Final Fantasy Fun

Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 47: "Thorns"
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Auron/Lulu, Zuke, Rikku/Wakka
Rating: G
Word Count: 3500
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With Yu Yevon finally defeated, Lulu, Auron, and Wakka and Rikku's family enjoy a much-needed respite in the strained hospitality of Yevon's capitol.

Lulu was knitting herself back together as methodically as she used to repair lace-embroidered sleeves before the campfire. Auron saw it each morning when they awoke. The shreds of dream that fled her eyes at first kiss were human now, most of the time. Her nightmares were fewer. The red marks at her wrists had faded to ghostly white. On good mornings, he would wake to find her in his arms, instead of curled up coverless facing the wall.

She had dismissed the disquieting tug of the pyreflies, almost convincing him that she could not sense their pull. When he pressed his doubts, she parried with a lecture. "Sin, the aeon that bridged the Farplane and Spira, has been eliminated. Pyreflies seek to close that breach, calling home souls who stray beyond their time. Of course, I need not fear you will answer the summons."

Outside, her eyes were acclimatizing to daylight. She readily joined Rikku and Wakka's family in their games of catch and toss around the fountain, honoring the memory of the High Summoner who had so treasured laughter. Not that Lulu laughed often. She moved with mute grace among the children, allowing herself to be teased and targeted. Soon she was evading their throws, pivoting out of a missile's path with belled white skirts and braids swinging.

Vidina kept trying to teach her the rules. "You're supposed to catch the ball, not dodge it!"

Two handfuls of fluffy snow materialized above his head in answer. Then all the children had wanted snow, and the lawn around the fountain had nearly become a bog before the abbot stormed out to forbid black magic’s use in the garden. Auron caught Zuke's smile as he returned to chambers, head shaking in wonderment.

Auron guarded. Lurking in the colonnade, he saw the glances cast by passing clergy at the Al Bhed in their midst. Not all glances were friendly.

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Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 35: "Eight of Swords"
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Nooj, Baralai, Gippal, Paine, Lulu/Auron
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2200
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The Story So Far: Auron and his allies lure Sin to the Thunder Plains, where he seeks entry into Sin's dream-world hoping to distract it long enough to spring the trap they've prepared.


"Eight of Swords" by @mintywolf

Ice needles pricked Auron back to consciousness. His trousers, his gauntlet, even his hair were frozen and stiff. His face was numb. He was lying on his back in a snowdrift, deeply buried. Even so, his spirits lifted. He half expected Ronso pups to start dragging him out by the boots for another round of lessons, one more bout with their all-too-breakable guardian. His lungs ached when he inhaled frigid air, but it was an ache as familiar as the scar on his face. He trusted it more than Besaid's perfect blue skies.

Thrashing onto his side to free himself, he fetched up against a sword thrust into the snow. Heavy chains linked it to another sword standing nearby, and another, and another, all linked in a circle like the posts of a child's carousel. More chains formed spokes radiating from a central hub, which was...

Lulu. She stood like one more blade, straight and defiant, buried to the knees. A tangled mesh of black straps, barbed metal and rusted buckles encased her from the neck down. A leather band covered her eyes. Another twisted her arms behind her back. Her wild mass of hair was hopelessly snarled in the eight chains stretched from sword-hilts to iron hoops cutting into her upper arms, wrists, thighs, ribcage and throat. The snow around her legs was stained red. To add insult to injury, the weapons staking her to the mountainside were swords that he had once wielded: Chaos Blade. Beastmaster. Blurry Moon. Shiranui. Kotetsu. Murasame. Masamune.

Auron knew the cruel vision might be another trap, but if so, this lure was more effective than the last.

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Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 20: "Anima Sola"
Final Fantasy X/X-2
Characters: Isaaru, Nooj, Auron, Rikku, Cast
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2000
Summary: Picking up the pieces after Cid goes postal.
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The Story So Far: While helping the Al Bhed in the wake of a Sin attack, Isaaru and his companions are shot by Elder Cid, who appears to have gone mad.

illustration by mintywolf

---

My dear son.

(Nay, lady, I am a son of Spira. Yet I would be honored to bear your pain.)

