FicWad

Auron could have slept longer, but it was the Pyreflies that woke him, wagging his brain until it thrummed in torment. Propping up on his elbow, he ground the heel of his hand into his good eye socket to pacify the Pyreflies and buff the sleep out of his face. It helped marginally, enough so she could at least squint around the inn room.

"Raine?"

Vocal cords gritty from sleep, he cleared his dry, prickly throat and dragged himself onto his hip, but as a dreadful thought gripped him, he examined the room with new effort. The bathroom door was open and the light was off. The bed was vacant.

Bracing an elbow on the bed, Auron snapped to his feet. "Raine!" he barked.

Of course she left him. Raine had limits and Auron had attacked those limits like a fiend in heat. No excuse for it. Even if he was in the midst of a near-sending. Even if he was desperate to stay out of the Farplane.

He stumbled to his leather plate on the chair and then swung around disoriented to find his cloak, which was missing. Strange. Popping his head into the bathroom, Auron scanned the floor, looking for Raine's pajamas. Her boots were gone, too, but her coat made of dingo hide was still slung over one of the stools, at the table where she had picked over a dinner of pork roast and strawberry cobbler. He realized she didn't intend to go far. If she was going to leave him, he expected her to have enough good sense to dress for the cold.

Space. A little would do them both some good. She needed to get used to the idea he was an unsent and he prayed it wasn't a deal-breaker, although part of her must have known. After they had tinkered with the shower's water temperature for ten minutes, she must have at least had a hunch something was wrong. Ignorance was bliss, he reasoned. She didn't want to admit he was dead as much as he didn't want to admit he was in love with her. Eventually they would both have to face it.

Wrestling into his armor, he snapped the buttons on his collar. He yawned and massaged the back of his neck, throwing back an arm to stretch his shoulder. As he stood in the light sloping in from the main room, he gave the dark bathroom a casual glance. Earlier this evening, he had strode with stern intent to this spot, closing the door on Raine's naked back as she readied for her first shower. Thinking back, he should have compromised and only closed the door halfway, at least until he was better adjusted to their new phase of intimacy. After all, it was what married people did; they left the bathroom door open. She was bounding through the stages like a rabbit to a field of clover, and digging his heels in was the only way to slow her down.

He noticed Raine's kinked garter on the side of the sink and gave it a dry smile as he picked it up. He had promised her he would take it off her later. Zanarkand had some marital customs that differed from those in Spira and he wasn't familiar with all of them. This morning, when he saw the garter tying back her hair, he knew she had been expecting a wedding night customary of Zanarkand and it scared the shit out of him. Sure, he had spent the majority of his time at the houseboat staring at her ass when she wasn't looking, but she was still the little girl who once patted his knee to get his attention before she asked if he had any kids for her to play with. It took work to separate the two Raine's. But now that she was his wife, daydreaming of her in her cheerleading uniform didn't feel as immoral, although he speculated that had been part of the appeal.

Honestly, he didn't know what he was supposed to do with the garter but he meant to invent something when the time came. Something racy and derogatory that would probably involve his teeth. Just the thought of it made him smirk. Sniffing the garter once, it smelled like her hair and he nostalgically pressed it against his nose on his way back into the bedroom.

A wintery draft curled around his bare arms and Auron regarded the window inquisitively. It had been left ajar and wind was whistling through the crack. He approached the window to latch it.

However, what he saw outside made him forget about the escaping heat. The garter landed gently on the carpet. His boots were grabbed from under the table. The door banged the wall on his way into the hall.

