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 a song originally performed by Poco.
Mercy lay awake in the dark, and stared out the window of their room in the travel agency on the Mi'ihen Highroad. I should tell Rin that he really needs to something about this place, the next time I see him, she mused. Not only is the room cold, even the blankets are threadbare. Still, it's not like he has any competition out here. No more inns until Djosé. Tomorrow night we'll probably be camping by the road, and this will seem like paradise in comparison. Her mind reflected on the day just past. The landscape is so barren…empty and lifeless, except for the travelers on the road…and the fiends. We found plenty of those…hopefully enough to make the arena keeper happy. She shivered in the chill night air, and thought about getting up and finding Auron's coat to use as an extra blanket, but even as she began to steel herself to get out of the bed, his arms closed around her from behind and pulled her in tight, tucking her smaller frame against his larger, and very much warmer one. He didn't even wake up as he cuddled her; he did it automatically in response to her shivering beside him. As she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the heat of his body and soothed by the touch of his skin against hers, she smiled as she remembered the one advantage this room had over camping out with the rest of their party. I'm definitely going to miss the privacy. She reached back, and trailed a hand down over her husband's bare hip and thigh. Definitely.
But they decided to go down the Oldroad before heading to Djosé, and by late afternoon they had hiked all the way down to the end of the road and were on their way back to the Highroad when they passed the plateau and the ruins in the rock wall for the second time. Mercy, unable to contain her curiosity on the return trip, asked, "Does anyone know what these are? Or rather, were? It's too small to have been a town. Was it an estate or something like that?"
"No one knows," Lulu answered. "These ruins have been here since before the Highroad was built."
"Why don't we take a look inside? Maybe we could camp here tonight, instead of out in the open?" Mercy looked at her companions, and saw Tidus' and Auron's heads both nod in agreement. The others appeared to be at least considering the possibility.
Kimahri surprised her by speaking up in defense of her idea. "If building is safe, walls make better camp. Easier to keep watch."
Rikku chimed in with, "It's cold at night. Maybe it'll be warmer in there. I say we go see if it's okay."
"I agree," Yuna said, smiling. "Let's take a look. Maybe we'll find out something, too."
As they worked out a plan to check the old ruin, Tidus muttered under his breath to Auron, "You know, she just wants to poke around and see what's there. Good luck pulling her away in the morning, old man."
Auron's gaze flicked over to his wife, eagerly running ahead of the others to go 'poke around' as the younger man had so aptly described, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile as he shrugged his shoulders. "I will manage…somehow." He shook his head. "She thinks this is…fun." Tidus looked up at him, and laughed.
As she explored the old building, Mercy kept having the strange feeling that the place was…familiar…somehow. She felt as if she had been in this 'house' before, that she knew this place. She was certain that it had been a house, she was even sure that she knew what most of the rooms had been. The building seemed eerily comfortable to her in many ways, except that she kept expecting to turn the corner and find the rooms furnished, and they were all bare, or worse, filled with debris from animals, earlier campers, and the occasional collapsed wall or ceiling. But, in spite of the passage of the centuries, the structure still seemed to be sound, and looked to provide better shelter for the night than camping out-of-doors.
Kimahri choose a room in the front corner of the first floor as their 'campground' for the night. It still possessed four walls and a roof, and had a window they could use to escape, if the old ruin did choose this night of all nights to collapse, a possible but unlikely event. Mercy went searching for Auron, to let him know what had been decided, and found him on the second floor, in the center room, standing in front of a large window overlooking the road. The room felt warm and welcoming, bathed in the rosy glow of the sun setting behind the road, in spite of the bare, windswept walls and floor.
Auron heard her footsteps behind him and said, "I was watching the sunset," keeping her from asking what he was doing, just standing here, lost in thought, alone in this barren room. He wasn't completely sure of that himself. He definitely wasn't ready to answer any of his wife's probing questions on the subject.
"There's something about this place, isn't there?" she asked, as she came to stand beside him. He nodded, still staring out the window, unable to define what that 'something' might be.
