Parallels

*

Try this—

I always thought – no, okay, here. This is a story: in my time digging up and dusting off and hunting spheres, spheres, spheres, I've only ever found two spheres from Zanarkand.

They're tricky to find, damn near impossible, and they're unique. My pops said they were called films, and they were made to tell a story about fake people and a fake reality, and it kind of boggled my mind at first until I really wrapped my head around the idea, like a living story book.

So, the first sphere was this amazing kick-ass video about this guy who had to go to this temple to save the world – okay, okay, but that one isn't really important. I mean, I love adventure as much as the next treasure-hunter - it'd be kind of an oxymoron to not love adventure if you're a treasure-hunter, because that's the entirety of it, really, and boy do I ever love it - and that sphere is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen this side of Spira, but what I've been thinking about recently is the second Zanarkand sphere I saw.

This sphere focused more on regular life. A romance story.

I've never been one for that kind of story.

And, in being honest the way a gal has to, I'm not sure if that fits anywhere into the story I'm weaving for me. Sometimes I think I want a bunch of children of my own, a laughing family, always loving. Sometimes I think I'd rather shoot my own foot and slit my own throat rather than bear a sprog of my own.

What I do always know is what I already feel – deep in my bones and hair roots and the swirls of my eyes, feel that my path is that of an adventurer. A traveler. A thief, a leader. Call it what you will, but I'll call it Rikku.

It's my own path. That's it.

I'm thinking about this because I'm twirling the little girl's hair around my fingers shimmer-glimmer steady like silk. I'm thinking about this because in the story of the second sphere, one of the people walked out of the other's life and never came back.

Maybe it pushed along me being afraid of that. I'm not - I don't really know. I couldn't tell you if I tried. But the thought of someone walking out terrifies me, because then you'd be alone, and if you're alone in the first place, then nothing - and that's a stupid way to think.

It's a stupid way to think, isn't it?

When I saw this sphere, though, this old rotting thing covered in dust and algae and rust from the dead city under the water, the video itself clean as the day it was made, the one thing that I remember about it is that the man walked away, and the woman watched.

I hated that movie.

"Grumple bumple buzzle 'n rumple."

The hammock swings left, the hammock swings right, and I ground my foot so it doesn't swing right over. I shift a little, making sure I've still got her tight. It's like she's made of glass, fragile and sticky like a baby, four years old with Tidus's eyes and Yuna's hair. I'm real careful with her, sleeping on my side, curled up and mumbling sing-song.

Those ones are different, by the way. Tidus and Yunie. They'll always be here for each other. Yuna and her Not-So Imaginary Friend. They're each others' somebodies, if that makes sense. It's sweet like honey and Moonflow water, steady as the sun.

God. Such a stupid way to think.

Don't tell anybody, but – and I mean nobody – but I did find somebody, once. It feels like a really, really long time ago. It kind of was.

I was fifteen-barely-sixteen, I was immature, I was childish. I was all laughter and smiles, but that's not just it, that's not just it at all, because just like anybody else there are two sides to the coin and I had seen more death than Yuna or Tidus or Wakka by then. I had been younger but I had cried more and hated more and been hated more. So I was mature in other ways, maybe.

It was a long time ago, but I did find somebody, once. The man in the red coat.

We were going to celebrate his thirty-sixth birthday, you know. As a surprise right after we beat Sin, before we - before we knew. Before we knew.

"Rumple-snatcher," I say in response. She squirms and wiggles, four-years-old and wonderful. "Snatch the dreams up in a basket, kiddo."

I think she does. She wiggles again and turns into me and breathes in, breathes out, baby breath fresh.

I think I just had a lot of respect for him. And that's healthy. I admired him to a point, on a level of camaraderie, but I think I really appreciated the fact that he saw me as an adult. I wasn't the comic relief for once because Tidus took that, and that was really nice, but to a lot of the others I was still just a child. Auron saw both sides of the Rikku coin and he treated me accordingly.

But Kimahri saw that, too. So it wasn't just that.

I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I don't know how it went down, sometimes I try not to remember it at all like it was just a silly girlish dream or a baby-nightmare. It's just there, like this rotting egg inside your head, and sometimes you're not sure if it's really rotting or if it's just waiting to hatch, and sometimes you just sit there with your hands ghost-close around it and maybe it isn't even an egg at all, just something sitting there, but you can smell it and it's impossible to distinguish if it's a fragrance or a stench or -

Sometimes it isn't in your head at all but it's just this thing in your chest like a lump.

Sometimes I stress myself out just thinking too hard.

I really enjoyed being me. And that was it, and that wasn't it at all.

(I met a woman, once, who didn't notice the swirl in my eyes. She told me that she had been searching for a place where nobody had ever heard of Sin, but was ready to give up now, and… I want her to find that. She was nice. That's all.)

But sometimes I wasn't me.

