Moving On (chapter 37 of 49, 10258 words)
More interference with the pilgrimage results in a diversion and an encounter with someone from Auron's past. As things become more difficult for Auron, he at last turns to Jecht for help.
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I apologise to the inhabitants of Macalania Woods for calling them "strange".
Jecht has been gradually taking over Auron's duty of being the responsible one as Auron finds it increasingly difficult to cope; the fact that Auron forgot to check the paper but Jecht did it instead is an example.
Also, Auron starting to have the big anxiety time when he's not even water is clearly not a good sign!
In the game it seems like you have to go via the woods to get from Bevelle to the Calm Lands, seeing as everyone regroups there after the "I won't leave Kimahri behind" battle, but it was "just outside Bevelle" where Auron ended up after coming down Mount Gagazet, which suggests to me that Bevelle and the Calm Lands are connected. Yuna also says that during the celebrations for Braska's Calm, she "stood on the bridge in Bevelle where my father and I had parted". I don't think this is the Highbridge, because I think its name is known well enough that calling it just "the bridge" would be strange (although arguably, having lived on Besaid for ten years, Yuna isn't aware of the official names of Bevelle landmarks). Most of the Highbridge also seems to be outside the city, while we see the shorter portion of it inside the city walls in the "What are you taking?" sphere. Yuna isn't in that sphere and was presumably left behind some time ago, given that nobody's talking about here and there's no obvious side exit through which she could have left them. So that's why back in chapter 1 (yikes!) I had Braska and Yuna take their leave on a different bridge that led to the Highbridge, rather than on the Highbridge itself. The fact that Yuna appears to be standing on this other bridge also lends weight to the theory that the Calm Lands are directly connected to Bevelle, as I don't think they'd be that easy to see from inside the city otherwise. Unless, of course, "the fields where he had fought Sin" aren't actually the Calm Lands but some other fields nearer Bevelle … Maechen says in the Calm Lands that "long ago, the High Summoners fought Sin here," which perhaps suggests that more recent defeats of Sin have taken place somewhere else. But I don't think it would be sufficiently epic to have Braska fight Sin in some random field, tbh – and Auron's journey down Mount Gagazet and across the Calm Lands remains evidence that it's possible to get straight from there to Bevelle, I think (while also perhaps explaining why I've placed a Rin's travel agency there, but more on that in the notes on a later chapter if I remember).
From the shoopuf crossing in FFX:
Tidus: Whoa, a sunken city!
Wakka: A machina city, a thousand years old. They built this city on top of bridges across the river.
Lulu: But the weight of the city caused the bridges to collapse, and it all sank to the bottom.
Wakka: Right! It's a good lesson.
Tidus: A lesson?
Wakka: Yeah. Why build a city over a river, ya?
Tidus: Well, it would be convenient, with all that water there.
Wakka: Nope, that's not why. They just wanted to prove they could defy the laws of nature.
And then later on, Lulu casually remarks that "the city of Bevelle is built on the water." So it's standard Yevonite hypocrisy yet again!
There's some stuff in the sequel novella about how the Al Bhed don't actually know how to invent new things but just have to rely on the instructions left behind by their predecessors. I'm not sure this really fits with previous instalments of canon (such as Shinra and Rin inventing the CommSpheres), but it inspired Braska's line that "the knowledge of how [Bevelle] was constructed is long lost, even to the Al Bhed".
Is Jecht's Zanarkand the equivalent of our 2001? If so, he's being wildly anachronistic talking about parkour.
I like the fact that Spiran magic and potions can heal most injuries instantly, because it means I can get the lads moderately whumped from time to time and then not have any lasting consequences to worry about (er, until someone, as it were, loses an eye???). But then sometimes you want a character who's been bashed about a bit and has something to show for it, right? Thanks for not "wasting" potions, Radu.
I don't think addressing someone as "Lord" is in itself proof that they're a summoner, but I suppose it's the combination of that and the staff that tips Radu off. In fact, the Crusader earlier referred to Kinoc as "Lord" as well, and he's certainly not one. I guess he's just posh and in a position of moderate authority, so the intersection of those two things means he gets the title as well.
Braska surely has trouble remembering anyone's name, unless that name happens to be "Auron".
Radu is obviously cagey about being gay to start with, but once he realises Jecht doesn't seem to mind it, he starts being a lot more open. He probably hasn't had many chances to vent about how his relationship with Auron ended.
Compared with Auron (in normal circumstances), I think most people would have "trouble being rational".
Auron's ability to "treat people better these days" is probably a result of having had to be very patient with Braska for the last three years.
His admission that he's "not going to be maester" is interesting (even if I do say so myself etc. etc.), because it suggests that he no longer has quite as high an opinion of himself as he once did, even though he still firmly believes that he's going to find a way to save Braska and bring the Calm and then everyone in Bevelle will respect him again.
Rin would be quite young at this point, I think! He's probably around Auron's age, so a wee baby at this stage, really.
The thought of Rin telling his staff that Braska and his guardians might be passing by, and all of them being like "oh it's such a shame that all these Yevonites insist on becoming summoners and sacrificing themselves" … yikes!
While Yevon overtly disapproves of homosexuality, Auron does seem to have known a few people who were keen to help him out: someone told him about the brothel in Luca, someone else seems to have suggested that those living in Bevelle's foundations might be more tolerant. But after his recent experiences it's probably not surprising that he assumes nobody in Bevelle is on his side.
Auron's done a lot of talking to himself in this chapter! I don't think I show him doing it much elsewhere, but I can see it as the kind of thing he'd do.
My silly headcanon about Jecht walking into the wrong room is that he had decided to practise his Al Bhed with the clerk and then misunderstood the room number she gave him.
Surely Yevonite men are circumcised while those from Jecht's Zanarkand aren't.
Jecht's "You're tense, man" is pretty similar to Tidus' "You're stiff, man" to Wakka in the Aurochs' locker room at the stadium … that scene could have gone differently, huh.
Because Auron is normally so put together and (particularly later in his existence) stoic, he has to be noisy during sex. That's the rule, right?