Standard Disclaimer. I do not own FFX or the characters in it. They are owned by Square-Enix. I do own this story, and my original characters. The title of this chapter is from the first line of the song Miracles, performed by Jefferson Starship.

Auron paced outside the agency until his blood cooled. The few fiends that approached during that time did not last long. After about an hour, he had calmed enough to return to his room. Calm, he remembered, I was anything but calm that morning. I was so afraid that she would not believe me. Afraid of losing her.

…Zanarkand…five years ago…

In the morning, they indulged themselves by sleeping in. Then they indulged each other. It was the most decadent morning Auron could ever remember in his entire life. He just hoped it wouldn't be the last such. Mercy was still snuggled dreamily in his arms when he finally managed to choke out the dreadful words, "I have something to tell you."
She sat up instantly, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts. "If you 're about to tell me you have a wife and kids in the suburbs, I swear I'm going to kill you," she said with menace.
He was sitting too, now, facing her. "No. Nothing like that. I swear it."
"You're not married?"
"No, never. Well, almost, but I turned her father down five years ago."
"Close doesn't count. As long as you're not married, or engaged, or have a girlfriend back home, or stashed someplace, now."
"No. No one but you."
She was slightly more relaxed, but still wary. He watched her as the thoughts clicked into place in her mind. At last she asked, "Does this mean you are planning to fill in the blanks?"
"Yes."

He persuaded her to lie back down, first. He wanted to hold her while he talked. He wasn't sure which of them would need the comfort. Maybe it will just make it more difficult for her to throw me out. Eventually, he convinced her to lie under the blankets with him again.

He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling as he cradled her close against his side. How do I even start? Where do I begin? That's it…He took a deep breath, then began hesitantly, "I noticed that you are interested in maps. Have you ever met anyone who has been outside Zanarkand?" Further outside than just the hills?"
Her expression was shuttered for a second, then she said lightly, "Yes, of course. You." She propped her chin on his chest, so she could look at his face.
He was afraid to meet her gaze. This wasn't going to be easy. "Besides me."
She had to think about that for a while, so she laid back down, and tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder. "No," she finally admitted. "Is it important?"
"Yes, it is. Do you know of anyone who has ever even mentioned knowing someone who has been outside the city?"

She pondered that question even longer, unthinkingly winding a strand of his hair around her fingers as she did so. "No. I have never met anyone, except you, who has been further outside the city than the surrounding hills, or the harbor, or the nearby ocean." She chose her next words very carefully. "I have read accounts of travelers to other places, but except for you, no one in my personal acquaintance has ever mentioned another individual they have actually spoken with, face-to-face, who has had personal knowledge of any city, town, or village other than Zanarkand. You know, now that I think about it, it does seem kind of strange. Some people have talked of someone who heard of somebody who knew of a cousin of a friend, but that is rumor, not even hearsay." She raised herself up on her elbow, to look down into his face. Her eyes were wide open, expectant, and not a little afraid. She knew her world was about to change, even more than it already had. She chewed on her lower lip, and waited for him to get on with it.

He wanted to look away, to think of some convincing lie to tell her, but he was too far in now, and already too much in love with her to deceive her about something this crucial. What the hell am I supposed to say now? I'm no good at this. He brought his hand up to her face, rubbed her soft cheek with his knuckles, then opened his hand to cup the side of her face. She pressed her lips into his palm. "My lady," he choked, then repeated, "My lady, you have not met anyone else, or heard of anyone else, because there is no one else. There cannot be. This Zanarkand of yours is no longer a part of the world drawn on the maps in your office, or especially the one in your living room. Instead, it is part of a great summoning. It is almost impossible for anyone to enter here, or to leave." He closed his eye for a moment, and remembered Jecht.

"You are here," she whispered.
"I promised Jecht I would watch over his son. You know that I always keep my promises."
She was incredulous. "Jecht, as in Jecht, the Zanarkand Abes' Jecht?" As soon as she asked the question, she knew the answer from the look on his face.