My dear, brave son. This time of the spiral, we shall not be sundered. Do not weep, Seymour, for soon all Spira shall recognize you for what you truly are...

(...a monster!)

(The memory flashed from Isaaru's mind to hers with the unshrouded immediacy of fayth's communion— no smile, no politic speech, no polished gesture to soften the blow— a field of blood-red snow, mangled heaps of Ronso warriors tossed like broken trees in an avalanche. The bodies were gutted and limp as if Seymour had spirited away their very bones, not just their souls, to fashion ghastly armor. Surely, Sin was built in this way. There had been precious few to send, and none to save.)

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Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 16: "The Gippal Express"
Final Fantasy X
Characters: Auron, Isaaru, Maroda, Elma, Wakka/Rikku, Gippal
Rating: G
Word Count:2300
Summary: Gippal crashes the party.
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Our Story So Far: Following a disastrous Crusader operation, Sin/Lulu transports Summoner Isaaru and his companions to the desert island where Wakka and Rikku are raising a family. Rikku realizes Sin is headed for Baaj Island, the new Al Bhed Home, and sends word to her father to evacuate.

---

"S-Sir Auron?" Yuna clambered onto his knees, clutching at his belt. "Are you going to make the Lady go away?"

Wakka made a strangled sound, shooting a panicked glance at Rikku.

For once, Rikku's inventiveness had exhausted itself. All she could manage was a strained, "C'mon, Yunie, he's a stranger. He's not gonna understand."

Auron contemplated the small, tear-stricken face before him. Her mismatched eyes were a haunting reminder of her namesake and the fate that had claimed her. How often had he tried to push against the spiral of death?

"She wants you to," Yuna said softly. "She feels sick inside. Can't somebody fix her?"

"Yuna," Auron said, choosing his gruff words with care. "Can anyone but the Lady change the weather?"

"Um..." The girl pondered, then shook her head, curls flopping around her ears. "No, 'cause she's the Lady!"

"Then how can we change her? The Lady is stronger than the weather," Auron said. "But if she leaves, she will give you a gift."

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Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 8: "Best-Laid Plans"
Final Fantasy X
Characters: Isaaru, Maroda, Auron, Pacce, Lucil/Elma
Rating: G
Word Count: 2500
Summary: Planning the next Operation Mi'ihen. Is this a good idea?
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The Story So Far: Thirteen years after Yuna falls defeating Sin, Isaaru sets the mantle of maester aside to resume his pilgrimage with his brothers. Teaming up with Auron in Besaid, they discover a pattern to Sin's attacks: it seems to be targeting temples. They meet Maester Lucil at Luca Stadium to report their findings.

Sin and an old friend...

The carnival ambiance of the blitzball tournament ebbed and flowed around Isaaru and his companions like another world pinned by pyreflies to a gigantic sphere. Fans cheered for their favorite players, bickered over team loyalties, lived and died with every goal. In the maesters' box, all was still.

Isaaru had been uncharacteristically stark, blunt, and brief as he narrated the bare bones of their journey. Now he and Lucil sat between two worlds, surrounded by a sea of noise. Clapping when the crowd roared, feigning interest in a match that no one but Pacce actually watched, they waited for the final moments of a Bevelle upset ("That's one for the history books, folks!") to play out so they could slip away to ponder the fate of the world.

As soon as the buzzer sounded, Isaaru and Lucil retired to a VIP suite below the maester's dais. The chamber was as dark as a Cloister of Trials, despite a few skylights. Luxurious furniture and refreshments could not disguise the fact that it had been built into the stadium's walls as a fortified retreat against attack— from Sin, or from an angry mob, to judge by its defenses. Years ago, Lucil had commanded the removal of the machina weapons embedded in the heavy doors leading out to the stadium, but the peepholes of gunsights and the stripped mountings on the doors' inner faces were a sober reminder of what Yevon could be.

Isaaru settled into a high-backed chair, his guardians forming a triangle around him. Elma helped Lucil into the seat across from him. The maester in charge of Yevon's military concealed her infirmity in public, but a chocobo accident had left her partially paralyzed. Her aide was no longer a starry-eyed cadet, but a seasoned officer with a scar half-hidden under short dark hair and a complexion weathered by years of riding.

