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.

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Death Shall Have No Dominion

Chapter Two

Auron looked down the road at the back of the departing Maester, uneasy. Back when it seemed that this Operation Mi’ihen was a popular effort organized by the Crusaders and the Al Bhed, he could almost admire the audacity of the plan. It wouldn’t work, of course, but he understood the desperation that drove them to make the attempt. But the presence, and tacit approval, of this Seymour changed things entirely. On some level, the Maesters of Yevon had approved this suicide run, and he didn’t know why. Motives that Auron didn’t understand always made him wary.

Also, the forthright way that Seymour had asked after his whereabouts for the past ten years had been unsettling. He’d felt no compunction about ignoring the question this time, but sooner or later they were bound to run into someone he couldn’t just brush off. And he still hadn’t decided what to say. “Well, after Braska defeated Sin, Lady Yunalesca killed me, so I went to Zanarkand because I’d promised Jecht I would watch over his son. Jecht is Sin now, by the way.” It might be the truth, but it wouldn’t be well-received.

“So Wakka, do you feel better, now that you’ve talked to Maester Seymour?” Yuna, the young summoner whom Auron now protected, turned to another of her guardians, the tall, tanned blitzer with the improbably spiky orange hair.

Wakka scowled. “I still don’ like it,” he said as he crossed his arms and glared down the road. “Maesters ignorin’ the teachings, lettin’ the Crusaders use machina an’ work with the Al Bhed — it’s not right.”

With some difficulty, Auron refrained from commenting. He was not particularly surprised to find hypocrisy among the Maesters, given the real truth about Yevon and its teachings. But he was not ready to share that information with his party. The right time would come; he would just have to wait for his moment.

“Right or not, he is the Maester and must have his reasons for what he does,” said Lulu, another guardian and the group’s black mage. “And since he’s invited us to observe–”

Her words were interrupted by a crashing noise as someone burst out from behind a stand of bushes next to the cliff wall. All heads turned toward the girl — for it was a girl, probably about Yuna’s age, equally slender but somewhat taller — as she ran straight for Auron. She stopped in front of him, breathing hard, and laid a slim hand on his left arm.

“Uncle!”

Auron gaped at her for a moment, overcome with shock. There was only one person on Spira with the right to call him that. Could this really be… “Paine?”

She nodded. “Uncle, please, you have to help us!”

“Help you?” He was too stunned to do anything more than repeat her last words — the sudden appearance of his brother’s daughter might not have been the last thing he’d expected on this journey, but it was near the top of the list. He had no doubt that this was Paine, though. Although he hadn’t seen the girl since she was six years old, she still had the same dark gray hair and lithe build, along with the striking red eyes that she had inherited from her mother.

“Please,” she said again. “The Maesters are after us. We need shelter, protection. You’re the only person I can trust. Please.”

Auron glanced around to the rest of the group. Every single one of them looked at the very least startled, except for Kimahri, whose stern Ronso features always hid his every thought. “Give me a moment?” he asked Yuna.

“Of course, Sir Auron,” she said, her voice controlled, although he could see curiosity raging in her eyes.

Auron nodded, then drew Paine aside, a bit away from his party. “Tell me what has happened,” he said.

“It’s a long story, and the others can probably tell it better,” she said. Auron glanced up to the bushes from which she had emerged and saw three figures there, their presence obvious now that he knew where to look. They all edged closer to the exit from their hiding place, presumably trying to get a better look. “But I need you to promise, first, that you won’t turn us over to Yevon, at least not until you hear us out.”

Auron nodded. It was an easy promise to make — no matter what Paine had done, he wasn’t about to abandon her to the Maesters.

Paine’s face relaxed visibly. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll get the others now.” She slipped back through the brush screen and quickly reemerged, followed by the three young men who had hidden there. The first was a short Al Bhed boy who wore an eye-patch; the second was taller and dressed in the formal, if tattered, robes of a summoner. But it was the third who drew most of Auron’s attention. He was quite tall, nearly as tall as Kimahri, and he exuded a commanding air, even from a distance and with an expression that seemed to be part arrogance, part nerves. Either of those things would have been remarkable enough on their own, but he was also made half of machina — his left arm and leg were gone, replaced with machina prosthetics. He used a cane and limped heavily, but the artificial limbs were clearly at least partially functional. It was a wonder; Auron had never seen anything like it. Not even in Zanarkand.

The group of four stopped in front of Auron. “Uncle, these are my teammates,” said Paine. “Gippal, Baralai, and Nooj.”