"Lords and Ladies," she breathed. "Jecht was your other friend. You, and your Braska, and Jecht are the ones who made the journey you talked about. How did Jecht get from here to there? Where is there? How did you get here? Was it the same way? Auron, I always knew that your journey had a purpose. I could tell it was important to you. Will you finally tell me what it was? Wait a minute. What's a summoning, anyway?" She asked the questions so fast she was practically out of breath at the end.

"Mercy, I give you my word I'll answer all your questions. Promise me you'll hear me out before you make up your mind about any of it?" He framed her face gently with his hand; but his expression was desperate. "Promise me?" he repeated urgently.
"I promise, love. Just tell me, please?"
"Okay." He almost fell onto his back again, and dragged her down by his side. He was trying to give himself a few seconds to think of a place to begin. "When Braska and I met Jecht, he was locked up in jail, after he started a drunken brawl with the entire Bevelle city guard."
"That sounds just like Jecht," Mercy said, bubbling with laughter.
Auron had a horrible thought. If she is one of Jecht's old girlfriends, I do not believe I could bear it. "Did you know Jecht?"
"I saw him play, but I never met him." Auron let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "But it sure sounds just like his reputation, which was bad and getting worse. If even half what I read in the papers was true, he was a raging alcoholic."
"He was, but he sobered up. Eventually." One side of his mouth quirked up, remembering the shoopuf.
"Why were you and Braska at the jail? Were you locked up too?"

"No. We were there to get Jecht out. Taking him with us on the pilgrimage appealed to Braska's sense of irony. I thought Jecht would get us all killed before we ever reached Zanarkand, and that Braska was out of his mind to even think of taking him along. But Braska was the Summoner, and I was just the Guardian, so it was his decision." Auron sighed with remembered resignation.

He felt her try to shake her head into his shoulder. She got back up on her elbow. "What do you mean, reach Zanarkand? I thought you just said it was nearly impossible to get here from wherever it is you came from. Were you trying to get here, even then? What's a summoner? You were 'just the Guardian', but what does that mean?" He could hear the frustration in her voice.

He felt like he was making things worse with his attempt at an explanation, then he remembered the map again. "Wait, let me get the map from the living room. It is a true one. The ones in your office are all distorted." He gently disengaged himself, and then rose from the bed in one fluid motion. He began to walk towards the door, completely naked, and totally lacking in self-consciousness regarding his state of undress.

Mercy was sure that she had never seen a man with a more beautiful body, or, it appeared, one less aware of the fact. His torso was marked with a random pattern of scars, but they did nothing to detract from the vision of masculine power and grace currently moving through her bedroom. Her breath caught, and he turned his head, to see if something was wrong. The swinging curtain of his hair revealed the back of his left shoulder, and she saw the other side of the scar she had noticed earlier. Lords and Ladies, whatever did that must have gored his shoulder clean through. How did he survive? Her love and concern for him showed on her face.

He came back to her, tipped her head up with his hand, leaned over, and pressed his lips lightly to hers. "Do not be concerned, my lady. That wound closed over long ago." Unless you reopen it today.

She essayed a small smile. "Go, get the map. I want to understand." He nodded, and went to fetch the map down from the living room wall.

He returned quickly, effortlessly carrying the huge, glass-covered map in its heavy wooden frame. She looked on as he carefully balanced the top of the massive thing on the headboard of her bed, knowing that she would never see this 'decoration' in quite the same way again.

Auron looked into her eyes, knew she was waiting for him to begin, and he just…couldn't. He couldn't think of a single thing to say. He tried to swallow, and found that his throat was so dry he started coughing instead. He was almost relieved, as it bought him some time to think. Mercy bounced off the bed and got them both some water, since she had a feeling this was going to turn out to be a long explanation.

He drank the water almost greedily, using the glass to shield his face for a few precious seconds while he tried to work out a way to tell her the rest of what he needed to say. Then he gave up trying to think his way through and just started to talk. "This," he began, pointing at the map, "is a map of Spira, the spiral. This is the world I come from." He knelt on the bed, with Mercy sitting tailor-fashion beside him.

