Dear Ones (chapter 24 of 49, 7034 words)
Braska and his guardians leave Besaid as the weather gets even hotter. On board ship, a storm confines Auron and Braska to their cabin, while Jecht makes himself useful.
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Finally, as Auron will put it, we’re getting off that forsaken island!
There are a few indications that Braska is in an almost worryingly good mental state in this chapter, the first being his unusual attention to both his guardians right at the start.
Braska is just acting like any totally heterosexual man would around his best friend at this point … right? Straight men kiss their sleeping male friends on the cheek all the time, don’t they?
“May Yevon be with you on the onward journey,” he intoned reverently, dropping into a neat bow as Auron passed over the gil.
“Yeah, thanks,” Auron muttered.
I suppose this is quite sad really because it shows how Auron is losing his faith and nobody has bothered to notice, but I also find his reaction very funny.
I’m not entirely sure but I think I may have got the “all the villagers silently and eerily follow Braska at a distance” thing from Black Mirror, specifically the episode from series 2, White Bear? It’s not quite the same though … I also wondered if I’d based it on The Wicker Man, but I think there’s a lot more dancing in that. Anyway, those are about my only two popular-ish culture references apart from Final Fantasy games themselves, so I don’t know where else it could be from.
I’m almost surprised Braska isn’t knocked over by the force of Jecht giving him a laddish slap on the back, actually.
“We have little to be cheerful about here,”
aka, Braska, you might like to think twice about having Yuna grow up here … oh, never mind.
Auron’s garland is another “he’s having a bad time but you have to laugh” moment, although I’d like to point out that he probably would have acted just like the reluctant small boy when he was that age.
I think the islanders are genuinely sad and sombre to see Braska go, knowing that whatever the outcome of the pilgrimage, he most probably doesn’t have long to live; but at least some of their demeanour would be a result of needing to follow the teachings and be serious in the presence of summoners. Once the ship actually starts departing, they can be themselves a bit more.
Auron obviously tugs the garland away from himself as soon as possible; I don’t say when the other two remove theirs, but it’s probably not until they get changed for bed.
He really has managed to make himself react better to the water, though, at least! For now, anyway.
I’m really into the image of Braska getting his robe damp for various reasons in this chapter, apparently.
The scene where Braska is unnerved by having to talk to Jecht while the latter is in the company of two smirking strangers is somewhat based on an encounter I had at work a couple of years ago, although I was actually the Jecht in this situation and the smirking strangers were my friends, oddly enough. Not being on the social back foot for once is probably what made this memorable.
I know from the “more fish than man” line that I originally wrote this chapter in around June 2023, because very soon after writing it I was playing the FF16 demo/prologue and there was a very similar line in that. Not long afterwards my production on this fic slowed because I found that I suddenly had to write a lot about Dion, but after a few months I must have increased the speed considerably because we’re only halfway through the fic here and I know I finished the first full draft in May 2024.
“and if you can’t bring yourself to take her in person, I hope you’ll at least do me the courtesy of asking someone else to do it.”
Braska … you have no idea …
In the AU where Braska survives and takes Yuna to live on Besaid with him, Auron has a very difficult decision to make.
Braska obviously could have given up on Bevelle and moved somewhere where people were slightly less intent on persecuting him any time he wanted, until Yuna was removed from his care – after that he was pretty much confined there, because if he’d moved away, he’d have been able to see her even less.
Auron is having a (still very rare at this stage) low self-esteem moment.
Jecht can read the usual Spiran script as it’s the same as what he’s used to at home, but the map is written in the Yevon alphabet, I guess? The real in-game map is, so that seems to make sense.
Now that he’s heard about the story once, he seems to be hearing it all the time … maybe it’s better known here than in the more northern parts of Spira. These sailors are probably from Kilika, given that they don’t act in a particularly sophisticated way (I said, letting my inner Auron out for a moment).
It took me a while to come up with a name for “bonemint” that wasn’t something that actually exists. I was genuinely using “spearmint” for a while before I realised that’s a real thing.
The “Jecht gave Tidus bonemint tablets/Braska gave Yuna bonemint leaves” is maybe a bit contrived, but I enjoyed including it.
Jecht’s ability to stay on his feet while everyone else is busy being seasick is obviously because he is, as Braska says, more fish than man, but it’s also inspired by an experience I had on a ferry once, about a decade ago: I was quite happily sitting at a table writing my blog or whatever, wondering why there was nobody else around, until I got up to go to the loo and realised the crossing was actually quite rough but I hadn’t even noticed. At that time I was pretty much living between the two coasts of the English Channel, so I was travelling by ferry quite a lot, which had clearly given me the tolerance I needed while everyone else was hiding away in their cabins.
Jecht is obviously getting a lot more sympathetic towards everyone around him, but he does want them to appreciate him in turn. He understands that Braska and Auron aren’t feeling well … and aren’t always in a great place generally … but he wouldn’t mind being thanked once in a while. He is, obviously, very insecure about his legacy and his contribution to the general state of the world, which will be a factor in his decision once the lads reach Zanarkand.