Hello! Here is part seven. Twenty reviews already! Wheeee! More! More! Shower me with comments!

Okay, this will be one of the last chapters before Auron goes to Spira, sooo…enjoy!

7.

After the cold and the snow, the Calm Lands' soft climate felt like a balm.

"This is more like it," Jecht cheered as he let the fur coat slide from his shoulders. "Sunshine and green grass."

"And chocobos," Braska added with a note of surprise in his voice, and pointed at the row of birds grazing to the left of the agency. Auron appeared next to him, almost as if the sphere spit him out, and shook his head.

"Excuse me. Did you say something?"

"Just that there seem to be a lot of chocobos here. Very young ones, too. They barely seem out of chick-hood." Jecht grinned. In return, three young chocobos looked at him and went 'fweeeee!', and moved their heads up and down. Auron laughed as well.

"They like you. Perhaps, later, when you're too old to play blitzball, you could become a Chocobo Knight too." Braska smacked his forehead.

"Of course, Crusaders. That's what Kimahri meant with his 'train of fledglings', aspiring Chocobo Knights. How surprisingly apt of him!" Jecht snorted.

"A poetic Ronso. Great." Braska ignored him. He straightened his head ornament that had been loosened by the sphere travelling and walked towards the door.

"I've wanted to speak to Banshu for a long time. If I'm correct he still trains the squires, and if Kimahri was right he should be here as well. If anyone knows about the whereabouts of Sin, it's him," he clarified to Jecht, and opened the door. "I'd like to…my, but it's crowded in here."

He was right; the usually quiet Inn was filled with people, who at the moment seemed to be having lunch at three rows of long tables.

There was the sound of many young voices conversing, then, as Jecht closed the door behind him, suddenly a dead quiet. Then, like a wave rolling over the beach, the voices swelled to a clamour that made the chocobos outside twitter and squeak: "It's Lord Braska! Sir Auron! Sir Jecht! Sir AURON!!!" Seventeen faces had turned to the door; eight quickly blushing teenaged female faces, eight excited youth faces and one stern, but brightening male face, which soon expressed something close to desperation as the girls all but fell off their chair to launch themselves at Auron.

"It's a fan-club!" Jecht exclaimed with delight, and even though he was not the direct centre of their excitement, he revelled in their attention nevertheless.

"No kidding," Auron muttered under his breath, but his mouth was quivering with mirth.

"Sir Auron!"

"Sir Auron!"

"Have you been to Zanarkand, Sir Auron?"

"Lord Braska!"

"Did you obtain the Final Aeon?"

"Did you really see Zanarkand?"

"Did you finish the Pilgrimage, my Lord Summoner?"

"Men!" a deep voice called over the chirping voices, but they did not even hear him.

"Sir Jecht! Was that you with the Al Bhed? You were awesome!"

"Sir Auron is sooo handsome!"

"Sir Jecht is sooo cool!"

"Did he really play Blitzball? But he's a Guardian!"

"Lord Braska? Would you sign my rites of Yevon?"

"MEN!" the one adult in the group bellowed; so hard that sweat popped out on his tanned forehead. "LEAVE THE SUMMONER AND HIS GUARDIANS ALONE!" Braska waved his hand soothingly.

"Ah, Banshu. It's all right. It's only natural that they are curious." A soft cheer rose from the silenced squires.

"Lord Braska is so nice!"

"And so handsome too!" Braska pretended to cough to cover his laughter. Both he and Auron were a bit flustered under the squires' sometimes somewhat embarrassing praise, and when they spoke they had to bite their lips more than once to keep from laughing out loud. Jecht, grown up in Zanarkand as a star blitzer, did not feel flustered. This was his due right, and it had taken long enough before he'd finally gotten it. Within seconds he had four of the eight boys hanging around him, listening breathlessly as he told them of his special moves, and how great it was to play the game.

Auron eyed him enviously; it was a lot easier to bear the reverence of boys than the gawking of girls, and all eight of them were sitting right in front of him, gazing at him as if he were Yevon incarnated.

"Sir Auron…"

"Sir Auron…" The mere sound of his name made their eyes glitter.

"Have you been to Zanarkand? What was it like, there?"

"Are the legends true, Sir Auron?"

