Chapter 8
"Well," Tidus said with a hearty stretch. "I think I'm about good. Thanks again for the stew, Lulu. Yuna and I hafta get that ball off the roof of the inn...."
"Do we have to?" Yuna whined playfully.
"Come on," he said, grinning and seizing her wrist. "Bye, you guys!"
Yuna followed Tidus out of their friends' house and took off running for a tent across the cobblestone street. Nope, certainly there was no other couple around that was so ready, so ripe and fateful, for marriage. Auron speculated over it as he took another sip of green tea.
"Cute, aren't they?" Lulu leaned over and half-whispered to Auron at the small table in the center of their living room. "Yuna was so happy to see him again...."
"I can imagine." Auron grinned warmly and looked at Lulu's friendly red eyes.
"So, tell me, what do you think of Yuna and the sphere hunting business?"
"I think it's only right that she should find it enjoyable while she's still young. When you end up like... like me... you start to miss the old ways and... well, not everything is fun anymore..."
"Don't say that, Auron!" Rikku joined in, stirring more sugar into her teacup. "I mean, why don't you give these things a try while you're here?"
"Well... that's the thing. I don't know how long I'll be here. Who knows if anything can happen-"
"Nothing will happen," Lulu said sharply. "We'll forbid it, Sir Auron."
"That's right, ya?" Wakka said from behind them. "Your coming back must be a sign of something. These days are only allowed to be happy times."
"May it last," Auron murmured, before nodding to Lulu and getting up from the table. "The tea was wonderful, Lulu. Just what I needed. I hope you'll excuse me for awhile. I'd like to take a walk and have some time to... remember things."
"I understand completely." Lulu nodded and took his empty teacup. "It's good to have you back, Sir Auron. I'll see you later, then."
"See you later, all," Auron said before walking out. Once more, almost as if he needed to feel it to make sure it all didn't disappear, he let the cool tropical air caress him as he breathed deeply and tried to drive away these strange thoughts. For the past hour now, he had been thinking about why on earth he was here. By now, it was really starting to get to him. How was this even humanly possible? Rikku's words were right. It was insane.
Rikku's words....
During the luncheon, when the others spoke, Auron often slipped into a dreamlike state and reminisced about their past together. Now that he thought about it, they were mostly Rikku's words that played back in his mind and helped him to remember. No two summoner's guardians were ever bigger opposites than Rikku and he. So of course he would closely associate the memories of strange happenings with her. Yet... just how was it that Rikku barely even seemed to remember him? In that cavern just a few hours ago, she had panicked, and either refused to recognize him, or simply didn't because she had forgotten him. And the possibility of Rikku forgetting him impacted Auron in ways that he was afraid to understand.
Inside the Old Yevon temple, priests and monks and choir members nodded to him as if he were a visitor. Auron wondered for a moment what Yuna had said after he passed on to the Farplane once her pilgrimage ended. No stupid comments about being back from the dead!
Looking up at Lord Braska's statue, Auron sighed so deeply that he seemed to have exhaled all his energies and his composure, and breathed with a shudder that almost felt like he would break into a sob. He remembered his friend's kind and truthful eyes, his own piercing into those of Braska's as if to ask why he was here. As much as he'd wanted to come back, Auron felt that this was almost too overwhelming for him, yet it was too much gratification to pass up. No way he would return back to the Farplane until a force beyond his strength, the same that had brought him here, would take him back.
Meanwhile, Rikku had left and sat in one of the beds up in the cabin of the Celsius airship, gazing out the window with her legs tucked under her. She tugged at the ends of her scarf and watched a bird fluttering by in the distance. Somehow, after Auron had left Wakka and Lulu's, she felt extremely bored, although she didn't know why.
She had done her part, hadn't she? Rikku found Auron, convinced Paine to let her take him back to the village, and reunited him with some old friends. But just why in the world was it that she was feeling this clenching in her heart, like she left something undone?
Maybe I just want to talk with Auron more. But why? What's there to talk about? How embarrassing.... Running this over in her mind, she sighed and lay down, turning so that her cheek was resting comfortably onto the pillow. Curling her arms around it, she reflected about Auron even more.
Around the second week after the beginning of her cousin's Eternal Calm, Rikku had begun to have dreams that would come to bother her in time. Though she went on normally in the daytime, Rikku remained fully conscious of herself and her mind right before she got up in the mornings and right before she went to bed in the late evenings. Now, after two years, they had finally stopped, but seeing Auron here again immediately brought her back to the dreams that made her awaken feeling apprehensive and lost in the mornings.
It was from one of those days on Yuna's pilgrimages which she had remembered most clearly. Yuna took the rest of her entourage of guardians up to visit the Farplane, while she and Auron had stayed behind. And to Rikku, it seemed most fateful that they should be there together.
