“Don’t forget to make a wish,” he had said to Tidus once as a gull flew past, thinking that perhaps one was supposed to pretend to children that such absurd superstitions were meaningful; and the boy had looked up at him with utter scepticism, and said, “You wish on stars. Not birds.”

Now, after several years in Zanarkand, during which Tidus had needed less and less support from his strange new caretaker, Auron often found himself looking into the sky at night, and remembering that brief exchange. So many stars, and so many wishes; and yet the city that never slept seemed to be intent on extinguishing both, pumping its bright lights into the heavens and ensuring it made its mark forever.