"Is it in ruins?" He nodded, not expecting to get a word in anyway. A small black-haired girl who had to be fourteen but looked barely ten placed her hand very close to his on the table and said dreamily, "When I'm a knight, I'll go and see Zanarkand too. I want to see all the wonders of Spira. Right, Sir Auron?" He smiled.

"I don't see why not. But if you go to Zanarkand, best bring a technician. The sphere's broken over there." The girl sniffed, a more refined version of his own snort.

"Spheres are for doozies. I'll have my chocobo! I'll ride!" Auron grinned with just a hint of cruelty.

"I just came here by sphere. I find it a very comfortable way of travelling." The girl flushed beet-red.

"Oh," was all she could say, before another girl had taken her place with a withering glare at her poor friend, and began to ask him about the rest of the Pilgrimage.

Braska, in the meantime, had found a place next to Banshu. Two of the boys were watching him from a little distance, but somehow the Summoner did not invite gawking and fawning, and, after a friendly nod in their direction, he paid them no further attention.

"So tell me," he addressed the knight, "what has Sin been up to, these last two weeks?" Banshu tapped his knife on the table.

"Sin? It's running rampant. One day it threatens the sea, another day the land. The Crusaders are recruiting people like mad—or d'you think that the babes I have in my group are good enough to put up a proper fight against Sin?" One of the boys frowned, but he did not say anything. "They can sit on their birds and they won't fall off when we go any faster than a canter, but…The situation's getting out of hand, Lord Braska. Sin's growing bigger and more savage every day. Even the people in Luca're walking around with fear in their eyes. Children crying over killed parents every day. We desperately need a Calm." Braska nodded seriously.

"I know. I am sorry it took me so long to complete my Pilgrimage, but there've been… complications." He smiled apologetically. Banshu inclined his head, colouring a bit.

"I did not mean to reproach you, my Lord. It's just…"

"I understand. It's all right." He fastened his brilliant green-blue eyes on the older Crusader, still smiling, but solemn none the less. "Within the next three days I will find Sin. I will fight him, and a Calm will come. With so many standing behind me and depending on me, I cannot fail, can I?" Rebuked, Banshu's gaze dropped from his face.

"No, my Lord."

"I'm glad you agree." Banshu looked up from the table and met Braska's twinkling eyes.

"My Lord…" But the other silenced him with a chuckle.

"You know I have to insist on a little respect in front of your pupils, my friend. However, you do not need to grovel. What is it in me that makes people want to lie on the ground and kiss my feet?" He canted his head and let his eyebrows dance. Banshu began to laugh.

"It must be your fabulous riches, my Lord." Braska brought his hand to his face in mock depression.

"And I thought it was my incredible charm. Woe is me.

'Anyway," he templed his fingers and rested his chin on top of them, "I need to know where Sin is at the moment. The last I heard in Luca was that he was close to Kilika."

"Very well possible. Like I said, it's running rampant. Unless you know exactly where it is AND have a sphere in the vicinity so you can move real fast and catch it before it swims away, there's no way you can fight it.

As I see it, the best way to attack Sin is go to the sea-side and wait until you see it. It's bound to show up sooner or later, and since the Calm Lands are more or less the centre of Spira, you'll have as much luck finding it as when you try to follow it."

"Are you sure? Naturally, I want to fight him as soon as possible."

"Naturally?" Banshu pursed his lips. "Are you so eager to die?"

"Banshu!"

"Well, I'm sorry, my Lord, but no matter how much you want to save Spira, your own life…"

"Means nothing to me if Yuna dies because of one of Sin's attacks," Braska finished his sentences, and this time he did not smile at all. "Of course I am not eager to die. I am, however, eager to use the power I have gotten from Yevon to save the people I love. Everyday," he continued, when the Crusader would have spoken, "I come by ravaged villages and slaughtered, maimed, suffering people. People that look up to me for guidance and protection. I can heal only so many wounds, Banshu, and there is only one way to heal the wound that is currently draining Spira. I have to kill Sin. And the sooner I do it, and make the people happy again, the better."

"But it'll be back." Banshu said quietly, unwittingly echoing Auron. "In eight, maybe ten years at most, it will be back. And then another Summoner…"

"In ten year we'll be able to learn a lot more about Sin and his origin," Braska said with a hint of impatience. "And maybe, just maybe, he won't come back. I have full confidence in my Aeon. I wish that you had the same." Banshu made the sign of prayer, bowing his head almost to the table.

