The Right Thing To Do (chapter 42 of 49, 10290 words)
Heading into the Gagazet caves, Jecht has an experience that alters his attitude towards the pilgrimage. Braska finds his bond with the aeons put to the test, and afterwards, Auron comes to a realisation.
Read here on praze.net or here on archiveofourown.org, or read the whole fic so far as a PDF or an EPUB.
I wanted to make Braska's reaction to the Gagazet fayth very similar to Yuna's: she says, "A summoning! Someone is using these fayth! Someone is drawing energy from all of them!"
I don't know if the blue substance emanating from the fayth really is their magic, but it seemed to make sense.
It's just occurred to me that Tidus' whole "this is my story" thing – inspired by Auron, who at this point in the narrative is being depicted as very uninterested in "stories" – is much more agentive than Jecht's attitude. In Jecht's view, the story has already been written and he has to play his part in it, while in Tidus', he's taking charge and writing the story himself.
From chapter 10:
"It ain't like there's nothin' else to worry about," Jecht said.
"What," Auron sneered, "like who's going to win the blitzball league?"
I like the idea that Jecht's Zanarkand might really feel like a dream but he doesn't realise until he's been away from it for a while – like how when we're dreaming, we can't usually tell that what's happening isn't real. Obviously this is going to make Auron have an even worse time for the next ten years, heh heh heh.
I enjoyed using the words "marina" and "cops" in this section, both of which would be very jarring in Spira. I was at my local officially designated marina a couple of weeks ago and thought, yes, this is exactly where Jecht would live.
The "Jecht is a dream" plot twist is so ludicrous that I'm glad it comes from canon. I had no hand in this.
I'm always surprised by how relatively unbothered Tidus seems when he finds out Zanarkand isn't real; I thought Jecht should be more upset by it.
In the game, Ifrit's fayth tells Tidus, "Your father touched Sin and became real that night."
I deliberately don't say which of the options Jecht thinks he's going to choose before Braska and Auron's intervention, and I deliberately haven't decided!
The fayth didn't need much convincing to send Jecht back, haha. If he'd told them he wanted to stay in Zanarkand, they would have asked him several times if he was sure, I guess. Also "non-binary Bahamut" is a headcanon that I enjoy putting into practice.
Auron was worried about Jecht, but a. he wouldn't admit it and b. Jecht's self esteem is now at its lowest point after finding out he kind of doesn't really exist, so obviously he's going to interpret what Auron says as meaning he was only worried about Braska. And Braska does care about Jecht too, as we see from the fact that he embraces him, but Jecht isn't a fan of that kind of thing so he doesn't take a moment to think oh, maybe Braska does have some respect for me.
I have no idea what specific evidence Braska is thinking of when he says his guardians have "become close", but it's probably not the fact that they've been having sex when he's not around.
"I think he's already starting to worry about it."
Understatement of the century. And yes, having Jecht there would be helpful for Auron and would probably mean he wouldn't end up doing that particular ill-advised thing he does, but of course Jecht would be no substitute for Braska.
Braska squeezed his hand more tightly
Looks can be deceiving once again …
This is really the worst time for Braska to be insisting to Jecht that he'll manage to get back to Zanarkand, but of course Braska has great timing.
I guess the Gagazet trials are designed to strengthen the summoner and guardian's bonds by making them swim through the pools together or something, but when the summoner doesn't know how to swim it seems a bit pointless, haha. I'm sure Yuna can swim after growing up on Besaid, but she doesn't go in either … I suppose that's because she has so many guardians (and so many of her guardians are unusually good swimmers).
Yes, the narrative reason why the Al Bhed gave Jecht a blitzball is so he had something to hit this mysterious orb with fourteen chapters later.
I had a go at defeating Sanctuary Keeper with just Yuna's aeons as research for this chapter and it's definitely not possible under normal conditions, so Braska's insistence that the fiend is meant as a test of his summoning doesn't really line up with the game, but never mind!
He let himself forget about his guardians,
… not for the first time … amirite …
He kept an arm around Jecht's shoulders as they began to walk on, permitting himself a small smile; it even felt as if his headache was easing.
He's not imagining it: the aeons are pleased to see him being close to Jecht, so they're letting him feel a bit better as a treat.
In the game, Auron says that at this point, "The closer I came to Zanarkand, the more I wondered. When we arrive, Braska will call the Final Aeon. He will fight Sin, then die. I thought my mind was made up long before, but when I stood here my resolve wavered." The normie interpretation of this is probably that he had thought he would accept Braska's sacrifice, and it was his resolve to see the Final Summoning through that wavered at this point. But that doesn't match up with the fact that he's also told Tidus that earlier on the journey, when they passed through the Ronso settlement, "all I could think of was how I might keep Braska alive". So he already wanted to find a way of saving Braska, and so I've interpreted it as it being his resolve to save him that wavers – this is the first point at which he realises that if they simply keep going, he's not going to be able to find something in time.
In an odd twist of fate, Braska is now the most mentally stable one.
In one of many missable scenes in FFX-2 Yuna and the girlies go to this particular plateau on the north side of Mount Gagazet and meet Maechen, who shows them his memory of meeting Braska and his guardians there.
Jecht's slightly incoherent outburst about how there's no point planning ahead is as close as he's going to get to telling the others about his recent discovery.
The scene where Auron finally cries for the first time was actually the first scene I wrote of this whole fic, back in the spring of 2021! It's gone through a few versions since then, including at least one complete rewrite. At the time I was continually plagued with ideas for short fics about Auron and this was going to be one of them; but as I was writing it, I found myself thinking about what else might have happened earlier on Braska's pilgrimage, and wanting to explore how Auron and Jecht's relationship had evolved over the course of the journey in such a way that led the two of them to this particular interaction, and then whoops, this thing was the result.
Anyway, Braska is a natural crier and he's done a lot of it. Jecht (like his son) is also a natural crier, although he tries to hide it because of Zanarkand's culture of toxic masculinity; but obviously things do get pretty bad for him a few times on the journey, so we see him crying a few times. Auron is the kind of person who usually doesn't cry naturally, so this is a big deal – in a way, the summit of his emotional journey, happening in an appropriate place (and also of course the setting of the iconic FFX opening scene).
The slightly grammatically odd "If he dies, I wouldn't know what to do" is a callback (callforward?) to when Auron says the same about Tidus' mother in one of Tidus' memories. I think as a recently traumatised and deceased man he probably doesn't actually care that much about Tidus' mother; the idea that she might be about to die is just a reminder for him that this has already happened to so many people he once knew.