The Birth of Pain
Disclaimer: See Prologue.
A/N: After an unforgivably long wait I give you one of the longest chapters I have ever written! Nearly three times longer than the average chapter! I considered cutting into two pieces for a bit but somehow it just...worked. Enjoy!
Also, this chapter contains some nudity but nothing explicit. If you WANT something explicit between these two characters ask someone else, I'm no good at writing that stuff.
Snow crunched beneath Auron's boot and the boots of the rest of the squad making a steady swish-swish sound as they marched across the ice back towards Macalania Woods. The rows were set up four-by-five with Leyla in the center and Ralleth at the head. Though neither of them had requested it, a few days after Auron began his courtship, Commander Ralleth had reorganized the squad's formation so that Auron was at Leyla's side. Nobody had said anything and there had not been a wink or snicker to give any indication that Commander Ralleth had been acting on anything more than a whim.
The squad rounded the hill that brought the crystalline trees of Macalania woods into view and Auron heard the faintest whispers of...something.
"Do you hear that?" Leyla whispered to him. "It sounds like a machina." Auron nodded in agreement. It seemed they were not the only ones who heard it. Ralleth raised and arm and signaled: Proceed with caution. The sound of booted feet tramping through the snow was reduced to a quiet thrumming. There was no mistaking the sound now, a rhythmic hammering too even to be done by hand.
"It could be... but here?" Leyla murmured to herself as the warrior- monks topped the hill.
The normally vacant mesa, inhabited only by fiends and the occasional Summoner on their way to Macalania Temple, was bustling with activity. An Al Bhed youth with yellow hair that swept to his shoulders was talking animatedly to woman, presumably another Al Bhed by the goggles that hid her eyes. Occasionally he would squat down and trace something in the snow then gesture towards the beginnings of a foundation being carved into the ice by a machina rhythmically pounding at the perpetual frost layer to reach the solid ground below.
"Ed fyc y dannepma taleceuh du piemt eh dra settma uv dra fehdan mega drec. Yd drec nyda ed femm dyga dfela yc muhk!" the woman said exasperatedly to the youth. Auron's understanding of Al Bhed was incomplete at best and the two architects were talking to fast for him to pick up anything.
"Fa ryt hu lruela, edc ymfyoc fehdan rana," the youth replied with a strange nasally accent. "Cusadrehk du tu fedr dra Fayth yd dra haynpo dasbma."
"Frydajan oui cyo, Rin," said the woman skeptically.
"Al Bhed!" a hostile hiss went up amongst the warrior monks. Leather creaked as gloves tightened on sword hilts and gun hostlers. Auron and Leyla exchanged worried glances. What kind of plans did a group of Al Bhed, so close to Bevelle with the obvious intent of making the stay permanent, have?
It seemed that the Al Bhed had noticed the presence of the warrior-monks. All the work halted as the various engineers and construction workers switched of their machina. The woman paled beneath her goggles and began to back away. However the youth, who seemed to be in charge, held his ground. "Ah, you would be the warrior-monks of Bevelle, no? I am Rin, the owner of the establishment which will soon grace this road," he greeted with an easy smile, his nasal accented more apparent now that he spoke the common language.
"What business have you here, heathen?" Commander Ralleth said coldly. The smile on Rin's face flickered but held.
"Business indeed. I am in the process of setting up travel agencies throughout Spira, mainly along the roads that the Summoners will walk."
"Planning to feed off the Summoner's, heathen? It is well known that your kind have a dislike for them," Ralleth retorted, his mouth switching into a sneer.
"On the contrary, I plan to provide them with a safe haven where they can rest while they journey. We Al Bhed have nothing against the pilgrims, we only feel that there may be a better and more permanent way to defeat Sin," Rin said, retaining his calm, "But enough theology. In case you are curious, all the machina we employ here have been sanctioned by your Yevon and should you require them, I can supply you with the papers to prove the legitimacy of my claim," reaching into pouch by his side he presented a thin stack of crisply folded papers, each stamped with the symbol of Yevon. Ralleth stepped away from his place at the head of the squad and took the proffered documents.
