Everything Loos Better

This is a piece of fan-fiction, comprised of 12 chapters, but you need not understand all the intricacies of its fictional world to enjoy. While there are no sexual bits in this chapter, don't fret. There will be.

Frozen Lake, Macalania

It's finally happening,

Auron thought, as the first of many Pyreflies drifted from his body. They wafted without direction into the fog, glints of color peeking through the gloom. Soon, more appeared, shooting an abortive leak, like bubbles blown forcibly from a wand. He didn't fight it. There was nothing left to fight for.

But before that, when he had something to fight for, when the Pyreflies were still locked inside him, there was only the vibrating hum of energy in Auron's head, the tedious drone of machina turned on high. The Pyreflies were anxious now that he was back in Spira. Peeking tentatively with his one good eye, Auron braced for the portal's searing light, near white and intense as a nova, which he was still seeing on the back of his only functional retina.

But there was only the snow, freshly fallen and perfectly smooth.

Shaking the flakes off his shoulder, he shoved to his feet and took a moment to stretch his back, still out of sorts from the portal trip. His black katana was half buried in the snow nearby and the leather ito cord wrapped around the grip was dark from melted snow. He picked it up, brushed the ice off and hefted it onto his shoulder, gazing across the snowy landscape through the sepia filter of his sunglasses to search for the rest of his lost items.

When he spotted a tab of yellow in the snow, he plotted a path and ambled over, new snow creaking under the pressure of his boots. Lying prone in the snow, Raine was camouflaged in her sheath wedding dress, fashioned simply from satins and silks. Only her golden hair stood out against the pale scenery, the frozen dreads fanning over the side of her face to her jaw. Auron stopped by one of her heels sticking out of the snow, a glittery silver pump that had slid off when she was thrown from the portal, and threw down his sword down next to it.

Auron shrugged his arm free of his cloak sleeve, releasing the front buckle on his red cloak, so he could take it off. Underneath, he wore a black leather cuirass with the traditional high-collar of Bevellian monks, but the collar had been unclasped, spread down flat against his shoulders, permitting the cold fingers of winter to curl around his throat. Popping his collar back up, he deftly secured the leather snaps.

Waking, Raine gasped from the cold. On the other side of the portal, the weather had been a breezy 82 degrees, but as she kneeled up, shaking slush off her bluish fingers, her teeth began to chatter. The front of her sleeveless, V-neck wedding dress was wet and clung to her body, leaving almost nothing for the imagination, and Auron handed her his cloak.

She wrestled into it immediately, saying, "At least we weren't separated."

"We have a lot of work to do," he said, squatting down to loosen the laces of his boots.

He couldn't tell if she was nodding or shivering and as she pulled the lavender moon-lily adornment out of her icy hair, Auron caught the glint of her wedding band on her hand. She glanced at the flower vacantly before tossing it into the snow.

"Where do we start?" she asked.

"I need to prepare the Summoner."

Auron hopped out of his boots with only his old socks to protect his feet from the elements and grabbed Raine's outstretched hand to help her to her feet. Crouching, he let her brace herself against his shoulder as he assisted her bare feet into his large boots, and she cinched the laces so they wouldn't slip off.

"Who's the Summoner?"

Auron straightened, sliding his katana out of the snow, adjusting its weight on his shoulder. "You are."

Rin's Travel Agency, Macalania

After an hour's trachle across the snow fields, Auron and Raine arrived at the Travel Agency in Macalania. Ornamented with colorful, arched promotional signs written in Al Behd, the inn was embedded in the foot of an icy crag, with nothing but a narrow, slick road between the main entrance and a dark frozen gorge. In the chasm, the wuthering of wind through the hollows and cavities of uncharted caves was interrupted only by the occasional shatter of brittle ice under his boots on Raine's feet, as she shuffled on the icy road next to him. Fortunately, their silence was an easy one.

The walkway up to the door had been recently shoveled and salted, tiny alkaline pellets cutting into the cold soles of his feet, and Auron halted at the door. Raine lingered behind, tugging his cloak tighter around her as she gazed across the indigo rift. Glaring yellow off the distant mirror of dense frozen lake, the mid-morning sun was brilliant and clear against the pale sky and it seemed to hypnotize her. Gently clearing his throat, Auron broke her focus, but her eyes continued to meander around the landscape until she craned her neck to read the Travel Agency signs, glossing over the writing she didn't understand.