*

On the train to her wedding, Raine missed her stop and she wasn't entirely sure it was by accident. The instant it zoomed by, the pull of regret was sudden and unexpected, as if part of her had gotten off, while the other part stayed rooted to her seat.
/]
[/As Raine grappled with her thoughts, the train stopped anyway, so swiftly she had to catch herself on the seat in front of her and slap a hand on her dress to keep it from slipping to the floor, although it didn't appear to have moved from its spot, despite the universal laws of inertia. She leaned over to the window, waiting for the poor sap that had missed the train to come running up alongside, but no one came. Instead, Raine's attention was drawn to an older woman in a sunny-yellow coat sitting stoical on one of the benches, hands in her lap, zoning out on some distant distraction and Raine became entranced by her impressive concentration. She did not move a muscle. Raine's scope of vision panned out, encompassing more of the train platform and she gasped, her hands clawing the glass in shock and wonder.
/]
[/ Everywhere, statues in mid-step were on their way back to work, their lunch hours almost through. A girl who had been swinging her purse with every stride was stopped in place, her bag defying gravity as it was swung in front of her and a woman with a leash paused to let her scruffy dog scratch its ear and it was left in that pose, squinting at its own back foot. One man was waiting for his train, his head bent, his wrist up to look at his watch, literally looking at time as it stood still.
/]
[/ Only Raine could move, initiating in her a strange sense of solipsism in a world where only she existed. She shifted in her seat to look at the back of the train, the other commuters frozen, staring out the window or to the front. Some were in mid-conversation, their hands up in a stationary gesture, their mouths hanging open on a vowel sound. She became aware of the air. It was syrupy, like clear honey, unmoving, hardening to preserve the moment.
/]
[/ Across the aisle, in the train seat beside Raine, there had been an older woman sitting by the window, knitting something long and emerald green, like a fashion scarf, but now she was frozen, her needles motionless in her fingers. She had been sitting alone before, but now someone was sitting next to her, a little boy. The air around him was particularly shimmery, always moving, a colorful transparent fog shifting around him, comets of changing light wandering around him in an aimless orbit. He sat with sage-like patience, even if his feet dangled and didn't reach the floor, his androgynous nose and chin visible under the purple hood as he turned to face her.
/]
[/ "Can you see me?" Raine asked. Her voice echoed abnormally, like she was in an empty room with high ceilings, instead of a tightly packed train car.
/]
[/ "You missed your stop," he said smoothly, lightly. It was more than just an observation, though. It seemed bizarrely like a second chance.
/]
[/ "How do you know what stop I intend to take?"
/]
[/ "That's not important."
/]
[/ "What is important?" she asked, rigid with distrust.
/]
[/ He gave a soft giggle at her suspicion. "That you get off the train and go to the Dome."
/]
[/ "To my wedding?" Raine laid a hand protectively on the bag with her dress inside. Raine's second wedding dress she picked out by herself, her only aid came from the clerk who helped with the zipper in the back and answered affirmatively when Raine asked about bringing up the hem.
/]
[/ "To Auron."
/]
[/ "You—you know Auron?"
/]
[/ "Of course." He grinned cheekily. Raine noticed with interest he had all his teeth and they were in perfect proportion. A boy his age should be shedding his primary teeth, smiling with awkward gaps and a mixed dentition, but he seemed strangely timeless.
/]
[/ Inexplicably, Raine felt the heat go to her face. Maybe it was the way the little boy was looking at her like they shared a provocative secret. "What makes Auron so special?"
/]
[/ "He will always be loyal and he'll always protect you."
/]
[/ "I don't need protection," Raine said stubbornly.
/]
[/ "I know," the boy said, nodding under his hood. His lips twisted ironically at her. "But it makes him feel useful."
/]
[/ Raine laughed, but she cut it short as she became aware again of the Zanarkand residents around her. Although surrounded by people, a peculiar loneliness came over Raine, that familiar feeling of invisibility at a party while she waited for her friends to arrive. "This must be a dream."
/]
[/ "Precisely," he said.
/]
[/ "How long can we stay like this, then?"
/]
[/ "Not long."
/]
[/ She nodded thoughtfully. "I will wake soon."
/]
[/ "If everything goes right," he agreed.
/]
[/ She tilted her head, expecting him to clarify. Instead, he was looking out his window, distracted, although what he could be seeing eluded Raine, since everything was immobile as a photograph.
/]
[/ "It begins," he said. "Don't think."
/]
[/ "Will I see you again?"
/]
[/ For once, the boy seemed at a loss for words. "I…hope not."
/]
[/ Raine's head whipped back against her seat as the train resumed movement, the explosive rumble of the train engine and white noise of conversation was deafening after experiencing perfect silence with the boy. Her surroundings played again, missing not a single beat, and in the seat next to her, the old woman now sat alone, continuing to knit, taking a moment to tug more yarn from her bag on the floor, glancing at Raine self-consciously when she noticed her staring.
/]
[/ Sitting up straight, Raine realized it was possible she had fallen asleep, but she didn't feel drowsy. Without another thought, she reached up for her cord and tugged it for the next stop. She scooped up the bag with her dress inside and laid it across her lap so it would be ready for her when the train stopped.
/]
[/ She didn't mind the 3 block walk back to the Dome's entry, except for the bluster of warm wind that threatened to dismantle all the work she had put into her hair this morning. In fact, she could tell she had bride-brain since all the downtown buildings were reminding her of crazy wedding cakes, stacked out-of-order and with more layers. She had never correlated the two before and smiled as she pictured the banded strips of windows were piped frosting and the turrets, steeples and pyramidal spires were the cake toppers. Normal sounds of traffic and train whistles were drowned out by the constant pour of rooftop waterfalls, collected in street-level basins and pumped back into the Zanarkand River, which jaggedly carved the city into a north and south side.
/]
[/ The Dome was recognizable from almost every part of downtown, a round historic building with columns on the outside architecture, the entrance marked with a colorful steeple and a statue of a goddess. Some people said the Dome used to be a place to worship old gods, but beyond guesses and rumors, no one in Zanarkand knew for sure what the building was for. Raine had been there before to have the deed to the houseboat transferred to her name and Jory would go there regularly to get his driver's license renewed. She had only attended one wedding at the Dome. A friend of hers on the cheerleading squad, who was now already on her second child, wanted a quick and fuss-free wedding right out of high school. But Raine never imagined herself getting married there. Then again, she never really visualized the circus wedding Mrs. Drake had arranged, either. When Raine thought about getting married, she only thought of the marriage. Never the wedding.
/]
[/ The Dome was busy this time of day. Zanarkand citizens completing their errands on their lunch hour and some employees sat on the steps in little cliques, eating from bag lunches. Inside, a woman behind a glass, crescent-shaped desk was talking into her headset and Raine loitered, waiting patiently for her attention.
/]
[/ Holographic monitors lined the walls, their volumes off, each one on a different channel: news, sports, a soap opera, and a couple syndicated sitcoms. The monitor directly behind the receptionist was replaying footage from her first wedding, which had begun as a fluffy, human interest piece, but ended as breaking news of the Sinspawn arrival. A smile played on her lips as she watched Auron wielding his katana, mowing down Sinscales on the beach, appearing very irritated when the sphere cams got too close. The media had made him into a hero, which he dismissed and refused all interviews, except of course, Raine's private interview that evening in the houseboat.
/]
[/ Despite her proposal, Auron insisted they sleep in their usual rooms at the houseboat during the few weeks leading up to the wedding and on the final night, in the interest of formality, he slept somewhere else entirely. At least, that's what he told her he would do, but since she'd never seen him asleep, she suspected he was still in viewing distance of the houseboat, reverting back to his stalking days when she was in high school. Auron wanted a swift wedding and he talked to the priest of the Zanarkand Dome himself. Auron was more pedantic than Raine realized and he had arranged for them a very traditional wedding.
/]
[/ "Can I help you?"
/]
[/ "I'm getting married today," Raine said, realizing only after she said it how lame she sounded.
/]
[/ The receptionist smiled knowingly. "Down the main hall, third door on the right."
/]
[/ "Thanks."
/]
[/ Raine found the corridor behind the desk, under the monitor replaying Auron's sword heroics, a long, arched passageway with high ceilings, intricate wall details, old marble, stone and bronze sculptures and random spurts of stairs. This wasn't the way she came for her friend's wedding but that had been a long time ago and maybe guests were directed down a different way. She found the right door, went inside and found another door directly in front of her, a double one without windows, closed for now. The floors were dark slate tiles, the lighting dim.
/]
[/ On her left, the door at the end of a short hall opened and a woman in a conventional skirt and blouse came out and smiled. "You must be the 1:00 bride."
/]
[/ "I think so." Auron did tell her to be there by 1:00.
/]
[/ "I'm Darlene. Come with me." She held the door open for Raine and they entered yet another hallway. The woman led her to one of the doors, but how she could decipher it from the rest eluded Raine. The Dome was beginning to feel a little like a dark maze. "You can change in here."
/]
[/ "Thanks."
/]
[/ The room was not very big, but the window faced the Zanarkand River and there was a functional bathroom, a full length mirror on the wall and gently used furniture. On the coffee table in front of the sofa were a spectacular bouquet of purple moon-lilies and a small catering tray of biscuits and cheese.
/]
[/ "I'll check on you when we're ready to start," Darlene said with a smile and closed the door.
/]
[/ Raine hung the dress up on a hook by the door and approached the flowers. There was a card and Raine opened it immediately.
/]
[/Eat something. –A
/]
[/ Raine wasn't surprised it was to the point, but she was surprised to see it was handwritten in neat cursive. She had never seen Auron's handwriting before, but decided it was probably the florist's script. The whole set-up was rather thoughtful, yet somehow, it was serving a practical purpose, even the flowers, which she couldn't help thinking were the persuasive medium to get her to eat.
/]
[/ She was actually a little nervous Auron wouldn't come. Before his 3 month disappearance, Auron felt like a stone in her hand. Since then, he felt more like beach sand, steadily slipping through her fingers, and an anxious thread tugged at her insides as she wondered if she was only getting married so he would feel like a rock again.
/]
[/ Eating was the last thing on her mind, but she nibbled at the cheese and went to put on her dress.

*

Thundering down the steps in his bare feet, Auron found Rin in the storefront, staring out the window. He seemed relieved to see Auron and held up his hands preemptively as if to explain something.

"Sir Auron, I was about to come get you."

"What is she doing?" Auron growled, hopping into his boots. He headed for the door without tying them. "How long has she been out there?"

"Not long." Rin sighed sincerely. "I may have said something to upset her."

Auron halted at the door and faced him. "What exactly did you say?" he shrewdly asked.

With a frantic shrug, he said, "The conversation just sort of evolved. Had I known beforehand you two really were married, I would never have let it—"

"What? What did you say?"

"I implied Yunalesca could never turn down a conjugal bond. When she told me you were married, I tried to congratulate her. But she just shook her head and ran out."

At first it didn't sink, but then Auron made an irritated sound deep in his throat.

"I know, I shouldn't have interfered, but the poor girl wanted answers."

"What if she'd jumped?"

Taken aback, Rin's mouth dropped open. "Why on Spira would she do that?"

With a scowl, Auron began to open the door, but Rin stopped him again.

"There's something else."

"More?"

"Something else may have slipped out," he said and hesitated. There was something about the way he crossed his arms just then, as if he were protectively bracing himself. "I may have mentioned Zanarkand Ruins—"

"Damn you, Rin," Auron said through stiff lips and swung open the door.

