Writings of an Owlmoose

Summary: A chance meeting between two of Spira’s greatest warriors — Nooj the Undying and Sir Auron, the legendary guardian — will change the course of history.

Previous Chapter ~ Main Story Page ~ Next Chapter

---

Death Shall Have No Dominion

Chapter Twenty-Six

Another furnace breath of air announced the imminent arrival of the great monster. The dark, misshapen bulk of Sin rose from the horizon, filling the sky with its hideous presence. Shadowed and blotched, the exact lineaments could not be clearly distinguished, blurred as they were by warty projections and clouds of vapor.

Unable to make his voice heard over the crashing of Sinspawn and the banshee wails of the wind, Nooj stood on the highest point he could find and directed his army with gestures. Paine and Aquelev crouched at his feet, desperately bracing his legs to help him stay upright against the tornadic forces swirling about him.

When he had forced his mind to accept what he was seeing, Nooj felt an unaccustomed heaviness fall upon his spirit. How many times could a man face the threat of Sin before he fell to the monstrous evil? The prospect which he had so often tempted and courted now seemed bitterly unfair. Was this the time he had prepared for, the final battle?

It was his last thought before the battle was joined with the explosion of swordsmen butchering the spawn as they flew, crept, ran and slithered across the open ground.

x

Tidus looked around but could spot none of the others. Then the flutter of a sleeve caught his eye. Yuna, to his right. The blue bulk of the Ronso was there too. Over there to her. Quickly.

x

The glancing blow of the tail sent Wakka flying. He rolled into a ball and catapulted to his feet. Aim. Throw. Retrieve. Aim …

x

Where was the front line? Beclem clawed his way over the heaped bodies. Dead or unconscious? Later. He swung his sword and made contact with something.

x

She heard little mewling noises before she recognized they came from her. The blood from her nose was making her breathe through her mouth. Paine spat to clear her throat and, finding Nooj, ran to his side.

x

Aquelev flung nostrums and spells indiscriminately at the Warriors around him. He no longer tried for personal attention to the damaged. Dizzy, he swung from patient to patient, sweat stinging his eyes.

x

The bulk of the monster mirrored the earth until telling one from the other was near impossible. Where was the sky? Did the sword sink into flesh or soil?

x

The gun was worse than useless. He missed his sword with a physical ache. Was this the date? This third …

x

Grab, draw, release. Grab, draw, release. Grab… Kal’s hand closed over empty air. He ripped the quiver from his back, tossed it and the bow to the ground, and drew the short sword he always prayed he’d never have to use.

x

The staff drew the rune in the solid air. Ifrit! Brimstone and sleeves.

x

PAINE!

x

Blue eyes wide toward the sky. Too dry to reflect the shape of the destroyer. Sword hilt under limp fingers.

x

Kimahri’s broken horn reached for the enemy. His snarl flashed ivory blades through the haze and his claws would hook the warty skin and draw it down.

x

She tossed the jammed gun aside and pulled out her backup. An explosion against the side of her head, then darkness, then nothing.

x
He could no longer breathe without gagging. The air was dense and the droplets on his arms were not warm rain – they were blood. Everything was red, red, red, red red red redredredredred … then black.

x

Lightning crackled on her fingers, tingling around her head, then struck. Did the monster shudder? or just shrug it off? No time to check as she began her incantations anew.

x

The Sinscales were upon him before he was aware of their presence. Beclem could feel them clawing and biting at every exposed part of his body. Frantically he slashed at them with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, disregarding the cuts he inflicted upon himself in his effort to rid himself of the creatures. The poison began to course through him and he felt the darkness encroaching upon his vision. With a hoarse shout, he threw himself full length upon the horde, stabbing and cutting as he was torn apart.

x

Auron paused in his attack to reach out: Jecht! Can you hear me? I don’t think we can hold out much longer. Jecht? Jecht! But there was no reply.

x

A hand rested against her shoulder and a moment passed before it registered as Dona’s. “Together!” the other summoner shouted over the wind, and Yuna nodded, the two lifting their staffs to trace the patterns in unison.