Raine's nose scrunched. "The air smells bad here."

"You'll get used to it," Auron said, although she never would.

Auron didn't know Raine's first day in Spira would also be her last. Turns out, he wasn't the Guardian the legends made him out to be.

A bell jangled above Auron's head as he ushered her inside by the small of her back. Ten years ago, he would have never touched her like that, but lately he did it without thinking, casual slips that generally went by unnoticed. Just inside, Raine stopped short to examine the store front and Auron had to sidle around her to get the door shut. It charmed him the way she timidly soaked in her new surroundings.

At the back of the sphere-shaped apothecary, a horseshoe counter acted as a barrier to the more expensive displays of phoenix downs and ethers and Rin was perched up on a stool, a feather in his hand as he updated his ledger. Tearing his concentration from his work, Rin removed the bifocals balanced on the end of his tan nose to better see his new patrons and his eyes widened slightly.

"Sir Auron," he greeted in a light Al Behd accent, tossing his reading glasses to the open accounting books. Even in his frigid Macalania branch, Rin was dressed for the desert. His midriff jacket was as yellow as his shoulder-length hair and he wore it open to reveal his brown chest and red choker with a dangling round charm. The old sand goggles propped on his forehead were scratched from years of exposure to Bikinel sandstorms. Sliding his attention to Raine, who was clomping warily around the white hide of a polar bear rug, Rin couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to talk or smile, his open mouth contorted, amused.

Auron's socks left sloppy wet prints on the stone tile mosaic floor as he headed for the strip of carpeting leading up to the register. "Room key."

Blinking, Rin shook his head to come to his senses, twisting to the peg board behind him, taking one of the last remaining keys. Auron came forward to collect the key, but Rin took the liberty of coming around the counter.

"When you specified a room with one bed, naturally I assumed you would be alone," Rin said to Auron, extending his hand fondly to Raine with a warm smile. "I don't believe we've met."

Raine's eyes flicked to Auron uncertainly and he offered a single reassuring nod from behind his collar. The only danger Rin posed was overcharging her for a room.

"I'm Raine," she said and her posture straightened, untangling her hand from the long, cumbersome sleeve of Auron's cloak so they could shake.

"Raine. What a pretty name," Rin said softly, and immediately turned her hand to his lips and planted an innocent kiss across her knuckles.

Auron rolled his eye, shifting in his sodden socks. He felt shorter without his boots and he didn't like it.

Raine blushed, but took the reception in stride. "I'm a Summoner."

"Apprentice Summoner," Auron interjected, prudently supervising their meeting. She hadn't attained an aeon yet, but he didn't want to shake her confidence. Just hearing her declare it made him feel light and heavy at the same time.

"Interesting," Rin said, the slightest wrinkle appearing over his eyebrows, a micro-emotion of suspicion. "Here I thought I knew all the Summoners."

"She's new," Auron said.

"How do you know Sir Auron?" Rin asked Raine, and Auron felt like he was being ignored.

Tensing, Auron bored his eye into her, willing her to glance over so she might see his expression of warning. The ache in his head had gotten better during their walk in the fresh air, despite Raine's complaints of the odor, but now it seemed to get marginally worse. The agitated Pyreflies inside him could sense the proximity of the Farplane's back-door in Guadosalam.

But Raine grinned at Rin, one of her superficial, made-for-sphere-cam smiles. "Auron and I are old friends."

Auron relaxed his shoulders infinitesimally. This part of Raine only presented itself when she was on sphere-cam or when she was nervous. It wasn't a side Auron had ever grown to like, but it was posing useful now for thwarting Rin's curiosities.

Rin glanced down at Auron's red cloak covering her white trousseau, and oversized boots dripping on his carpet, an inquisitively amused glint in his eye. "My dear, you are much too young to have 'old friends.'"

"Auron never said his friends were so sweet," she said, her practiced, talking-head charisma bleeding through, but it was only obvious to Auron. He could tell Rin thought their banter was delightful.

Attention shifting, Rin's eyes narrowed in scrutiny as he tilted her hand to better see the wedding band. "Sir Auron. You should have told me. I would have put you in the honeymoon suite."

Turning the same shade as his cloak, Raine balked.

