Lazarus sat against the tent and listened to the sounds of birthing work. It took longer than he'd expected, but then, he had never been present for a birthing in his life, save perhaps his own. It seemed to be going well, though, considering the fact that he heard no screams. A few groans, perhaps, but that was to be expected. He'd heard that female pain was rather similar to, as Jecht put it, "getting a kick in the gonads." And apparently, Jecht had helped to deliver Tidus, so he would know. Tidus had finally exhausted himself with delivering hot water, and once he had calmed down to the point where he was staggering from the village's fire, barely able to hold up the sloshing bucket, Wakka invited him into the tent to watch. The poor blonde boy started sobbing. Blubbered on about how Yuna was "so beautiful!" for a full five minutes, before Lulu hushed him.
But somehow, Laz was distracted. After the healthy gulps of sake he'd poured down into himself, everything had become slow and calm again, and the heat in his blood and his body had relaxed into a calm warmth. But still, he was distracted.
Rikku had been sleeping all this time, comfortable and calm in the evening sun. But the ground near the tent's entrance was not a good pillow, and she'd hit her head on a rock. After rubbing her head with a sleepy pout, she turned around the other way, looked at Laz with big puppy dog eyes, and without asking, plopped down to use his thigh for a pillow. Apparently, he was comfortable — she hadn't moved in an hour. And this was a great distraction. Not because it was uncomfortable for him to have her lying on his leg, arms sprawled out beneath her, feet curled up in fetal position. That felt natural and right, and even more calming than a healthy dose of strong sake could be. She was a distraction because earlier in the day, he'd realized that she would be the one he chose to reveal himself to. And Lazarus couldn't get the question of why out of his mind.
Softly, words left her mouth, traced by the language of her childhood. "E fyhd du caa. Lyh E caa?"
She was staring at his jaw, at the tan line beneath his mask, clear and defined even where the mask became loops of silk thread to hook into his high back collar. She was staring at him the way he stared at everyone else, her eyes calm and clear, her smooth oval face expessionless but intense. And he felt... naked. His mouth opened and closed, lips forming words that his brain didn't register. Here he was, forty years old (if one counted the four years he slept, dead in the Farplane), and he was being stared down by a girl. No. Wrong. Not a girl, a woman. She couldn't be anything but a woman, blonde hair flowing free and loose all the way down her back, lavendar tank-top exposing a soft female belly, blue-flowered skirt trailing over bare and sandy feet. A woman so natural and in touch with her heart that she had never lost innocence or curiosity.
But the man only stared at her, silent guardian of Yuna's child, silent friend who lent a shoulder to cry on and nothing of himself. Stared because he could not speak. Because he could not move, pinned by her glare like a captured butterfly in a case. Because he did not know what to say. Because he was barely holding onto his self-control, barely keeping himself from ripping the mask away and burying his face in her shoulder, lips pressed on the small dot of a birthmark. Because it was all he could do to keep himself together. But he had to answer her. And at that moment, he couldn't say no. No matter what the consequences, Rikku would know by the end of the week that her quiet, twenty-six-year-old friend Lazarus was, had been, the legendary guardian Auron.
"Cusatyo, vneaht." It was barely audible, but Rikku heard every syllable distinctly, and her face bloomed into a smile. He sighed to himself as she began to laugh. It was the right answer. It made her happy. Thank the aeons.
It had come in handy, after all, to glance at those Al Bhed primers that Tidus had collected during their adventure so long ago. That, and Auron himself had studied on his own after his painful crawl down the sacred mountain, had spent the last few minutes of his mortal life on the floor of Rin's hut as the man ran to fetch a healer, reading an Al Bhed language and history book as the constant blood loss left his body cold and numb. And when he died and refused to leave, held his pyreflies together with all the force of will he had left in him, forcing himself to stay on Spira for the sake of the fallen, he'd kept the book and read it later in Dream Zanarkand. Over and over, until the memory took and he dreamed in the musical cadences of the desert language.
"Vneaht," he said again, raising a hand to carefully brush a stray hair from her sleeping face, his touch light enough that it wouldn't disturb even her dreams. Directly translated to Spiran, the word meant "friend." But to the Al Bhed, vneaht meant something closer. A vneaht was someone who connected with you on a spiritual level, someone you trusted with your life and soul. It meant friend, true, but the effect was closer to something like "bosom companion." A person you wanted to keep near you, always. Friendship was extremely important to the Al Bhed people, since they'd already lost so many of their people to holocosts and racial prejudice. Friendships were never casual, and contact was always kept between friends. That importance was the reason Rikku had become so disheartened since Paine left to live in Djose and enter into Luindcreb with Gippal. Not that Lazarus was entirely certain of what Luindcreb meant to the Al Bhed, but he supposed it was similar to the old Yevonite courtship rituals.
