Love Her and Despair Remaster [39]

[auronlu]

Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 39: "Cloister of Guardians"
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Auron, Rikku, Elma, Isaaru, Pacce.
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Word Count: 1600
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The Story So Far: Auron and companions venture into Sin's eerie depths, where its host memorializes the fallen.


"Venus Crest" by author

Yu Yevon seemed to have called a truce. The fiends had disappeared back into the mists. Auron wondered where they had been diverted. Sin had gulped down half the pyreflies of Guadosalam, and he doubted Yu Yevon had applied them only to Sin's outer hull. But that was a matter for later. Now...

Now he had to resist the gnawing regrets that threatened to add him to the local fiend population.

Rearing out of the fog, an enormous dome rested on four piers of stone. Yevon's banners, tattered and begrimed, hung from it like cobwebs. Below it lay a wide circular mosaic, scuffed as if from centuries of ordinary foot traffic. Lulu's memory was as meticulous as ever. She had copied the floor of Besaid's shattered temple to the last tile. Around the perimeter stood four monumental sculptures, twice the height of ordinary summoner statues. Reversing the usual arrangement, they faced outwards like sentinels, each one framed by a vaulted archway.

Only one was a summoner.

As always, Yuna danced on her pillar of water. It was real water, as much as anything in this place was real. Her portrait's details were picked out with colored shells and petals. To her left was a garish figure molded in plastic: Tidus, captured in mid-lunge with sword drawn, articulated like an action figure from Zanarkand's souvenir stands. To Yuna's right was a rough-hewn mass of quartz and granite, vaguely Ronso-shaped, its fist wrapped around a pillar of ice. Completing the memorial was a traditional temple portrait carved out of varnished, dark-stained wood. The black sword, red coat, dark glasses and gray hair of thirteen years ago were painstakingly rendered in Bevelle's classical style.

Rikku, kneeling at the foot of Yuna's statue, gazed up at her cousin with tears trickling down her cheeks.

Privately agreeing with the sentiment, Auron said, "Mourn later. We need to find a way in."

"They shouldn't have had to die." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, sniffed, and got up to join Elma and Pacce in scouting the open-air chamber. Its floor drew her attention. When she approached the center, the mandala at the heart of the design rose up, dividing into four pedestals with recessed sockets on their upper faces.

"Hey," Pacce said, hurrying over. "They're like in the Cloister of Trials, right? So it's a puzzle. There should be spheres."

"Oh, right." Rikku wiped her eyes and looked around. "Ummm..."

"With the statues, maybe?" Elma said. "And what's Sir Auron doing here? His statue, I mean."

"Well, he is a stiff," Rikku said. "That's weird. It should be Wakka's brother. Maybe she thought Auron got killed in the Final Summoning, and now it's too late to redecorate?"

"Stay focused," Auron said. "Rikku, look." He brushed his gauntlet over a glyph etched on one of the pedestals. Each of the four bore a different sign.

"Huh? Oh! Four elements. 'Cept there's no lightning—" she screwed up her face— "just fire and ice and water. What's that one?"

"Air," Isaaru said, joining them. "But aren't these holes rather small for spheres?"

"Yeah. Come to think of it..." Rummaging in her satchel, she produced a handful of glowing marbles and popped one into the socket. A plume of ice shot up. "Score! Okay, everybody. Grab a marble and— whoa, Pacce, don't touch that one, it's a dud. Here's fire, and that's water, and that one's zu poop. No, really. It's a pocket tornado."

"I'm lost," Elma said. "Just tell me what to do."

"Maybe we have to activate the glyphs, then push them in front of the statues," Pacce said.

"Sounds like a plan! Let's try— unh— dragging this one over to Kimahri. He's gotta be ice."

Exchanging glances, Isaaru and Auron drifted away from the bustle. Isaaru lowered his voice. "Beyond the Trials, the Final Aeon awaits, no?"

Auron nodded. "Prepare yourself for the sending. Yu Yevon won't go willingly."

