Fallen Guardian

Oathbringer Sentence Starters || Accepting

Theboy was young, still so young,wanting everything to be all right even when he knew it wasn’t.Auron knew what pained, furious defiance looked like, and it waslooking up at him now in the bright blue eyes of this little boy,fists clenched and eyebrows knit as he glared up at the tall man inred, as if he could chase Auron off and that would fix his problems.

Butit wouldn’t. Tidus’ mother was dying, wasting away with noapparent cause, and there was nothing that either of them could doabout it.

“Cryingwon’t help.” Auron’s gloved hand flexed with a creak ofleather, remembering how he’d clutched thickly layered summoner’srobes with trembling fists, silk in his palms and under his fingersas he buried his face and his heaving, wracking sobs into Braska’schest, unable to look for any longer at those vacant, unseeing deadeyes that stared up into glassy nothingness. “But that doesn’tmean you need to smother your emotions. Just… guard them. Then bethere for her.

Oathbringer Sentence Starters || Accepting 

Auronpressed his lips into a thin line at the sound of Jecht’salcohol-rough voice grating behind him, counting to ten in his headbefore he turned to face him. He lifted his chin, not breaking eyecontact as he stared the other man down. “And what of it? It wouldreflect poorly on Lord Braska if we left without making reparationsfor a table broken by one of his guardians in a drunkenhaze.Whether it was an accident or not matters little.”

Whetherwe can afforditor not matters little.Thethought nearly slid bitter and terse into the air along with therest, but he reined it back.

Oathbringer Sentence Starters || Accepting

Leadership?

When he was nearly second-in-command of the warrior monks of Yevon, he would have said no. Even though he had to write the letters home to families when one under his command dies, it was always a strong face that he showed outwardly, and even when alone his grief was quiet, with tears shed , but he never allowed himself to dwell overmuch in that emotion.

He knew that if he did…

Well. The Pilgrimage he undertook with Braska was evidence enough of how grief and rage entangled could utterly consume a man. But his tears for Braska, for Jecht, for the indifferent, unfair cruelty that consumed the lives of guardian and summoner alike… those were not any result of leadership, but simply one man’s sorrow.

Luna doesn’t know what awaits her on the other side of this portal, only that she feels a strong pull of darkness. Risky, she thinks as she stares at the swirling darkness before her, a weak portal she’s learned to create to help get her between worlds. Risky, but she won’t get answers by doing nothing. And if that pull she feels means something, if it could help her understand…

It’s worth it.

Heart pounding and breathing short, she steps into it, feels an ache in her chest as she fights the growing strength of the dark within her. Each time she moves between worlds, she gives it more power, yet she’s been away from Eos, wandering these worlds, long enough that she at least knows many follow her similar belief that the light in her heart will not die unless she allows it to. Now, she must pray and hope and wish with everything within her that her belief is correct.

She closes her eyes as she steps through, waiting for her footfalls to land on something other than the weightless bottom of the portal, only opening them when she feels the crunch of rock beneath her shoes. Behind her, the portal closes and the writhing feeling in her chest quiets down again as she takes in the sight before her.

The ground snakes off into different paths that disappear down dark caverns, divided by small bodies of water that look deceptively shallow. Part of her wants to put her hand in and see if the water is only the few inches deep that it looks, or if it’s as deep as she thinks it might be, but her time away from Eos has taught her the safety of precaution. So she keeps her hands to herself.

Her gaze shifts about the cavern and its uneasy stillness, until her eyes fall upon a man in a red coat standing solitary beside the water.

“Excuse me,” she calls, flinching when her voice echoes back to her, and she lowers her voice. “Do you know where this is?” And what are you doing here? The question lingers in her mind, but she doesn’t speak it yet.

A single amber eye snaps open at the sound of a greeting, and a question. Both come as a surprise to him. After the Sora boy and and his companions, Auron doubted that he’d see any more living beings venturing down into the dark, stagnant caves of the Underworld. It is a place for gods, for monsters, for the dead.