He pointed to a large circle at the tip of the southern continent. "This is Luca. It is the second largest city in Spira. I grew up near there." Next, he indicated a large square on the isthmus that separated the two continents. "That is Bevelle, where Braska and I first met Jecht." Auron turned his head, locked his gaze with hers, and then he leaned over and kissed her. He realized he had to say the words, once, just in case. "My lady, I love you."

Mercy's eyes opened wide in astonishment, and wonder. "I love you, too, Auron." She stroked his rough cheek with her hand, and saw his tension increase, not decrease. What is he going to tell me that is that bad?

Auron caught her hand, pressed a kiss into her palm, and then turned his face away and took a deep breath. His heart was pounding, and he had broken out into an icy sweat. He could almost feel the wind on Gagazet again, blowing through the room. He shivered, and Mercy placed one hand on his back, as he stared blindly down at the map. His voice was a flat monotone when he eventually pointed to a star at the top of the northern continent, "This is the location of the ruins of Zanarkand. Nearly a thousand years ago, there was a great war, between Bevelle and Zanarkand. Bevelle had superior armaments, including machina weapons. Zanarkand used summoners to call powerful creatures who fought with their armies. The machina were more powerful, and more numerous. The outcome was inevitable."

Mercy kept her hand on Auron's back, desperate to maintain some physical connection to him. He looked so lost as he talked, and so bereft. And she felt utterly lost herself. She wanted to cling to him, but that didn't seem to make any sense. If she rejected him, and rejected what he was saying, she could pretend none of this had happened, and forget this whole story. But she would have to forget him as well, and she was already too much in love with him to do that. So she sat beside him, with her hand on his back, and her fist in her mouth, to keep herself from crying out until he was done.

He looked down at the map, and realized he didn't need it anymore. He sat back and shifted his legs around restlessly, finally stilling himself in position with one of his knees drawn up to his chest with his arms clasped around it, his chin resting on his bent knee. His eye was firmly closed, he was afraid to see the expression on her face as he continued. She had remained in contact with him as he moved, and now, her fingers were wrapped around his bicep, as she watched his face intently.

"Bevelle won the war, but it was a hollow victory. When the war began, they must have thought they would gain a city much like this one is now. They were wrong." He tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a strangled sob. "They began the destruction of the world."

Mercy didn't understand any of this, yet. She thought that when she did understand, she would also begin to weep. Her clutch on his arm turned into a stroking caress, as she silently offered her continued support.

"The city of Zanarkand was destroyed. It was completely deserted at the end of the war. It is…haunted, by the specters of its own past."

Her voice sounded very small, even to her own ears. "You are certain of this?"

"Of the exact events at the end of the war, no. But I have been to the ruins. In Spira, Zanarkand has been dead for a thousand years." He felt her rub her cheek against his arm. When she lifted her head, he continued.

"Before the war, Zanarkand had been the most beautiful city in Spira. It had been…this place. Those few who remained, seeing that their cause was lost, were unwilling to let their city go. So they did something, either very brave, or completely insane. It was something that could only have been done in Zanarkand. All the survivors walked to a valley in the hills south of the city. I suspect it marks the radius of the Zanarkand that you know. There, one summoner, or maybe a very few summoners, performed a sacred rite that transformed all of the remaining people into living statues, what we call fayth. Those fayth are being used to summon this city, which is their memory of Zanarkand, as it was at the height of its glory. They summoned every building, every street, and every person who existed before the war, and then poured energy into letting them live out their lives in a city that never slept, while the fayth watched, and dreamed. Those original citizens married, and had children, who have married in their turn, continuing the dreaming for almost a thousand years. Until Jecht…"

I should think he is crazy. But I still think he is the sanest man I have ever met. "What about Jecht?"

Auron's voice began to heat with some suppressed emotion she couldn't identify. "Before the war ended, the Bevelle armies began to face a new enemy, a great monster that rose out of the sea and mowed down even their most powerful machina weapons. They thought it was a 'Doomsday weapon', a great beast called by the leader of Zanarkand, Yu Yevon, to defend the city as a last resort. Then Bevelle discovered that this great beast was also attacking the Zanarkand armies, and even coastal towns and villages on both sides of the war. They decided that either the beast had a mind of its own, or no mind at all. They called it 'Sin'. We still do, a thousand years later. It is the scourge of Spira."