Mercy woke in the middle of the night, and knew instantly what was wrong. Auron wasn't there. She lay still, listening, but heard nothing except the sound of Kimahri's pacing in the adjacent rooms. Wherever her husband was, it wasn't close enough for her to hear him. She felt around on top of the blankets, and realized that he must have intended to be away for a while, because he had taken his coat with him. She sat up and reached for her tunic, and tied it on loosely over her sports bra, then she turned her legs out of the bedroll, pulled on her boots, and stood, picking up the longer of her two swords as she did so. As quietly as she could, she stepped around her sleeping companions and made her way to where Kimahri was keeping guard duty for this watch of the night. When her eyes met the Ronso's, they didn't even need to speak, he guessed instantly what she wanted to know. He pointed to the mostly intact stairway barely visible in the center of what she had mentally reconstructed as the main hall of the dwelling. She nodded in both thanks and acknowledgement, and moved carefully to the stairs, and up to the second floor. She didn't need any further guidance; she already knew where Auron must be.
She found him exactly where she had expected to, in the central room with the picture window. She saw him silhouetted against the night sky, leaning over, with his hands on the old windowsill. She stood in the doorway and called his name softly, "Auron…" and her voice seemed to bring him out of a trance, because he shook his head sharply, as if to clear it, then he straightened and held out his hand for her, and when she took his hand, he grabbed hers and held on, almost too tightly, as he drew her around until she was standing in front of him, her back against his chest, and he wrapped both his arms around her and held her close.
She felt, and heard, his heart racing near her ear. I really startled him, she realized. He was so lost he didn't hear me. That's so unlike him. What was he thinking about? But she remained silent, waiting for him to tell her what was on his mind. His words surprised her, because his thoughts echoed her own earlier musings.
"This place," he began, then he paused, not certain how to proceed. To hell with it. She is the one person who will not think I am mad. At least, he amended to himself, not too mad. "This place feels familiar to me. It is as if I have been here before," he paused again, momentarily unable to explain further.
"Have you…been here…before?" she asked quietly. "Or, around here?"
"The Oldroad is used for training exercises," he stated. "I have passed by here a few times, but not often. The road leads nowhere. And I have never been inside this place before today. There was no reason. It would have been…"
"A waste of time," she finished for him, her head tilted back against his chest so that he could see that she was smiling fondly at him. "I know."
He smiled back, and pressed his lips against her forehead. "Yes." She turned her face back to the window. There was a full moon shining over the valley, and she thought the view was quite lovely in the moonlight. Auron continued, "But I feel as if I know the purpose of each of these rooms, and I cannot explain how I can be so certain. This was the lord's bedchamber, and the two smaller rooms down the hall were the children's bedrooms. I know, but I do not know how I know. The large room next to this, I think it was used for a variety of purposes…"
"The room next to this was a solarium," she finished for him. "The family used it for meals when they were not entertaining, and for quiet evenings together."
"You feel it too, then?" he asked.
She didn't answer his question, but went on with her catalog of the rooms on this floor. "The room across from the," she choked suddenly, then coughed and continued, "children's bedrooms was the nursery. It was used as a schoolroom when they got to be older." She stopped again, then finally went said, "Yes, I feel it, too."
He heard the tremor in her voice, and guessed that she was crying. He turned her around, and she slid her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his shirt. Her hands balled into fists, he felt her pull at his shirt, as she willed herself to stop the tears. He folded himself around her; his cheek on the top of her head, holding her, wishing they could talk about this, but he knew from past attempts that it wouldn't do any good. We cannot have children, whether either or both of us wish otherwise. We are both unsent…we cannot create life. Resignedly, he reminded himself, as he had countless times before, that discussing the issue would not help, it would only cause pain.
She rubbed her face against Auron's shirt, drying her eyes, wishing that she could learn to stop crying about something that she had no power to change. All I do is hurt myself, and him. And it changes nothing.