"As you can see, they are legitimate," Rin said, "And I can provide you with another copy should you require it." Ralleth perused documents, flipping through them as if unsure that they were as "legitimate" as Rin claimed. But in the end he seemed to find nothing suspicious and Yevon's sanction on the various construction machina had done wonders for his disposition.
"I see that everything is in order. Good luck in your undertaking, Mr. Rin, though how you will make a profit here during the Calm is beyond me," Ralleth said and turned to leave.
Rin, it seemed, had been emboldened by Ralleth's approval, "Actually, sir, I was wondering if you could do me a small service. Today my construction team has already been attacked twice by fiends. We will be returning to our inn in Bevelle at nightfall. Would it be possible for you to leave a small contingency of your men with us until then?"
Ralleth looked as if he was seriously considering turning the young entrepreneur down. This day's patrol was almost finished and the squad was looking forward to their return to the warmer climes of Bevelle. However, it was his duty to protect the peoples of Spira under Yevon and perhaps he had taken a liking to the earnest young merchant.
"Very well. Kinoc, you take half of the squad back to the city and don't take any unnecessary risks while at half strength. The rest of you come with me and assume guard positions," Ralleth barked the orders and Auron found himself with Leyla in the second half resuming the march towards the forest.
Macalania Woods was quiet as a grave, the occasional crackling of a tree branch echoing like a gun shot. Unconsciously Leyla wrapped her fingers around Auron's though whether it was because of the ominous mood of the forest or Ralleth's warning she did not know.
After a half-hour of walking the intestine tracts of the wood the silence became even more unsettling than ever. They had not been ambushed by a single fiend and it was obvious the rest of the squad had realized the oddity of that. The whole situation was unnatural but nobody dared make a sound to lighten the mood, for fear that somehow they were slipping by the fiends unnoticed and the smallest noise could bring them down like an avalanche.
Auron found his mind wandering back to the last time this had happened. Not since the ambush that had killed Bergil two years ago...
His heart leapt into his throat. This was not normal! There was no way they had slipped past the fiends unnoticed!
Before he could shout a warning to Kinoc he felt the forest floor shift under his feet... shift and rise up, engulfing him in a bubble of watery gelatin, trapping him like a bug in amber then releasing him as it floated upward. He gasped like a drowning man as it and watched in horror as it formed a wriggling sphere above his head with a revolving nucleus.
"Yevon save us!"
"What is that?!"
Auron didn't bother to ask question but swung his katana with all his strength, willing it to cut through whatever armor the fiend had. All the other warrior monks followed suit, raising their swords and cocking their guns to deal with this new threat.
Enough ammunition and steel struck the thing to destroy a chimera in one hit but it had little effect on floating bubble. One man screamed as the bullet he had fired at it ricochet straight back at him.
Water exploded amongst the ranks with the pressure of a geyser, knocking over the warrior-monks as if they were toy soldiers. Leyla cried out as she was hit with the full force of a blast but released a volley of lightning before she collapsed. Auron was at her side in an instant forcing her to drink from a small vial that contained a potion. The light returned to her eyes and she pushed him away, dragging herself to her feet and sending another volley of lightning at the thing. This time to no effect. Indeed, the tiny cuts, the sum of the damage caused by physical means, seemed to fade before Auron's eyes.
It returned the lightning with its own, far stronger than Leyla's.
"A shifter!" Kinoc bellowed from somewhere in the melee. Leyla panted then raised her jade staff above her head, bringing it down like a sword and engulfing the shifter in water. This time Auron saw as its colors shift as it settled on a new elemental base then faded back to clear.
Ice enshrouded him.
"Flans! Everyone, assume defensive positions! Bergil-!"
"He's down, sir! We're on our own!"
"Then fight your sons of shoopuffs! Fight or die!
It took a moment for Auron to realize that the cold that had washed over was from another source. Serid, coated in a crystalline layer of frost lay curled on the ground like a statue.
"Retreat! Retreat back to Bevelle! No formation, go!" Auron shouted and heard his command echoed throughout the ranks. Serid was left where he lay, frozen to the ground. He would never daydream on duty again.
"Leyla, come on!" Auron said, grabbing her arm and wrenching her out of the fight. He had only gone a few feet when he realized something was wrong. He glanced back at her and saw that her eyebrows and hair were coated with white. The water had frozen! For a moment he considered carrying her but realized that was the surest way to kill her. For now she had to keep moving.
