Different (chapter 12 of 49, 6398 words)
Braska petitions for Djose Temple’s aeon, but finds himself hindered after an altercation in the temple.
Read here on praze.net or here on archiveofourown.org, or read the whole fic so far as a PDF or an EPUB.
Auron tells himself he’s not going for a jog because he needs to look after Braska, but I think he also doesn’t want to because it would make it seem like he’s copying Jecht’s idea, and he doesn’t want to admit Jecht’s ideas are ever valuable.
His relationship with his faith is probably more complex than he dares admit at this point. He’s an enemy of Yevon, and knows it, and is willingly walking around Spira with another one; Yevon has humiliated him and cast him out; he’s known for a long time that there are certain elements of the teachings that he is effectively unable to follow. But at the same time he does his best to obey the rest of them, and (for now) still thinks it’s very important to pray before Braska speaks to the fayth.
The save sphere is outside the temple in Djose for some reason?
Auron is quite good at being obsequious when he needs to be. Even the style of his speech changes; he’s talking more like Braska when he makes his excuses to the priest, drawing on the fact that he’s spent a lot of time around posh people despite not being one himself. That’s kind of at odds with his claim that he was ignorant and uncultured before Braska did him the service of teaching him the ways of Yevon, but I guess he doesn’t know enough about sociolinguistics, and fortunately the priest doesn’t seem to either.
It was, in a way, half-true.
It’s half-true in that Jecht clearly didn’t know anything about Yevon and is now learning about it (although not in the way Yevonites would want him to, of course), and also half-true in the sense that Braska wants Auron to learn the true importance of the teachings, i.e. that they are actually not important at all.
This priest is probably from Bevelle based on how much he cares about propriety … I bet he’s raging about being posted to the provinces. I suppose he must have been in Djose for a while though, as he doesn’t seem to recognise Braska or Auron.
“I’m not interested in more of your apologies,” says Braska to Auron, but Auron hasn’t actually apologised and Braska’s the one who says sorry all the time.
I’m not sure if Auron would have been able to bring himself to say “dick”, actually. He and the author are probably quite glad Jecht interrupted him at that moment.
Then, he tucked a few stray strands of hair behind his ear, and added, “It’s my fault. I deserve it.”
This is an uncharacteristic lapse in Auron’s self-confidence, but it certainly won’t be the last!
“Forgive me,” said Auron, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
Ten years later, he says exactly the same thing in exactly the same tone to Tidus (after Tidus accuses him of saying “something an old man would say”). His demeanour in the prequel setting obviously isn’t that similar to how he acts on Yuna’s pilgrimage, but there are a few points of commonality.
Auron is humouring Braska in a sense, I suppose, by accompanying him to Zanarkand while believing he’ll find a way to let him defeat Sin without dying. He’s so convinced that he’ll find something that he thinks this is a better option than hoping one of the fayth will turn Braska away, because as he says, he knows Braska would be completely crushed if that were to happen. Finding a way to make Braska happy is also obviously on the agenda, but Auron likes to think that if Braska manages to defeat Sin and stay alive, that might do it.
To shoehorn another obscure political reference into this commentary, any time I see the word “fomenting” it makes me think of John McDonnell (the legend).
The fayth tells Braska he should have been nicer to both his guardians, but Braska almost immediately focuses on Auron … hmmm.
I’m sure there are other people in Bevelle who have lost loved ones, even if the city is relatively protected from Sin, but it’s typical of Braska to think that nobody else can possibly be having as bad a time as he is.
I guess Braska doesn’t really know what it’s like to work in a team; he was sent alone to the Al Bhed and has always been mostly friendless since then, so getting to learn what it’s like to be a sailor would be a very different experience for him. Both Auron and Jecht would know much better about teamwork, and can probably do it reasonably well when they have to, even though they’re both too self-centred to be experts at it.
Like Braska’s earlier encounter with the fayth, this chapter got too long, so I needed to split it in half and decided the point at which he passes out would be a good place to do so! As if he wasn’t suffering enough, now he has to be unconscious for an entire week.