He wanted desperately to take her mind off of the children's bedrooms down the hall, so he decided to tell her some of the other things that he had 'seen' as he had stood in this strangely familiar and yet unfamiliar room. "I saw you here," he began slowly. "She was…you and yet not you." She looked up at that, a dangerous glitter in her eyes. A warning voice sounded in his mind, go carefully, or you'll be sleeping alone for a long time…a long, long time. "She was a warrior, as you are, but there was no music room here. She looked…very much like you," he stopped, as he suddenly realized that, whoever the woman was, she was the model that Mercy had been drawn from…literally. The fayth had used the people of Spira as models for the people in the dream Zanarkand, he had seen too many familiar faces not to know that, but he had never seen anyone who resembled those closest to him, a fact for which he had been most grateful. But the woman who had lived in this house…she had been the original from which his Mercy had been drawn. He smiled down at his wife, to cover for the pause in his speech, and continued, "except that she had long hair, down to here," with that, he traced a line across her butt with his hand, "all done up in elaborate braids that started at the top of her head and ran all the way down her back." His fingers followed his words, and traced the same path from the crown of her head down her spine.
She shivered with sensual awareness at his touch, and laughed softly. "You're just saying that you wish I had long hair," she teased, more than willing to let him distract her.
"Well, yes, of course I do," he answered easily. "But I love you as you are." Then he ran his fingers through the short, silky strands of her hair, and captured her face between his hands, and kissed her.
It was a light kiss, gentle and loving, but not intending to go any further. But she wanted to go further. She wanted to forget the hurt they had caused each other, and to lose the constant eerie pressure of the oddly familiar past of this place by losing herself, by letting them lose themselves, in their own familiar present. She slipped her hand behind his neck, and pulled him back for another kiss, more teasing; her lips open under his, her tongue flicking against his lower lip seductively.
He had intended to be sensible, but as he looked down at her, from the expression in her luminous eyes, her softly parted lips, and the way she had pressed her body flush against his, from her breasts to her thighs, he was aware that his wife wasn't particularly interested in being sensible. And, he was willing to go along with her. Parts of him were more than willing, a fact which was becoming more obvious by the second. He judged that they had privacy enough, even if the room was lacking in comfort. If she did not mind, he was not going to argue with her. Instead, his hand swept down her back in a long caress, as he lowered his mouth to hers. His tongue swept inside her parted lips, and hers was there to meet his, as they began to taste each other. She started pulling at his shirt, wanting, as she always did, to reach inside and touch his skin underneath, just as he found the tie on her tunic and drew it open. The movements were familiar, and yet they were still new, each time, and always had the power to set him on fire for her. But as he opened himself up to the sensations, and let loose of the restraints that usually leashed his mind as well as his body, he was assailed by a kaleidoscope of images of the woman who had been Mercy in the past, who had been in this place, long ago. He knew he was seeing through another man's eyes, but a man who felt the same as he did, the same love, the same desire, and the same possessiveness as well. Whoever he was, whoever she was, they had been husband and wife in that past as well. But in that past…he saw her in ways he could not have seen in this life, and the pictures shook him to his soul. It was all in this same room, even though the room had been furnished then. He saw her…thousands and thousands of different ways, but all her. The pictures flashed by so quickly, it seemed as though within a single heartbeat. In some, she seemed impossibly young, years before he even could have known her in his own life, when she was in her late teens, and he was still a child, but in that other life, they had already been married. In many, she was as she had been during the time he had known her, except for the beautiful long hair, where sometimes he saw the silver strands sparkling among the sable brown. He saw her in full armor, dressed in flowing robes, completely nude, and everything in between. But the last picture he saw before the vision faded was something he knew he could never see in this life, and had tried never to imagine. She stood by the bed, completely naked, and visibly and glowingly pregnant with his child. It was simply the most erotic image he had ever seen in his life.
He blinked, and his vision returned to the present, and it changed…nothing. Mercy was all that he saw, all that he could see; he felt the same, heart and body, infinite love and intense desire. She was the most alluring, seductive woman he had ever known. Need crackled through him, as raw and uncontrolled as the lightning on the Thunder Plains. He stared down at her face for a moment, his eye half-lidded, licking his lips as his gaze shifted from her eyes, to her mouth, and down to her breasts. She felt her breasts swell and her nipples pucker as he watched avidly. Then he dragged his focus back up to her lips, as he molded his hands over the rounded curves of her derriere and lifted her and ground her hips against him as he fastened his mouth on hers in a devouring kiss. She clung to him, one hand speared through his hair, the other clawing at his shoulders as she stood on her toes, desperately trying to press her body closer to his.
