Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Mercantile Law ❯ Dead Men and Pyreflies ( Chapter 3 )

[ Author's Notes :: First off, I'd like to thank enigmaopoeia for her (his?) wonderful Al Bhed language guide at GameFAQs. In my effort to make this fic as realistic as possible, I wanted to include Al Bhed, and I have; I just simply wouldn't have been able to do it without that guide. So much thanks.

For those who can't speak/write/translate Al Bhed (like myself) there are translations for the few words/phrases I use at the very bottom. If Al Bhed is spoken in subsequent chapters, that's where to look for the translations. I've also typed Al Bhed in italics so it's easier to distinguish. Hopefully this won't cause much confusion… *crosses fingers*

Anyway, enjoy the chapter. ]

III - Dead Men and Pyreflies

Guadosalam was one of the few locations where Rin had neglected to build a Travel Agency. Even after the Guado, the most fervent of Yevon's supporters, had abandoned their city, Rin had left it untouched. He had never visited the Guado's haven, though he had heard (Who hadn't?) of their doorway to the Farplane. At the time, it was the only way to "visit" the dead, and Yevonites of all kinds had made personal pilgrimages to this sacred scrap of land.

Now, however, the Farplane had become unstable, and the visits had ceased. Rin speculated that it was the departure of the Fayth, and the revival of Vegnagun that had made it so. People said the Guado could remedy this, but Rin disagreed. The Guado had no more power to restore order to the Land of the Dead than he did. It would, he relented, be nice though.

Walking now, on the very outskirts of the land in question, with a dead man as his guide, no less, Rin felt the extreme oddity of the situation strike home. He had heard that those who visited the Farplane, in Guadosalam at least, were greeted with spectral re-creations of their deceased loved ones. Rin wondered why it was Auron he had met, instead of one of his family members. Perhaps it was because he knew so little of them, himself.

Rin had been told they had been killed by Sin when he was far too young to remember. He tried to see their faces, but all he caught were glimpses; light traces of emotion attached to the name of each individual. The feeling surrounding his mother was strongest, so he focused on her, unsure of what he was trying to accomplish other than to recall the face of a woman he could not remember knowing, but was tied, unquestionably to, all the same.

At first, Rin felt nothing more than a warm, light feeling of recognition; the kind that follows after someone mentions a name you're familiar with, but can't quite place. The more he concentrated, the more pronounced the feeling became. Rin walked in silence a few moments longer, and had just decided to drop the matter altogether when a single detail, surprising in its lucidness, interrupted his thoughts:

His mother, her golden hair twirling about her face as a warm desert breeze passed, was turning; a smile on her lips as she started to move them. Rin knew, though he couldn't hear her, that what she spoke was a goodbye.

Rin froze; every thought slamming to an abrupt halt in his head. His mother stood not three feet in front of him, the same smile pasted on her lips.

"She's pretty," Auron commented dryly, also noticing the apparition.

Rin ignored the comment, staring directly at the woman in front of him. She still smiled blankly at him; he could see no emotion behind her eyes. She wasn't like Auron; she wasn't real, not in a tangible sense at least. (Not that Auron was tangible…)

At first, Rin felt nothing; he was numb. After the initial shock wore off, it was not relief, or joy at seeing her that he felt, but anger. He was repulsed that anything, be it a force of good or evil, could wrench something from him so succinctly, and display it in front of him as if in mockery. He inhaled deeply, willing the…thing in front of him away.

She left: the pyreflies that comprised her floating off or joining the others amassed around Auron. Thankfully, the man made no other comments, and tactfully let the matter drop; after all, it was nothing that concerned him.

The two walked in silence a few minutes more before Rin became uncomfortable enough to do anything, even if it meant making things worse, to break that silence. "My mother," he sputtered out, hearing and simultaneously despising the tremor in his voice. Auron remained mute, keeping pace with his companion. "It's odd," Rin continued, as if he hadn't been expecting an answer from Auron at all.

The ex-Guardian chose this moment to speak. "What is?"

Rin stopped in his tracks, turning narrowed eyes on his guide. "You are. Your presence," he added quickly, "I mean."

Auron stopped as well, his dark glasses appearing as empty sockets. "You're wondering why it was me instead of your mother that you found here." He spoke as if it wasn't a question, but a statement, and if it hadn't previously been true, was so after he had spoken it.

Rin nodded reluctantly. Truthfully, he hadn't been expecting anyone.

"Well, I don't know," Auron said simply.

Rin had always considered himself more of a diplomat than a fighter, but he had the strongest urge just to strangle the man…

"Unless," Auron continued both speaking and walking. Maybe he sensed hostility. "You had strong feelings for me when I was alive."

Rin issued a noise somewhere between a gurgle and a choke.

Auron glanced back at the strangled noise, stifling a small chuckle before turning away again and resuming his even pace. The Al Bhed was motionless for a moment, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. What, exactly, had Auron meant by that?