She gasped. "It's still around? No one has been able to kill it in a thousand years?"

"Sin cannot be destroyed, at least not by any method that has yet been found. Between the ravages of the war, and the rampages of Sin, Spira was in chaos. A religion sprang up based on the premise that Sin was the people's punishment for using machina, and the use of machina was restricted for the first time. Lady Yunalesca, the daughter of Yu Yevon, and her husband, Lord Zaon, emerged from hiding some time after the destruction of Zanarkand. She claimed that she had been studying Sin, and that she had found a way of destroying it. Lady Yunalesca was the last of the summoners of Zanarkand. She proposed that she and her husband would go to the ruins of Zanarkand, and that she would turn her husband into a living fayth, and that together they would have the power to defeat Sin, even though they both expected to die in the process. For about twenty years, everyone thought it had worked, and people began to rebuild. Then Sin returned. It always returns. The cycle always continues." His voice turned leaden with his final words.

Mercy felt his anger, and his pain. She just couldn't make everything coalesce into anything that made any kind of sense. "Auron, I'm still lost. Help me."

His frustration with the whole situation in Spira, combined with his fear of losing her, boiled over. Auron picked up an empty water glass and threw it against the wall. Mercy cried out as the plastic glass bounced on the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm so damned sorry. I'm explaining this so badly. Sin can't be destroyed. But it can be calmed for a few years. The temples, the damned Yevon temples, figured out how to train summoners. Summoners go on pilgrimages to visit every temple in Spira. There is a fayth in every temple. When a Summoner is accepted by the fayth, they get the ability to summon the creature, the aeon, to fight in battle. Because of Sin, Spira is depopulated, and there are many wild animals, as well as fiends. Summoners take one or more Guardians with them on their pilgrimage, to protect them on the journey. A Summoner who is successful in their pilgrimage goes to the Zanarkand ruins to meet Yunalesca."

"Auron, you said she died a thousand years ago."

"I know. She did die. But she died alone. With no summoner to send her to the Farplane, she had two choices. She could either become a fiend, or remain on Spira as an unsent. She knew her plan had failed, that Sin was merely calmed, not destroyed. With her purpose to bind her to the world, she became an unsent, and waited for the first summoner to reach her." His voice was bitter. "Then she offered each summoner, in turn, the same choice she and Zaon had made willingly. Which guardian will you sacrifice?" He looked like he wanted to spit.

Her mind raced, trying to pull the pieces together. She didn't understand about the Farplane, but that could wait. "Braska was your summoner." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes. He was also my friend."
"You and Jecht were his guardians." Another statement.
"Yes."
"Auron, how did Jecht get from here, this…dream city…to Spira?"
"Sin. It is also able to use the power of the Zanarkand summoning. Using that power, it can travel between the dream sea and the real one."
Sin…the great monster in the sea…my parents? I can't deal with this right this second. One set of hysterics at a time.
"When you began the pilgrimage, did you know that two of you would have to die at the end?"
"No." Auron's head dropped into his hands. "All summoners know that they are sacrificing themselves if they…succeed. Only five have ever done so, in a thousand years. Yunalesca, Ohalland, Gandof, Yocun and…Braska. The journey itself is so dangerous that many fall along the way. No one knows how many change their minds and give up their pilgrimage. They are branded as failures." His voice dripped with sarcasm at his final words.

"But to answer your question, none of us knew that Braska would be expected to sacrifice Jecht or I as well. When we reached Zanarkand, I just wanted to stop Braska from sacrificing himself. I thought there had to be another way to defeat Sin. Braska hoped that maybe he would be the last one, but it was a false hope. Jecht volunteered to be the fayth. He said he'd think of a way to stop the cycle. He made me promise to come here, and take care of his son." Auron's voice nearly broke.

"What happened next?"