"Not necessary," Auron said. Snatching the key out of Rin's hand, Auron came between the two of them, forcing Rin to drop her hand and take a step back. He gave Raine an upwards nod to the stairs and she seemed relieved to be dismissed as she grabbed the key from his hand.

"You'll have to tell me the story of your meeting," Rin called after her. "I'm sure it's very fascinating."

"Maybe later," Raine sang over her shoulder as she ran up the stairs, gathering the hem of his cloak to avoid tripping.

"Sweet girl," Rin said when she was gone. "Who is she?"

"My things," Auron deflected. "Unless you've put them back up for resale?"

"It was tempting, believe me," Rin said, grinning furtively. He talked as he strode with intent to a curtained doorway leading to an overstock room. "It's been a half year since you were here last."

He was fishing for details, but Auron stayed resolute and let the comment hang from the back room. Over the shuffle of crates and gentle tinkle of ampoules being moved, Rin's voice carried through to the storefront. "I'm curious. How did a Summoner with no experience secure such a high-ranking Guardian?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, Auron wandered over to the curio cabinet to scan the selection of element grenades, his migraine revving when Rin's questions didn't stop.

"Don't tell me you're charging for your services now?"

"Not everyone is motivated by profit," Auron called numbly, remembering a painful argument with Raine, which explored her incentive for marrying her wealthy high-school sweetheart.

Rin returned, holding up a beat-up leather suitcase with tarnished brass hinges and fasteners and plopped it onto the counter in a delicate cloud of dust. "Well you must be motivated by something. Guardians are only as good as their worst Summoners."

Flipping the latches, Auron opened the suitcase. Clothes, mostly, arranged just the way he had packed it.

"Beautiful ring she was wearing."

Auron pretended to be too busy inspecting his items to reply.

"Although," Rin began, his eyes changing course as he peeked over the top of the suitcase, down to Auron's left hand. "I don't see a matching ring. I suspect somewhere there is a husband sorely missing his wife?"

"Somewhere," Auron agreed, slamming shut the suitcase and clicking the latches. "There should be more."

"More? Oh, yes. I think I have it here...." Rin squatted down to the lower cabinet behind him and slid sideways the cubby door, reaching in as far as his shoulder, stretching for something in the back. When he had it, he carried it over to Auron and set it on the counter. After inspecting his stoneware jug for damage, Auron hooked his finger around the pressed handle and slid the suitcase off the counter. Hastening to the stairs, he was not quick enough to avoid another one of Rin's astute observations.

"Peculiar color of hair she has," he said and he sounded condescending under the accent. "It reminds me of a certain fair-haired Blitzballer from your previous pilgrimage."

Auron paused with one foot on the first step, just long enough for a memory to flit across the backside of a blink, and continued to climb the stairs, deaf to Rin's remark, but distracted by the smell of buttered popcorn under heat lamps and the blast of a halftime horn...

C-South High School Blitzball Stadium, Zanarkand

In the deserted stadium hall, loitering between the women's and men's restrooms, Auron faced the wall and pretended to read the bulletin board announcements.

By all accounts, the appeal of the Farplane did not exist in Zanarkand, not for Auron, although he suspected not many from Spira frequented Zanarkand the way he did. Even after two years, he could not say for sure if he was glad to be back, but one thing he did know, Auron wanted Raine to see him.

From the women's room, he heard the hiss of a flushing toilet and a moment later, the door creaked open and there was the high screech of Raine's sneaker as she stopped short behind him.

"Auron?"

He spun around.

She grinned, blue eyes bright with recognition. "I thought I saw you in the bleachers."

Raine was wearing her cheerleading uniform, an electric blue sweater with white lettering and a skirt, umbrella-striped in blue and white. Auron could still remember her as a five-year-old, wearing overalls with dirt packed into the grooves of the corduroy, playing by herself in the sandbox because the lure of the slides was too much for Tidus. Sometimes, when their mother was too busy at the park bench, picking her fingernails or chewing on her split-ends, Raine wandered over to Auron to engage him in a game, whether it was burying his boots in the sand with a plastic shovel or comparing their hand sizes.

"Gosh, I haven't seen you since..." she broke off, somewhat dreamy, trying to remember, and when it clicked she smiled sadly. "Since my mother's funeral. Has it been that long already?"

"I believe so."

Opening her mouth to say something, she faltered uneasily and Auron stiffened, knowing what she was going to say.