"I beg your forgiveness, my Lord. I did not mean to insult you."

"You'd better not." The Summoner still sounded cool. Banshu's forehead touched wood.

"My Lord Braska…"

"Sit up straight, man, and stop bowing. I know you meant well. But I will not have anybody, you included, distract me from my Pilgrimage. Not even if you mean well. I'm only human."

One would not think so, if you look at them, the Crusader thought with a glance towards his pupils. They were both looking at Braska with awe—although whether that was because of his speech, his charm or his ability to make their rock-hard instructor bow to the floor (or in this case the table) was unclear. But when he stood up and gazed down on them from a height that his slight body did not possess, he knew it was the Summoner and nothing else than his presence that made their faces shine. Braska, for all his pleasantness and easy manners, was a High Summoner from head to toe, and everybody around him could not help but react to him.

"Auron. Jecht. Are you ready?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Sure. Er, my Lord." Jecht grinned and scratched his head, not exactly familiar with the title, but resolved to fit in as best as he could. "See ya again, kid. Remember, if you get the starting position right, nothing can go wrong." Braska's face relaxed, and when he performed the sign of prayer towards seventeen Crusaders and the man who ran the agency, eighteen bodies mimicked his action.

"Good luck, my Lord Summoner!"

"Good luck!"

"Kick 'm for me!"

"Good bye, Sir Auron!"

"Bye!"

"Good luck!"

"Be careful!" Auron smiled, one of his rare, broad smiles.

"Farewell."

"Well that was rather definite," Jecht complained when they had left the building. "Saying farewell to all those nice kids." Auron arched his eyebrows.

"Then what should I have said? See you next week? Hasta la vista? They're going to send those children after Sin, if this keeps up.

And besides, I like to say farewell. It is an excellent phrase to use when you leave. Fare well. Be good. I honestly don't know why you're complaining."

"You know," Jecht said, "you keep surprising me. Every time I think you'll answer me with a snort, you open that mouth of yours and a whole lot of nonsense comes pouring out."

"Well, I couldn't leave you standing there doing that by yourself, could I?" Auron responded with unexpected rancor.

"Children," Braska sighed. Auron snorted. Jecht burst into laughter, much to Auron's annoyance, but since he was resolved not to take the bait—whatever bait Jecht was using—he just pressed his lips together and stared off into the distance.

"Auron?"

"What?" he snapped, but Jecht slapped him on the shoulder.

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand."

"What?!" Jecht shook his head, but he was still smiling.

"You're a better man than you'd like to admit." Auron turned a bit red.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he sputtered, but the frown smoothed out a bit, and when he stared into the distance once more, it was with a pondering expression on his face instead of a brooding one. Jecht put his hands in his pockets and began to whistle the Hymn of the Fayth—and near the travel agency seventeen chocobos chirruped back at him.

"So Sin's running around in circles," said Jecht aloud when they were taking a short break sometime later during the day.

"I wouldn't say he's running in circles, but he is running around blindly, yes," Braska agreed. He gathered a bunch of the long, flowing grass by twirling his staff around on the ground. "I want to move to the cliffs to the north; maybe we can spot him. According to Banshu he mainly keeps to the water."

"Well surprise, surprise. He's a fish, after all." Auron, from where he was lying on his back in the grass, blinked his eyes.

"Fish? Sin isn't a fish!" Jecht waved his hand.

"Whatever. You know what I mean. It looks like a fish."

"It does not look like a fish. It looks like…Sin. I've never seen a fish looking even remotely like Sin."

"Of course not, Auron. You're the Sin-expert." He waited for the snort, but when it did not follow his taunt he looked up, and caught the other man looking at him with an even darker expression on his face than earlier that day. Automatically he leaned back a little, to create more distance between the two of them. "Okay." The waving gesture became a defending gesture. "I said something that pissed you off." Auron shook his head.

"Of course you did," he sneered. "But since you never think before you say something I can spare myself the trouble of telling you exactly what it was that 'pissed me off'." He rolled to his feet. "Let me tell you one thing, though. My whole family was destroyed by Sin, and I've seen many of my friends chase after him and get killed as well. My best friend is chasing him right now, and I can't stop him so I've come along to protect him until I can watch him die. My whole life has been reigned by and decided on by Sin, so DON'T TELL ME I DON'T KNOW SIN!"