“Sir Auron,” said the Yevonite, Baralai, his tone hushed and reverent as he fell into a deep prayer bow. “It is a supreme honor to meet you.” Gippal, the Al Bhed, hung back, a wary look on his face, saying nothing.

Nooj, who had been looking at Paine, his face stiff and blank, snapped his head forward and stood at attention, his back perfectly straight, bringing his right arm up in a formal salute across his chest. “Sir!” The honorific was brusque, crisp, clearly practiced. So, a soldier then, Auron mused, suddenly recognizing the other’s clothing as the remains of a Crusader uniform.

“At ease,” he said, more or less automatically. The cadence of proper military language returned to him, familiar as it had ever been despite the ten years that had passed since his time as a warrior monk. Nooj nodded and dropped his arm but did not relax his stance. “Now. Paine tells me you have run afoul of Yevon. I have no interest in giving you to the Maesters, but before I can help you, I need to know what happened.”

-X-

Paine was speaking, but Nooj’s mind whirled too fast to allow him any attention to spare for her words. As he had approached the edge of the brush while still in hiding, he had observed her talking and gesturing as though physically willing the man in the red coat to believe what she was saying. Then Nooj had heard her say “Uncle” just before he emerged from hiding with the other two Crimson Squad candidates.

“Uncle?” What did she mean and who was she talking to? Nooj had lagged behind his companions when they emerged; he found something familiar about the big man who had bent his head so attentively to the slim woman. In his curiosity, Nooj had almost forgotten his chagrin at being presented for the approval of this body of strangers like a child at a meeting of adults.

Suddenly Baralai had stepped forward and bowed. “Sir Auron!”

The sound of that name from Baralai’s lips had jolted Nooj’s memory. He took another step forward and, squinting, made out the face of the man more clearly. It was Auron! That legendary hero, the greatly revered warrior monk who had guarded the last summoner to slay Sin. Songs were sung about this man and epic poems recited at the festivals each year. But surely, he was dead? Were the times so out of joint that a mythic figure was walking the earth alive and well? Nooj would have dropped to his knees in respect were it not for the difficulty in rising again.

Without conscious thought, his arm had come up in the Crusader salute. More than four years of performing this rite at the mere glimpse of a superior officer had burned it into his synapses. Warriors learned to trust their habits to keep them out of trouble in formal encounters. The Auron figure had responded appropriately and barked, “At ease!” Again habit took control but Nooj did not drop his wariness along with his arm.

He observed at once that his prostheses seemed to have a strange attraction for Auron. Oh, Ixion, he moaned to himself, not another Gippal. Nooj was all too aware he cut a less than imposing figure at the moment with his uniform in tatters and his limp exaggerated by exhaustion and the stress of trying to run. Only his height distinguished him and that was not so great an advantage as it generally was around ordinary men. He had the distinct impression Auron was not a one to be awed by the distance of Warrior’s head from the ground. If anything, the great hero seemed to be far more dismayed by the machina than admiring of the rest of him.

Because of the tumult of thoughts occasioned by the recognition of Auron, thoughts which tumbled over one another and jostled for position in his mind, Nooj had not even noticed the other figures in the new party. He had only been dimly aware of Paine making quick introductions, and now she seemed to be pleading with the dominating man in red for help and protection.

“Doesn’t she think I can protect her?” Nooj thought to himself but did not articulate. He was still unsure of just what was happening and hesitant to break in before he had an idea of the firmness of the ground beneath his feet. He reached out to touch Paine but she was a little too far away from him and he was reluctant to move any closer to the intimidating Auron. He did not want to limp again in front of those appraising eyes – no, wait… The great hero had only one eye, the other long since extinguished. So they were equals of a sort, each having made a major sacrifice to Sin.

-X-

“…and so that’s the short version,” Paine concluded. “We tried to organize the other recruits against the Maesters, but we were betrayed and had to escape. Now we’re on the run, and I’m not quite sure what to do. ”

Auron nodded thoughtfully. Paine had outlined a sobering tale of treachery, with Yevon at its heart. He had his own reasons to hate Yevon, to want to see the Maesters stripped of power and the old order swept away, but he had been keeping them buried, playing the part of the faithful warrior monk and religious devotee. As much as he could stomach, anyway. But learning the true depths of the Maesters’ callousness to human life made faking it more difficult. Seeing his niece in danger, not to mention all the Crusaders and Al Bhed about to be sacrificed to Operation Mi’ihen — he was more convinced than ever now that the Maesters had some ulterior motive there, one that would lead to widespread suffering and death — might force him to rethink his plans.