x

Squab saw the Sinspawn advancing in ranks, like endless fields of insects or the waves breaking at the shore. With a sigh, he raised his sword and waded into them, reaping the harvest of death before it could touch the Summoners.

x

Dad? Dad, please…!

x

Would this joint effort call the same aeon twice, or one stronger one? Yuna couldn’t even guess; this was beyond her studies, beyond anything she had ever imagined. She finished her chant and, Dona’s hand tight in her own, looked up. Ixion leapt from the sky, mightier than she had ever seen him before, his neigh splitting the air, the ground trembling as he pawed at it. She shuddered as the power raced through her, and her skin tingled as every hair stood on its end. With a glance at Dona, she met the other woman’s eyes and saw the same awe there, the same magic surging in her blood. The maelstrom seemed to stop around them, pausing for an instant, and then Dona nodded and the two women shouted their command as one.

The aeon bowed, the tip of his horn almost touching the ground as he gathered strength for his assault, and then a blast of lightning burst from him, enveloping Sin for a moment, the cracking blue orb obscuring the monster from view. Then the magic dissipated, and Sin almost seemed to shudder under its might. It paused, hanging in the sky, and then began to gather itself together, pulling in fins and raising its head as though it were taking a deep breath.

Yuna held her own breath as she watched. Was the monster retreating? Had their jointly summoned Ixion been able to damage Sin, to drive it away? Then she became dimly aware that someone near her was shouting. Sir Auron?

“Down!” came the frantic words over the sounds of the fighting and the crowd. “Get down, now!” Yuna tipped her staff to Ixion and dismissed the aeon; a split second later, she was knocked down by a flash of red from her side as Auron pushed her to the ground.

x

Sorry kid. Can’t hold back any more. Watch out!

x

All its power gathered for this one final outburst, Sin released a shockwave that caught everyone in its wake. Sinspawn, Crusaders, warrior monks, trees — all were tossed aside. Nooj felt the force of Sin’s attack seize him and then he was spinning, twisting through space, spread out like a starfish in a waterspout. The sensation was familiar; he had been here before. During the endless duration of the flight, he wondered with a distant disinterested curiosity if he would survive again and what portions might be broken off this time. Perhaps the head. He found himself laughing at the prospect of a machina head when something the size of a world hit him and there was darkness and quiet.

x

Then it was over, suddenly and untidily as most battles end. There is the mistaken idea that such things are over when a specific aim is achieved, a precise line crossed. Why the battle ended when and how it did was a mystery.

The incredible pressure wave which signaled the departure of the enemy was either the last-gasp effort or the mocking flick of the monster’s tail. No one could be certain of the meaning. But all could be certain of one thing: those who still lived had survived to fight another day.

-X-

Either the bloody hue was receding from the sky or his vision was clearing – Nooj realized with a feeling of wonder that he still lived. A little damaged but still alive. After a third encounter with Sin … then the terror hit him. Where was Paine? She had been beside him, her sword providing cover while he aimed. Heedless of the deep slash across his ribs and the wounds to his human limbs, he pushed himself up and, peering past the smears on his lenses, frantically looked around the battlefield.

After a moment which was a lifetime, he found her. She was lying limply not far from his side. Trickles of blood ran from her nostrils and a slash on her head, and her eyes were closed. Darkness embraced him again as the violent leap of his heart pounded at his rib cage. All the air was forced from his lungs as though he had been hit a tremendous blow in his mid-section. She was dead! He groped for her hand, resolved to follow her into Nothingness once he had held her for the last time.

Just as he touched her fingertips, she stirred and slowly pushed herself to her hands and knees. She crouched there, groggily waving her head from side to side.

“Paine!…. Love! You’re alive?” Unable to hold himself up any longer, he grasped her and they both collapsed back to the ground.

“Yeah, I was just knocked out for a second. You okay?” Paine wrapped her arms around him and clung, automatically listening for the throb of his heart.

He could not speak, all the breath having left him again, this time in relief. Instead, he just kept holding her, patting and stroking.