"Leyla, we have to run, you have to keep moving. We can't stop now!" Auron told her and she nodded, her teeth chattering too hard for her to speak.
They ran without stopping even to catch their breath. Leyla stumbled occasionally on the uneven ground and when Auron bent to help her he could see the other warrior-monks dart by. It was not cowardice. Someone had to get back to Bevelle to report and that meant leaving fallen comrades where they lay.
The twisting path went deeper and deeper into the forest until Auron had no idea where they had come from, much less where they were going. He listened, trying to ignore the background noise and Leyla's tortured gasps, for the sound of thunder rolling in off the plains but there was nothing but the crackling of the trees.
"W-we're l-lost aren't w-we," Leyla chattered, her voice fainter than ever. She had wrapped her wing-like sleeves tightly around herself and taken the cord from hair so that the thousands of tiny braids fanned around her like a cloak.
This was no time for bravado, "Yes, but I think there's a clearing up ahead. Just a little farther, I promise," he whispered desperately. Leyla's eyes were becoming glassy.
"Alright...I will try," she whispered, offering him a ghost of the smile he had come to love.
The clearing opened before then like welcoming arms but the relief only lasted a few moments. Several paths branched out into different directions, none of which Auron recognized.
"That way," Leyla murmured hypnotically, pointing down the path that led to the right. "There is water there... water warmed by memories and.... the pyreflies dance through so thick and beautiful that the Moonflow seems a distant star compared... to the Sun."
"How do you know this?" Auron asked in shock.
"The water... told me. I use the elements...and so I must...understand them," she sagged to the ground, the last of her energy spent. Gathering her into his left arm he carried her in one hand and slung his katana over his shoulder with the other. For a moment his own strength, nearly spent from the harrowing trek through the woods almost gave out but the promise of rest drove him further and the sight that greeted him nearly stopped his breath.
Pyreflies by the thousands glittered beneath the water of a glassy pond in the middle of which perched a great tree that seemed to be painted by all the colors of the rainbow unlike the other trees of Macalania, which only contained the hues of ice.
In the air the pyreflies danced as well, lighting the shore with a subtle multi-colored glow so ethereally dazzling that Auron realized that no words could ever describe it.
"Beautiful," Leyla whispered her crimson eyes violet in the soft light. Her lids flickered then shut and she went slack in his arms.
"No, Leyla!" Auron shouted, laying her out on the ground gently. He touched a finger to her throat and gasped in relief as he felt a faint flickering pulse there.
He cursed himself for a fool, realizing that in his attempts to save her he had nearly ended her life himself. Though the constant running had kept her body heat up it had also expended it in vast amounts and now that she was still the cold would swallow her. Grasping her richly embroidered sleeve in one hand he realized that on top of the cold air her clothes were still damp, leeching more heat from her body. He had to warm her, and fast. Taking the wet sleeves and the collar off her shoulders was easy but the rest of the outfit baffled him. Somehow the leather scales were attached to the black strip of cloth that covered her breasts but how he was not sure. Propping her up in his arms he gave a sigh of relief as the catch on the back that connected the whole ensemble together released and loosened. Before removing it he lay her back down on the ground and removed his red overcoat, thanking Yevon that it had somehow remained dry and warm through the battle and the flight through the woods. First he undid the large belt that kept it from flapping in the wind then undid the leather straps that clinched the voluminous sleeve below the gauntlet. He redid his belt at the base of the breastplate but left the gauntlet where it lay on the ground.
A faint flush came to his cheeks as he stripped Leyla's wet clothes off her frozen body. True they had not yet lain together but her mage's uniform left little to the imagination. Shivering slightly in the cool air he picked Leyla up as if she was a child and swaddled her in his oversized coat, leaving her clothes on the ground to dry and moved closer to the lake. He did not dare get in the water, no matter how warm it was for once out of the water the cold would return full force, freezing them to death. However, it did give off a steam in the cold air and the temperature was several degrees warmer on its shore.