"They went into a room with Yunalesca, I stayed behind; pacing the floor, going out of my mind. Braska came out with a light in his eyes. Jecht was gone, inside Braska, a living fayth. We went outside, and faced Sin. Braska called his new aeon, Jecht. Jecht did what all Final Aeons do; he killed his Summoner and beat Sin. Then he became Sin, and fled into the sea. I ran back into the Zanarkand dome…and I…tried to avenge their deaths by killing Yunalesca." Auron let out a short bark of laughter. "Jecht was right, it was the stupidest thing I ever tried to do. She struck me down with a single blow. After a thousand years, I believe she may be mostly fiend, now."

Mercy thought something didn't sound right. Auron sounded like he had talked to Jecht after Jecht had become the fayth, and then became Sin. But it had also almost sounded like he thought Jecht had died at one point. Did any of that make any sense?

Auron pointed at the map again. "Early in the pilgrimage, Braska had asked me to make sure that, when it was done, his daughter Yuna was taken from the temple at Bevelle to the island of Besaid. I was alone in Zanarkand, with this," he pointed to the scars on his face, "Along with a broken collarbone, a couple of busted ribs, and a punctured lung. I knew I was dying. But I had given both Braska and Jecht my word that I would see to their children, so I set off over Gagazet." His realized that his hands were shaking, so he desperately tried to will them to stop.

No. Someone must have found him, fixed him up. He is here. He can't be dead. I didn't just spend last night…and this morning…making love with a ghost. Wait, what did he call that Yunalesca bitch? Unsent? Is that it? This is perfect. He might be dead, and he thinks I am just a dream. I really think I'm going to get hysterical soon.

"I also picked this up," indicating the scar that went through his left shoulder, "Just before I reached Bevelle. Kimahri found me right after I killed the beast that gave it to me, but we both knew that I was done for. He was leaving Gagazet himself, so he agreed to take Yuna to Besaid for me. Kimahri left me, and went to get Yuna, and…I…died. I chose to become an unsent. Jecht was now the new Sin. He met me at the water's edge, and brought me to his Zanarkand. We talked along the way, and formed a plan." He wondered, is she going to let me get dressed before she throws me out, or is she going to shove me out the door naked and throw my pants out after me? He looked into her face, trying to guess what she was thinking, but he was too caught up in his own emotions to be able to read hers.

She felt like her world was coming apart at the seams. I'll save the hysterics for later. Lords and Ladies, he's even more frightened than am I. This is all true. I feel it somehow. The way that the terrible things you dread are the ones that come to pass. He skipped over his being unsent. We'll have to get back to that later. I think whatever is coming next is worse for him, even than that. How do I let him know that he's not going anywhere for a while? "Auron, let's get the map off the bed and lie back down. Okay?"

He didn't even answer in words, just grabbed the map from the bed and propped it against the nearest wall. By the time he turned back to her, she had already lain down on the bed and was holding the covers open for him to slide in next to her. The relief on his face was so intense; it was almost a caress in itself. But as he settled in beside her, she shivered and asked, "Are you alright? Your skin is like ice."

He cuddled her close. "This brought back too many bad memories." He didn't say that he had been afraid she would show him the door, or maybe the window, but he thought it.

They held each other a long time, drawing warmth from each other's bodies, and comfort from the closeness that they shared. As he cradled her in his arms, rubbing his cheek against her hair, he felt her hands stroking his back; she was trying to soothe him just as he was attempting to do the same for her. Auron finally realized that, far from throwing him out, Mercy didn't seem any more willing to let him go than he was to let her go.

He drew his head back far enough so that he could look into her eyes. He brought his hand up to brush her cheek with his knuckles, and saw that his hand still trembled. He let his hand rest on the back of her neck. Her fingertips caressed his face. The expression on her face filled him with wonder.

"You believe me?" he whispered, his voice shaking.

She smiled at him. "Of course I believe you. And I believe in you." Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. "But I also have to believe. Your Sin killed my parents, didn't it?" Her tears spilled over, and as he wiped them away with his hand, he nodded.

After she recovered, she lay down on her back on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. "Auron, there's something I have to tell you. I think I've seen the barrier. The one at the boundary of the city."

He propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at her in shock. "When? Where? How did this happen?" He sounded almost frantic.

"It's three days hike from here, at least for me. About two years ago, I felt so restless, I could hardly stand it. I had some leave coming, so I took a week off, and went hiking."

"Alone? Woman, are you planning to drive me insane? You went camping outside the city alone?" He flopped onto his back. "Why does your brother bother to worry about you walking around the city alone at night?" he questioned the ceiling rhetorically.

At first, she just grinned at him, pleased that she understood what the sudden change in attitude was all about, and actually enjoying it. "To answer some of your questions, yes, I was alone, yes, I am planning to drive you insane, and, for your information, I was very well armed, but I didn't have any problems, anyway. I hiked south along the road for three days, and was about to descend into this really weird fog. It was so dense, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I camped overnight, by a stream a little ways outside the fog, thinking it would burn off in the morning, but it didn't, so I just turned around and came home. I thought it was really weird weather, until today."

Auron pulled her back against his chest, and thought about what Mercy had just told him. Not only about the barrier, but about all of it. Two years ago, he had just recently taken over the dojo from Sensei Hikaru. He had been the one feeling especially restless. He had suddenly been the one teaching all the classes, including the children's classes, which he still hated. For the first time in his life, he had been beset by financial concerns, and he had been longing desperately to escape into the hills surrounding the city, but had been too duty bound to do so, even for a day. So instead, Mercy had been the one who had fled outside the city, and had found…the limits of Zanarkand.

"My lady, I think you may be right. I believe you did find the barrier. The distance seems correct. Sometime, when we can both leave the city for a few days, you must show me this place." His arms tightened around her. It has to be sometime in the next five years, or it will be too late, he realized. I must tell her the rest, before my courage fails me.

"Auron, will you tell me the rest now? I know there's something more. Something that hurt you. Or something that you think will hurt me." She got a good look at the expression on his face. "Or is it both?"

"There are no temples here. No gods, no religion." He wasn't asking questions, he was making statements.
"None," she replied. I think Spira is a spiral because no question about it ever has a straight answer. Ever.
"On Spira, there are several major temples. There are priests everywhere. There is one religion. Anyone who does not belong to it is either a traitor or an outcast. The teachings of Yevon are law. They must be obeyed without question. Yevon is worshipped as a god. Everyone is taught to believe that Sin is their punishment for using machina, and that if they atone for their sins, someday, a summoner will defeat it and it will not return. It is all lies. Jecht became Sin because Yu Yevon, the last great summoner of Zanarkand, created Sin. As long as summoners use the Final Summoning, Sin can never be destroyed, because Yu Yevon will always take over their summoning. He was the greatest summoner Zanarkand ever produced. Yevon is not a god, Yu Yevon created Sin. Sin has nothing to do with our using machina. I even wonder if the priests have known all about this from the very beginning. Their only interest is in feathering their own nests." Auron's disgust was palpable.

"So what is your plan?"

Her question brought him back to her with a sharp stab of pain. "Jecht is Sin, now. When each new guardian becomes Sin, there is a period of peace, the Calm. This is the time when the guardian fights Yu Yevon for control. How long the Calm lasts varies, depending on the bond between guardian and summoner, and the strength of the guardian's will. Once the Calm is over, Sin starts wrecking havoc in Spira again. Then summoners begin pilgrimages again, trying for another Calm. Even after the Calm ends, Jecht will still have some control over some of his actions, but less and less as time passes. After Jecht learned that Yu Yevon controlled Sin, we knew that any solution required that Yu Yevon be destroyed, not just Sin. I've thought about this a great deal the past five years, and I believe it requires destroying Sin without the Final Aeon, but I am not even sure that this is possible. I think there may be other…difficulties, as well, because of the other aeons that exist in Spira. It might not be enough. And, we will need a summoner. I am afraid it might be Braska's daughter. In five years, Yuna will be seventeen." The expression on his face looked like grief for one already dead.

"Auron, what happens in five years?" Now, it was Mercy's turn to sound anxious.