Paine finally drew back enough to check his condition and her own. “As you said once, on a similar occasion, we’re a mess.” She laughed weakly.

“But still alive.” He responded slowly.

Something in his voice caught her ear in the middle of all the pain and confusion. “Does that really matter so much to you? Being alive?” Despite her words, her tone held no cynicism, only resignation.

Nooj paused for a prolonged time as he tasted the question and, surprised at what he found in himself, bit back the reflexive answer. At last he said, “Yes. Yes, by Ixion, it does!” An awkward combination of joy and dismay colored his words.

Was the final barrier demolished? What had he become? He was not altogether certain and felt clumsy, unfinished like one prematurely born, one to whom the very light was acutely painful.

“Yes.” He bent to her and kissed her with a tenderness which pierced her through.

When he finally pulled away, Paine studied his face closely. His eyes were wide with wonder and happiness and more than a little fear; he looked like a traveler stumbling across some beautiful but completely alien terrain. A possible implication of his words sank in then, and a wild hope began to take hold, rising in her breast.

“What–” Head still throbbing, heart suddenly slamming against her ribs, her mouth dry as the desert, Paine could barely speak. But somehow she forced the next words out as she tightened her arms around him, hands gripping at the cloth of his shirt. “What do you mean by that?”

He was not yet in control of his reactions. “I – I’m not sure. It’s just ….” His voice trailed away and he was silent for a breath. “You are alive. I don’t think I could have borne it if… if you had not survived. I love you and you’re my other half.” He seemed to have more to say but was unable to articulate it. “How could I continue without you?”

She leaned into him, closing her eyes as she rested her forehead against his. “No more than I could go on without you,” she whispered. “I love you, Nooj. I need you.”

For a long time, they shared their breath, wrapping one another in a warm cloud of unity. They were one, lying on the sodden earth in the midst of carnage and destruction, they were a living being animated by their common devotion. He swallowed hard, trying to think of how to tell her the thing he had recognized inside him, how to say the unsayable.

“I will not leave you, Paine. I am here and I will stay.” He hoped she would understand better than he did what he was promising. He felt lost to himself now that the last shred of his former existence had been stripped away, leaving him naked to the world, and to her, frightened and emboldened at the same time.

The icy fingers of fear that had held Paine in their grip for so long began to relax at last, replaced by a buoyant warmth. She snapped her head back and looked into his eyes yet again and she saw the truth there, a truth that seemed to be causing him joy and pain in equal measures. But still she craved more. She needed to hear the words from his lips.

“You will live, then?” she asked, lifting a hand to his cheek and stroking it lightly. Even now, she feared his answer, a part of her certain that she had misunderstood him in some way.

Nooj pressed her hand firmly against his face, turning to kiss her palm. Then he let himself sink deeply into her scarlet eyes, seeing the need there and he was finally able to bring himself to answer. “I will not hunt my Death so long as you are beside me. I promise you I will not desert you for any other love, not even the Dark Goddess. You are my heart, my soul and I will cherish you for the days or years we have remaining to us. You have my word, beloved. I swear it upon my honor.” He waited with some trepidation for her response, searching her face; for what, he did not really know.

All the losses that had ever weighed her down lifted at once, leaving Paine feeling light enough to float away. Trembling with overjoyed relief, she clung even more tightly to Nooj, her anchor, the solid mooring that she could finally depend upon. “Thank you,” she murmured, and she found it was all she could say as the emotions overwhelmed her and tears sprang to her eyes. She buried her face in his neck, kissing it, then whispered the same words over and over against his warm skin as the reality sunk in: He was hers. He loved her more than Death. She had won the battle, and the war.