Lazarus rested his hand on Rikku's shoulder, heart beating just a little faster in case she woke up. He almost felt like he was taking advantage of her, though that was a silly thought in itself. They'd hugged before, though always at her behest. Hell, he had lived with her, stayed onboard the same ship she had, for six months already. The night after Paine left, she'd thrown herself into his lap and cried her heart out while he held her. But still, he'd never initiated any contact, had never done anything that he thought would overstep his bounds. He'd only been there, and treated her as a roommate. When had he started seeing her like... this?
Rikku moved a little in her sleep, burrowing her face closer into the warmth of his leg before settling in again. Her face was slack as she slept, lips puffing into a childlike pout. She had fuller lips than he'd realized. Her eyes twitched beneath the lids, looking at one thing or another, and every now and then she'd breathe out hard, as if sighing in frustration at some dream stupidity. Lazarus watched, brushing his fingertips over her arm, catching the down of blonde hairs beneath his short nails. Memorizing the texture of her skin, how it felt, how it looked. The pores on her cheeks, the curve of her lashes.
I suppose this is a sort of karma. He lifted his hand once he'd gotten to her elbow and touched her shoulder again, running down her arm in a slow rhythmic pet. I watched you sleeping once, as a girl, and you calmed my fires. He stopped, and moved his hand to her hair, combing it with his fingers so that it fell straight behind her. Running his touch from her temple... behind her ear... over the back of her neck. And now I watch you sleep, as a woman, and I feel myself burn hotter than I've ever known in life or death.
He had to stop. Had to stop before he lost his self-control, because oh, she made him ache inside. And "friend" didn't touch how he was coming to feel about this woman in his lap. Vneaht wasn't even right. She was... She...
...oh.
Lazarus breathed in, sucked the air as if he'd died and come to life again. And perhaps, in some way, he had.
Rikku stirred, rolled onto her back. Her eyes slid open, staring up at his face. Mouth curling into a sleepy smile. Mind not quite there, and the only thing left was emotion, calm happiness. The evening sunlight made her swirling eyes sparkle. And Lazarus, as usual, just stared.
Braska, help me. Help... please help me. I'm falling.
Suddenly, there was a cry. A mew, really, high-pitched and new. The first sound ever made by the newest addition to Yuna's family: a tinny shriek that meant everything was right in the world.
Wakka stuck his head out of the tent, looking down on Lazarus and Rikku with a huge grin on his face. "Like you said, brudda, it's a girl. Come on in," he said before disappearing back inside. The small family wasted no time in going through the living room to the bedroom and gathering around the birthing bed, where Yuna was laying in a fresh robe under fresh sheets. She was breathing hard and her forehead was sticky from sweat, but a huge smile shone clear and bright on her face. Tidus stood next to her head, running his fingers through his wife's damp hair, tears streaking his cheeks. And in Yuna's arms was a clean baby girl, her eyes squinted shut, short and sparse brown hair plastered to her head.
Rikku squealed and jumped up and down, barely able to contain her excitement. "She's adorable! Oh, Yunie, it's the most beautiful baby in the world! I mean, she's the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen in my whole life," she amended, seeing as though Vidina had been a beautiful baby, too, and Rikku didn't want to invoke Lulu's wrath.
"Speakin' of kids, I betta get our boy from da Aurochs. Who knows what Keepa's teachin' him, ya? Yuna, don' neva let the Aurochs babysit her. You never know what they'll teach her how to say!"
Yuna giggled, but shook her head. "Wait a minute, Wakka. Rikku and I have something to do, first. And we need all of your here. Madame Bay, would you go pick up Vidina from the Aurochs' tent so we can have him with us for the Fecrac Ceremony?" The midwife nodded, smiling, and carried a bucket of red-stained water out. Lazarus jumped clear out of her way. So the buckets of warm water had been used for something, after all. But only cleaning. He could see the caul at the bottom of the bucket, like a captured jellyfish. He cringed. Midwives must have strong stomachs, to handle that kind of thing. So must mothers, for that matter.
