Categories > Games > Final Fantasy X > Red and Black
The Final Fantasy X characters belong to Square-Enix.
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Part 2. The Sapling
The familiar little stream had hurled itself, in a very noisy way, over the same stones for years. At least for the two years he had been bathing here as a monk of Bevelle --and at fourteen, two years is still a rather long time. Eventually, Auron knew, these stones would be smooth as blitzballs, ever smaller and smaller until their stony beings dissipated into sediment which would be pulled along easily by even the weakest currents of the brook. Like pyreflies drawn to the farplane after a victorious battle.
Exceptionally young and quite small for a monk, Auron had plenty of resentment for anyone who dared observe those facts. He was a monk and he kept his regimen. That same regimen brought him here, to bathe in this stream once every ten days, in the evening. Even in the winter, which in Bevelle were usually not so cold to freeze flowing water, but cold enough to make him numb, blue-tinged and shivering. He was no fan of cold weather. Or water, for that matter.
He sighed as he ritualistically unlaced his boots and slipped from his uniform, which he subsequently folded in sharp and even squares and placed neatly, even respectfully, near his boots on the bank. There was no one to neither see nor scold him if he didn't treat his attire with such reverence but Auron was a monk and honor, noticed or not, was paramount.
He really didn't like the water. He sometimes wished he were born a Ronso, with their bark-like tongues, convenient flexibility and thus absolutely no need to bathe in the icy water of a pathetic ankle-deep stream. He probably wouldn't even mind the cold weather then, with the thick undercoat and the hot-blooded whiskey-barrel body of a Ronso, built for life on the frost-bitten Mt. Gagazet. But he was human. Uncomfortably human. He was merely an awkward, rawboned son of a dead sword smith who had joined the monks at Bevelle as a twelve year old orphan.
He gathered himself, swelling his slight chest with the dry evening air as he stepped into the creek. The cold water painfully tickled the sensitive skin between his toes and the sludgy creek bottom threatened to swallow him wherever he placed his feet.
He was a monk the moment he arrived at the monastery. He would remain a monk until he died. He was bound to the life by his heart, mind and spirit. He did wish, however, that his body would follow suit. His was still a dewy and shallow-rooted sapling. Stick-thin limbs like naked branches before the spring bloom. It baffled him. He trained as hard -no, harder than the other monks, confident of the warrior-strength corked inside his frustratingly boyish flask of a frame. He was sure he could feel the muscles readying to surface just under his yet-hairless skin. And yet!
Auron crouched, letting the water from his cupped hands spill over his closely-shorn dark hair, shivering as the water rolled down the boney texture of his body. Auron of the monks at Bevelle. Auron of the Sin-obliterated village. Auron of the familyless and fortuneless. Exasperated, he surveyed his goosefleshed body.
His manhood -or boyhood, dangled strangely like the unfurled trunk of a shoopuf. How did this wrinkled little bit of flesh assure his masculinity? At fourteen, Auron knew of its biological functions, albeit little use to a monk under an oath of celibacy, yet he did not see the connection of this tender-skinned gland to the battle-cultivated muscles of a warrior. It was then, in that pensive and absent moment that he begin to touch it. He had felt himself erect before, but it had always been a private embarrassment. An inconvenience. Never before had he manipulated it in this manner. And had he not been completely alone under the fast darkening evening sky he would not have done it.
A novel and tense pleasure wracked his body, and his breath began to work itself into stuttering gasps. Was he a man?
In his unguarded and foreign bliss, Auron did not hear the approaching footsteps, though each sounded rather heavily, cracking the dry autumn underbrush and orange pine-needles with each step.
Auron did not hear the footsteps, but he most certainly did feel the violent and distinct blast of a well-cast Thundaga spell shortly before the light of it flash-bleached his vision and the force of it rudely flung his body from his place in the water.
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Part 2. The Sapling
The familiar little stream had hurled itself, in a very noisy way, over the same stones for years. At least for the two years he had been bathing here as a monk of Bevelle --and at fourteen, two years is still a rather long time. Eventually, Auron knew, these stones would be smooth as blitzballs, ever smaller and smaller until their stony beings dissipated into sediment which would be pulled along easily by even the weakest currents of the brook. Like pyreflies drawn to the farplane after a victorious battle.
Exceptionally young and quite small for a monk, Auron had plenty of resentment for anyone who dared observe those facts. He was a monk and he kept his regimen. That same regimen brought him here, to bathe in this stream once every ten days, in the evening. Even in the winter, which in Bevelle were usually not so cold to freeze flowing water, but cold enough to make him numb, blue-tinged and shivering. He was no fan of cold weather. Or water, for that matter.
He sighed as he ritualistically unlaced his boots and slipped from his uniform, which he subsequently folded in sharp and even squares and placed neatly, even respectfully, near his boots on the bank. There was no one to neither see nor scold him if he didn't treat his attire with such reverence but Auron was a monk and honor, noticed or not, was paramount.
He really didn't like the water. He sometimes wished he were born a Ronso, with their bark-like tongues, convenient flexibility and thus absolutely no need to bathe in the icy water of a pathetic ankle-deep stream. He probably wouldn't even mind the cold weather then, with the thick undercoat and the hot-blooded whiskey-barrel body of a Ronso, built for life on the frost-bitten Mt. Gagazet. But he was human. Uncomfortably human. He was merely an awkward, rawboned son of a dead sword smith who had joined the monks at Bevelle as a twelve year old orphan.
He gathered himself, swelling his slight chest with the dry evening air as he stepped into the creek. The cold water painfully tickled the sensitive skin between his toes and the sludgy creek bottom threatened to swallow him wherever he placed his feet.
He was a monk the moment he arrived at the monastery. He would remain a monk until he died. He was bound to the life by his heart, mind and spirit. He did wish, however, that his body would follow suit. His was still a dewy and shallow-rooted sapling. Stick-thin limbs like naked branches before the spring bloom. It baffled him. He trained as hard -no, harder than the other monks, confident of the warrior-strength corked inside his frustratingly boyish flask of a frame. He was sure he could feel the muscles readying to surface just under his yet-hairless skin. And yet!
Auron crouched, letting the water from his cupped hands spill over his closely-shorn dark hair, shivering as the water rolled down the boney texture of his body. Auron of the monks at Bevelle. Auron of the Sin-obliterated village. Auron of the familyless and fortuneless. Exasperated, he surveyed his goosefleshed body.
His manhood -or boyhood, dangled strangely like the unfurled trunk of a shoopuf. How did this wrinkled little bit of flesh assure his masculinity? At fourteen, Auron knew of its biological functions, albeit little use to a monk under an oath of celibacy, yet he did not see the connection of this tender-skinned gland to the battle-cultivated muscles of a warrior. It was then, in that pensive and absent moment that he begin to touch it. He had felt himself erect before, but it had always been a private embarrassment. An inconvenience. Never before had he manipulated it in this manner. And had he not been completely alone under the fast darkening evening sky he would not have done it.
A novel and tense pleasure wracked his body, and his breath began to work itself into stuttering gasps. Was he a man?
In his unguarded and foreign bliss, Auron did not hear the approaching footsteps, though each sounded rather heavily, cracking the dry autumn underbrush and orange pine-needles with each step.
Auron did not hear the footsteps, but he most certainly did feel the violent and distinct blast of a well-cast Thundaga spell shortly before the light of it flash-bleached his vision and the force of it rudely flung his body from his place in the water.
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