"Forgive me, Sir Auron."

Auron stepped onto the freshly shoveled walkway, his boots scraping on the salt. It was cold, but it didn't bother him. There was a lamp on the side of the building, but Raine was standing just beyond the fuzzy radius of light, and he could just barely see her against the backdrop of a navy blue abyss. She was standing with her back to him and a blast from the chasm snapped the cloak around her ankles.

"Raine, come inside," Auron called authoritatively from the door.

She didn't respond. She didn't even look over her shoulder to acknowledge she had even heard him.

So what if Rin mentioned Zanarkand Ruins? Tidus found out about Zanarkand Ruins this way, too, through word of mouth, and all the boy thought was that he'd somehow come forward 1000 years in time. It wasn't until much later in the pilgrimage when Tidus learned the truth of who he was and where he came from. It wasn't too late to tell Raine this truth in Auron's own way—and far from the edge of this gorge.

Advising Rin back inside with only a threatening look, Auron walked to the edge of the light. She was lingering so close to the drop-off. After his rough treatment of her earlier, he was afraid to go any closer until he knew exactly what she was thinking. At this point, it could be just about anything.

"I'm sorry," he called. "About earlier. Did I hurt you?"

It was a long time before she answered and her voice sounded small and far away in the darkness. "No."

"Is this about the Pyreflies you saw?"

Another pause. If it was possible, she sounded even further away. "Rin told me you're unsent."

Auron closed his eye and ground his teeth, more angry with himself than with Rin. "Do you want to come inside and talk about it?" Anything to get her away from the cliff; he didn't trust the cornice of snow at the edge to hold her if she stepped too close.

Silence. The longest expanse so far. "No."

Auron crossed his arms, looked down at his boots, the wet laces dragging in the snow. His knees felt oddly weak. He waited a long time to speak, when he was sure his voice wouldn't shake, and to make doubly sure, he cleared his throat. "Is this about the pilgrimage?"

"Do you think we don't have maps in Zanarkand?"

That confused Auron. "What?"

Snow squeaked under her feet. She was turning around to face him and he was glad to see her pale face in the available light. Now that she knew he was unsent, any look of disgust or repulsion from her would certainly unhinge him, but somehow, her lack of expression was almost worse.

"With all the excitement of being in Spira, I nearly forgot about seeing the Fayth on the train this morning until I saw him in the summoning book you gave me. But it was the map on the next page that really got me thinking. The map of Spira."

Understanding, Auron inwardly sighed. Perhaps he shouldn't have given her free reign of the book until he had gone through it more thoroughly.

"I didn't think anything of it, until I noticed a little area in the top eastern corner that was mysteriously shaped just like Zanarkand. Now how is that possible if the Zanarkand I'm from is all there is? To us, Mount Gagazet is just a place kids go to make out, but according to the map, it's way bigger."

"Raine, believe me, you were going to learn—"

"That Zanarkand exists in Spira? Only in ruins?"

"I was going to tell you. When the time was right."

"So when were you going to tell me I was a dream?"

Shocked, Auron snapped his head up. "How—"

"Your Pyreflies gave me a sneak preview," she said, tone exuding both humor and sarcasm.

For Yevon's sake. His Pyreflies would have told her all the secrets of the universe if she asked. "What did they show you?" he asked carefully.

She laughed, a hard fleer. "You should first understand a woman never forgets the place where she got married."

"Hmph," he chuffed knowingly. "The Dome in Zanarkand Ruins."

"When Tidus asked you to bring me to Spira as a Summoner, he said something I didn't understand at first. He said, 'What will happen to Raine when the Fayth stop dreaming?' It took me a while before I figured it out. This morning, on the train, I had commented to the Fayth that sitting there with him was a dream and he said 'Precisely.' At the time, I thought he was confirming that I was dreaming him, but it's the other way around, isn't it? He's dreaming me."

"I forget sometimes how clever you are," Auron said, eying the edge of the gorge as a piece of it broke away, and he could hear the fade of its smashing against the canyon wall on its way down.

Raine didn't seem to notice.

*

Auron worried about the weather as he watched the water from the window in his room. No sign of Sinspawn yet, Tidus' vengeance trademark, but Sin was always aware of the happenings in Dream Zanarkand and Auron was not confident his marriage to Tidus' sister would go unnoticed.
/]
[/ The knock on the door did not pull his attention away from the window. "Come," Auron said.
/]
[/ He heard the door open and a woman's lively voice, which he recognized as the woman who escorted him to his room. "You told me to let you know when your bride arrived."
/]
[/ "She's here?"
/]
[/ "She's here. We'll get started in a little bit. You still have plenty of time to change."
/]
[/ "I'm ready."
/]
[/ "Oh." She sounded shaken, but remained in the room. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?"
/]
[/ Auron hadn't looked away from the window once. "It's windy."
/]
[/ "At least it's a warm wind."
/]
[/ Auron didn't respond and eventually the woman excused herself and closed the door.
/]
[/ He hated Sin weather.