The whispered question was kind. "Will you?"

"Lulu and I have unfinished business." He shook his head at Isaaru's pained expression. "But whatever happens, don't stop. Our goal is to eliminate Yu Yevon. If we fail, there will be no more chances."

"Understood." Isaaru's shoulders slumped. "Sir Auron, I am in your debt, such that any words of thanks would fall short of the mark. I wish you peace, wherever your journey takes you."

"Thanks."

"Hey, lazybones," Rikku called. "Come take a look at this. It's not working."

"Water goes with Tidus," Auron said, noting a pedestal topped with a tiny fountain behind Yuna's statue.

"Oh, now he tells us. Get over here and help us push these things around."

He joined Pacce in rearranging the pedestals. When the last one clicked into place, there was a chime and a flash. The center of the floor vanished, replaced by a glowing design. Rikku gave a squeak, recognizing the fan-shaped symbol of Lulu's Venus Crest. A swelling globe of pyreflies started to coalesce above it.

"Uh oh," Elma said.

"Yeah!" Pacce said, so engrossed in puzzle-solving that he failed to look up. "We did it!"

"Oh, no fair!" Rikku said, turning and bolting.

Auron grasped Pacce's arm and dragged him out from under the enormous malboro ballooning out of the fog. It dropped to the floor with a disgusting squelch. Stout green tentacles scattered drops of acid that smoked where they struck the tiles.

"Pacce," Auron said. "Protect Isaaru."

"Sir." The boy hurried to his brother, herding him towards Kimahri's statue for cover.

Auron took a breath of clean air and charged. To his surprise and irritation, his sword bounced off the toxic vegetable's rubbery tentacles. Elma was discovering the same problem, to judge by the curses coming from the other side. They needed fire. Pure magecraft was alien to his being. However, there was one sword-invocation that might suffice, if he could remember it.

"Get back! NOW!" Setting his feet, he whirled the heavy blade like a hammer, drawing the nearby fog into a spinning column. The malboro began to spin too, caught up in the tornado. When it had nearly reached the ceiling, he unclipped his jug, took a swig, and flung it into the midst of the maelstrom. The tornado burst into flames. The marboro came crashing down. So did part of the dome.

"And we drank that stuff?" Elma said, crouching behind one of the pedestals. Apparently she had a few tricks of her own. As she stood, flames ignited along the edge of her sword. With a war-whoop, she renewed her attack, blade searing tough hide. The malboro thrashed, opened a toothless maw like the rind of a rotten fruit splitting open, and emitted a yawning hiss. Both guardians were engulfed in a choking black cloud.

Poisonous fire invaded Auron's mind and sinews. He barely felt the monster's rasping gums close around him.

He came to with the crackle of phoenix down prickling his eyelids. Rikku slapped a hand over his sword when he reached for it. "Let Isaaru deal with this one," she said, a quaver in her voice that had him on his feet even faster.

A scorched malboro was hideous enough, but the creature looming over it was worse. Seymour's aeon stood there, chained and keening, swathed in mummified flesh and a furled bony shell like a living coffin. Its head snapped back with a cry. The malboro reeled. Then it sank into the ground, dragged under by a reddish-black miasma that smelled like bile. It did not come up again.

Erinyes surveyed its surroundings, weeping blood from its single eye. The vestigial pair of arms around its neck struggled against its bonds. It gave another furious screech, head jerking like a whip-crack.

"Isaaru!" Pacce cried. Auron saw the creature convulse again, and Elma toppled. Then it was his turn. He raised his sword, staggering under the burning glare of hate and malice. His skull pounded as if every mother who had ever lost a child was screaming into his mind. Then, mercifully, the aeon began to dissipate, growing translucent and fading away.

Pacce was standing over Isaaru, wide-eyed and pale, sword braced for anything else that might come hurtling out of the mist. Auron nodded approval, falling into a watchful stance beside him. "Tend him."