His lips left hers to trail down her neck, and along her shoulder, in a series of licking, nibbling kisses that set fire to her already overheated skin. The sound of their harsh, rapid breathing filled the room, along with other sounds, murmurs, whimpers, moans, and the slide of hands over cloth, and flesh. She dropped her arms from around his neck to lower, around his waist, and her hands burrowed under his shirt. She couldn't lift it high enough on his chest to get it out of her way, so she just started to make tiny bites across his pectoral muscles, until she made her way to the flat disc that marked one of his nipples. That, she began to lave with her tongue, until his shirt was damp and he was ready to cry out from the sensation. But by then, he had shifted his hands to cradle her breasts, and was tormenting her by rubbing the pad of his thumbs back and forth over the hard peaks. She lifted her face to his, slid her hand around the back of his neck, and pulled his head down for a scalding kiss. He reached for the drawstring on her pants, and pulled it open. They fell to her hips. Impatiently, he brushed at them with his hands, and the pants fell to her boot-tops.
His hands were everywhere, caressing her skin, inflaming everywhere they touched. And she found that there was something…wanton…about being almost completely naked while Auron was still mostly clothed that seemed to be making her even more crazed than normal, which was seriously saying something. Or maybe it was simply that he was just about out of control, and she always loved it when he was like that. But she wanted, no, needed, to get him out of at least some of his clothes…now. She kissed him again, her tongue tasting his lips, teasing and then probing. As he took control of the kiss, she dug the nails of one hand into his backside, while her other hand was caressing him through the fabric of his pants. He began to thrust against her hand, and then stopped himself. She broke off kissing him and began to unfasten his pants. He caught both her hands in one of his.
"This used to be a bedroom," he said thickly, taking a harsh breath between each word.
"No bed here now. We'll just have to make do," she answered, her eyes over-bright. "Soon."
His eye darted around the room. He was about half a breath away from just taking her against a wall, but the walls were too rough, her back would be torn to ribbons, even if she kept her shirt on. He saw his coat draped over the open windowsill, snatched it up, took a few steps towards the side of the room out of the direct path from the door to the window, and half laid, half threw it on the floor. He kicked at the edges to spread it out a bit more, then glanced over at his wife, one brow raised in a question. When he looked at her, he realized that the answer had better be 'yes', whatever he had to do to convince her. She was more undressed than dressed, and he knew it was all his doing. She looked wild, passionate, incredibly sexy…and his. Soon, he hoped.
She smiled, a very female, almost feline smile, and began to slink towards him. He sat down on his coat with his back to the wall, and began to take off his boots. He knew she was going to make him take them off sooner or later, he decided that he might as well do it sooner. She lowered herself to the red wool cloth, and faced him. He patted his thigh in a familiar gesture, telling her without words that he wanted to help her with her boots. She leaned back on her hands and laid her booted foot over his leg. He pulled her boot off easily, along with one leg of her pants. He grinned at her wolfishly, then motioned for her to let him get her other foot. She smiled back, and presented him with her other boot. Soon her boots, and her pants, lay discarded on the stone floor.
He let his back rest against the wall, and stared at her. Her eyes were slightly glazed, her lips were swollen with his kisses, her open shirt floated down her back while her full breasts, with their dark aureoles and ripe, distended nipples, were presented to him, as if for him to feast upon, because somewhere along the way he had shoved her bra out of the way, and it was now below her breasts instead of covering them. He had even pushed her bikini underwear partway down her hips, and exposing the upper reaches of the dark nest of curls he ached to touch. He felt like he was ready to explode, and knew that once he was inside her, he wouldn't be able to last long, he didn't think he would have much control over the matter by then. He wanted to take care of her, now, while he still had some measure of self-mastery.
He settled his shoulders into the wall, and spread his legs apart, then patted the ground directly in front of him. "Come here," he rasped.
She moved to sit on her heels in front of him, and tilted her head to one side quizzically. Then she leaned forward and fastened her mouth on his. He felt like he was drowning in desire, both hers and his own. He was close to letting himself slide down the wall, and pulling her down with him, when she lifted her lips and began to lick kisses down his jaw. Then she shifted one of her hands along the ground, to get a little better balance, and unfortunately found a rock under the cloth, and simply pressed her face into his shoulder as she winced in momentary pain. The lapse served to remind him of their circumstances, that if they weren't careful one or both of them could get hurt more than could be ignored in the heat of the moment.