"Why are you staying behind, Rikku?" Auron would always ask.
And she would always reply, "I think the images in the Farplane are just psychological. They don't do anything for me at all. People go there to visit their loved ones to make themselves happy. That kind of thing doesn't make me happy."
Auron peered at her over the tall red collar, those sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose so that Rikku might see his one open, attractive hazel-brown eye. Rikku loved the little she saw of Auron's eyes. So deep and full of meaning, determination....
"You know, there aren't many happy times ahead of us," Auron lay out his hand beside him, motioning for her to come sit there on the old stairs leading to the Farplane. "So while the others are up there reflecting and rejoicing over seeing their loved ones again, you're missing out on the one chance you have."
Rikku did sit beside him, and let the side of her left thigh almost touch the warmth of Auron's leg, beneath the tail of his overcoat and a very comfortable-looking set of black pants with the grayish stripe going down the center. It would have been enough to make her blush, but she was more focused on why Auron was speaking to her openly like this.
"Wh-what about you, Sir Auron? What makes you happy?" Rikku asked as she trembled. "I mean, since we won't have the chance? I'm not going to tell anybody...."
"I know we haven't... talked like this before, Rikku, and that's why this is the perfect time to tell you.... Listen. Lean this way."
Rikku obediently leaned over so that she may as well have been resting her chin on his shoulder.
"That's better," Auron told her gently, with a kind smile that Rikku could see fully. "Nice and closely now, because I may never get the chance to tell you this again." Now she could also feel his breath, and almost taste it. The smell of him was so alive, and so real, a vibrant spicy sweetness. His voice dropped lower and a bit deeper, his words directed more into her face than into her ear. "I want to tell you, Rikku, that I..........." Auron became so close to her that their breath mingled and their eyes locked onto each other's... and that's when everything became a little blurry. She wished she had been able to see all of his face so near hers, but almost being able to feel their lips touch, like the unperceivable feeling of a feather falling into her hair, was enough to heat up her soul. A couple times she woke up from this dream with tears in her eyes. The reality that this would most likely never happen was too biting, too harsh. But in the daytime, when she fully regained her conscious mind back, she asked herself if she would really want it. I... I guess I've really missed him all this time. I mean, I know it's not normal to have thoughts like that when I don't even know what they really mean, and when I know they'll never happen... right?
"Well," Tidus said with a hearty stretch. "I think I'm about good. Thanks again for the stew, Lulu. Yuna and I hafta get that ball off the roof of the inn...."
"Do we have to?" Yuna whined playfully.
"Come on," he said, grinning and seizing her wrist. "Bye, you guys!"
Yuna followed Tidus out of their friends' house and took off running for a tent across the cobblestone street. Nope, certainly there was no other couple around that was so ready, so ripe and fateful, for marriage. Auron speculated over it as he took another sip of green tea.
"Cute, aren't they?" Lulu leaned over and half-whispered to Auron at the small table in the center of their living room. "Yuna was so happy to see him again...."
"I can imagine." Auron grinned warmly and looked at Lulu's friendly red eyes.
"So, tell me, what do you think of Yuna and the sphere hunting business?"
"I think it's only right that she should find it enjoyable while she's still young. When you end up like... like me... you start to miss the old ways and... well, not everything is fun anymore..."
"Don't say that, Auron!" Rikku joined in, stirring more sugar into her teacup. "I mean, why don't you give these things a try while you're here?"
"Well... that's the thing. I don't know how long I'll be here. Who knows if anything can happen-"
"Nothing will happen," Lulu said sharply. "We'll forbid it, Sir Auron."
"That's right, ya?" Wakka said from behind them. "Your coming back must be a sign of something. These days are only allowed to be happy times."
"May it last," Auron murmured, before nodding to Lulu and getting up from the table. "The tea was wonderful, Lulu. Just what I needed. I hope you'll excuse me for awhile. I'd like to take a walk and have some time to... remember things."
"I understand completely." Lulu nodded and took his empty teacup. "It's good to have you back, Sir Auron. I'll see you later, then."
"See you later, all," Auron said before walking out. Once more, almost as if he needed to feel it to make sure it all didn't disappear, he let the cool tropical air caress him as he breathed deeply and tried to drive away these strange thoughts. For the past hour now, he had been thinking about why on earth he was here. By now, it was really starting to get to him. How was this even humanly possible? Rikku's words were right. It was insane.
Rikku's words....