*

"We're going to begin."
/]
[/ Raine hurried out of the bathroom and stepped into the silver pumps by the coffee table. Darlene was standing by the door. The wind had done a number on her hair during her walk over but it gave the curls a relaxed quality she liked better and she didn't think Auron would be too critical of her hair anyway. "I couldn't reach the back," Raine said, jutting a thumb over her shoulder. Her sheath dress was long and sleek, the only frill was a half inch piece of trim at the hem, and it showed a tasteful amount of cleavage. Most of all, it fit like a glove with the clerk's expert measurements and tailoring and Raine could breathe.
/]
[/ "Allow me," she offered and crossed the room. With a quick rasp, Raine's dress was completely zipped. She opted for a zipper this time. Auron didn't have patience for all those little buttons, anyway.
/]
[/ "Okay, I'm ready. Wait!" Raine froze, meeting Darlene's eyes. "I don't have a bouquet."
/]
[/ "What about those?" She nodded to the moon-lilies.
/]
[/ "Good enough."
/]
[/ "Be careful. There's water in the vase. I think there's a pair of shears in the bathroom."
/]
[/ Darlene disappeared into the bathroom. Raine heard the click of the light, followed by the rattle of drawers opening. Raine clutched the flowers by the stems, lifted them carefully out of the vase to let the water drip off the ends. One of the stems broke and the flower drifted finely to the table. Darlene returned with the scissors and held the bottom stems together as she gently cut the flowers to a manageable length.
/]
[/ "They're still a little wet. Try to hold them away from the dress."
/]
[/ Raine nodded and did so.
/]
[/ "Oh, you lost a flower," Darlene commented. She picked it up by the broken stem and made a motion to her hair. "May I?"
/]
[/ "Sure."
/]
[/ Borrowing a pin from her own hair, Darlene clipped the moon-lily behind Raine's ear, then gave Raine an approving wink, as if the flower was the final touch.
/]
[/ "Thanks," Raine said shyly.
/]
[/ Darlene tossed the stem ends into a trash basket by the door.
/]
[/ "Oh, one more thing," Raine said and dug into the bag her dress had come in, still hanging on the hook by the door. She took out a small ring box. "We don't have a ring bearer. Do I give this to you, or—"
/]
[/ "I'll give it to the priest," Darlene said and slipped the box into her skirt pocket.
/]
[/ Raine nodded. "He hasn't seen it. I'm not sure it will fit him."
/]
[/ She chuckled. "Your groom had the same reservations about your ring."
/]
[/ "Oh," Raine said and blushed. She didn't know Auron to be so detailed-oriented and she wasn't sure he would remember a ring. She didn't think he was the type to go jewelry shopping with her, so she never brought it up. She had Auron's custom made and figured she'd come back and buy her own if she had to.
/]
[/ Darlene led Raine to the door across the hall and made a motion for Raine to wait. She opened the door just wide enough to slip through and left Raine to wait alone in the hall for a minute or two, probably so she could give the ring to the priest. When Darlene returned, she swung the door open wide to reveal the chapel's slew of empty pews. Aunt Naya sat alone in the front row. The priest stood at the podium wearing a robe with too-long sleeves, weaved with an intricately graphic design of white, green and orange.
/]
[/ "Walk slow," Darlene instructed in a whisper. "Your groom opted for no music, so count in your head: one-one thousand, two-one thousand, like that."
/]
[/ Raine nodded.
/]
[/ Darlene stuck her head into the chapel one more time, turned to smile at Raine. "Go."
/]
[/ Pacing inside, Raine noticed the wall on her left had five enormous, A-shaped windows with stone frames, overlooking the Zanarkand River. She hadn't had a chance to walk down the aisle at her first wedding and it was a little strange without music, every footstep like a clangor in the austere room. The aisle wasn't centered down the middle like the wedding Mrs. Drake had arranged, but instead there were two diagonal aisles through the pews that converged into a center lane and continued on to where the priest was waiting. On the groom's side, Auron was coming down his passage, wearing his typical red cloak garb and high collar.
/]
[/ Aunt Naya shifted around in her seat and grinned at Raine. She had acted so strange when Raine told her she was marrying Auron. Her great-aunt had crossed her arms and cocked her head, but not aggressively as Raine anticipated after announcing a second wedding three days after her first. Smiling complacently, Naya had nodded knowingly with her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted. "He's a little old for you, isn't he?" Aunt Naya had asked, but she said it boldly and immediately laughed, before Raine could respond.
/]
[/ Meeting where the aisles joined, Raine noticed Auron had considerately combed his hair down with an abnormally conservative left side part and while it didn't suit him, Raine loved him for his effort. His hand was poking out the front of his cloak as usual, but he had extended his elbow to her when she approached him, bowing his head respectfully to her. The little glass shields over his eyes lingered in her direction longer than normal and she couldn't help flushing to scorching degrees.
/]
[/ Through the turgid ceremony, Raine glossed over the priest's words, giddily apprehensive of her upcoming kiss to Auron, their first. Ever. Certainly that was also a part of the ceremony, since so far it was by the book. Soon she would be touching his lips with hers, a moment she had imagined since she was a little girl.
/]
[/ But first, the rings.
/]
[/ The priest brought forth the golden ornaments and said some magic words to bless them. Raine vied for a glimpse of the ring Auron had picked out for her, but the priest had them cupped inconspicuously in his hand. She was equally eager for Auron's reaction when he saw the one she'd gotten for him, but as the priest handed Raine's ring over to him, Auron had his sunglasses trained on the windows fronting the river.
/]
[/ Raine glanced back at her aunt, who was giving her groom a curious look.
/]
[/ The priest seemed to wait a long time while Auron stared out the window before he tactfully cleared his throat, bringing Auron into the present. "The ring?" the priest offered and Auron collected it and faced Raine.
/]
[/ The vows were standard and Auron repeated them briskly after the priest. He slid the ring on her finger with his free hand. It was a pear-shaped diamond on a gold band, simply beautiful. And suspiciously familiar. She had been ogling one like it at the jewelry store when she went in to order Auron's ring. Why did she have the feeling her jeweler had been interrogated shortly after she left the shop?
/]
[/ Her turn. The priest gave her Auron's ring and she repeated the vows, but before she could put it on Auron's hand, he snatched it first and held it close to his face in fussy scrutiny. Confirming Raine's notion he had been in the jewelry store after her, he revolved the ring to read the inscription and his eyes crinkled behind his sunglasses.
/]
[/ Raine smirked coyly and blushed.
/]
[/ Wrestling the ring on one-handedly, sliding it into place with his thumb, Auron reached over and squeezed her shoulder sentimentally.
/]
[/ Kiss time. Raine was noticeably trembling with anticipation, but her stomach took a dive when she realized she couldn't reach his lips through the collar.
/]
[/ That damned collar! All this time, she was so used to seeing him only from the bridge of his nose, it never occurred to her the collar would have to be pulled apart if she wanted to kiss him.
/]
[/ With a pang of irritation, Raine stuffed the bouquet in her armpit and began working the snaps of the leather straps and Auron patiently let her. Raine wondered when the last time they had been unfastened, if ever. Her fingers were not nearly nimble enough and the old priest tried not to notice how ardently determined she had become. When the last button came undone, she flattened the collar down against his shoulders. It was the first time she had ever really seen his mouth and she noticed absently he had not shaved for the occasion. She didn't care.
/]
[/ Raine rose to the tips of her toes, her fingers catching the fabric of his cloak for balance, closing her eyes as Auron bent down to her...
/]
[/…and kissed her bangs.

*

"You said Tidus didn't defeat Sin for good because there were obstacles. I was the obstacle, wasn't I?"

Auron nodded bitterly. "Tidus was afraid if he beat Sin for good, the dream world would end and you would be lost."

"And if we beat Sin now, will I be lost?"

"I'm not certain. But I know you're more than a dream now."

"Like Tidus?" Raine said, unconvinced. "Real enough to become Sin, I suppose."

Auron stepped out of the light, into the veil of darkness where Raine was. The wind from the gorge was nasty and he feared it was strong enough to make Raine lose her balance.

"We've been over this, Raine. Becoming Sin was his choice," he said as softly as he could, but he hated wasting words on repeat conversations.

"You're wrong. He didn't have a choice."

He had enough sense to realize she had seen something in his Pyreflies to make her reach this conclusion, but as Auron tried to think back to events twelve years passed, to recall something he might have said to Tidus, nothing came to mind. "What do you mean?" he had to ask because her pregnant pause made it clear she wouldn't continue without prompt.

"What's nobler, Auron? Suicide or sacrifice?"

Auron opened his mouth but nothing came out. Did she want him to answer? He dreaded rash action if he gave an answer she didn't want to hear.

"Sacrifice, right?" she said. "Because suicide is selfish, isn't it?"

"Raine—"

"Right?!"

He stopped because she had never raised her voice to him before. Her voice actually lost its integrity from the shrill strain of shouting and the echo came back as: Righ?! Righ?! Righ?!

"Yes," he whispered. She didn't want his pretext. She wanted him to listen.

"You think Tidus sacrificed himself for Spira? He couldn't live without Yuna, he said it himself. It wasn't sacrifice, Auron, it was suicide."

Auron didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say. Maybe it was suicide for Tidus, but what did that matter now? Was she trying to justify her own attempt? Somehow twist around the semantics to make it seem sacrificial? He wouldn't accept that.

"You told Tidus my father thought becoming Sin would give his life meaning. So you tell me…does anyone fight Sin with true sacrifice in mind?"

It was on the tip of Auron's tongue to say he fought with true sacrifice, but thought against it. "Yuna did."

"I'm not Yuna," she said ominously. "And I'm not you. Yunalesca turned you down the first time, but you want to try again, don't you?"

"Raine—"

"Don't you?!" she screeched with a demanding hop. It nearly gave Auron a heart attack as the ledge released another slice of snow with a soft poof!

Auron pressed his lips together and stayed quiet. There was that heartbreaking catch in her scream again that reminded him to speak only truths now. "Yes," he mumbled.