He swallowed thickly, and got his voice back again. "I meant, sit here," he tried again, as he dropped his hands to her hips, to make sure this time that she did what he had in mind. He settled her down between his legs, with her butt snuggled tightly against his groin. He realized instantly that it was going to be sheer torture. His wife tended to wiggle. He peeled the shirt off her back, and set it aside, then removed her bra and pulled her back against his chest.
"Auron," she began, "what are you doing?" Her voice was a throaty purr.
"That should be obvious," he murmured against her ear, as his left hand closed around her breast, and his right hand skimmed over her belly and down inside her panties and between her legs. Her head lolled against his shoulder as he rolled her nipple between his fingers, and his right thumb rubbed over the hard little knot of nerve endings that was already screaming for his touch. She writhed against him, seeking more intimate contact. He groaned in her ear, desperate to keep from simply flipping them both over to the hard floor.
She was almost there, almost ready to fly. She felt it in every part of her body, every cell crying for her to just let go and jump. She just needed one more thing. The rhythm of his fingers against her was pulsing faster and faster, and she just needed to touch him back, in order to let go. Almost blind, she grabbed for his other hand, fumbled to lace her fingers with his, and then shuddered and shook and writhed as she fell into the light, crying his name.
Her grip on his hand felt like it ground his bones together. He thought that the sharp pain was the only thing that kept him from following her. Then she slumped in his arms as she fell back to reality, and unlocked the tight clasp she had on his hand. He flexed his fingers in relief, before he began to gently stroke and caress her, keeping her close in the circle of his arms, helping her float down instead of crash. She half-turned on her side to cuddle against him, while he continued to rub soothingly on her back.
Her eyes flickered open, and she glanced up, and mischievous look on her face. "Now it's your turn," she breathed. Then she caught the hem of his shirt and shoved it high on his chest, and rested her cheek on his bared stomach. She licked his skin, tasting the salt of his sweat, and purring like a cat as she rubbed her face against him. She traced the rigid shaft of his erection through his pants, cupping her hand over the sensitive flesh. He sucked in his breath. She smiled lazily as she began to unfasten his trousers, every movement of her fingers a delightful torment to him, especially when her tongue dipped into his belly button, and then she blew warm breaths over his now damp skin. He lifted his hips so she could draw the restraining fabric away, then she licked him, from base to tip. His head fell back against the wall with an audible thump, but he felt no pain, as she took the head into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. Pleasure raced through his entire body, as she sucked on him, driving him toward blissful oblivion. He rested one of his hands on the back of her head; the other clenched a fold of his coat in his fist. As the intense pressure built, he strained to maintain control of two raging demons, not to use his hand to push her head down, to force himself deeper into the hot, wet cave of her mouth, and not to let go, not to explode as she sucked him, because as glorious as it was, he wanted more.
He barely managed to choke out the word, "Stop," and nearly went mad when she did. Especially since she did not actually move away from her ministrations, she simply ceased her motions, and opened her eyes wide in question, while still keeping her lips sealed around him. The sight alone nearly sent him over the edge. It actually took him several pounding heartbeats to form the next few words, articulate speech almost beyond his power. "Mercy," he growled, not sure if he was saying her name or begging, "I want you to ride me."
Her eyes glittered, as she drew her lips up, slowly, tauntingly, then she kissed the tip of his shaft, and he very nearly did beg for her not to stop, after all. But he wanted to be inside her when he found his release. He sat up and pulled off his shirt, as she knelt and drew his pants the rest of the way off his legs. Then he slid down, away from the wall, so he could lie flat on his back on the illusion of a bed created by his coat on the bare floor.
She straddled him, her hands on the cloth above his shoulders, his hands on her waist. She leaned over him, and touched her lips to his, tilted her hips, and he slid inside her. Her eyes dropped shut for a second, as she tried to lock the feeling inside. This first instant, always felt so…intensely perfect. She wished they could just stay like this, forever.