He straightened and looked at the youths standing before him. “I would like you to tell this story to the rest of my party,” he said. “I am guardian to the Lady Yuna, and I think she would be interested to learn about this.”

“Lady Yuna?” Baralai’s eyebrows shot up. “The daughter of High Summoner Braska?”

“The same.” Auron scanned the area for a place to set up an impromptu council and decided that the protected clearing in front of the stand of bushes where the four had been hiding would be the best spot. “Wait over there,” he said. “I will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” said Paine with a small sigh. “You can’t know how relieved I am that you’ll hear what we have to say. I know you probably have your own plans, but any help you can give…”

He took a step toward her and laid his hand on her shoulder. His stomach knotted with an old guilt as he thought of the last time he had seen her, during his stopover at Kilika Temple during Braska’s pilgrimage. She had looked so sad and lost that day, as the only family she had left walked away with no promise to return. Now she gazed up at him again, and some of that same sadness was still written in her face. “I will not abandon you, Paine,” he said, voice low. “Not this time.”

She smiled and covered his hand briefly with hers. Then she gathered up her comrades and led them over to the cliff wall.

He turned back to his own party and considered the group. Yuna stood at the center, the young summoner with the mismatched eyes, one from each parent. But her dark hair and single-minded determination to defeat Sin came straight from her father. She still wore a curious look, but it was tempered with patience, in the way of one who didn’t truly expect to receive all the answers. Much less patient was the teen at her elbow, the boy Tidus, Jecht’s son, who bounced lightly on his heels as he waited, bleached-blond hair ruffling in the wind and with his own restlessness. Then there were Yuna’s three other guardians: Kimahri, the silent young Ronso who had been her protector since childhood; Lulu, whose black hair, intelligent red eyes — much like Paine’s, now that he thought about it; odd that he had never made the connection until this moment — and blunt manner hid fierce devotion to Yuna and to Yevon; and Wakka, the stubborn, pious blitzer, who stood off to the side with his arms crossed and the scowl still on his face.

With a few long strides, Auron walked over to Yuna. “My apologies for the delay,” he said, “but I believe it would be worth taking a moment to speak with them. They told me some things that you need to hear.”

“Do we have time?” Lulu asked. “The Maester is expecting us.”

“If the Crusaders we spoke to earlier were correct, the operation does not begin until tomorrow morning,” Auron said. “If we break for an early lunch here, we should still reach the Mushroom Rock bluffs by nightfall.”

“All right, Sir Auron,” Yuna said. “I trust your judgment. But first, if I may ask, the girl… she called you Uncle?”

Auron nodded. “Yes. Paine is my niece. Her father was my brother.”

“Incredible coincidence, to meet you here.” Lulu crossed her arms around her waist and cocked her head thoughtfully.

“True.” Auron glanced over his shoulder at the girl and her friends. “Still, I wish you to hear them out.”

Wakka’s scowl deepened. “He’s made of machina,” he said, indicating Nooj with a jut of his chin. “And one of the others is Al Bhed. You sure we can trust them? What kind of man is made of machina, anyway?”

“I believe he was a Crusader. Probably lost the limbs fighting Sin.” Auron looked straight at Wakka. “Would you belittle his sacrifice and begrudge him the ability to walk again only because you disapprove of machina?”

The blitzer glanced at the ground and said nothing.

“Oh!” Lulu looked at the newcomers as her eyes lit up with understanding. “Yes, he is a Crusader. Luzzu mentioned him a few times — he must be the same man. He’s something of a legend within that group. They call him ‘Nooj the Undying’.”

Finally Tidus’s patience burst its last bounds. “If we’re done here, can we go have that talk? And lunch? If we’re gonna stand around, we might as well be eating.”

Auron held back a chuckle. Typical teenage boy, always thinking with his stomach. “Come,” he said, turning back toward Paine and the others, who waited off to the side of the road. She was involved in a hushed conversation with Baralai and Gippal; Nooj stood behind them, leaning against the wall and his cane, watchful, silent.

Yuna walked up to the group, Auron on one side and Tidus on the other, and stood before them. “Greetings,” she said. “I am the summoner Yuna, and these are my guardians.”

“Paine,” said the other girl, inclining her head politely.

“Lady Yuna.” Baralai stepped forward and bowed again. “I am Baralai, of Bevelle. You probably do not remember me, but I lived in the temple there at the same time as you did, while your Lord Father was training in the summoner’s art and then during the time of his pilgrimage. High Summoner Braska inspires us all, and at one time I prayed to follow in his footsteps, hoping that I might too defeat Sin and bring a Calm to Spira. I now know that my destiny lies down a different path, but I wish you the best of luck on your own journey.”