Kneeling, Pacce sprinkled phoenix down over Isaaru's face. The man's eyes were leaking blood again. He came to with a mindless snarl, fists striking the air until Pacce caught his arms and held him with a tearful, "Isaaru?"

"Is everybody okay?" Elma said, jogging up with Rikku. They pulled up short, staring at the usually self-composed summoner.

"Isaaru," Auron said. "Are you still with us?"

Isaaru rolled onto his hands and knees. "Not... entirely. It seems that Erinyes has realized that I am not her son."

"Eh?" Rikku said. "Wait. That was Seymour's creepy-ass aeon, wasn't it?"

"A bad aeon?" Pacce said. "It's inside you?"

Isaaru closed his eyes. "Yes, Pacce. Do not fear. She is angry and full of grief, but she is not evil. Father Zuke can help me release her, when we return." He offered a haggard smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. "I begin to have some inkling what being Sin is like. Let us hurry. Was that a gateway, or a trap?"

"Both," Auron said, nodding towards the ghostly sigil pulsing over the hole in the floor. "Come."

There was no sign of a bottom, no way to tell its depth. It was a black pit. Isaaru, who had followed Auron into darkness already without a qualm, did not hesitate. Mimicking the guardian, he stepped out and disappeared with snapping robes.

"It won't kill us, after all," Rikku said to Pacce, who stood looking down in shame and misery. "They would've dropped the temple on us, if they wanted us dead."

"Right." The boy nodded, fists clenched. "O-okay." He jumped.

"They dropped a malboro," Elma said, swinging her legs over the edge. She grinned at Rikku. "So, time for a rematch."

---

Next Chapter: "The Lady"

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Author's Notes



Art: I broke out my ancient laptop and an even more ancient 3D program to create that abstract image of the Venus Crest [Edit: Now replaced with a more complex drawing/render of the Besaid temple floor. Yes, I drew it, then projected it onto a rough elevation map draped with fog layers, rendered it under several different lightings, ported the images into Photoshop and finally my favorite drawing program to add further FX. Go me). Here it is without the special effects. The motifs and style are based loosely on Japanese family crests, although they don't usually combine multiple emblems.



(I originally put it on the end of a hairstick, as I was envisioning it in-game, but it took 5 hours to render as it was.)

Chapter renumbering: originally the first half of Chapter 42, posted June 2010.

Comments

[mintywolf]

The dream temple with the memorial statues is so lovely. :) I like how they all suit the personality of their subjects. (Action figure Tidus!!) The elemental marble puzzle was neat too. (Now I understand why you always gave Yuna a "special" high summoner statue, depicting her dancing on water rather than just the "standing around, sculpted version of our concept art" statues that the other summoners have even though she didn't bring the Eternal Calm or anything, just a regular one like they all did.)

I like how you made the Venus Crest a real thing too, because it's such an abstract concept that we never get to see in the game. That design is really neat!

[mintywolf]

P.S. Psst I just realized that you have "malboro" spelled "marlboro," a few times, like the cigarettes. ;) I used to make the same mistake too - I thought it was a reference to its bad breath, but apparently there's only supposed to be one r.

[auronlu]

Oh drat. It's a mistake I used to make all the time, and I forget to look for it, and my eyes don't see it.

I feel like they were actually spelled Marlboro in some early FF iteration, but not FFX. However it's quite possible I misread them. Anyway, yay global search/replace.

[auronlu]

Ha, my giving Yuna a "special" statue wasn't planned in advance, as I made up an awful lot of this story as I went along. But it all hangs together, huzzah.

I always had a knack for dream-imagery and poetry when I was younger. I need to find that skill again; it's atrophied as I've aged. (Possibly because I'm not reading Greek and Latin poetry anymore.)

[melchar]

Love the story - and the cloister. But .... this is chapter 39, right?

[auronlu]

Whoops. Missed a spot, thanks. (I usually copy/paste a previous post to keep the header formatting consistent, and sometimes I'm awfully tired and/or in a hurry to get a chapter up.)