How long he sat there, cradling her body and rubbing it furiously to restore heat and circulation he did not know. Thoughts floated vaguely through his head, most panicked and dark. What if the shifter's spell had not faded but lurked inside her body, dropping her temperature till she froze to death no matter what he did? What if he had taken a wrong turn and they were only a few yards from where they had started? What if the beautiful waters of the pond were the home of the creature that had attacked them?
As the what-ifs flooded his mind he gradually began to realize that his core body temperature was dropping dramatically and his furious rubbing had been reduced to a slow, tired stroke as his thoughts crawled in circles. He couldn't continue on like this, with his baggy pants and breastplate his only defense against the cold. Laying a hand (which he noticed was beginning to turn an alarming shade of white) on Leyla's cheek he could tell that though she was still cold to the touch she could survive a few moments without him.
Wood. He needed something to start a fire with. With a mental slap he realized he was in the middle of a forest. Wood was abundant but he would need more than that for fire.
He would have to wake Leyla, if only for a second, to get her to light it. But for now one thing at a time. Running as best he could he gathered fallen branches from around the forest floor, breaking off the dry icy coating to free wood dry enough to serve his purpose. He then carried the pile back to the makeshift campsite and began to stack it.
"Leyla..." he murmured through frozen lips, "You have to wake up," But there was no response even when he shook her. One fogged thought after another began to clear and suddenly he realized that he did not need to wake her, he had flint and steel in his pocket. Yet even with those it took him what felt like an eternity of striking and fanning to get a tiny fire crackling and longer still to build it up to a point where it could sustain itself with only a little prodding on his part.
With a sigh of relief as the heat from the fire began to melt the chill from his bones he returned to Leyla and drew her close, edging as near to the fire as he dared. The warmth soothed him and he was lulled into sleep by the sound of the fire crackling and the tiny waves lapping at the shore of the pond; with the woman he had come to love despite everything cradled in his arms and the pyreflies dancing around them like living stars.
"Auron?" a soft alto voice woke him from his doze. His first panicked thought was that the fire had gone out as he slept and that he needed to restart it so they wouldn't freeze...
His eyelids cracked open and he was dazzled by the sudden white light that overcame his senses. The sun had risen and reflected off the ice like a thousand mirrors, throwing rainbows where the pyreflies had flown the night before. Squinting he saw that Leyla had dressed and that he was once again wrapped in his large crimson coat.
"We're alive," he said groggily, unable to believe it for a moment.
"Yes," Leyla said and her smile eclipsed the sunlight. "And Bevelle was the path right across from the one we took." Her words did not penetrate. She had not been there, had not seen her own frozen visage so close to death that every steaming breath had looked like her soul escaping. He impulsively reached for her and pulled her close, tighter than he had ever done the night before.
"Auron!" she squawked and struggled for a moment but he only grasped her tighter until it felt as if their bodies had somehow merged into one.
"We're alive," he whispered like a prayer. Suddenly all the reasons seemed meaningless, the chagrin and awkwardness the simple games of a child that obstructed what really mattered. He felt himself shaking and realized that he was weeping into her hair the color of a clouds breaking after a storm. He tried to pull her closer and realized he could not and that she was holding him just as tightly, two self-contained worlds that for a moment joined into one splendid whole.
Forever.
"Marry me, Leyla," his voice was choked by his tears and muffled by her closeness he kissed the side of her alabaster neck and she pulled away but only to return it hard on his lips. It was not their first kissed but it was a beginning, a start to something that they had both resisted so long they hadn't even realized it.
"Yes," she said and he realized that she had been crying too, "Yevon be praised, yes."
When they left that beautiful grove where they had nearly died and had been reborn, it was as one person, never to be separated in life or death.
1) Ed fyc y dannepma taleceuh du piemt eh dra settma uv dra fehdan mega drec. Yd drec nyda ed femm dyga dfela yc muhk!
It was a terrible decision to build in the middle of the winter like this. At this rate it will take twice as long!
2) Fa ryt hu lruela, edc ymfyoc fehdan rana. Cusadrehk du tu fedr dra Fayth yd dra haynpo dasbma.We had no choice, its always winter here. Something to do with the Fayth at the nearby temple.
3) Frydajan oui cyo, Rin.Whatever you say, Rin.
A/N: As I have said before, every little review is more encouragement to continue this so please, please review!