Hope (chapter 4 of 49, 7845 words)
Braska and his guardians travel to Macalania Temple to petition the fayth for her aeon.
Read here on praze.net or here on archiveofourown.org, or read the whole fic so far as a PDF or an EPUB.
This and chapter 5 were originally a single chapter, but it was about fourteen thousand words long so this ended up being one of the cases where I split a day’s events over two chapters. There turned out to be a lot to say about Braska’s first aeon-obtaining experience! On the other hand, looking back at this chapter, most of it seems to be about him trying not to cry, and I have no idea how I took up so many words on that. If I’d ever done any substantial cuts to the draft, this section probably would have been a prime candidate, but I ended up deciding to take advantage of the format and not bother with slimming anything down.
The “new regulations for conduct at temporary military encampments” are in fact a result of the actions of Auron himself.
Jecht once again asks someone to do him a favour; I remember writing this disgusting scene where he smears butter all over himself fairly early on. He’s probably just doing it to annoy Auron, although most things he does would succeed in achieving that at this point.
In the game, Braska sometimes refers specifically to himself rather than using “we”: Auron says “let us turn back”, but Braska replies, “if I turn back, who will defeat Sin?” In some ways he’s quite a selfish person, although Auron and Jecht definitely are too. But I wanted to reflect that same language here: Auron says “we’ll go to the temple when you’re feeling better”, but Braska replies “if I don’t go today …”
Auron says “I’ll do anything you need” because the idea that anyone could ever need something he’s not capable of providing is unthinkable to him.
I did a last-minute cut of some of the material in the Al Bhed vests section as I realised I’d written that the man gave the vests to Braska when Braska was already holding them. Unfortunately this also resulted in cutting the first proper use of Al Bhed in the story: not a single word in italics like pyhhan or dransymc, but a full sentence where I get to show off some fancy formatting to render the translation. The next full Al Bhed sentence doesn’t actually come up until chapter 18, but there are quite a few of them after that.
Auron prefers colder climates; unfortunately for him, one of the later temples will be in a hot place …
Here’s my view on Bevelle and machina: I think people in Bevelle have quite a different life from those elsewhere in Spira, and I think part of that life involves making quite heavy use of machina that would be seen as heretical in other regions. Maybe what we see in the Cloister of Trials there is more extreme than what they have in most of the city, but considering that a lot of the summoners who start their pilgrimages in Bevelle will see it, they’re not doing a very good job of hiding it away. Other than that, there’s no particular evidence in the game that supports this idea, but I guess I just like the idea that the evil lads of Bevelle are forcing people in other regions to live a difficult existence without the aid of technology while they secretly take advantage of it. This extends to their relations with the Al Bhed: while everyone was probably very performatively outraged by Braska’s marriage, I think they actually do business with the Al Bhed all the time (while almost certainly saying horribly racist things about them a few minutes later). I guess the general attitude is “machina are bad, but we nobly have to make the huge sacrifice of using them anyway. Just don’t tell the ordinary people out there, because they’re simple folk who won’t understand the complex theology that permits this.”
It seemed Braska had permitted him to come on the pilgrimage with them out of the goodness of his heart
Auron is still convinced that Jecht can’t be from Zanarkand, and knows that Braska is usually much more patient and trusting than he is, but still thinks Braska must have secretly believed this too as soon as they started getting to know Jecht a bit more. The only logical conclusion, as far as he’s concerned, is that Braska is too nice to tell Jecht to leave them in peace despite realising he’s of no particular use to them. Admittedly, this is probably at least partly true! Braska certainly does still believe that Jecht’s from Zanarkand, but he’s probably realised that Jecht’s presence on the pilgrimage won’t be more useful than that of any other unusually competent amateur swordsman. Nonetheless, he doesn’t want Auron to have to do everything on his own, even though Auron is sure he’d have been able to.
Auron’s ponytail flapped around in every direction, becoming horribly tangled within seconds.
Admittedly, we don’t see this in the sphere recording … I blame this on the limitations of the PS2.
Every fic featuring Auron and Jecht over a certain length has to contain a line where Jecht refers to the stick in Auron’s ass. It’s a rule.
I was trying to work out why Jecht would want a sphere of him and Auron when they’re so ill-disposed towards each other at this point; Jecht is clearly the one who wanted the sphere taken (hence his “you should take one too” to Braska), but I would have thought he’d want Auron to make the recording instead of being onscreen. At some point I realised the context in this chapter would provide a good excuse for Braska not to want to appear on the recording himself, as well as for him to decide giving in to Jecht is the best course of action here.
At this point, when Auron says “Braska” without putting “Lord” before it, it’s usually a sign that he’s a bit stressed and not able to pay attention to the need to be polite! Later on in the story, when he’s a bit friendlier towards Jecht, he starts dropping the “Lord” more often by choice, although he still uses it with people he doesn’t know well.
I tend to be quite sparing with naming fiends, because I’m always uncertain about a. whether people in-universe actually know their names, and b. whether the first letter of their names should be capitalised – my instinctive answer to the latter question seems to depend on the fiend and the situation in which the fiend is being described, which just makes things very inconsistent. I’m sorry but it just seems wrong to be writing Flans all the time. Anyway, this particular type of fiend is a good device for any time I need something with high physical defence, so expect to see them wheeled out again later, lol.
Jecht has no idea how to talk about magic so he says things like “you wouldn’t have to white magic us”. There is probably an accepted vocabulary and syntax for talking about these things if you’ve known about them your whole life.
Auron gets to the lake, and has a bit of a freakout! Unfortunately for him, it won’t be the last time. Even more unfortunately for him, it may not be so easy to get over it in the future.
I didn’t think it would work to have save spheres that can literally heal and teleport people in-universe, although we do see O’aka using one that way in the game. I definitely got the idea for them being for recording summoners’ progress from somewhere else; I think it might have been a YouTube video (back when I used to watch those …).
“Yeah?” said Jecht without much interest.
“Yes,” Braska said.
I don’t think Jecht ever says “yes”, and I don’t think Braska ever says “yeah”, while Auron uses a mix of both (like a normal person). This is a group dynamic that I came up with many years ago: The Yes Person, The Yeah Person, And The Yes/Yeah Person.
Jecht already thinks defeating Sin is pointless, and he doesn’t even know the extent of what it entails! He just thinks it’s a waste of time because it takes a long time to walk all over Spira. It was worth the exchange, Braska thinks dramatically, but Jecht is just completely unaware of the significance of this.
I’ve made the decision to be hugely pretentious and write æon with a ligature for this fic only. If Philip Pullman can do it, I can, maybe? I just think it looks nice in the PDF version.
I assume the real reason for the existence of various Cloisters of Trials is to get the summoner and guardians to work together so they love each other more. Presumably, that’s what the pilgrimage is really about.
Jecht demonstrates his ability to pick things up quickly yet again. Auron is determined to get through the Cloister of Trials using Logic, but sadly he lacks Jecht’s intuition. At least his moment of prayer has made him a bit more relaxed, so he’s somewhat more capable of talking to Jecht in a civil manner for the time being.