“Thank you,” she said, bowing in return. “I was only seven when I left Bevelle, but you do look somewhat familiar. Were you another of the temple orphans, or…”

Baralai shook his head. “No, my lady. My father was a priest there, a councilor to Maester Mika.”

Yuna thought for a moment. “Father Welton?”

“Why, yes.” He smiled. “So you do remember.”

Meanwhile, just a little way behind the main group, Nooj was concentrating so single-mindedly on his observations of Paine and Auron that he did not notice the dark-haired woman gliding to his side.

“Warrior! Will you hand me your glasses?” The contralto voice broke into his awareness like a sweet toned bell. “They look badly scratched. I can fix them.”

He turned his head quickly and saw an elegant figure at his elbow. She was dressed in a form fitting black gown with a low cut bodice show-casing a truly remarkable décolletage. Her hair was drawn up and secured by elaborately worked skewers, lending her rather more height than she actually possessed. However, the most striking thing about her was the intelligence which radiated from her eyes — eyes much like those of Paine he observed with a start — intelligence and a wisdom far older than any woman her apparent age should own.

He had not realized how long he had been staring at her until she impatiently stretched up on her toes and lifted the spectacles off his nose.

“Tsk! Tsk!” She clucked her tongue in disapproval. “What have you been doing with these? Wearing them in a sandstorm?”

“Several, as a matter of fact. I just got back from desert training.” He had finally found his own voice.

“Desert, eh? Well, you should have asked your Al Bhed friend over there for some of their especially hardened goggles.” She turned the glasses over and, knitting her brow, focused her eyes on her forefinger.

Almost invisible in the sunlight, a cushion of flame appeared beneath the finger as she traced the surface of the lens. The glass smoothed under her touch like water under oil, all traces of scratches vanishing. With a satisfied smile, she treated the other side of the lenses and handed the renewed spectacles back to the astonished man.

“There! You will be able to see better now. I am Lulu, one of the guardians of the summoner Yuna.” She held out her hand in greeting. “I think I recognize you from your reputation. Nooj, isn’t it? Nooj, the Undying?”

Nooj took her hand gently. “Yes, I am Nooj, formerly of the Crusaders, now on the run. I thank you for this service, Lulu. I had not noticed how much my vision had deteriorated.” Testing his new acuity, he found his view coming to rest on the area just below her collar bones and hastily re-directed his eyes toward her face.

Lulu, all too accustomed to this phenomenon, patted him fondly on the wrist and cooed, “I must be getting back to Auron; I’ll talk to you later.” She swayed her way back to Auron’s side, Nooj’s gaze following her as if he had been mesmerized.

Auron cleared his throat. “If we are finished with the pleasantries, shall we get down to business?”

“Yes, of course,” said Yuna. “Tidus, could you–”

“That’s a machina weapon!” Wakka barked suddenly, and pointed an accusatory finger at the gun that everyone then noticed holstered on Nooj’s side. “Why you got one of those, eh?”

Nooj drew himself up to his full, imposing height. “What other sort of weapon would you have me use?” he asked, tone icy, all the goodwill fostered by Lulu’s help swept away by this outburst. Paine moved next to him and laid a hand lightly on his arm, but he shook her off, glaring first at her, then at Wakka.

“Yeah,” Gippal chimed in, speaking for the first time since his appearance. “Who’re you to say we can’t use machina, anyway?”

Wakka stood tall as well. “Yevon says–”

“Yevon,” Baralai interrupted smoothly, “says many things. If you have been believing them all without question, then I am afraid to tell you that you have been misled.” Then he reached under his own robes and pulled out a pistol, laying it across an open hand. Yuna gasped and stepped away as Wakka froze. “Yes, I also carry a machina weapon. And I was issued it by a warrior monk of Yevon, acting with the full knowledge and consent of the Maesters.”

Silence fell as the party digested this bit of information. Then Yuna spoke. “Please,” she said, “tell your story.”

Paine and Gippal shared a look, then they both turned to Baralai, who nodded at them. Apparently they had just selected him as their spokesperson — a wise move, Auron thought, since the words of a Yevonite would be more likely to sway the faithful. He was counting on that, later, himself.

“All four of us were part of a group of recruits known as the Crimson Squad,” Baralai said. “We were told that the best of us would be chosen to serve as officers in the Crusaders…” And he proceeded to tell the expanded version of the story that Paine had outlined to Auron earlier — the recruits split into squadrons of three with a recorder assigned to each, ordered to march across a desert island with limited food, water, and supplies; the wretched conditions and lack of access to healing or any other support; the way that the groups had been forced to turn on and even kill one another. And then the return, back to where they had started.