He is two of those things.

He’d been lost in quiet contemplation, grateful for the silence after the grating shrieking rasping wailing rending agony of Tartarus. The memory of his time in the Underworld’s deepest, darkest prison still shudders like a jagged sawblade against his bones. Sometimes, though, it is not the noise that is too much, but the silence itself, reminding him of a time even further back, before Tartarus, before the jittering-skittering of darkness given form, before...

The stranger’s voice falls flat and dead in the still air, even the echoes of the cave not enough to make her question sound lively, but the sound is easy enough to hear nonetheless. His gaze fixes on her, and for a long moment he says nothing. Auron does not move, blinks but slowly, and the silence stretches over the grave dirt of the cavern like the breath held before a judgement.

“A place where you’re not supposed to be.”

Obvious. There’s a tangible vibrancy around her - like there was around Sora, around Donald, around Goofy, around any of those who still live and whose place is still in the world above. This woman - girl? - is still alive. Auron finally steps forward, a slow pace taking him around the edge of one of the pools that gathered still and silent, dark mirrors reflecting the cavern ceiling.

Jecht + Personality Types (insp.)

“But now I know there’s no way home for me. I’m never gonna see him again. My dream’s never gonna come true. So make me the fayth. I’ll fight Sin with you, Braska. Then maybe my life will have meaning, you know.”

Alignment: Chaotic Good ; MBTI: ENFP - The Inspirer ; Hogwarts House: Gryffindor (secondary Slytherin) ; Enneagram: Type Seven - The Enthusiast ; Temperament: Sanguine(/Choleric) ; Celtic Zodiac: Holly - The Ruler ; Zodiac: Leo Sun, Aries Moon ; Soul Type: Performer

FFX Personality Types

she admits, at first, that she had regarded this strange man with… almost amusement. it was rare for anything to break the monotony of her life, filled with days of longing & hoping for the impossible. days spent in the quiet, alone, with only her son for occasional company. and he was quiet these days, as if he did not want to disturb her…  at this very moment, she could hear, distantly, the sound of a ball banging against the wall of his room. he was practicing a kick, probably, or perhaps his catches. years ago, she might have padded up the stairs and lightly scolded him for bringing his blitzball inside the home– what if he broke something? but lately, she could not bring herself to really care whether a lamp fell, or if he put a dent in the wall. the everyday concerns that had once marked a normal, ordinary life had faded away, her thoughts centrally focused on one thing– one person. Jecht. was he safe? when would he come home? would he come home? 

his introduction by way of name did not get much reaction from her, still waiting on an explanation– but then… she blanched; her heart stopped, skin went cold. she would recognize that bandana anywhere. she reaches for it, greedily fingering the adornment with shaking hands– it was the closest she could get to touching the man himself.    “ Jecht– ? ” she speaks his name hopefully. if he knew Jecht, why was this man alone? “ where is he? is he hurt? ” the bandana was taken from his hands, clutched into her palm tightly in desperation, begging silently that his ‘news’ be good. 

Her hands clutching Jecht’s worn bandanna trembled even as she fixed him with an unwavering gaze and ever so subtly leaned forward – her will, her entire being focused on one thing and one thing only: Jecht, the husband who spoke so wistfully of returning to her once he made it back to ‘his’ Zanarkand.

Auron shook his head, a slow, small movement as his unscarred eye closed. “Jecht is dead.”

It never got any easier to deliver a confirmation of death to the family of one fallen. Now, when the loss was that of a man who had slowly gained Auron’s begrudging respect, and after time and trials, shared misery and shared hope, even became his friend…

“His body was… not in a recoverable state, and for that I must apologise for not bringing you the chance to see him one last time.” No part of that was even a lie.