Time stopped. He could sense every molecule of her substance as her body echoed his along their entire lengths. He was content it should be so, feeling no necessity to do more than hold her, feeling her delicacy and narrowness blending into his strength until it seemed inevitable they had become a single being in all meaningful ways. A slow realization of what he had vowed to her spread through his consciousness and planted roots inside his mind. He loved her, and the thought of being parted from her was so painful as to overwhelm all the other insults to which his battered body had been subject. Finally, he permitted the last of his no longer usable dogmas to drain from him like pus from a poisoned wound. Into its place flowed a transfusion of joy and hope which was as exotic as it was healing. It was as though when he spoke the words he had assumed he would never speak, the ones he had abjured, he had completed the transformation from darkness to the luminous world he now possessed.

It was the thoroughly practical words of Paine which aroused him from his dreaming state. “All right, love,” she said, voice steadier now as she reluctantly lifted her head. “Much as I don’t want to move, I think we both need to find a healer. Can’t have you bleeding to death on me, can I?”

It said much for his state of mind that he was totally oblivious to the irony in her tone.

-X-

After the shockwave had passed and the groaning of the monster had faded into the distance, Auron dared to raise his head. The sky was clear and the sun had returned. If it weren’t for the occasional gasp of pain rising from the battlefield, he might almost think that Sin had never even been present.

Next to him, Yuna stirred; after pushing her out of harm’s way, he had stayed down, shielding her with his body. Auron lifted himself from the ground and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Yuna sat up and gingerly prodded her left elbow with her right hand. “I think so,” she said. “Just scraped this when I went down.” She turned and looked him over, her eyes falling on a deep gash that ran down his left arm, shoulder to elbow. “But you’re hurt! Here.” She placed her hand at the top of the cut and slowly drew it down, murmuring a chant as she went. The fire in Auron’s arm immediately cooled, the pain disappearing, and the torn flesh closed under her touch, leaving only a silvery scar that he knew from experience would soon fade as well.

“Thank you,” he said, flexing his fist carefully.

“Of course, Sir Auron.” They both stood, then began to scan the crowd for her other guardians. Kimahri was striding the short distance to his summoner, Tidus right behind. Both appeared largely unhurt, although Tidus held his left arm awkwardly. It took a minute longer to find Wakka and Lulu, but Yuna soon spied them across the battlefield, where they rested together, and waved with relief. Wakka helped Lulu up, and he supported her as they also made their way to the rest of their party.

Next to Yuna, Dona struggled to her feet, aided by Barthello, who had followed Auron’s lead and knocked his summoner to the ground to protect her from Sin’s final attack. All around them, others were doing the same, dazed looks on their faces as they evaluated their own injuries and searched for their companions, and for someone to tell them what to do next.

-X-

As they limped back into camp from the surreal terrain of the battlefield, supporting one another, Nooj hazarded a joke. “We seem to be making a habit of this, don’t we?”

Paine grinned up at him. “Wobbling back home looking for help or having epiphanies when you do something risky?”

“Both, I guess. How badly are you hurt?”

“Just a whang on the head. It aches but I’m in no danger. I can think all right, and what I’m thinking is that most of the blood is coming from you. That slice across your ribs went down to the bone.”

“Aquelev can stitch it up and cast some healing. I’m okay. Have you seen Aquelev? He’s usually somewhere around me and I didn’t take the time to look — I was too worried about you.” He nuzzled her cropped hair with his chin.

” I saw him in the corner of my eye just as you touched me, before … well, before it all happened.”

“After Sin was driven off?”

“Of course after Sin was driven off. I didn’t have time to notice anybody while he was still making a fuss.” She would have poked him in the side but remembered just in time he was wounded and forbore.

The pair was sobered by what they saw as they came within view of the main body of the troops. A makeshift triage area had been set up and healers were coming forward to care for the injured. Those less badly hurt were assessing the state of the fallen and carefully separating the quick from the dead. At first glance it seemed as though no one had survived the battle without damage and that was true to a certain degree. However, most of the injuries were fairly light and due more to being flung about by the elemental powers than the direct attacks of either fiends or the parent monster.

Paine started to direct Nooj straight for the hospital station but he set her aside, tenderly. “Give me one more of the pills, if you have it. I must see to the army first.”

She slipped the pellet into his hand and watched as he swallowed it dry, choking a bit as it stuck in his throat.