Every time was like the first time, the last time, and the best time, all rolled into one. He wanted to make this last, but then, he always did. It could never last long enough. Forever wouldn't be long enough. He wanted to hold her, close and tight in his arms, just like she was holding him inside her body. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, bringing her with him. Her legs clasped his waist loosely, and they sat face to face, intimately joined. This position pushed him deep and high inside her; the hot, wet vice of her sex gripped him tight. Her hands stroked his back as they embraced; he held her close and caressed her breasts. They rocked together, back and forth, and the movement slowly built the tension between them to a fever pitch, and she started to moan and whimper against his neck. He reached down, rubbed his thumb where she needed him to, and the waves crashed over her, and through her, and her senses drowned in pleasure. It was everything he had been waiting for. He let himself go, and drowned with her.
Stunned and senseless, for a brief while the held each other upright, wrapped tightly in each other's arms. Too spent to get dressed and return to camp, they eventually managed to untangle themselves and lay down together, Auron pushing Mercy's legs back around and then pulling her down on top of him, protecting her from whatever sticks and rocks might lie under his coat by exposing his own back to the risk of being cut or bruised. As they began to doze, he grabbed the nearest piece of clothing and draped it over his wife's back, hoping that whatever he had found, her shirt, from the feel of it, would serve to keep her warm while they slept. Then he dropped off to sleep.
Mercy woke sometime later, later enough that the room was considerably darker. She judged that the moon had either set, or had gone behind the hill the house was a part of. But to her sleep-filled eyes the room was very different than it had been earlier, and it wasn't just the lack of light. In the shadows, she saw the ghost of the room as it had been, once upon a time. Where earlier in the day, she had thought that she kept seeing the rooms furnished, as if out of the corner of her eye, now, in the night-shadows, she truly saw the room as it had once been. She could see where each piece of furniture, each rug, each decoration had sat. And when Auron had tossed his coat so casually on the floor, he had thrown it on the spot where the bed had been.
She closed her eyes for a second, almost afraid to act on her own thoughts. In sleep, she had fallen from her original position on her husband's chest to one of their normal sleeping positions, curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, her arm across his torso, her legs tangled with his. She could feel him next to her, even with her eyes firmly closed, and it felt good, and right, and normal. But when she opened her eyes, and looked at the two of them lying entwined on the bed, her vision doubled. She couldn't see her own 'other' face, for which she heartily thanked whatever beings might be responsible for this mess, but she saw the long hair that trailed over her counterpart's shoulder, and across the male body next to hers. And if she…felt…instead of thought, Mercy realized that this other woman felt the same about this man next to her, as she felt about Auron. This was her husband, and she did love him very much. It was as if there were a kind of…echo…from the past. Mercy forced herself to stare at the man. It was strange, because she could see both men. Auron's face and form were clear, and the other man's ghostly image was superimposed over his. Physically they were the same type, the same height and build, almost an exact match. The only difference was in the scars; both men were battle-scarred warriors, but the battles they had fought had left their marks in slightly different places. And her counterpart definitely had excellent taste in men. Mercy wanted to laugh. She could tell exactly how excellent, since both men were completely naked.
The men's faces were nowhere near exactly alike, but they were similar. If the two men stood side-by-side, someone would think they were close kin, brothers perhaps, as they seemed to be almost the same age. The other man, his hair was black, too. It was long, but not as long as Auron's, it didn't look like it was quite long enough to tie back the way Auron did. But their faces had so much in common. They had the same strong jaw, the same nose, the same full lips. If this was Spira's past she was seeing, then she wouldn't have been surprised to discover that this man was her husband's ancestor, however many generations back. Something else about the man's face haunted her. The specter was familiar, as though she had seen him, or someone very like him, in her own life, but certainly not in this context.
She lifted her hand to touch Auron's cheek, not entirely certain whether she would touch the present, or the past. But when her fingers scratched against the stubble of his beard, the images faded, and only the bare room remained. He woke up, took her hand in his, and kissed her fingers. "We should probably get dressed and go back downstairs for what's left of the night," she reminded him.