"Hey, I'm sorry!"

"Of course you're sorry." snarled Auron. "You're always sorry. That doesn't improve matters, you know?"

"He didn't know, Auron," Braska said soothingly, but this time his Guardian refused to be pacified, although he did calm down a little.

"That's the trouble with you, Jecht,' he said grimly. "You don't know. But you should have realised by now. Shall we go on?" Braska nodded and Jecht followed them, feeling chastened but rebellious at the same time.

How d'ya expect me to know then, Auron? I'm not from this world, and you never speak of your past. Unless you're drunk, of course. You're cynical about everything, why shouldn't you be sarcastic about Sin? But then he replayed what the other man had said in his mind, and when he came to that one sentence 'My best friend is chasing him right now, and I can't stop him so I've come along to protect him until I can watch him die,' he felt something like understanding. Braska. Whatever Auron says or does, it all comes back to Braska. And Braska will die. It's not the death his family that made him react like that, it's the fact that he'll lose Braska to Sin. Suddenly he remembered something the Guardian in Bevelle had said when her Summoner had become a heretic and she had killed her herself with a swift sword stroke. Sin takes everything away from us. Everything! Until one day, you wake up and you find yourself all alone, because everything and everybody you once loved has been destroyed. Even now…even now, without even being here, it's taken his life…and it's made me do it for it!

For the first time since he'd arrived in Spira, Jecht forced himself to imagine what life must be in a world where every day can be your last, whether you're rich, poor, strong or weak. He looked at Braska's cone-shaped, robe-clad figure, and imagined he were dead. And he found that he could not imagine such a thing.

"Jecht? Are you coming?" Unwittingly, he had fallen behind. Braska's turquoise eyes, so full of life and intelligence, lit up in the descending sun. And this man will die…

He nodded, and jogged a few meters until they walked side by side again.

"Tell me," he said, seriously this time, "how it is possible that Sin returns every time."

"Because it's Sin," Auron replied instead of the Summoner. "And whether that's a being or a crime, it will come back to haunt you for the rest of eternity." The sun changed the colour of his eyes to a dark, smouldering red, did not light them up like Braska's.

"Although I hope to change that," Braska said airily.

"Vanity is a sin, too," Jecht quipped, and the Summoner chuckled, but Auron managed no more than the faintest smile.

"Really, you shouldn't…" A strange, bubbling sound interrupted him, and before he could even draw his sword or cry alarm, a yellow fog blew into their faces, and Braska sank to his knees with a strangled cry.

"What the…?"

"Don't inhale!" Auron cried, and got a healthy dose inside. He began to cough. From a dimple in the landscape, a herbal horror that consisted of a mass of tentacles and eyes, dozens of eyes on tentacles, glided rapidly closer. The thing flashed the three of them a grin of death.

Marlboro? Jecht wondered, disbelieving. "They don't belong here! It shouldn't be here!"

"Quit jabbering!" Auron barked, and shot forward to attack. He hit, but the fiend did not even flinch, and the Guardian narrowly ducked a spray of venom as it retaliated. Yeah, sure…Jecht chanted one of his few spells, and immediately Auron's outline became a little hazy, as if he were moving too swiftly for the eye to follow.

"Thanks! See to Braska!"

"Do it yourself!" Jecht snapped, and did a drop-kick towards the plant's left-most tentacle-eye. He followed it with a slash, and the tentacle dropped to the ground, where it quivered in the grass for a long time yet. "I'm not affected by the fog!"

He was not, Auron realised. He himself could feel the Marlboro's poison rage through his blood like a fever, creating an aching throb in his stomach, and Braska was huddled in the grass with his face buried in his hands, shivering just as badly as Auron did. But he isn't affected indeed. But he's not warded against poison, I'm sure of that! Then he shook himself and dug in his satchel for antidote.

"Are you all right, Braska?" Where was that stupid vial? Jecht assaulted the plant again, and again a keening cry bubbled up from it as he severed another tentacle. Braska, however, did not make a sound at all.