Because I don't think you're ever you around that one person, when – and – but you are, but sometimes you try not to be, does that make sense? Does it even matter? I was so surprised and so amazed that it did and it didn't, and my mind hits back to a nightmare-dream-twilight zone of quiet night and earth and big hands in hair, small hands against stubble, sweet and tired and scared and something wonderful between mouths.

And I'm not saying that's love.

But I'm not saying that it isn't, either.

To me, love is strong friendship, love is joy and happiness and being mumpish and down when something hurts what you love (mumpish is a word, Buddy told me so – well, that can actually mean it might not be a word. Nevermind). But I don't like saying 'in love,' because how can somebody be in love? That's stupid. Love is an emotion. It would sound just as equally ridiculous to say, 'I'm in happy.' I'm happy. I'm sad. I love. But I don't do 'in love.'

When I hear that, I can't help but think that means in love with the idea of love. And that isn't love, not really.

Talk about your tongue twisters.

But I won't say that there wasn't anything there, because there was. I found someone that made me feel like a piece to a whole, like I was really a puzzle piece called Rikku that fit into a jigsaw of two.

Maybe we were just lonely.

Because the world is lonely and we were no exception, no exception at all. And I knew he was dead and he knew he was dead, but it was alright. It was alright then.

He felt bad later, I know, because all he could say before he went was I'm sorry, which are some pretty sucky last words to the last girl you kissed and the last time you kissed her, I think.

But I won't say that there wasn't anything there, because there was. I found someone that made me spin and light up like a firework, never the dud I thought I always was.

Maybe we were just sad.

Because back then everything and everybody was sad and we were no exception, no exception at all. But he wasn't so sorry, because the next time I dragged myself into a travel agency, Rin smiled an unhappy smile and told me that a huge sword was found in the back with my name on it.

So maybe it wasn't just sadness and loneliness. Maybe it wasn't just that.

"Good nap," she says and she yawns big and wide, tiny and glass. She rolls off the hammock onto the sand before I can catch her but she laughs.

"Was it?" I step off myself and flop down into the sand next to her and she tugs at my hair.

"Yes," and that's that. She makes me smile, she is something wonderful that I want to swallow whole sometimes, melt into her, a strange mixture of aunt-niece filled with light and love and joy.

"I want to catch butterflies."

"You want to catch butterflies?"

"That's what I said!"

"Then let's catch butterflies."

When Tidus came back, I was… I was happy. He's my friend, like a brother. I was - I'm selfish, I'm selfish, I tried not to think it but I did, I wondered why he could come back if Auron couldn't because I'm so selfish, but it passed. It did, and I let it go and I felt better.

There are reasons, I know. Auron didn't live a full life – far from it – but he was tired. He needed rest.

But Tidus wasn't ready. He was an imaginary friend, but he was a loud one and needed to live and I think that, back then, he could appreciate living more than anybody. Now, too, especially now. I think like him. It's like a train of good thoughts and feelings, like a happiness like the Besaid sun or Bikanel's oasis or the Moonflow's lilies, the Macalania Forest's crystals and ponds.

I just - they wanted me to babysit, so here I am, and you just sit there with a gal like this one and you get to thinking, y'know? I'm just thinking right now.

Her grubby little hand in mine is small, like I could just inhale it and would never even notice. It's late afternoon, Besaid sun forgiving like the Bikanel sun never was, growing low on the horizon and nature at her best. The girl-child calls me slow and I swoop down to scoop her onto my back, laughing, running all the way to the field near the ocean, legs and heart pumping and breathing fresh and breezy ocean water air to the greenest grass this side of Spira, where the butterflies live. I try to set her down gently – gently, gently, a glass girl, I always think – but we both fall to the ground anyway in a laughing, puffing mess, a jumble of skin and hair and smiles.

I'm a running girl, if that makes any sense.

That's what my Pops has said for as long as I can remember, since I took my first steps on the sand, learned how to send it up in a flurry with motorboat legs, and I've never stopped since. I slowed down when I was fifteen-going-on-sixteen and for almost a year after, I forgot how to start back up again, bad posture and tired feet and a hole in my chest.

When I was sixteen-going-on-seventeen, I realized I had never been to the Farplane and my bad posture and tired feet and hole-y chest told me to shoot there with some sort of craziness I never had before and don't think I ever will again. Sometimes I'm glad, and sometimes I miss that.

I told my dad and brother I'd be gone, and I took off from where our airship landed just off of Macalania at a run.

I couldn't walk – I had to run, because all my head could see was sunglasses and graying hair and red coats and swords, my own strapped to my back even if I could barely use it. Running.

I hit the Thunder Plains. There they were ahead of me, angry and storming and raging like always, a constant tantrum that never ends. I was so afraid, I remember, but I was still running and could see them in the distance, and I saw – him – there – in my head, smelled the rain and you know what I did?