"You want to manipulate the odds in your favor. That's why we're doing the pilgrimage alone. That's why you married me."

*

Before embarrassing herself further, Raine flattened her lips from their expectant pucker. Auron stepped back, revolved a quarter turn to the priest to wait for the end of the ceremony. Beside herself, Raine did the same. Tears pierced her eyes, but she managed to hold her dignity together. At least the only people who saw her get burned by her own…husband…were her aunt and the priest of a temple she'd never been in before. And soon, they would be in Spira, where they would spend their honeymoon on a pilgrimage to Sin.
/]
[/She just didn't realize how soon.
/]
[/Grandly plethoric, the priest lifted his arms, apparently used to a much larger audience. "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
/]
[/The floor vibrated under Raine's pumps. Auron felt it too and glanced down at her.
/]
[/"Say goodbye to your aunt," Auron muttered, gesturing a thanks to the priest.
/]
[/"Right now?"
/]
[/"Right now."
/]
[/Raine turned around and rushed to the first pew, where her aunt was already on her feet, looking out the windows inquiringly, alerted by the shaking. She smiled warmly at Raine when she noticed her approach.
/]
[/"I guess we're leaving," Raine said casually. She did not yet realize the portal to Spira was already generating outside. She had misinterpreted Auron's impatience for anticipation of their wedding night and had she understood this, she would have given her aunt a truly proper goodbye.
/]
[/"Okay," Naya said, suppressing a warble in her voice. "Why don't you come over tomorrow? I'll make dinner for the three of us."
/]
[/"That sounds really great," Raine said, feeling Auron's hand come around her elbow and lightly tug.
/]
[/Naya smiled at Auron and he responded with a curt nod.
/]
[/Behind Raine, something clanked, some chapel paraphernalia falling off the stone ledges as the shaking increased.
/]
[/Without looking back, Auron said, "We're expected."
/]
[/"Okay, okay. Bye Aunt Naya," Raine called, waving as Auron nearly dragged her down the center aisle.
/]
[/As they left the chapel, Auron let her go to shrug his arm out of his cloak and stopped by the last pew, where his katana was lying flat on the seat. He pried his wedding ring off his finger and stuffed it into a pocket on the inside of his cloak. Raine was baffled how something so simple could bruise her feelings so much. He reached over the side of the pew to grab his katana, tested the weight and ushered her out of the chapel.
/]
[/"You were rude to my aunt," Raine teased.
/]
[/Auron said nothing.
/]
[/In the main corridor, paintings dropped off the wall and plaster began to sprinkle down from the ceilings.
/]
[/"Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic you don't come with a mother-in-law, but you still have to be nice to my aunt."
/]
[/"I need you to focus," Auron said. "It might get dangerous when we get outside, so I want you to stay where I can see you."
/]
[/"More Sinspawn?"
/]
[/"Probably."
/]
[/"I wish you had told me this was it, I would have told my aunt not to worry."
/]
[/Auron stopped. Raine stopped.
/]
[/"Forget about your aunt," Auron grated crossly. "Forget about everything here. You need to leave this world behind."
/]
[/Raine bristled at Auron's asperity, but didn't argue and allowed him to pull her brusquely down the hall. How could she say no now? She had asked to go with him.

*

"I knew it." Another nerve wracking stamp of her foot, but at least it didn't loosen anymore bracket of snow. "I knew something didn't feel right."

Auron feared Raine was talking about him, but he didn't ask her to elucidate in case he was right.

"I never thought in a million years you'd agree to marry me. What does Sir Auron need with a wife, anyway? You wanted to keep sleeping in separate rooms and you evaded me every time I approached you and I just kept thinking it would be different once we were married. Who would have thought? Auron, Legendary Guardian, defeater of Sin, world class swordsman…liked to take things slow."

Auron smiled faintly, but it drained quickly.

"That's why I thought you wanted a quick wedding. I mean, I knew you had to go back to Spira soon and that probably had something to do with it, too, but you wouldn't even kiss me properly at the wedding and it was all business as soon as we got here. Then Rin said something about a honeymoon suite and I got my hopes up again. I tried to make it so easy for you, I even got the dress with a zipper, but when we were upstairs alone you wouldn't even…touch me." Her speech weakened at the end and her hand covered her heart, pressing on some internal wound.

Something unraveled in him and he hoped it was too dark for her to see his bleak expression. Auron couldn't dispute it. His marriage was more of a gesture to Yunalesca than it was to Raine, more or less to auspicate the pilgrimage.

Raine told him flatly this wasn't the married life she envisioned and it had occurred to him he should have indulged her with an appropriate wedding night before thrusting an Enchanted Rod in her hands and shoving her into the battlefield. I've always thought actions speak louder than words, he had said after their first round of consummation, which had been a pathetic way to avoid telling her he loved her, but it was all he could manage at the time. He knew she was willing to go the distance with him, he surmised it when she brazenly inserted her finger into her wedding ring to make it known she intended to stay married. She expected him to be a husband to her, but it was more than getting over that first stumbling block of physical contact; he had to keep their honesty and trust intact.

"I'm committed to you, Raine, please believe that."

"You're committed to the pilgrimage as my Guardian," she said with an edge. "It's always been about the pilgrimage. It's why Tidus sent you here, you said that. You made me love you so I would come to Spira with you."

Auron wanted to laugh at that, but didn't dare. He hadn't the faintest idea why she loved him and he had been fighting it for as long as he could remember.

"It's more than that," Auron said. "After tonight, you must know it is."

She shook her head, smiling without humor. "Even Yunalesca knows an unconsummated marriage isn't really a marriage."

"Raine, be reasonable. Marrying you had multiple benefits, for me and for the pilgrimage."

"Multiple benefits?" she repeated, both words said with derisive emphasis.

Nothing he said was right, so the next thing out of his mouth was out of surrender. "Do you want me to quit? Is that what this is about?"

"No, I don't want you to quit," she mumbled.

"Then do you want to quit?"

"No!" She bounced from foot to foot for circulation and another clump of snow dropped off the cliff side. "That's my brother out there! I can't quit."

"Well, I can't quit either."

Raine sighed unsteadily. She spoke slowly to keep calm. "I'm not asking you to quit. But when I choose you as my final Aeon, are you going to do it as a sacrifice? Or suicide?"

Auron felt his brows coming together. He wanted to ask the difference, but he knew already. What he really wanted to ask was what she thought the difference was. "Sacrifice. But you know I would give my life for you."

"Because it's your duty, right?"

"Right," he said with conviction.

He could tell by her deflated body language it was not what she wanted to hear, but Auron didn't understand what she wanted. Was it not enough he would protect her with his life? He married her, didn't he? He didn't know how to give more. Damn Yevon, if she would just step away from the gorge, he could think straight. The fearless way she stood by the edge put him at great unease, as if falling would be a happy accident.

"I found my mother when she died, did you know that?"

Auron lifted his chin in concern. He didn't know that.

"Tidus had gone to school early for Blitzball practice. You must have gone with him. I woke up for school at the usual time. Mother was asleep. She usually slept late, but she would wake up enough to tell me to have a good day at school before I left. I went in to check on her, but she must have died in the night. Later, the autopsy showed no real cause of death. She just…died."

Right. Broken heart.

She's strong like her father, but she loves like her mother.
/]
[/It consumes her.

Auron wasn't even sure if he knew what that meant. To be consumed by love.

"When you left and didn't come back, I think I just lost it. I blocked some of it out. I don't remember anything a couple weeks before I...you know."

Auron saw her rubbing her wrist with her thumb and he nodded.