"Here! Drink it!" His own hand shook so badly he could hardly thrust the potion in the Summoner's hands, but for the moment the poison was not important. What was, was that Braska was unable, for the moment, to defend himself or call upon an Aeon. The world spun before his eyes as he launched himself against the fiend, but he managed to strike it near the roots, and if the venom burned an ugly hole in the empty sleeve of his coat, he did not care. Beside him, Jecht attacked again and again. He deflected the acidic sprays with almost lazy movements, vigorously slashing away at the tentacles and humming a terrible travesty of the Hymn of the Fayth as he fought. But…what power! Even though it felt like hours, Auron knew that Jecht had dispatched of the Marlboro in less than three minutes. As it went up in a cloud of pyreflies he stood panting, hunched over his sword, and stared at the other man in awe.

"You never…f-fought like that…before…" Jecht, who seemed just as much amazed as he was, shook his head.

"Noo…" he murmured, "I don't think so either. But you! You look terrible. Hey Braska, you okay?" The Summoner was still curled up over his knees as he had fallen, the empty vial of antidote clenched in his fingers. He looked better than Auron, but still faintly greenish in the face, and his chin was quivering.

"I will be," said Braska in a small voice, "as soon as I know which way is up and which way is down again…"

"That's a side effect of the poison, right?" Jecht asked, feeling dumb. He could still not place the fiends apart, and once he had merrily attacked what he thought was a harmless fire elemental while it had been a thing that could detonate right in front of you and blow you clean out of your shoes. Auron had been gibbering for hours after that. But this time he seemed to have been right, for the other Guardian nodded, and began to rummage in his backpack for more antidote. After a while he stopped, drew up his knees and waited until his Summoner felt better again.

Jecht almost did not notice that he did not come up with a vial, but when, after five more minutes, Auron was still quivering like a too tightly strung harp string and had his chin pressed so tightly against his knees that it had to hurt, he touched the man's shoulder and asked him whether he was alright.

"F-fine," Auron replied curtly. As soon as he eased the pressure of his jaws, his teeth began to chatter again. "We're out of a-anti-d-dote," he explained patiently, when Jecht's eyes widened with shock.

"We're out of…damn it all to hell! Braska, hurry up, whatever you need to do! Are you mad? Why didn't you say anything? Isn't there anything else you can take—man, you'll die if you just sit there!" Auron had the nerve to look amused—as far as one can look amused while burning up with fever and suffering from the feeling like that of a nail driven into one's intestines; Auron managed to look amused—and wrapped his arms closer around his body.

"T-take it easy. I'm n-not dead y-yet. And B-B-Braska can heal m-me when he f-feels b-better." He pushed his chin down on his knees again, and the chattering subsided.

"Quit playing the hero, damn it!"

"I'm n-not pl-playing the h-hero," said Auron, as firmly as he could while trying not to bit his tongue. He was shivering so hard now that his sword rattled against his armour. "J-just b-b-being sensible." He curled in on himself for a moment, digging his fingers into his boots, then took a deep breath. "Although you do have to h-hurry, if you c-can, m-m-my Lord…"

Braska drew himself up. He was still pale, and his irises tended to roll all over his eyes, but when he began to pray his voice was steady.

"In Yevon's mercy, let all that is toxic leave this body; let strength flood back and replace weakness." It was a rather hurried prayer, but it worked all the same. Jecht began to suspect that Braska was more of an actor than he had thought, but then, anyone had the right to have a weakness. Braska more than everybody else he knew. Auron breathed a sigh of relief, but when he attempted to stand up his knees buckled and he landed gracefully on his backside, so Braska quickly cast another spell to give him back his strength. The effects of poison, it seemed, were a lot easier to repair than broken bones, for when the last of the fiend's pyreflies had disappeared, both Summoner and Guardian were standing straight on their feet again, muddy-kneed and clothes slightly burnt away by acid, but whole and unwavering.

"All in all this cost us way too much time," Braska grumbled, as they moved towards the cliffs once more. "It's already getting dark." He blinked. "It's not supposed to be dark yet—we cannot have lost that much time. Is the weather…" He stopped. A wave of darkness, an enormous shadow passed over the flowing green planes of the Calm Lands, originating at the ocean. At the same time, they all noticed the strange, low, humming buzz that had been growing ever since they had been attacked by the Marlboro. The sound of many, many wings. And the slosh of water.

"It isn't the weather," Auron whispered. He had gone pale again, much paler than he had been when he had been poisoned. "It's Sin."

To be continued…

Next chapter: Sin.