Elma gave orders to the sentries outside and shut the doors. "There. No one's going to disturb us for anything short of a Sin sighting. The next match is in forty-five minutes, if you mean to keep up appearances."

"Thank you, Commander," Isaaru said, forgetting that he was no longer the senior official in the room.

"Djose, then." Lucil steepled her hands in her lap, expression grave. "Elma. Provide Summoner Isaaru and his party with mounts and escort them to Djose. Send couriers ahead to Mushroom Rock Lodge, advising the captain to begin battle preparations and await your arrival. We will need his ground forces as well for this operation."

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Title: Love Her and Despair
Chapter 1: "Schism"
Final Fantasy X / X-2
Characters: Isaaru, Maroda, Pacce, Auron. Later chapters: Elma, Lucil, the Crimson Squad, Cid, Yuna's surviving guardians
Main ship: Auron/Lulu slow burn, but it's just one thread (and one relationship) among several in the greater story.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2200
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Summary: [AU] 13 years after Yuna falls in the Final Summoning, a Cult of Sin has arisen, Isaaru must resume his pilgrimage, and Auron must try one last time to kill a friend before fiend's madness claims him at last.

Illustration by mintywolf

"In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!" (J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring)

---

Burgundy sails snapped in a fitful wind that set the sailors muttering. The sea-witch had her ways, they said, and owned both sea and sky. Ships plied the waves by her permission, or not at all. There had been frost at sunrise, great spears of rime coating the rigging. The tropical sun had banished it quickly, but it was one more sign of Sin's proximity. That, and the lightning's balefire dancing on the mast at midnight.

"Land ho!"

The call was hardly needed. All eyes not bent to shipboard tasks were fixed on the wisps of smoke billowing on the horizon, fading now like the last breath of a dying fire. The rising column veiled half the sky in a grayish-pink fume that stretched clear back to Djose. For six disquieting days, the SS Konna had sailed under that gray pall, seeing only an orange smudge where the sun should be. Flecks of ash came fluttering down, dissolving to powder wherever they touched. A stark whiff of burning hung in the air.

One of the harpooners began to sing the Hymn of the Fayth. The subdued refrain spread out in ripples from the ship's bow as roughened sailors' voices took up the chorus. A squad of warrior monks, cleaning their weapons on deck, looked up and added their voices in prayer. On the railing above, a red-haired man in priestly robes smiled and cupped his hands in Yevon's sign. Neither he nor the pair of guards flanking him joined in the singing, however.

Clattering up the ladder to the observation deck, the captain raised her arm in salute. "Your Grace. We'll make Besaid by sunset."

"Very good, Kiyuri. Tell your crew the danger is past. Sin is at least a day from here by now."

"With all due respect, milord—” she began. Suddenly, she pivoted towards the woman keeping watch. "Naya, what's that thing you're wearing around your neck?"

The sailor's hands flew to the bone pendant that had slipped out from the bib of her overalls. "It's, ah, it's nothing, Cap'n. Just a carving of a pretty lady, y'know, that caught me fancy." Her cheeks reddened.

"Sin!" Kiyuri spat, stalking towards her. "The Grand Maester of Yevon sails with us, and I have an idol-worshipper who wears Sin over her heart! Hand it over, or I'll throw you overboard with it."

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Have you ever stumbled across something in an old folder you really don't remember writing or drawing? This is clearly my clumsy drawing, and it's a scene I am sure I wrote at some point, but I'd completely forgotten I tried to illustrate it.

So. Doodle. Set about a year prior to FFX, Lulu and Luzzu.

Title: "Message"

(If you've not played the game in a while, it's the moment when Lulu learned what had happened to Chappu.)



I've always liked Luzzu, partly because of his rueful "she hit me, too" comment about Lulu (direct Japanese translation: "She has furious fists!"), and partly because he's trying so hard to keep the cadets from getting themselves redshirted. 


The following ficbit is a backstory bridge picking up with the moment when Luzzu got on Lulu's bad side, segueing to the "Lulu's Contempt" FMV in which she rips Wakka a new one, and indirectly providing backstory for the "Kimahri Pounces* Tidus" FMV the next morning. Not all that exciting, but, character stuff, which used to be my forte. 

 

( She Hit Me, Too... )