"I hoped you were dead," she said, talking in monotone as if she was dead herself. "I mean really dead, not just unsent. That was the only way I could move on. I agreed to marry Jory, but he said if he ever saw you and me together again the marriage would be off and that was fine with me. You know what he used to say to me? He used to say that you always got the best of me. I'm still not really sure what that means. But that night when you returned, I knew I couldn't go back to just being friends and that's why I told you had to go. I guess I was hoping for some kind of grand gesture."

If you aren't able to be consumed by her, then you should let her go.

Auron rolled his eyes and wondered if asking her not to marry Jory would have counted as a grand gesture. He speculated the gesture would have to be a lot grander now, but there was nothing he could think to do. They were already married and it had been legitimized. The only thing left was….

"Raine, you know I lo—"

"Don't say it." In the hazy light, he could see she was shaking her head. "I don't want to hear it right now."

Then there was nothing he could do or say to make it right. Maybe Aunt Naya was right. Maybe he should let her go.

Raine sniffed from the cold. Her elbows came up and Auron realized she was pulling on her finger.

"What are you doing?" Auron asked.

She flung something into the gorge, but it made no sound. Her ring.

Auron stomped forward once. "Raine!"

She stuffed a hand into the front of the red cloak, first the right side, then the left. She was looking for his ring. He'd put it in his coat this morning after the ceremony.

"Don't, Raine."

She must have found it because her arm swung forward again and Auron felt a tug in his chest, like she'd thrown his heart into the ravine. I love you indubitably, it read on the inscription. It was a worthless ring without a single magical property, yet the finality of it was unbearable. His legs ached and he fell to his knees, forming craters in the crust of the snow.

"If you're going to be my final Aeon, I want it to be on our own merit," Raine muttered.

Auron was slow to nod until he wrapped his head around what she was saying. He was confident their bond was strong enough without trinkets to prove it, maybe not as solid as Raine wanted, but it would be enough to appease Yunalesca. It sounded like Raine wanted to finish the pilgrimage, but Auron didn't like the widening wedge between them and he had only himself to blame for it. "I can live with that."

In the distance, there was the faint crackle of ice as the frozen lake of Macalania shifted. It was a remote sound and it seemed to accentuate the silence between them. Raine sniffed again, but he couldn't tell if it was from the cold.

"I hate it when we fight," she whispered.

He scowled. Is that what this was? A fight? If this was a fight, he really didn't want to know what a failing marriage was like because that's what he thought was happening here. He dreaded this was only the first of many encounters to come, him explaining why he'd left out some key detail, her frustrations with his resigned intimacy. It seemed this was a battle they'd been having forever. She aimed to complicate, he strived for simplicity. "Me too" was all he said.

After another long yawn of quiet, Auron was about to ask her to come inside, but he was stopped by a tiny giggle. Auron looked up with a frown. "Raine?"

She answered with a light laugh, loud enough for the canyon to throw back at them in echo.

"What's so funny?"

"You are so stupid," she laughed.

Auron failed to find the humor. "Why is that?"

"I'm sorry," she said, but what she said next was broken with uncontainable snickers. "What kind of unsent...teaches his wife...the sending dance?"

He tried to remain stoic, but her giggles were infectious. He gave in to a snort. "You're enjoying this."

"That's just asking for trouble, don't you think?"

"I suppose you're right." He smothered a grin, but a chuckle snuck by.

"You had best get used to walking on eggshells, my dear. You don't want to make me mad and send you to the Farplane!"

Auron laughed at the stars and the gorge could not keep up with tossing back their mirth. Raine covered her face with his red sleeves to hold in her amusement, but those sleeves suddenly shot out sideways for balance as the earth shook. It was a single, lurching tremor that Auron felt through his knees and had to catch the snow in front of him as if to steady the world with his own hands. Raine's equilibrium faltered as a chunk of ice under her foot crumbled away from the cliff, but she saved it, teetering on one foot. She looked up at Auron and sagged with relief.

Enough of this. "Come to me," Auron said, clipped. "Quickly."

Auron's arms floated away from his body to accept her, but when the tremors started again, Auron could hear the ice snapping far away and heavy snow broke away from the ledges, including the cornice directly under Raine.

Raine shrieked and Auron launched headfirst, but she dropped into the dark gorge, leaving just the clawing tracks of her fingers when they had raked though the snow.

*

"I thought you said there would be Sinspawn," Raine said, outside on the Dome steps.
/]
[/ "There should be. Keep your eyes open. And stay by me."
/]
[/ It had darkened stormy-gray since she was last outside. Some Dome employees on their mid-day breaks had stood, some remained seated, but they were all staring to the western sky at the white goblet of light and in a strange illusion of refraction, the skyscrapers around it seem to lean into the glare. Chunks of stone, brick and plaster broke off nearby buildings and flew up the bright vacuum and as Raine followed the debris into the sky with her eyes, she realized a massive anomaly had entered the atmosphere, shadowing all of downtown Zanarkand in a massive eclipse.
/]
[/ "It's so high. How will we reach it?"
/]
[/ Her husband smirked down at her. "You'll see."
/]
[/ They ran down the steps together. There was panic in the streets, traffic backed up on every block, trains stopped, and citizens fleeing their machina vehicles, darting indoors. The streets were clear of Sinspawn, but it was the sky aberration they were afraid of because they had all seen it before, twelve years ago, when Sin destroyed the Blitzball stadium and slurped up half the skywalk system in its wake. Auron weaved through the gridlock, squeezing between cars. For a moment, the buildings blocked sight of the portal, but as they sprinted down the avenue, the portal came back into view. Auron stopped short and grabbed her arm to wrench her back.
/]
[/ The city block of 400 and a corner of 500 had been completely leveled, the buildings crushed and the rubble sucked up into the bright white pillar. Even the dust had been filtered. Across the street, a couple parked cars jerked from the gravity, their wheels screeching on the brick street, until they surrendered and cartwheeled up into the gateway and were gone. Raine could feel the magnitude of the pull and—of all things—it was her toes and calves that ached, her body resisting the compulsion to fall forward, the balls of her feet combatting for balance.
/]
[/ "All those people…" Raine gasped, staring at the empty space where there was once a building full of occupants.
/]
[/ "Forget about them." Auron swung her around by her elbow so that she faced him. "This is it. Once we're in the portal, there is no coming back. The experience might be different for you than it is for me."
/]
[/ "Why?"
/]
[/ Without the cover of his collar, Raine watched as his lips parted indecisively, but when words didn't come out, he pressed them together again. Finally he said, "It just will be. Listen, we might get separated." Something in her face made him hold up his hand to either shush her preemptively or to calm her. "I will find you, I promise."
/]
[/ "What should I do?"
/]
[/ "Just…use your best judgment. Go where there are other people and stay there. And whatever you do, don't tell them you're from Zanarkand. Tell them you lost your memory if anyone asks questions you don't know how to answer."
/]
[/ Raine nodded and they began to walk towards the light. The closer they got, the more Raine had to fight to stay on her feet, and she crept forward, leaning back, like walking down a steep hill. "Should I tell people I know you?"
/]
[/ Auron seemed to give that serious thought and a moment later he shook his head yes. "That should be fine. It might help us find each other."
/]
[/ She staggered forward uncontrollably and pulled herself back, gravity fluctuating, pulsing, and she felt like she was on a conveyor belt that kept switching directions. The portal throbbed with sonic energy, pulsing in time with the sound of its own drive and it pressed through her ears and squeezed her brain. It smarted to look directly at it.
/]
[/ Auron led her to the middle of the empty street and as the fear of going through the portal swelled, she resisted his tug without meaning to. Her husband glanced down at her, and she forced a nod, even though her whole body was quivering. She clutched at the fabric of his cloak as she lost her footing and they turned sideways to edge closer and Raine's legs shook as her feet levitated off the ground, like she was standing on an invisible, wobbly tight-rope just a few inches off the street.
/]
[/ "Auron, Auron!" she shrieked, panicking, her fingers digging into his arms.
/]
[/ "I got you," he said and yanked her back down. He squeezed her against him, planted a quick kiss on her temple. "Now go."
/]
[/ Moving swiftly, Auron clasped his hands around her waist and flung her into the portal's orbit and Raine's limbs windmilled as she watched in horror as the ground—and Auron—soared away from her.
/]
[/ Auron was right. Her experience in the portal was different than his.