"I feel bad about the way things ended that day," she said.

"There's nothing to feel bad about."

She shook her head. "I was being a stupid kid."

"You did nothing wrong. You...surprised me."

"I didn't see you after that. I thought for sure you'd be at Tidus' funeral."

"I wanted to be there," Auron said and meant it.

Instead, Jecht had disposed of Auron on the Old Mi'hen Highway, separating him from Tidus somewhere in the portal, until they were able to assemble later in Luca. Many had died during Sin's attack on the Zanarkand Stadium two years ago and although Tidus' body had never been found, he had been lumped in with the other casualties during the memorial.

"You didn't miss much," she said edgily, folding her arms and watching the toe of her sneaker absently tap the floor. "Empty coffin, inconsolable student body and faculty, about ten times the size of my mother's...Tidus was pretty popular, if you hadn't noticed."

Auron nodded ambiguously.

"By the way," she said, flashing him a sneaky look. "I looked up the word indubitably."

His eye widened, mildly surprised. He'd forgotten all about that. "And?"

"I'll get over it," she said, jutting her chin in mock insult and stifling a smile. " ...Eventually."

Auron chuckled.

As the door at the end of the hall banged open, the white noise from the fan-filled arena amplified and two girls around Raine's age entered the corridor, heads together, griping self-importantly. Slowing as they neared, both girls gawked at Auron and he adjusted his sunglasses further up his nose, tighter to his face.

"Nice eye," said one with haughty arrogance. The other chortled unpleasantly.

Rivaling the color of Auron's cloak, Raine's face turned crimson and she gaped at Auron in sincere apology. For the first time tonight, her eyes flicked to the scar marking his missing right eye.

Five-year-old Raine swum up in front of Auron—

"I have an owie, too. Wanna see?"

—as she lifted the leg of her filthy overalls, to show him a superficial scrape she had gotten from some manner of play, and then proceeded to pick at the scab for a moment to test its healing progress. Fondly, he remembered how much trouble she had pronouncing his name then.

"How did you get yow owie, Owen?"

"Sometimes I hate this school," Raine muttered when the girls disappeared into the bathroom, idly flipping her wavy blonde hair over her shoulder. It moved silkily through her hand and Auron recalled her mother used to fix her hair with a crooked, haphazard ponytail before they left the house, because she had forgotten to give the children baths.

"I'm used to it," Auron dismissed.

A horn blasted from the main arena and Raine's attention was drawn to the door as the crowd roared at the results of the halftime score. "I should get back. We're doing a show."

Auron gave a single curt nod, a farewell.

She started to leave, glanced over her shoulder expectantly. "Walk me?"

He wavered.

Ruefully biting her bottom lip, she pointed to the arena with her thumb. "Everybody's waiting."

Auron gave in and followed as she sauntered to the dome.

"Your current guardians treat you well?" he asked. Raine had been placed with her mother's aunt and uncle after her mother died.

Raine shrugged one shoulder. "They're ok."

"Do you feel safe?"

"Safe from what? Uncomfortable silences? If that's the case, then no, I'm definitely not safe. They've never had kids before and they don't really know what to say to me."

"Hmm," he said, peeking through the side of his glasses at her.

He knew what it meant to be a Guardian to children he knew nothing about. Tidus was 7 when Auron first came to watch over him, to guide him the way Jecht intended, and Raine was not quite 6 then. Jecht didn't speak of his daughter much during their pilgrimage with Summoner Braska and he routinely dwelled on how big a "crybaby" Tidus was and how Tidus needed someone to hold his hand. Auron had nearly forgotten Jecht's second child until he saw Tidus and Raine building sand houses together in the park's play-box. Jecht's testimonies about his son's emotions might have been slightly exaggerated, but it was true Tidus cried more as a child than Raine. Raine was generally a self-soother, whereas Tidus sought others in a crisis and Auron often questioned if Jecht had always been privy to this about his children.

Back then, Auron concentrated most of his attentions on Tidus, teaching and guiding him, but he was utterly baffled at his role now. Raine was nearly grown and relatively well-adjusted. Surely there was nothing left to teach her, at least nothing she'd want to learn from a grizzled man like him. He barely knew how to talk to her himself, even though he had detected a twinge of cynicism from Raine at her mother's funeral, just enough to make her bubbly personality interesting. But that was a long way off from common middle ground.