Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Resurrection I: Dead or Alive ❯ Wanted: Dead or Alive ( Chapter 1 )

The faintest scuff of boot on dirt announced Auron's return from his solitary patrol of the perimeter. The grizzled swordsman barely glanced at the sleeping forms of Wakka and Rikku, the one sprawled out and snoring near the campfire, the other curled up neatly in the crook of a tree on the far side of the clearing. He strode purposefully towards the aloof figure keeping solitary vigil at the edge of the glade. "Where is Yuna? The boy should have brought her back by now."

 

Pivoting smoothly on one heel, the black mage arched an eyebrow. "I suppose you would have forgotten, wouldn't you? The children are playing." She smiled faintly. "Let them. Kimahri is guarding them, and I assume that you left no threat in the vicinity."

 

"For the moment." As always, the old Guardian's expression was inscrutable behind his shaded lenses. "We are approaching the Calm Lands. This is no place to be dropping our guard."

 

"I know that," Lulu said sharply, her dry humor abruptly evaporating.

 

With a rustle of leaves, a sleepy head popped out between the treebranches. Rikku blinked drowsily and peered down at the pair. "Hey! Is everything okay?"

 

The older woman nodded curtly. "Fine, Rikku. Sleep now. Yuna will need her Guardians to be alert tomorrow."

 

"Okay! Don't forget to wake me, Lu!" Ever cheerful, the Al Bhed girl rolled over and vanished back among the foliage.

 

The clearing fell silent again, apart from the faint peeps of the forest's night creatures, and the last crinkling embers of the fire. Expression hooded, Lulu stood gazing into the flickering red glow, pondering the next leg of their journey. This is how it was, most nights: she and Auron sharing the darkness in reserved but companionable silence, keeping watch over the others until it was time for her to rouse someone for the next shift. Lulu had noticed some time ago that Sir Auron never ended his watch when she did, but she had not troubled to ask him about it. There was no need.

 

The reclusive swordsman seldom said a word during their nightly vigils, so at first she did not realize that he had addressed her: "Come with me."

 

Surprised by the request, although not by its abruptness, she hesitated and glanced down at the burly blitzball player sprawled near her feet, oblivious to the world. But if Auron thought it safe to leave them for a while, then safe they would be. With a faint jingle of metal, she turned her back on the fire to follow him, plunging into pitch darkness until her eyes adjusted to night's shadow. He strode off without looking back. Threading his way among old twisted trunks, he led her deeper into the forest, where the light of stars and moon found few chinks in the dense canopy overhead. At length, they emerged into a smaller clearing hemmed by low bushes. Dew glistened on leaf and branch, lit only by the faint swirling eddies of pyreflies.

 

Coming to a halt, Lulu folded her hands and tilted her head towards the taciturn swordsman. "Well?"

 

Auron did not mince words. "You have been Guardian twice before. I once. Both of us have lost the Summoners we guarded."

 

Lulu frowned. She had been reviewing their route all evening, combing every past misstep for clues. A reminder was hardly necessary. "Yes. But yours reached the end of his pilgrimage."

 

"He still died." There was no trace of self-pity in his blunt assessment, only stark truth. "Your task is harder. Your experience helps you guide Yuna, but it also plants a seed of self-doubt." He gazed at her grimly over the rim of his glasses. "Fight doubt as fiercely as you fight for her. Do not make the mistake of comparing Yuna to Lady Ginnem. Yuna is Yuna. She will find her own way."

 

Lulu exhaled, surprised and touched by the uncharacteristically lengthy speech from the aloof swordsman. "I hope so. She is strong."

 

Auron rested his ungloved hand briefly on Lulu's shoulder. "She has a good role model."

 

The compliment barely registered, but the brief unexpected touch jolted her like contact with a Djose sphere. Her surprise bubbled into a ripple of laughter. "Comforting words coming from you? If that, Sir Auron, was meant to throw me off-balance, it succeeded, but not in the way you intended." She gave him a keen look. "Your hand is warm."

 

Subtlety seemed to be lost on him, or more likely he had mastered the art of selective deafness. When no reply was forthcoming, Lulu prodded, "Do you sometimes forget that you are dead?"

 

Auron regarded her coolly. "Never," he said. "Was there a purpose to that question?"

 

The faint brittleness in his tone wiped away any satisfaction she might have felt in catching him out at last. "I cannot help wondering sometimes." She lowered her eyes, leaving Chappu's name unspoken. "But that was thoughtless of me. My heart is more dead than yours, I think. My apologies."

 

Pushing up his dark glasses with his thumb, he gazed past her into the indifferent web of drifting lights surrounding them. "Do any of the others know?"

 

"Kimahri, perhaps. I have not asked."

 

"Of course." Taking a swig from his canteen and hefting his sword across his shoulders, he turned to head back to camp.

 

"Sir Auron, wait."

 

Halting, Auron watched impassively as she glided towards him. He did not stir when she reached up and lifted his glasses, gazing into his good eye long and searchingly, as a visitor to Guadosalam might peer into the mists seeking a missing face from the Farplane. He stiffened only when she raised herself slightly on tiptoe, folded down the high brim of his collar with a fingertip, and planted a light kiss on his mouth.

 

Lu smiled at his bemused expression. "The children are playing," she repeated softly. "Do you ever find yourself wanting to be alive again? Sometimes I do."

 

"Lulu," he replied after a lengthy pause, "I am no more like Chappu than Jecht's son is, apart from being dead. And there you have me at a disadvantage."

 

"I wonder," she murmured.

 

The pyreflies danced. Auron and Lu stood still, taking each other's measure. His temples flecked with grey, mantled in a bulky great-coat that added to his stature, Sir Auron claimed the ground on which he stood like one of the guardian statues in the sanctuaries. The history of his battles lay deeply grooved across his tanned face. Lulu, although half a foot shorter, was one of the few who did not seem to dwindle in his shadow: she stood erect, pale, poised, trailing long black braids and sheathed in a dark gown whose lower half was a maze of buckles and leather straps that hinted at chained power. Her steel-chiselled features were more regal than Yuna's, although she could boast of no famous father. Both warrior and mage stood out by standing aloof.

 

Her amber eyes did not leave his face. "Do not mistake me: There is nothing between us. I loved Chappu. Your heart is also with the fallen. Yet I find myself faced with an intriguing challenge. You burn with such fire that you remain in Spira, refusing to be sent. My heart is cold, and rests with Chappu on the Farplane. Do you suppose that one of us could, just for a time, make the other feel like one of the living?"

 

His expression barely flickered at the outrageous proposition, disarmingly phrased in even, measured tones. But his eye glinted over his glasses with a light that was no longer quite human.

 

"I doubt it," he muttered. "But I should not mind being proved wrong." Slowly and deliberately he sank the great sword into the earth beside him, removed his glasses with unhurried precision and hung them over the hilt, and unfastened the collar concealing the lower third of his face.

 

Lu tipped up her chin with a speculative gleam in her eye. She had not really expected him to acquiesce. This should prove interesting.