I kept running. I ran straight through, all the way, never slowing down for a second, because I'm strong and I've run straight across Bikanel Island just to prove I could, so I kept going, faster and faster and then the thunder, and the thunder, everywhere but I wouldn't stop and I tried not to think about the last time I was there but at the same time could only think about that, and the thunder andthethunderandthe—

But I kept running, and I never stopped. Not once. I jumped and skipped and sprinted, but never slowed down to a walk because walking is where the doubts come in, and running set my lungs on fire but the moisture and the rain in the air eased it all and I realized that the storm was just a child, just a child crying and crying and I hurdled straight into the passage to Guadosalam, collapsing on the ground in a heaving, soaked mess of Rikku.

But I did it. I went straight across, and I felt something swell up in my chest, real big and up my throat so I couldn't speak; I swallowed it back down, but I felt so warm. I just stayed there for a while, listening to the storm outside, feeling the damp earth on my cheek and under my fingers, breathing.

I walked to the Farplane.

I walked up the steps, slow, echoing, looking around, and I stopped where me and Auron had plunked down for a while. It was an interesting spot, an interesting story behind it, a starting point at the ending point, because it takes time to grow anything and this was no exception.

Something went plop down my back onto my thigh. I looked down in surprise and when I had landed in the cavern of Guadosalam, the edge of my borrowed sword had cut into my upper arm a little and I hadn't even felt it, but it was bleeding freely and the blood was such a stark scarlet contrast to the drab colors around me.

Auron's sword cut me. Auron's sword cut me. Auron's sword cut me.

And you know what I did?

I laughed.

I'm still not sure why it hit me so powerfully at that moment, and the meaning faded over time so I'm not sure anymore, but even now, sprawling on the ground and looking up at the late pink and orange afternoon sky with the ocean in front of me, I can still feel it in my chest.

And it made me laugh.

So I looked at the Farplane for a good long moment, laughing fully and honestly and truly happily, and then I flipped it off and ran away.

I'm laughing now, too, and laughter is really the best medicine because I always feel better.

After that, I lived. I breathed and I smiled and I cried and I shouted and I laughed, and I lived. That was a release for me.

(Tell you a secret. I picked the scab off again and again until it scarred because that's my favorite part of me, and I feel better knowing it's there.)

And whenever I feel real down, whenever I'm feeling like I'm forgetting or he won't leave me alone, that's what I do. I drop everything and I run, all the way to somewhere and anywhere, because we had been all over the world. I was in Luca when I went running to the Omega Ruins, I was in the Calm Lands when I went running and skidded to a stop in Zanarkand, heaving and panting and smiling.

I'm getting better, though. I'm not letting it kill me on the inside. And I don't think about him everyday. That used to scare me, terrify me because if I didn't, I was so afraid of losing him, because my memories are the most precious things I have, and nobody can take them away from me except me.

But I know now that just because I don't think, 'huh, that red flower reminds me of Auron's coat,' everyday doesn't mean I'm losing him. I'm living. He would have wanted that.

Backtrack, erase that. He wants that. He's somewhere else, now, but if there is one thing that's controversial among the Al Bhed, it's whether there is some form of consciousness after death. And I like to think there is.

I wasn't left behind. I'm the farthest thing from it, because he had to walk away but I didn't stop, I kept walking, too, on a parallel path to him, always in sight. I'm moving on, and he is a person I'll always be close to.

And as we walk I can move closer, so that our paths will meet again, someday.

"Auntie," she whispers and there aren't any butterflies but there are glowing dots and for a moment my brain stupidly thinks 'pyreflies,' but these are a million times better.

"Fireflies," I tell her and she smiles and cups one in her hands, small and fragile and her smile is like the little light is sharing a secret with her and a bubble of laughter erupts gently from her throat, the soft yellow light illuminating her face in the dying sunlight. The firefly floats lazily from her hands and lands on her nose in a kiss before taking flight again.

We try to catch fireflies in our open hands, laughing openly and spinning and twirling in the magic – because it's there, and we know it – and the moon is shining like starlight, and it is warm and everything is good.

I open my mouth to let out that pyrefly and let it all go even if it's still part of me, too, and I'm laughing again.

I'll meet up with him later, that's all.

Life is good.

*

*

In a fit of something-vaguely-resembling OCD, I've decided to bundle all of my Aurikku stories together all nice and neat-like in a pile. Ever unsatisfied with Everything I Have Ever Written Ever, it has also given me to opportunity to rewrite parts of both Parallels and Children and clean them up to a point where I'm not horribly embarrassed that it ever vomited out of my fingertips at the ripe young age of this-sounds-like-a-five-year-old-wrote-it. I'm much happier with both now, and I hope you all enjoy them, too - this will be an ongoing series of unrelated oneshots, so keep your eyes open and I'm sure I'll add more before you all turn to skeletons at your computers. (Probably.)

La