“Back to Mushroom Rock.” Baralai shook his head, anger flashing in his eyes. “And so it was all for nothing, apparently. Twenty-four people spent two weeks in the desert. Now seven are dead, one is lost to madness, and twelve more are broken beyond repair. Two of the survivors will never walk again, and three others will never wield a sword, thanks to severe injuries and lost limbs. Pointless suffering, and for what greater goal? Some scheme to bring the Maesters more power, or to bring more glory to Yevon? Certainly not to help the people of Spira, or to fight Sin. So we left. We made a brief attempt to organize the other recruits against our corrupt masters, but they were too far gone to fight or care. And then we were betrayed by a member of the company, forcing our flight.” He paused for breath, then looked at Yuna. “My lady, I know these things may be difficult for you and your guardians to hear. But I swear, in the name of Yevon himself and on my honor, that it all happened, just as I told you.”

Yuna and Lulu shared a look, mirrored expressions of revulsion and disbelief on their faces. Wakka’s features were set in stone — there was no telling what he was thinking, but Auron guessed that he was conflicted, wanting to deny the truth of what he had just heard. Kimahri betrayed no reaction at all, unsurprisingly. Tidus muttered something beneath his breath and glanced at Auron. He cared nothing for Yevon, and the older man could see that he believed, that he was ready to grab his sword and join these four in their crusade. It was a start, at least.

“Thank you, Baralai,” Yuna answered softly. “It must be difficult, telling us these things when they are so fresh in your mind. But I’m not sure what a simple summoner can do about them.”

Lulu nodded. “The Maesters must have a plan of some sort,” she said. “I share your horror at this tale of suffering, but if they have a reason that will benefit all of Spira–”

“Wait.”

All eyes turned to Auron.

“There is something else you should know,” he said. While Baralai spoke, the senior guardian had been considering his next move. The truth about Yevon and Sin and the Final Summoning weighed heavily on him, a burden carried alone for the past ten years. He had intended to keep it quiet until reaching Zanarkand, where Yunalesca could have revealed it all for him. Now he changed his mind. “Everything you have learned — about Sin, about atonement, about the Final Summoning — is a lie.” He nodded to Tidus. “Tell them.”

Tidus’s skin blanched beneath his tan. “Tell them what?”

Auron lowered his head and looked into the boy’s eyes and saw that he knew very well what Auron had meant. “What I told you in Luca.”

“No,” he whispered. “No, I can’t. I still don’t believe it. I won’t!”

“Tell them.” Auron’s voice stayed firm as he stared the other down.

Tidus broke away first, looking at the ground and then out to sea. “Sin… Sin’s my old man. Sin is Jecht.”

“What?” Lulu gasped. Yuna sank to the earth, looking up at Tidus, eyes wide and disbelieving.

Tidus crossed his arms, still staring into the distance. “Sin is Jecht, okay? I’ve felt him there, every time we’ve been near Sin. I wanted to deny it, but I can’t. I don’t know why or how, but it’s him. It has to be.”

“You’re crazy,” Wakka said flatly. “Sin’s toxin–”

“No.” Auron broke in, tone commanding. “It is the truth. Sin is Jecht. In order to receive the Final Aeon, the summoner must take one of his guardians as his fayth. Jecht volunteered for this duty when we reached Zanarkand with Braska. They defeated Sin together, and then Jecht became Sin in its place, like every fayth of the Final Summoning before him. It is a spiral of death, never-ending, and all the atonement in the world will not bring it to a close. This is the truth that Yevon has hidden for a thousand years.” Still seated on the ground, Yuna buried her face in her hands with a soft moan. Kimahri rushed to her side, resting a large hand heavily on her shoulder as he kneeled next to her.

Baralai gaped at Auron, his own dark skin turning a sickly pale color. “Then it’s true,” he whispered. “Rumors of this have been whispered in Bevelle for generations. I did not want to believe them, but–” He shook his head, furious. “My entire life, devoted to a series of lies!”

Auron nodded at him. “As was mine,” he said. “But no longer.” He drew his sword and held it in front of him, tip to the sky. “I do intend to defeat Sin, Yuna, to see you to Zanarkand and find a way to wipe it from Spira forever. I had hoped to avoid confronting Yevon in the process, but it seems clear to me that this is no longer going to be possible.” He turned the blade over and slammed its point into the ground. “I will stand against Yevon first. And any of you who wishes may join me.”

–

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