Shaking his head in an effort to dismiss the whole incident, Rin jogged up to Auron, falling into step beside him and hoisting his pack higher on his shoulder (it had started to slide down again). "So," he cleared his throat, waiting for Auron to turn and look at him, "Where are we going?"

"I think that's something you should be deciding," Auron said, completely deadpan.

Rin scowled at the man before retreating into his thoughts. He had seen quite a few branches that led off to their corresponding temples, but he had yet to notice a central meeting place of every single route. Rin decided that locating this would be the best course of action. "The center," he said, "Take me wherever all the roads meet."

Auron seemed to consider this before motioning for Rin to follow him. He led the shorter man to the very edge of the path. Rin looked questionably to his guide, arching an eyebrow; expecting Auron to point to some hidden road that would instantly become apparent to the merchant. Rin watched his half-masked face. He could have sworn a flash of amusement passed across Auron's features when the dead man uttered a single word: "Jump."

"W-What?!" Rin sputtered, eye flicking from Auron to the abyss and then back again.

"Jump," Auron repeated. "You want to go to the center, then jump."

Rin looked at the man skeptically, sure that this was just some ploy to get rid of him. "Sir Auron," he said in a mostly steady voice, "I feel it quite necessary to remind you that you are the one who's dead, and not the other way around."

Auron snorted. "I'm aware of that, Rin."

"Oh…Well…Good…" Rin mumbled, gazing with trepidation over the edge of the path. "This…won't be fatal, will it?"

"Do you want to reach the center, or not?" Auron asked, impatient.

"Yes…" Rin took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped.

Rin had landed, rather ungainly, on his ass but had been so stunned when he looked about himself that he simply forgot about getting up. So he sat on a patch of crushed purple and white flowers, gaping at the simple majesty that surrounded him. Rin barely noticed when Auron reappeared beside him, reforming from the pyreflies floating aimlessly through the light mist.

Waterfalls cascaded on either side of him, creating a droning roar that melted into the background, into the very air itself. Adding to this drone was the unmistakable hum that accompanied large numbers of pyreflies. Rin watched, dumbfounded, as the iridescent orbs flowed over and around each other. "Beautiful" was suddenly a very inappropriate understatement.

"Ysywehk…" Rin whispered, wide green eyes flicking over the surreal landscape.

Auron laughed, the sound slightly-less-mocking than it had been previously. "It is a bit overwhelming, isn't it?"

Rin nodded vaguely and finally managed to get up, brushing crushed petals from his ass. He noticed, in a detached sort of way not unlike that of one's consciousness while immersed in a dream, that the broken petals never reached the ground; they simply faded away. Likewise, the flowers he had landed on slowly reformed themselves, spreading upwards in an efflorescence of motion.

In a jerking movement, Rin stumbled away from the regenerating flowers, just barely avoiding walking through Auron. He was sure that wouldn't be a pleasant experience. "How far down are we?" Rin asked, turning to face his companion.

"I don't know," Auron said. "There really isn't any way of telling. Theoretically, we could be on a higher level than we were before."

"Oh," Rin mumbled, trying to make sense of the somewhat twisted logic. He turned in a full circle, taking in the entirety of the dreamscape. In this quick appraisal of his surroundings, Rin noticed something he had missed previously. "Where are the roads?" he asked, frowning at the lack of any discernable path.

Auron gestured for Rin to follow him and strode off to his left, heading directly for the ledge of the floating island.

What is it with him and precipices? Rin wondered grudgingly, definitely not looking forward to another plummet.

"There," Auron said once Rin appeared beside him. He pointed to a small vortex of orange that seemed to brighten and grow when they approached it. "That takes you back to the Macalania path." He turned and gestured to a barely distinguishable orange speck on the other side of the island. "That one leads to Besaid." One by one, he pointed out the rest.

Rin was unable to discern any difference between the portals except their locations, but he had learned (reluctantly) to trust what Auron told him and merely nodded at the end of the man's explanation. "And that one goes back to Djose?" he asked, pointing to the portal he thought was correct.

"To the road; yes."

"Then I'll be heading back," Rin announced, gazing one last time at the flowers, the waterfalls, the pyreflies…

Auron shrugged, following the Al Bhed over to the portal. "Good luck," he said simply, nodding to Rin's questioning glance.

"You're not coming with me?" the other asked, a little surprised.

Auron looked away, focusing on something invisible to the eyes of the living. "No," he said distractedly, already starting to walk away, his eyes still glued to the indiscernible something. "I think I'll stay here a while longer."

As Rin watched, Auron's pyreflies separated, disjoining one by one till the old warrior had disappeared completely. "Luck du oui, duu," Rin whispered before stepping into the portal and leaving his guide behind him.

[Al Bhed Translations: Ysywehk - Amazing

Luck du oui, duu - Luck to you, too. ]