inn.

*

"There is something threatening," Jecht mused aloud later, when they were all warm and dry in their room, drinking tea in front of the hearth, "about a dozen or so Ronso watching you from up high while you're lying on the ground. Especially when they make that funny noise in their throat."

"Hm. I always misjudge the sharpness of their claws as well," Auron agreed, rubbing a red stripe on his bare arm, "They could have been a little more careful when they helped me up—or retracted their nails."

"You are most ungrateful," Braska chided with a smile. "Be glad they did not lick you in fond welcome." The Guardian snorted, and buried his face in his mug. Their faces and hands were all bright red, from the whipping wind as much as from the heat of the bath, the fire and the steam of the tea, and their half-dried hair stood in static clouds around their heads. They looked, Jecht observed, like a couple of Al Bhed fugitives. He would have loved to go and get a cask of sake right now, but the shop was on the other side of the village and he did not feel like going outside again—not until he was as hot as he could get and the wind had stopped raging. Luckily Auron still had some brandy left in his flask, and to every mug of tea he added a healthy dollop of alcohol. It tasted horrible—lovely, in comparison to the Ether—but it warmed them pleasantly from the inside as well. Together with a generous meal and a soft bed, Jecht thought this situation came close to being heaven.

Braska excused himself right after dinner, saying he was too tired to keep his eyes open, and the Guardians wished him good night, remaining by the fire themselves.

"This is nice," Jecht said, breaking the silence a few minutes later. "I'm finally warm, I'm tired, but pleasantly tired, I'm well-fed, clean, and very close to getting drunk, but not quite yet." Auron nodded. A strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he combed it away with a lazy movement of his hand. Just as in the Dome, he suddenly looked younger; not vulnerable, just a little less serious and responsible.

"We can relax for a while now," he drawled contentedly. "Unless Braska buys more mint wine we'll need to stay here for some days to rest—and I'll be damned if I drink any more of that stuff."

"It did do you a world of good."

"Ha. It almost killed me. Did wonders for you game-play though."

"You really thought so?" Auron nodded.

"O yes, definitely. You almost moved like a young man again." He ducked as Jecht made a swipe at his ear, and grinned. "You should have heard that woman sitting next to me. "Ooh, who's that tall, lean man playing with the Psyches? He looks ancient, but he swims as fast as my Anda!"

"No! She didn't!"

"Sssh, you'll wake Braska!"

"She didn't!" Jecht hissed, even redder than before.

"Yes, she did." Jecht buried his face in his hands.

"I'm not ancient!"

"Hmph."

"I'm not ancient!"

"If you say so. How old are you, anyway? You never told me."

"You never asked. I don't know your age either."

"I am twenty-four."

"Really?" Auron frowned.

"Yes? Why?"

"I thought you were much younger."

"Jecht!" The man smiled, and poured more brandy into his mug, without adding tea this time.

"Just kiddin'."

"And?"

"And what?"

"How old are you?" He emptied the mug, and refilled it. Auron followed his example, but did mix it with tea.

"I am forty-two."

"That old?" Jecht arched an eyebrow, suspecting another verbal attack.

"Yes, that old. Why so?" Auron hid his mouth behind the top of his cup.

"You do not behave like a man of forty-two." Jecht sighed.

"I knew you'd say such a thing."

"Of course you did. You behave like a sixteen-year-old, you can expect me to say such a thing." He took a few swallows, found the tea pot empty, shrugged and refilled his mug with brandy. "Anyway. It doesn't matter. I don't think you'll age anymore, not now you're a fayth."

"I don't feel like a fayth."

"You still are one." He looked up from his cup, gazed at the other man with the same openness in his eyes as when he had ventured that maybe Jecht's Zanarkand was the same as Spira's Zanarkand, and said, "and Lord Braska is of the opinion that you're a very good fayth. A better one than I'd ever be." Jecht cleared his throat.

"Braska said so?" Auron nodded, and drank away his sudden embarrassment. By now the cask had gone from half-full to almost empty, and his eyes were beginning to glass over. He hunched his shoulders, as if the absence of his armour rendered him unprotected, even here at the table, and in the opening of his shirt the scar on his chest gleamed pinkly in the light.

"Auron?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you just marry that priest's daughter and start a family?" Now where did that come from? Auron seemed almost as surprised as Jecht felt himself, but instead of telling him to mind his own business he looked into the flames and shrugged.