"I know," he replied. "We should have brought our supplies up here for the night." He tried to roll onto his side, and caught a stone under his shoulder. He shifted slightly and tried the movement again. Once he was facing her, he drew her carefully into his arms. She cuddled close, and started to drift back to sleep, lulled by his warmth. He found himself dozing again, and almost fell back to sleep. He kissed her awake again. "We should go," he said reluctantly.
"Yes, before they find us like this in the morning," she reminded him. He sat up instantly and began searching for his clothes.
They dressed quickly, and retrieved their swords from where they had been resting against the wall by the window. Then they carefully negotiated the stairs down to the main level in the dark. On the stair landing, when they both moved to one side to avoid a table that was no longer there, but that both of them could definitely see, Mercy asked her husband in confusion, "What is it we see? Why us? I don't think this affects the others."
"I think we see…the past," he answered carefully. "But I do not know why. And I agree, it does not seem to affect the others." He paused. "Are you afraid?"
Instead of answering his question, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Just before I woke you," she began hesitantly, into the darkness, "I saw a man, much like you, just the way you said you saw a woman who looked like me. Except…he didn't look exactly like you. But he did look like he could have been your brother, or maybe your cousin, there was a kind of family resemblance, but he definitely wasn't you. Maybe this place belonged to one of your ancestors. Maybe that's your connection to this place, why you see these things. But I have no ties to Spira, except through you. So why me?"
He rocked back on his heels, not sure how to react to the concept that the original model for his wife might have been his own many times great-grandmother. He concluded that some ideas were best not thought of too carefully.
He moved his sword from his right hand to his left, and curled her fingers into his. "These visions must have a purpose. I hope it will become clear, in time." He squeezed her hand. "But we are both tired. Further speculation will not alter what we have seen. Let's return to the others, before someone begins to search for us, and injures themselves in the dark."
She leaned her head against his arm. "You're right. I'm beat. Let's go," she answered wearily.
They made their way back through the empty house to the room where the rest of the party had camped. They both nodded as they passed Wakka, who was now on guard, as they crept quietly back towards their bedroll. Wakka just shook his head after they were behind him, embarrassed that he had just seen the older guardians both looking as if they had been rolling around on the dirt floor somewhere in their clothes, or, he realized, more likely without them. Mercy and Auron were too tired to care. They removed their boots with as little noise as possible, and then slipped into bed for the remainder of the night, dropping almost instantly into sleep in their mussed clothes, falling easily back into the same position they had taken on the floor upstairs.
In the morning, the party made their way up the Oldroad back to the Highroad, and through the passageway that marked the entrance to Mushroom Rock Road. The map showed that two of the celestial weapons were located on dead-end paths that branched off from the main track of the road. When they turned off the road to begin winding their way along the first trail, Mercy noticed that every one of her companions became instantly subdued, except for Rikku. It was plain to her that something terrible had happened in this place, but she could not recall what it might have been, and they were all walking too close together for her to ask Auron. It was equally clear to her that whatever the event had been, no one wanted to talk about it.
As they traversed the canyons of fantastically shaped rocks, Mercy saw that the trail skirted around and across the canyon floor, but that there didn't seem to be any paths that led to the bottom. It doesn't look that far, she decided. We have all the gear we need, if we have to climb down. I bet we do. This weapon was a 'seek' notation on the map. It's hard to believe that it was just lying around, when they were here before, whatever else happened, and no one even remembers it.
But as they walked, they encountered fiends, as they did wherever they traveled. But this was different. Yuna's attitude was strange; the summoner seemed filled with grim determination, a marked difference from her usual calm demeanor. Mercy thought that the young woman acted as if she felt personally responsible for the existence of each and every fiend they encountered along the way. Why should Yuna feel guilty, Mercy asked herself. She can't believe this is somehow her fault, can she?
When the party reached the point on the path that corresponded to the map, it was obvious to everyone that the weapon they sought must be on the level below. "Guess we'll have to climb down," Mercy said. "I think the best places to climb were at the south end of the canyon."
"We should go back," Auron continued.
"I wish to go on," Yuna interjected. "I want to return to the summit."
"But why, Yuna?" Tidus questioned. "I'm sure there's nothing there."
"I need to go back," the summoner cried. "I want to perform another sending."
"Yuna," Auron began quietly, "you know that it will do no good. You sent the dead after the battle. The fiends that remain…cannot be reached by any sending."
