and whose ribcage had almost been crushed by the force of Braska desperately clinging to him.
Southward (chapter 18 of 49, 7784 words)
After nearly missing the ferry to Besaid, Braska and his guardians find a variety of ways to pass the time during the crossing, including taking spheres, playing cards, practising magic, and, in Auron’s case, attempting to rid himself of his new affliction.
Read here on praze.net or here on archiveofourown.org, or read the whole fic so far as a PDF or an EPUB.
The “she” discussed by the two inn employees is not meant to be anyone in particular.
I enjoyed being able to write competent Auron in this chapter, in contrast with the last one! He’s usually pretty good at dealing with emergencies.
I’m not sure how realistic the whole sequence of Auron and Braska hauling themselves up with the ropes actually is, but then all Yuna’s guardians perform an even more extreme rope-related stunt in the wedding scene, so at least it seems in keeping with the setting.
Auron and Braska end up in a sexual tension position but the situation is so urgent that Auron doesn’t even get to have a nice time thinking about it.
and whose ribcage had almost been crushed by the force of Braska desperately clinging to him.
Auron has singlehandedly invented the concept of exposure therapy.
Braska is in a reasonably good mental state at the moment and as a result he’s able to pay attention to what Auron is doing, even though Auron would rather he didn’t.
“It helps – having something to focus on.”
“Yes,” said Auron. “It does.”
Obviously omitted: “And I’m focusing very intently on you, sir.”
“He’s more thoughtful these days,” Auron admitted. “Not always entirely unpleasant to be around.”
Auron would not yet say this in Jecht’s actual presence.
There’s a bit more exposition than I would have liked around the sphere recording scene, but I think it’s necessary to show Jecht’s thought processes. As usual, what we see in the game is devoid of context and it’s difficult to explain some of the finer details of what goes on, but I think everything is accounted for in my interpretation.
The fact that Braska mentions Girl unprompted is another sign that he’s not doing too badly at the moment, but also a reminder that he hasn’t succeeded in becoming any less obsessed with her.
Auron had returned to his position at the prow of the ship and to his attempt to suppress his reactions to the water.
In the sphere, we see that Auron is standing in the same place he was in before, even though it seemed as if he was about to go somewhere else when he spoke to Jecht.
Auron is fiddling with his hair a lot in this chapter; I like to imagine he does that when he’s nervous.
He looked into Auron’s eyes, so dark and serious, and suddenly felt overwhelmed by affection for his guardian;
“Yep,” thought Braska, “that’s what this is! 100% platonic affection for my bestest friend!”
I don’t tend to be a big “include references to other FF games in my fic” person because I think it can be a bit distracting, but I couldn’t resist a brief Triple Triad mention.
The whole canasta, um, I mean jigger, sequence, is based on real experiences of playing canasta, um, I mean old wife’s tierce (Auron, sorry but why the fuck do you call it old wife’s tierce) with my parents as a teenager. I guess this means Auron and Jecht have shortly-to-be-estranged-couple vibes … huh.
I had to include “the magic of the ground” in homage to one of Hawkwind’s finest.
Braska wants Auron to tell him about his problems, but also doesn’t want to have to think about them too much because they’ll make him sad … ok.
I’m not sure whether I’ve elucidated why Yuna is living in a convent when Braska would obviously have been opposed to it, but the story is basically this: Yuna was removed from his care after her mother died, because Braska wasn’t well enough to look after her on his own. He probably would have been in a position to muster the strength to do so after a while, and it would certainly have helped him overcome his depression if he had had her back, but by that point the Yevonites had realised that keeping her would mean they had some means of making him do what they wanted, and would additionally be able to ensure she was raised with what they considered the correct view of the teachings. From that point, she was used as a bargaining chip: Braska attempted to convince them several times that he was able to look after her, but they always found some way of proving he wasn’t sufficiently mentally stable, and that of course couldn’t be denied because every time they ruled that she couldn’t go back to him, it was a blow to his gradual recovery. Meanwhile, he was unable to do anything particularly anti-Yevon while they had her in their care. When he announced his intention to become a summoner, they couldn’t deny that he seemed to be following the teachings, and so that allowed him to negotiate a bit more contact with Yuna, with the result that she was allowed to stay overnight with him from time to time. Before he embarked on the pilgrimage, he formally entrusted Yuna’s guardianship to the convent where she had been placed. A good chunk of his substantial wealth was signed over to them to pay for her keep for several years; most of the rest was given to them as well, in the hope it ensured they would treat her kindly in spite of who her father was. Even doing this, though, he knew that what happened to her was ultimately Yevon’s prerogative.
The last paragraph is a heavy-handed metaphor for Braska’s treatment of Auron.