*

Someone was calling for him, but it was faint compared to Auron's own screaming as he shouted Raine's name down into the frozen canyon. Not until someone shook his shoulder did it occur to him to stop.

"Sir Auron!"

The Guardian was on his belly, reaching down into the chasm with one arm, holding a spike of ice jutting from the ledge so that he didn't slip down. For now, the tremors had stopped.

Beside him, Rin kicked a flurry of snow into Auron's face as he dropped onto his knees. "Here, use this."

The innkeeper clicked on a machina hand light, accidentally shining it in Auron's eyes as he handed it over. Fumbling with it, Auron trained a shaky beam down into the darkness. The light didn't reach the bottom and showed only the dusting of snow flakes suspended in dark empty space. Rin scooted close to the edge on his hands and knees, staring straight down.

"Raine!" Auron shouted once and listened.

"What's that?" Rin said.

"Where?"

Rin pointed and Auron shifted his elbow on the ground to aim the light vertically along the gorge's icy wall.

"I don't see anything," Auron said with a chord of distress.

"Hear that?" Rin asked, facing Auron suddenly so he could tilt his ear into the gorge.

Auron didn't hear anything in the chasm, but he did hear the bell over the door back at the inn, followed by the crunch of boots on sidewalk salt.

"Did you feel that quake?" someone asked.

Rin left Auron's side to attend to his inn guests, the low mutter of conversation fading into background noise as Auron continued shooting light in every direction. A slow build of fear choked him and as the notion of leaving the Travel Agency solo became real, it left a bitter taste on his tongue.

His name, mousy and faded, came to his ears and he flicked the beam around the chasm faster. "Raine?"

"Down here!"

Two sets of boots approached Auron's left and right. "What happened?" asked one.

"Someone fall?" asked the other.

Auron didn't recognize them, but he assumed they were Guardians.

"Hey, you're Sir Auron, aren't you?" asked the boots on his left. "Is that your Summoner down there?"

Auron growled, irritated with both of them. Footfalls grated along the walkway as more agency guests came to investigate.

"There's nothing to see here," someone else said and Auron dreaded more onlookers to see what a failed Guardian looked like. "Mind your own Summoners."

Auron glanced up as the two Guardians walked away, replaced by another. Auron was relieved to see Barthello. The squinty-eyed Guardian lowered to one knee next to Auron, laid a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"Keep calm," Barthello said.

"If anything happens to her—" Auron said, finished with an impatient jerk of his shoulder, trying to shake off Barthello's gesture of comfort.

Barthello dug his fingers into Auron's shoulder. Auron looked up at Barthello's perpetual glare.

"Panicking is not going to help," Barthello said with an exaggerated poignancy Auron didn't appreciate at first.

When it clicked, Auron lowered his eye sheepishly. "Guard your emotions, then guard your Summoner," Auron said, recalling advice he had given Barthello during his last pilgrimage, when Dona was lost to the Al Behd. Auron had nearly forgotten.

"Shall we search?"

Auron gave him a determined nod and focused the light on the place he heard the sound, inching the machina lamp around in concentrated circles, a flash of his red cloak entering the scope for a split second. Trembling feverishly, he leaned further over the side, searching with the light and when he found her again, his vision blurred with hot tears of relief.

Crawling forward on his belly, he kept the light trained on Raine. She was on a ledge about 15 feet down, sitting stiff with her back to the wall. He couldn't believe he had missed her during his first few passes with the light, but a flustered search was not a very good search at all.

"Step aside, please," Rin said, squeezing through. He kneeled down to Auron's other side and snapped the price tag off a coil of rope and handed it over. "No charge."

Auron scowled. "Thanks," he mumbled. He untwisted the rope and reserved one end of the rope for the bow-tie as his fingers nimbly made a loop for Raine to put around herself when he lowered it down.

Rin looked down into the gorge. "She's saying something."

Auron kneeled forward. He couldn't hear anything but the chatter behind him. A throng of Summoners and Guardians had gathered in the snow yard and it seemed everyone was interested in the Legendary Guardian's Summoner and how she fell into the chasm.

"What, Raine?" he called down to her.

"…is…ear…."

"Did you hear that?" Auron muttered to Rin.

Rin shook his head.

"…in…is…ear…."

"Quiet!" Auron barked over his shoulder.

Everyone stopped yammering on about the tremors and the lost novitiate Summoner and looked over curiously. Auron peered over the side of the chasm again.

"Say it again, Raine!" Auron waited, holding his breath to hear. In the crowd, someone coughed and someone else sniffed, but otherwise the area was quiet. A gust of wind came out of the gorge. Through the rustle of agitated Pyreflies behind his eyes, Auron abstractedly thought about how warm the breeze was and he instantly knew what she was saying.

"Sin…is…here!"

Auron and Rin looked at each other and the ground began to shake.

*

"Wake up, Raine the Brain."
/]
[/Raine found herself flying at night.
/]
[/ Not flying, she realized.
/]
[/ Swimming.
/]
[/ The air moved like water, suspended her afloat like water and shimmered like water, but there was less resistance and breathing seemed optional. For her, swimming lessons had been more suggestive than instructive. She was no offspring of Jecht if she didn't at least know how to swim underwater and her breaststroke kick seemed the most efficient, gliding her forward longer and faster than any sphere pool she'd been in, before she had to restart the catch of propulsion. With boundless energy, she paddled not unlike a frog, swimming upwards, until she realized there might not be a surface. So she angled downwards instead.
/]
[/ Soon, a murky image formed below her. Lights. City lights. Zanarkand. She was swimming above the marina.
/]
[/ She aimed for her houseboat, a slow nosedive with no resistance. Someone was standing under the light on her front deck. She saw the golden haze of blonde hair and thought of Tidus. Tidus was down there and she needed to get to him. Propelling faster, she reached the houseboat in no time, drifting down the last several feet. When she was close enough, she realized it wasn't Tidus.
/]
[/ Flipping right side up, Raine discovered the air's buoyancy wouldn't let her touch the deck boards below her. There was a gradual underwater current that pushed her back gently but it was offset easily by a quick kick or insweep, both done naturally, almost absently without thought, like blinking or scratching an itch. Her attention was preoccupied with the blonde standing in front of her, back turned, apparently unaffected by the subsurface rules, since his or her running shoes rested on the top deck securely, like they were glued or nailed down.
/]
[/Shoes….
/]
[/Raine remembered having a pair of shoes like that when she was young….
/]
[/It seemed the very moment Raine realized it was her own self standing in front of her, the blonde cheerleader turned around. She was playing with her long hair, checking for split ends, and chomping on gum. She was the age she was when Tidus disappeared. Although Young Raine didn't seem to see Old Raine floating in front of her, Young Raine gave a distained eye-roll at something, maybe a general dissatisfaction of how unfair life was at the time. It reminded Raine of Dona.
/]
[/What a brat! Is that how people saw me?
/]
[/No, this is how Tidus remembered me.
/]
[/ Something was changing. The light above her houseboat door was dimming. Behind her, the lights of Zanarkand were winking out. It was quiet. Peaceful. Her head was filling with helium, but her heavy eyelids dropped in exaggerated, lethargic blinks. Eventually she became too drowsy to correct herself in the air's fluctuation and when she stopped, she merely bobbed weightlessly in mid-air, body curling into a fetal position as she allowed sleep to take her...