"Jecht believes that his son needs to go to Spira, to complete what he started. But Jecht wanted to give Tidus a chance to grow up first. In five years, he will return to take me and the boy back to Spira. I know Jecht. He will do it. But…I cannot tell Tidus any of this. He hates his father. The boy will not come willingly. And…I do not believe Jecht will have a great deal of control left by then. He will wreck this city when he comes for us. Many lives will be lost in the devastation." Maybe even yours, my lady, and I will not be able to protect you, he thought in anguish.

The stricken look on Auron's face matched hers. Five years, we have five years, she thought. A line from an old poem surfaced from the depths of her memory. 'And at my back I always hear, time's winged chariot, hurrying near.' In five years, that chariot will carry him away. He will go, no matter what. He gave his word, and he will keep it.

I have to ask this, I have to ask. "Auron, you said that this city is a dream. Am I a dream?" her voice quavered.

"I don't know. I think you are more than just a dream, now. Jecht definitely is. He not only came to Spira, he became Sin. Sin is…the defining reality of Spira. It is certainly not a dream. Jecht believes that Tidus must come to Spira to break the cycle, so his son must also be more than a dream. Or maybe, he will be when he gets there. Your life has already been touched by Sin, so you must be more, too. Or at least…it is possible. But this city is a dream, except to those who live here. To them, it is completely real. And their souls are their own. When Tidus' mother died, her soul went to the Farplane. I felt it go."

"Auron, what, or where, is this Farplane you keep talking about?" Maybe I'll finally get an answer to this one question, at least. The other, I can't make any sense of it. I don't feel like a dream. I just feel too wrung out to take much more of this.

"The Farplane is where the dead reside. In Spira, Summoners send the souls of the newly departed to the Farplane. Otherwise the dead usually become fiends."

"Auron, you said usually. You didn't become a fiend. And you said Tidus' mother made it to this Farplane of yours, but there are no Summoners here."

"If a person is able to accept death while they are still alive, they can reach the Farplane even without a Summoner. Tidus' mother just…didn't want to go on living, so, she did not. She sought death, and she found it. I found death, but I could not let go of living. I still had…promises to keep. I could not keep them if I went to the Farplane, or if I became a fiend, so…I did neither."

He knew that her frame of reference was different from his, but still, he still had to ask the question that plagued him most, the one that would be most important on Spira, "My lady, I am an unsent. Does that not trouble you?"

"Auron, it makes me glad."
His expression was thunderstruck. Maybe she was the crazy one.
She shook her head, aware that he could not see this from her perspective. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't," she said simply.

Then she was very serious. "It is much more troubling that 'all this'", she gestured around her, "the world as I know it, and possibly my life, will end in five years, when Sin comes for you and the boy. She was silent for a moment, trying to shield her thoughts from her face. I think it may be too late already. When you go, I think maybe my world goes with you. Aloud she said, "If we only have five years, we had better make the most of them." She was smiling as she kissed him, and for a brief time they were able to keep the future and all it held at bay, but as they made love, he was able to taste the salt of her tears.

…Spira…Macalania Travel Agency

He paced his room alone, in the Travel Agency in Macalania, and realized just how much Mercy must have trusted him, believed in him. He ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his face with his hands, and realized that his own cheeks were wet with tears. He went to the water basin and splashed cold water on his face. Trust. Faith. Mercy believed me based on nothing but my own bare word. At least Jecht and Tidus had both already been here in Spira when they had been forced to face the fact of its existence. Mercy had nothing much to go on except my word. And she took me at my word for five years, and now I am here, and she is gone. I would rather have been a liar, or insane. Anything would have been preferable to the truth.

But how can I let Yuna marry Seymour? I do not trust Maester Seymour. I would not trust Seymour with the care of a squatter monkey, let alone Braska's daughter. I certainly do not trust him to negotiate in good faith with Yuna, so why am I allowing this to proceed? I wish Mercy were here. She would know what to say to Yuna, where I do not. I wish Mercy were here. Hot tears mixed with the cold water that still streamed down his face.

End Chapter Ten