It is with an ounce of tension that Luna approaches Auron, hands clasped in front of her to keep her fingers from fidgeting anxiously. Ten years have passed, in which she believed him dead. And yet here he stands, as alive as the day she had last seen him. Her heart aches at the memories the sight of him brings back, but she refuses to cave into them. Instead, she approaches him, unsure if he would even recognize her now. "Sir Auron," she says, offering a prayer. "It has been a very long time."

The woman that approached him was familiar in both face and voice, but not in the way that triggered an immediate remembrance. She looked to be not much older than Yuna, though, and if he pictured a girl instead of a woman… Ah.

“A lifetime, Lady Lunafreya.” One eyebrow quirked up. “Or would it be High Priestess by now? The reputation you’ve gained precedes you, even all the way down the Pilgrimage road.”

   “ you could have told me, you know… ” out of the corner of his eye, he glances, looking for signs he might have missed before. it made sense now– the comments from Seymour; his avoidance of the Farplane.  .  . but how could he have guessed at something he hadn’t even known existed shortly before? an ‘unsent’, like the ghosts of Spira; the man he’d known for more than half his life had kept this morose secret from him. but he wasn’t upset. a few months ago, finding out he’d been deceived might have bothered him, but nowadays, he had bigger problems. not to mention, he could hardly blame Auron. how would he have explained something like that? would Tidus have even believed him? probably not. ( but maybe. after all, Auron didn’t seem the type to lie– except by omission, maybe. ) and most of all… his unliving state probably wasn’t something the man wanted to talk about. Tidus understood that, too.  so when he speaks, it’s not with anger. not even sympathy, really. it’s with affinity.

   “ did you know… about ME? about Zanarkand– what it was…?  ” 

Auron closed his one good eye. “And what good would that have done?”

From the very start, this conversation had been an inevitability looming on the horizon. One hand balled into a fist before him, closing and slowly opening again; a pyrefly painted his glove with colour as it dissipated out from his wrist and curled lazily around his fingers. “I am no more or less dangerous to Yuna, you, or the others now that you know.”

He hadn’t expected Tidus to be so… calm. It was laughable to think that there could be any ‘normal’ reaction to finding out that the person who watched over you for the past decade was in truth a dead man walking, but he’d imagined there would be far more yelling, horror, and flung accusations.

crimson-legend:

X

Auron hmm’ed, the hint of a smile appearing behind the cowl he’d procured to hide his disfigured face. He hadn’t meant blitzball in particular, but if that was what Tidus chose to focus on, then so be it. It was good to see the boy stand up and take on the challenge.

“All right. Ball control this time.” Even if he himself had no interest in blitz, Auron had at least picked up the basic rules after spending so long in close proximity to Jecht and Braska. And really, at the core of it, the athleticism of sports wasn’t all that different from learning weapons, was it? That, Auron could manage.

Auron shifted the blitzball to center between his hands, trying to judge his distance from his knowledge of how long the pier was, the length of the shadows cast by the docking posts, the tall lamps, Tidus himself. He needed to do better with his recovery; he was still bumping into things all the time, or even tripping down stairs.

“I’ll throw it towards you, you either catch it, or use your feet or knees to get it to your hands. Ready?”

“Let’s do it!” Tidus said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice as he squared his body in preparation. If he was going to be better than Jecht, he was going to have to give this his whole focus! He kept his narrowed eyes on the ball, tongue in between his teeth in focus. 

He liked having Auron around. It was nice, having somebody around who wanted to play with him; someone who encouraged him! All Mom seemed to do now was lie in bed, and Dad had only ever made fun of him when he’d been here. 

He hoped Auron never left!

Auron gave a short, single nod in approval. The boy certainly had energy, and rebounded from his momentary fit of pique like a particularly resilient flan. He’d need that, if the way he wished to break away from the shadow of his father’s memory was by challenging that legacy in the very arena in which Jecht had won it – blitzball.

Whether he had the dedication to train for it was yet to be seen.