During the luncheon, when the others spoke, Auron often slipped into a dreamlike state and reminisced about their past together. Now that he thought about it, they were mostly Rikku's words that played back in his mind and helped him to remember. No two summoner's guardians were ever bigger opposites than Rikku and he. So of course he would closely associate the memories of strange happenings with her. Yet... just how was it that Rikku barely even seemed to remember him? In that cavern just a few hours ago, she had panicked, and either refused to recognize him, or simply didn't because she had forgotten him. And the possibility of Rikku forgetting him impacted Auron in ways that he was afraid to understand.
Inside the Old Yevon temple, priests and monks and choir members nodded to him as if he were a visitor. Auron wondered for a moment what Yuna had said after he passed on to the Farplane once her pilgrimage ended. No stupid comments about being back from the dead!
Looking up at Lord Braska's statue, Auron sighed so deeply that he seemed to have exhaled all his energies and his composure, and breathed with a shudder that almost felt like he would break into a sob. He remembered his friend's kind and truthful eyes, his own piercing into those of Braska's as if to ask why he was here. As much as he'd wanted to come back, Auron felt that this was almost too overwhelming for him, yet it was too much gratification to pass up. No way he would return back to the Farplane until a force beyond his strength, the same that had brought him here, would take him back.
Meanwhile, Rikku had left and sat in one of the beds up in the cabin of the Celsius airship, gazing out the window with her legs tucked under her. She tugged at the ends of her scarf and watched a bird fluttering by in the distance. Somehow, after Auron had left Wakka and Lulu's, she felt extremely bored, although she didn't know why.
She had done her part, hadn't she? Rikku found Auron, convinced Paine to let her take him back to the village, and reunited him with some old friends. But just why in the world was it that she was feeling this clenching in her heart, like she left something undone?
Maybe I just want to talk with Auron more. But why? What's there to talk about? How embarrassing.... Running this over in her mind, she sighed and lay down, turning so that her cheek was resting comfortably onto the pillow. Curling her arms around it, she reflected about Auron even more.
Around the second week after the beginning of her cousin's Eternal Calm, Rikku had begun to have dreams that would come to bother her in time. Though she went on normally in the daytime, Rikku remained fully conscious of herself and her mind right before she got up in the mornings and right before she went to bed in the late evenings. Now, after two years, they had finally stopped, but seeing Auron here again immediately brought her back to the dreams that made her awaken feeling apprehensive and lost in the mornings.
It was from one of those days on Yuna's pilgrimages which she had remembered most clearly. Yuna took the rest of her entourage of guardians up to visit the Farplane, while she and Auron had stayed behind. And to Rikku, it seemed most fateful that they should be there together.
"Why are you staying behind, Rikku?" Auron would always ask.
And she would always reply, "I think the images in the Farplane are just psychological. They don't do anything for me at all. People go there to visit their loved ones to make themselves happy. That kind of thing doesn't make me happy."
Auron peered at her over the tall red collar, those sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose so that Rikku might see his one open, attractive hazel-brown eye. Rikku loved the little she saw of Auron's eyes. So deep and full of meaning, determination....
"You know, there aren't many happy times ahead of us," Auron lay out his hand beside him, motioning for her to come sit there on the old stairs leading to the Farplane. "So while the others are up there reflecting and rejoicing over seeing their loved ones again, you're missing out on the one chance you have."
Rikku did sit beside him, and let the side of her left thigh almost touch the warmth of Auron's leg, beneath the tail of his overcoat and a very comfortable-looking set of black pants with the grayish stripe going down the center. It would have been enough to make her blush, but she was more focused on why Auron was speaking to her openly like this.
"Wh-what about you, Sir Auron? What makes you happy?" Rikku asked as she trembled. "I mean, since we won't have the chance? I'm not going to tell anybody...."
"I know we haven't... talked like this before, Rikku, and that's why this is the perfect time to tell you.... Listen. Lean this way."
Rikku obediently leaned over so that she may as well have been resting her chin on his shoulder.
"That's better," Auron told her gently, with a kind smile that Rikku could see fully. "Nice and closely now, because I may never get the chance to tell you this again." Now she could also feel his breath, and almost taste it. The smell of him was so alive, and so real, a vibrant spicy sweetness. His voice dropped lower and a bit deeper, his words directed more into her face than into her ear. "I want to tell you, Rikku, that I..........." Auron became so close to her that their breath mingled and their eyes locked onto each other's... and that's when everything became a little blurry. She wished she had been able to see all of his face so near hers, but almost being able to feel their lips touch, like the unperceivable feeling of a feather falling into her hair, was enough to heat up her soul. A couple times she woke up from this dream with tears in her eyes. The reality that this would most likely never happen was too biting, too harsh. But in the daytime, when she fully regained her conscious mind back, she asked herself if she would really want it. I... I guess I've really missed him all this time. I mean, I know it's not normal to have thoughts like that when I don't even know what they really mean, and when I know they'll never happen... right?