Oblivious (chapter 25 of 49, 7107 words)
The three travellers return to Kilika, where Braska is enlisted to perform a sending. Afterwards, the journey continues to Luca; Jecht wonders if there have been developments in Auron and Braska’s relationship.
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With the posting of this chapter we’re now over halfway through the fic, yikes!
I suppose Giarla is of the Spiran equivalent of vaguely Italian ethnicity, like Barthello …?
I wanted to have Braska do a sending on Kilika as a sort of parallel with Yuna, but it’s at a very different stage of his pilgrimage, and obviously very different in scale. She’s a much better summoner than he is, though; I think he’d have struggled to do a mass sending like she does.
In this chapter there is obviously a kind of … uncomfortable juxtaposition of sad and serious stuff (Braska’s suicidality, the sending, Auron’s gradually increasing desperation regarding saving Braska) and slightly awkward/cringey humour (Braska’s failure to know how much a breakfast costs, the girl trying to flirt with Auron [again] and Jecht’s just as unsuccessful attempts to make her interested in him instead) – I think this kind of thing is a feature of my writing, although on the other hand, it’s just life really, isn’t it? And I think FFX itself is very centred around similar mismatches, in the contrasts between the lovely vibrant landscape and the fact that Sin is coming to kill us all, everyone’s sorrow versus Tidus’ boyish optimism and naivety … maybe that’s why I was so drawn to it, although actually it was probably just Auron tbh.
I decided that maybe specific summoners have an element they naturally favour, which is why Yuna makes such significant use of the water for her own Kilika sending, but on the other hand she also does various sendings that don’t use any element at all, sooo … either way, Braska’s element would be fire if we were to go by his depiction in various FF mobile games. Maybe, again, Yuna is so good at all summoner-related tasks that she can send people even without calling a particular one of the elements, why not.
I sort of wanted to have Jecht say “gives me the ick” but I don’t think I could justify even someone from Zanarkand using ye olde modern slang.
Auron doesn’t really register the implications of Jecht saying Braska “has depression” – the idea of “having” depression in a clinical sense doesn’t exist in Spira (even though I’m sure a lot of people are mentally fucked up by the constant threat of Sin). He knows Braska isn’t well, but he doesn’t really see it as a specific condition.
Another difference between Braska and Yuna is of course the fact that she always seems quite positive on the surface; she tells Tidus that summoners are supposed to be Spira’s “ray of light”. I’m not sure this necessarily means they all have to go around being cheerful all the time – Isaaru is, um, polite, while Dona is definitely not the world’s sunniest person. I suppose it fits well with Yuna’s personality to interpret the idea of helping everyone in that way, while for Braska it’s more a case of showing concern for people’s wellbeing when he has the capacity to do so.
Talking of Braska’s concern for others … he of course forgets once again that Auron probably doesn’t want to get closer to the sea.
Braska was “the troublemaker” as a young priest simply for daring to ask questions about doctrine once or twice, and probably more from a “why do it be like it do” perspective than for any malicious reason. I liked putting in this phrase because it’s then echoed by Auron’s reference to himself as “the troublemaker” in the game – I don’t think he’d see himself that way at this stage in his life.
Rin tells us that Braska “would occasionally visit the Home of those days”, which suggests that he made multiple brief visits rather than one long one. But if he was there enough to meet Girl and fall in love with her, that suggests there would have been quite a few of these visits, I think – so perhaps they kept turning him away and the Yevonites kept sending him back.
Again, we get an indication here that people (ahem) do occasionally survive the Via Purifico, but the maesters say otherwise so as not to reveal that Yevon’s judgement is fallible.
Auron says Braska isn’t interested in men, but really the only evidence we have is that he is interested in women, which isn’t exactly proof …
There are a few sex scenes that actually involve two people coming up later, but I think I actually prefer writing about stressed, sad men masturbating, ha!