"I did not love her." It was a short reply, and a sufficient one, so Jecht did not expect him to go on, but after a few second he did nevertheless. "She was a nice girl—pretty too, and I liked talking to her. But she…" He frowned. "I think she was in love with me. I don't want to flatter myself, but I think she was. She was, is, also four years younger than I am, and her head was filled with dreams. She hung around me whenever I was free, and I…" He gave a sort of helpless smile. "She deserved someone who loved her, not someone like me, who only used her. At the time, I wasn't so sure about becoming a warrior monk anymore; Lord Braska had come back, and the first Summoners were beginning to make themselves ready for the next Pilgrimage. I may sound like an idiot, but somehow I liked being with Braska, playing with Yuna, much better than dating a girl I did not love and kissing up to her father." His hair fell back over his face, and he unconsciously pushed it back, gripping it between his fingers as he spoke. So that's why he wears it in a pony tail. He's one of those guys who plays with it if it hangs loose, Jecht thought involuntarily.

"Didn't you tell her? And was that why you were kicked out of the Warrior Monks?"

"Something like that. I'd been hesitating a long time—maybe too long. Ennalone was already talking about marriage when I finally found the courage to tell her that I did not love her." Jecht winced. A scene made all the more lifelike by the alcohol he had consumed played out in front of his heavy-lidded eyes. Auron and a blonde-haired young woman in beautiful garments.

Auron: I need to tell you something, Ennalone.

Ennalone: Have you finally decided when we will hold the marriage, my love?

Auron: I don't love you. Good bye.

Ennalone: But…eyes brimming with tears Auron…my love?

He shook his head to clear away the images and asked how the girl had reacted. Once more he expected Auron to draw back, but he was surprised again. The Guardian's mouth curved up in a wry smile.

"She was furious. She'd already been searching for a dress to wear at the wedding."

"Poor thing."

"Yes. She almost made me change my mind, but I had made my decision, and I truly did not love her. So…"

"So?"

"So she ran to the man who had guarding duty that evening—she always had a Guardian with her when she was outside her rooms; a man chosen from the Warrior Monks or the elder acolytes—and told him I'd raped her."

"What!?" Auron nodded, and pressed his finger to his lips.

"Ssh. You'll wake Braska."

"That little bitch!" The other shrugged.

"It was the act of a spited girl. Kinoc, the man who'd been her Guardian that evening, backed my statement that I hadn't touched her, and in the end I wasn't even court-martialled. It never leaked out of the temple, and she drew back her complaint." He sighed, looked at his mug, then at the bottle, but decided against having another glass. "It did ruin all chances of promotion, though. For many men." And now he grinned, a malicious, nasty grin. "Ennalone was fed up with men, and decided that she needed at least a few years to prepare for a new possible wedding. Kadol and Muzzu actually shed tears over that."

"And they kicked you out?"

"Something like that. I wasn't actually thrown out at all, you see, but…let's say that my carrier had stopped at that point, with no chances of rising any higher at all."

"So you quit." Auron furrowed his brow.

"No, I did not. I remained a Warrior Monk until Braska told me that he was going to go on his Pilgrimage. At that moment I left the Temple and became a Guardian.

But enough of me. I've just laid my soul bare to you, now it's your turn. Tell me of your greatest fears and embarrassments."

"No, thank you."

"Then tell me your story." Jecht blinked. Auron had said that more often: tell me your story. Or: make your own story.

"What do you mean?" Auron shrugged.

"That part of your life that is important to you. The decisions that made you what you are now." And when the man remained silent, "At least tell me the name of your wife then. If I want to find her after we've beaten Sin, I need to know her name, and what she looks like."

"Lynn."

"Lynn?" Jecht rested his chin on his fists.

"Lynn. Her name's Lynn." He traced the edge of his mug with one callused finger. "She's very small, a full head and shoulders shorter than I am, with straight, reddish-brown hair and grey eyes. Freckled. Her face…she has a face that always smiles, ya know? I used to tease her that she'd become a wrinkled old hag before she was thirty because she was always laughing —but even though she has crow's feet in the corners of her eyes, you can see they're made by smiling so much, and…" His voice caught, and he grimaced. "I am sorry," he continued, more hoarsely than usual, "but I can't talk…about her right now." Auron looked away, giving him a little time to recompose himself.