*

The ledge was narrow, slanted and slippery and through the combined thickness of her pajamas and Auron's cloak, Raine's ass cheeks were frozen solid and numb. When the quakes began again, she dug her heels into the ice and pressed her back against the frozen gorge wall and squeezed her eyes shut while she pleaded for the shaking to stop.

It was the snow that broke her fall, but not without jolting the wind out of her lungs. She had to fight to find her voice, during which she had a brief, irrational fit of panic when she thought Auron would jump to his death from his own bereavement. But he did not. No, of course he wouldn't. To him, sacrifice was the only noble death. Romantic, but predictable.

If she died, how long before one of the other Summoners at the Travel Agency scooped him up? Certainly Auron didn't consider her that disposable.

Sacrifice or suicide? The question was simple. Could Auron live without her, or not? Tidus couldn't live without Yuna. Auron didn't understand the concept, not then and certainly not now. Part of her wanted him to lose control when she died, the way she did when she thought Auron was dead, but that wasn't his way. She would simply have to accept she would always love Auron more than he loved her, the way her mother always loved Jecht more. She couldn't demand love from Auron or even expect him to love at the same easy rate.

Auron was a save-the-world sort of man and Raine preferred to live quietly. A 9-5 job, a beer after dinner, early bedtime and an occasional playdate with the other local mothers seemed like a great life to her. She could pursue it, but she'd have to do it without Auron. The tedium alone would drive him into another Summoner's pilgrimage and even if he did stay, there would be the constant nagging in her, not if he would leave, but when. She had already lived that life in Zanarkand, always wondering when Auron would leave her to fight Sin, and she couldn't do that again. The pilgrimage was the last scrap of binding agent for their marriage and the only life she could foresee with Auron was a tragically short one that ended in Zanarkand Ruins. Without the pilgrimage, they were completely and utterly incompatible.

When the vibrations ceased, Auron's voice found its way down to her. "I'm going to lower a rope down. When you get it, I want you to cinch it around your body, under your arms."

"Hurry!" she cried. The scuttling sounds of animals in the walls scared her stiff. But there were more than just rodents. Something enormous loomed below, groaning, the horrible wails of a thousand fiends all screaming at once, and she knew it was Sin. The occasional boom of crackling ice when Sin stirred made Raine's heart knock on the backside of her ribs.

Tapping her cranium against the slick, gelid wall, she stared straight up, a rope dangling over the side, steadily lowering to her. The way it was tied, it reminded her of a noose.

The ledge rocked again, the most violent tremor yet, her ass bouncing on the hard ice, jostling her wildly. She had nothing to hold onto and her muscles burned from clenching her own tension. One of her boot heels slipped forward over the side and as she yanked it back onto the ice shelf, her other leg came loose. The snow was melting from her body heat, making the ledge too slippery. All she had to do was wait out the quake, but it wasn't stopping. One hand slid out from under her, her foot next, and then she swooped forward, falling into the icy ravine.

She couldn't be sure how far she dropped. Ten feet, maybe twenty. She landed on something warm, tough, and deeply wrinkled, pounding the breath out of her already sore lungs. Rolling on her back, gasping, Raine's hand came down on what felt like a tuft of spiny thistles. Above her, she was aware the mouth of the gorge above her was growing wider and speeding closer, the pleasing elation of being raised was like the machina lifts in Zanarkand's skyscrapers.

I'm riding Sin, she thought.

As if in answer, a long, unhappy whine echoed on the chasm walls, and Raine felt the vibration of it on her back, legs and arms, one arm hugging frantically to that spiny tussock that felt more like coarse hair. The sound was desolate and lonely and a bitter rage flared through Raine, hardly able stand the idea her brother might be inside, screaming to get free.

Brainy Rainy.

"Crybaby," Raine choked.

*

"Get back!" Auron shouted, leaping to his feet.

The ice on Macalania Lake was breaking, and clumps of frozen earth broke off the gorge's gaping mouth and disappeared. Auron used the hand light, but the light was too narrow to see the entire scope of Sin as he drifted out of the gorge. A cluster of hair, a leathery waddle, a massive, waving fin, the simmer of moving fiends like fire ants on a mound…

…and, thank the Fayth, there was Raine hanging on for dear life. Sin's long, melancholy moan was like a seaside foghorn and with groans of dismay, the crowd covered their ears.

"Sin!" someone shouted and everyone scattered, even the Summoners, who had not yet completed their pilgrimages or been granted a final Aeon.

Tossing the machina light in Rin's direction, Auron ran halfway back to the Travel Agency's door, skid to a stop in the snow and sprinted back to the gorge for a running start. At the edge, he soared, crashing down against Sin's with a roll, immediately grabbing onto some craggy imperfection in the creature's hide.

"Auron!" Raine cried from somewhere on the surface. At least she sounded close, but so was the scuttle and squawk of unseen Sinspawn, thriving on Sin's exterior like it was their own planet.

"Hold on," he said into the darkness. "And don't look down."

"I was right!" she cried.

"About what?"

"Tidus. He—"

Auron lifted his head. "He what? Raine?"

But she had already fainted from the toxin.

A moment later, so did Auron.

*

Raine gasped from the cold and her lungs burned and stretched, expanding to full capacity, as she continued to breathe shallow and irregular breaths, like a newborn taking her first inhales. Her wet wedding dress clung to her, the cold was a shock to her system and she believed truly she had never felt cold like this in her life. Her hair was frozen and crunched when she moved. It hurt to open her eyes, blinded by the overcast like she was staring straight at the sun. Her jaw tensed uncontrollably as her teeth chattered. Shaking ice off her numb fingers, she managed to open her eyes in slits as a shadow fell on her.
/]
[/Auron, her husband, was giving her his red cloak and she threw it on as he began to release the laces of his boots. His collar was back up from their wedding "kiss," but she wasn't surprised. "At least we weren't separated," she said.
/]
[/ "We have a lot of work to do," he said.
/]
[/ She was barely listening as something tickled her ear. Reaching up, she pulled the lavender moon-lily from her hair and was startled it had made the portal trip. Darlene must have been an expert with a pin. Maybe if she was still in Zanarkand, she'd find a very heavy book and press the flower in the pages to keep forever, but now wasn't the time for sentiments like that. Her senses were on overload in this new world. She glanced at the flower vacantly before tossing it into the snow.
/]
[/ "Where do we start?" she asked.
/]
[/ "I need to prepare the Summoner."
/]
[/ Auron hopped out of his boots with only his old socks to protect his feet from the elements and grabbed Raine's outstretched hand to help her to her feet. She braced herself against his shoulder as he assisted her bare feet into his large boots, and she cinched the laces so they wouldn't slip off.
/]
[/ "Who's the Summoner?" she asked. Don't say Lulu, don't say Lulu, don't say Lulu...

Auron straightened, adjusted the weight of his katana on his shoulder. "You are."