Since Tidus was wrapped up in staring at his new baby girl, Wakka took it on himself to ask the most obvious question. "So... what's with this Fecrac thing? Sounds Al Bhed."
"It is," commented Lazarus, "It means 'Wishes.' That's all I know, though. A wishing ceremony?"
Rikku nodded vigorously, and began to explain with a grin, bouncing from one foot to the other. "It's Al Bhed tradition. At every birth, as soon as you find out that mother and child are doing fine and right before the naming, you have to make one wish for both the baby and yourself. Because if you name the baby first, that's what defines her, instead of the wishes. And that wish has to be something really good. You know, like... I want to be really healthy, and I want the baby to love adventure and sun. Something like that. And since this baby's one-quarter Al Bhed, I thought it'd fit. Yuna and I talked it over yesterday. Once Vidina's here-- oh, here he is." The midwife had brought him in, and now that the toddler was safe in Lulu's arms, Rikku grinned, signaling that they were ready to begin.
"Can I go first?" Tidus asked. After no one disagreed, he leaned over his daughter and whispered something in her ear. "Okay, I'm done. But no one else can hear, I'll be embarassed."
Wakka snickered, and walked around the bed to slap his friend on the back. "Aww, come on, brudda, you gotta spill!"
"Fine, fine. I wished not to be so much of a dummy. And I want my kid to be as smart as her mom." He snickered, his cheeks growing just slightly redder, but he was too happy to care. Hastily, he wiped the tear-streaks from his face, and bent once more to kiss his daughter's forehead, and his wife's lips.
Yuna smiled at him, her cheeks dimpling at the corners of her mouth from the extra pudge she'd taken on over the past months. "Can moms make wishes too?" she asked Rikku, a little hesitant about going next.
"Of course!" her cousin responded.
"Then... I wish for my daughter and myself to be able always to find peace wherever she goes. Her own peace. No one else's. And I'd like to be a little more selfish too, so that Rikku and Paine stop teasing me."
It went on like that for a few moments. Wakka wanted self-confidence. Lulu asked to be "a little less grumpy, now and then." Vidina whispered to his mother what he wanted, and she related it to the rest of the family. "He says, 'I want to be cool, like Uncle Laz." Lazarus smiled, and winked at the boy, who grinned before hiding behind his mother's belt skirt.
"And me?" continued Rikku, "I'm going to make the same wish as I've made a couple of times. I wish that I can find some way to discover the trick behind human happiness, and I wish for the baby the ability to put that discovery into action. So that everyone in Spira is all united in one big happy squishy ball!" She grinned, and everyone smiled or laughed. It was just like her. Then she grinned and looked up at her friend, tugging on his tunic. "Come on, Laz, you too!"
The guardian paused, looking down at Rikku, then he walked toward Yuna and put his hand on the baby's back. "To be alive," he murmured. "To be really, truly alive. And to know what that means, every day of her life. Every day of both our lives." Lazarus ran his fingers through Yuna's hair once, then squeezed Tidus at the young man's elbow, giving both of them a rare smile that twinkled in his brown eyes.
"We all will, old man," Tidus whispered, making Lazarus blink. No one else noticed, because the baby had just begun to suckle, and while Rikku squealed over how cute it was, Wakka had turned away, with reddened cheeks. Yuna was intent on the effort, and Lulu was wincing at the memory. The men could talk undisturbed. Tidus looked over the crowd to make certain of that fact, then looked back to Lazarus, giving him a half-smile and whispering low in his throat. "We'll talk later, okay? For now, let's just say I remember my childhood pretty well. But don't worry. This won't affect anything the fayth said, and I won't tell. Even Yuna."
Lazarus nodded, a little disoriented at discovering that, of all people, Tidus had enough intuition to make the first discovery. But that was all right. It made Laz feel better, really, to know that he was not alone, and that the person he'd thought of as a son for ten years knew him.
"So what's she gonna be, Yuna? You an' Tidus came up wit a name a'ready, ya? Soon's you found out she was a girl?" Wakka grinned, fixing an 'I'm an Uncle!' pin to the chest of his Aurochs uniform.
Yuna nodded in her quiet way, and ran one finger over her baby girl's cheek. "Tonight, we'll introduce my daughter to the world. My daughter is called Kimi, for she has no equal, either in my heart or elsewhere. No offense, Tidus," she added, smiling up at her husband who grinned and gave her a noogie, as if to say, "None taken."