"That's all right. I'll find her with your description. Hey, who knows, I might be able to take her back with me, to Spira." Jecht looked doubtful, but Auron gazed back at him with such touching and hopeful optimism that he could not bring himself to tell him about what the small hooded fayth had told him when he passed out at the Wall of the Fayth, and gave him a somewhat quivery smile.

"Who knows, eh, Auron." But then he was silent, and he sat staring into the fire for a long time even after the other Guardian had sought his bed.

*

The next morning they all slept late, and spent the day repairing their gear and buying potions. Here at the foot of the mountains, the Storming Season was little more than a hard breeze with the occasional bout of thunder, but even here the air had noticeably cooled down, and Jecht, who had complained about the bulk of his fur coat, wrapped the thing tighter around his body instead of selling it again, as he had said he would. No matter how often they assured him that it was made of a bear, he could not rid himself of the idea that it was made of Ronso—who had ever heard of a blue bear?—and that thought filled him with disgust. Jecht did not like the Ronso. He thought them rude, imposing and arrogant, and the way they whipped their tails about when he spoke to them made him feel threatened.

Braska nodded when he told him of his antipathy, muttering something along the lines of "One disposition, different sympathies," and smiled that private little smile of his when his Guardian said he did not understand what he was talking about.

"They're rather like you, Jecht. Rude, imposing and arrogant, and they don't know how to handle that in you."

"I'm not…"

"They expect people to cower before them. Instead of cowering, you ask them whether they always shed so much hair when it's cold." He laughed. "I'm not surprised they don't like you, nor that you do not like them." Jecht snorted, but he had to agree with the Summoner. Maybe I AM just a little bit arrogant, and a little bit rude, he thought, watching as the enormous Inorhe jumped through the village on four feet to catch one of the cubs who had escaped, but at least I don't growl at people when I talk to them, or flash some big horn at them. And, he plucked a handful of blue-grey hair off his coat, I don't lose hair on other people's clothing.

"Braska?"

"Hm?"

"Do you know where Sin is at the moment?"

"One moment." Careful not to spill a drop, the Summoner capped all the vials in front of him, then looked up. "Sin? I looked at the sphere this morning. Apparently it has left Bevelle and is now cruising around somewhere in the Ocean. As far as I know it has gone in the direction of the Calm Lands."

"When will we leave?" Braska smiled, and did that dancing thing with his eyebrows again.

"Why? Eager to beat it?" Jecht shrugged.

"Just eager to leave." Outside, Inorhe came bouncing back, the mewling cub in his mouth. Jecht turned away from the windows with a sick feeling in his stomach. The cub was probably just as heavy as he was, and that beast carried it in his mouth! The smile became a chuckle.

"You truly do not like them, do you? I had planned on leaving tomorrow. We can take the sphere straight to the Calm Lands. I still have more than enough tickets to get there without buying them here."

"Hm." Jecht fingered one of the flat, glossy coins the Spirals used to pay for the use of a Luca sphere. It would take someone from a certain place to Luca, and to the place the ticket came from. In this way, it was possible to travel from Besaid to Guadosalam in a few minutes—but it did cost money, and one had to have been to all the places one wanted to revisit before it was possible to travel in this way.

"Were you able to buy some in Zanarkand as well?"

"Yes, I was." He opened a small pocket in his sleeve and took out a whole stack of coins, all of a different colour. "Let me see, Besaid, Kilika, Luca, these I bought this morning, in case we want to come back here again…these are…Guado, I suppose, yes. Calm Lands, Macalania, Djose, and these black ones are from Zanarkand. I'm not sure whether they'll still work though. The sphere wasn't working very well—it could not send us, as you noticed—and it spit out most of my gil with the tickets, but still. If Zanarkand is still on the destination list in Luca, we should be able to return there."

"It is. I looked it up especially. Zanarkand's still on the list." Braska observed him from behind lowered lashes.

"Do you want to go back?" Jecht shrugged.

"Maybe not today. But once, yes. Yes, I think I do. One day, I'll make this Lady Yunalesca tell me exactly what is going on with the fayth." He leaned back in his chair, a frown on his normally gruff but cheerful face. "And if I have to, I will make her pay."

To Be Continued….