He walked across to the group of pilgrims, who were making sure their party was intact. “Ladies Dona and Yuna, will you accompany me?”

Yuna turned at once, understanding illuminating her eyes. Dona was a little slower, not yet realizing that Nooj never asked for trivial reasons. When she saw him gesture toward a small gathering of figures laid out motionless apart from the others, she nodded and fell in behind him alongside Yuna and Paine.

Nooj felt he must arrange the Sending of those who had fallen before he could turn his attention to those who still stood. Slowly he paced along the line of the dead, grateful to see there were only a few, far less than the toll he had expected during the height of the battle. There were only nine bodies: a small miracle. He bent to straighten the collar of the man at his feet and recognized Beclem. The body of the captain was torn and shredded but the right side of the face was still whole and knowable. Nooj paused and gently closed the remaining eye.

“Captain Beclem, you have made the greatest sacrifice. You have given your country and your world all that you have to give. I shall assure that your name is an eternal one and that the story of your courage will become one of the tales told around the campfires of a grateful Spira. You shall be Sent to the Farplane where honors will attend you and you will receive the highest rank a Warrior can hold. Sir, I salute you.”

He stood at attention for a long minute, growing paler as his wounds continued to sluggishly bleed. Then he resumed his walk, looking each casualty carefully in the face. There was no other body he recognized, so he gave the group a formal salute and motioned to the waiting summoners. They performed the rite of Sending with all the grace and respect due heroes and the pyreflies spun into the clearing sky forming a chain of beauty momentarily linking the physical world with the ephemera of the land of the spirits. Then it was over.

The two summoners walked solemnly away, briefly joining hands and sharing the experience. Paine touched Nooj’s shoulder.

“Come, my love. You must get those cuts seen to and rest.”

“In a little while, I still have to see to the others.” He smiled tiredly down at her and limped back to the place where the rest of the army was gathered. To his considerable relief, no one in the small contingent that had fought the monster was badly wounded. It quickly became obvious that Nooj himself had fared among the worst of those still living. In a turn of the tables, he was pushed to the front of the line and loud cries were raised for healers to care for him. Aquelev showed up like the genie he resembled and promptly started casting spells and offering unguents , paying special attention to the four broken ribs.

Paine stood by his side until she felt a hand slip into hers and pull her away, then gently push her onto one of the hastily-erected cots. Some part of her dimly registered the healing hands on her head and shoulders, but her attention was focused elsewhere. She could not tear her eyes away from Nooj, watching Aquelev work on him as she replayed the moment on the battlefield in her mind, the oath he had sworn still ringing in her ears. She tried to remember the last time she had been this happy and content. In childhood, she decided, when her parents still lived. But that was the dimly remembered past. This was real, now, and finally she was free to dream about the future. The thought of Nooj forever by her side filled her with warmth and light that outstripped anything the healer could do. As she looked across the tent to her love, he met her gaze with a smile, and she realized with a sweet jolt that he felt much the same way. Finally, she was able to close her eyes and, holding the vision of Nooj in her mind, she let the healing magic sweep her away.

Minutes or hours later, she felt something cool and heavy on her forehead, and she opened her eyes to see Nooj sitting on the edge of her cot, stroking her hair with his machina hand.

“The temporary camp is breaking up,” he said, “and we are making our way to rejoin the others at Bevelle. Are you strong enough to march for a little while?”

“Yes.” Her head was still sore, but clear. He helped her up, and then the two of them stood together.

Nooj glanced around to assure himself all was well and his duties accomplished. When he looked over at where Sir Auron and the others had been, he saw the Pilgrim party moving down the path toward the road to Bevelle. The serene glow of the Macalania Woods framed them like figures in a fantasy, limning each individual as precisely as a master draughtsman. They progressed silently, a cohesive and graceful group, the symbols of Spira’s past glory and future strength.

Nooj watched them until Paine touched him and broke the spell. He turned and looked down into her eyes, letting them draw him into their warm depths. Suddenly, to be alone with this woman was the most desirable thing he could imagine.

—

Next Chapter