"But Sir Auron, I must try," she pleaded. "Perhaps there are some who can still be reached. I am stronger now." She paused, then let her gaze sweep over the entire party. "I will go to the summit, and perform another sending," Yuna stated with finality.
"As you wish," Auron replied, acquiescing to his summoner's wishes.
A water-powered lifting rock deposited them on a higher-level plateau, then they marched over to an elevator machina. Mercy let the bits and pieces jumble around in her brain, and the answer finally came to the surface. This was the site of Operation Mi'ihen. No wonder everyone is in such a black mood.
But in spite of the terrible memories attached to this place, Auron glanced down at his wife pacing beside him, and could not help but contrast his current emotional state with the one he had been in on the last occasion he had walked this trail, just a few short months ago. Then, he had been even more downcast then Yuna was now, grimly marking the days until he could lay down his burdens, and rest on the Farplane. Now…now my life is sweet again, he mused. In spite of what I told her, I wish that we could remain. I believe that we will be together on the Farplane, but I am more than content with this, he let his hand rest against the small of her back for a moment, physical existence. I do not know what awaits us after we are sent.
As Auron rode the machina to the summit, he listened to the groaning and clanking noises it made with concern. He had learned little about machina during his ten years in Zanarkand, but he did understand that machines that emitted noises of the type that this one was making generally did not continue their function for long without extensive repair. Even at the top, the sky was already dusky with twilight, and the full moon was visible, high in the evening sky. He hoped that the machina would last long enough to take them back down the mountain, as climbing down in the dark would be unwise, and he was certain that none of them would wish to camp among the 'ghosts', even if those existed only in their memories.
They walked down the same path that they had trod months ago, on their way to the command center for the doomed 'Operation'. It was clear that the Al Bhed had returned in the interim, and had reclaimed or salvaged the weapons they had donated to the lost cause. All that remained of the cannons along the cliffside were worn tracks in the earth. The party reached the site of the former command center, and found that it had also been stripped bare. No evidence remained that a pavilion had ever stood there, or that two maesters of Yevon had ever sanctioned a heretical nightmare on this spot. Just to satisfy his own morbid curiosity, Auron studied the ground, and found that even the post-holes had been filled in. Kinoc had been extremely thorough in covering his tracks, Auron recognized, surprised by the sharp pain that hit him at the reminder of the only non-hostile encounter he had managed to have with his former friend.
Yuna walked to the edge of the cliff to begin the sending. Auron pulled Mercy back, far enough away that he believed that they would not be too deeply affected by the call to the Farplane. But Yuna put every ounce of power that she had into her dance. And she had grown very strong during her pilgrimage. He felt the sending draw him, a siren song calling him to lay down his burdens, to let himself go to the Farplane, to find rest, and peace. But he had practice in resisting the call, and with an effort of will, he held his spirit to his body.
But Mercy had never seen a sending, not even while she was alive, and had never felt it as an unsent. At first, she watched in fascination as Yuna began her complicated and graceful ballet. But then, for the first time, she began to truly understand what it meant to be unsent. She felt as if she were being punched and kicked, over and over, and as if her life, her soul, was being sucked out of her a fraction at a time, and she was in tearing agony. It felt as if she were dying a second time, except that this time, it went on and on, seemingly endless torment as she fought to hold herself together. She doubled over in tortured anguish.
Auron felt her clutch at his arm, then her hand slid away, and as he looked down he saw her crumple to the ground, and saw the pyreflies beginning to pull away from her form. In a blind panic, he scooped her up in his arms and ran, bearing her swiftly down the path, as he murmured to her, "Hold on!" He continued to whisper, pleading, "I love you. My lady, I beg you, please hold on." All the while his mind screamed, No…Not now…Not yet!…in an attempt to bargain with the fayth, or any other higher power that might be listening, as he hastened them away from Yuna's sending. He knew it was foolish, and he did not care. He was fully aware that he would make a deal with Yu Yevon himself if he thought for a moment that it would do any good. I swear, we will go after the last battle. I was wrong to wish for more. But I can't lose her now! Don't make me lose her now!
End Chapter Thirty-Seven