Without preamble, Auron's left eye popped open and he rolled it around his socket to examine a starless night sky. He was unharmed, but remained lying on his back, gathering details with his other senses and coming up with very little. The ground shifted grittily underneath him. Sand. There was no sound of the ocean though, only faint music, hard and heavy with a fast beat. Besaid Island? Bikanel Desert? Kilika Beach? Hide and seek, Sin's favorite game, Auron thought. He didn't know if he had enough sanity left to survive another three months of that, but he would have to try because this time Sin had involved Raine.
Sitting upright, Auron shook the beach out of his hair, spit it out through his lips and scrubbed it off his face. A slight brow raise was his only reaction when he realized he wasn't in Bikanel Desert or Kilika Beach. He wasn't even sure if he was in Spira.
He was in Zanarkand, facing the marina.
Apparently lacking lunar influence to bring in the tide, the ocean was suspiciously and unbelievably still, the bay a graveyard of abandoned houseboats and sailing vessels. Behind him, a dry, haunted fog muddied the bright lights of Central Zanarkand. Auron had considered the marina his home, where he felt comfortable retiring to after a long day. But this didn't feel like home. It felt hollow and dead.
There was still one houseboat with power. Raine's. It was lit up like a landing strip, every light on inside, and the windows vibrated from the music. Glancing around the ground, Auron didn't expect to find his katana, but thought he should at least look for it. Something was waiting for him and as much as he wanted to believe it was Raine, singing with a broom as a dance partner, this wasn't the peppy pop music she usually tuned into. If anything, the music was more like....
Impossible.
He boarded the docks empty-handed and followed the familiar path he'd taken a thousand times, the knot of trepidation he felt walking through the boneyard of ghost ships was heightened now that he was unarmed. Climbing the ramp, Auron noticed the front door was open a crack. This was the right houseboat, but there was something off about it. The welcome mat was missing and the sun-bleached deck boards were shabby and faded again. It occurred to Auron it may not be Raine's houseboat, but still Jecht's.
Guarded, Auron pushed on the door. Inside, the music was deafening and his view into the sunken parlor was obstructed by a hedge of cardboard moving boxes.
"Raine?" he called, but the music masked his voice.
After closing the door, he approached the boxes and peered over them. The houseboat was definitely different, returned to its original state, before the sea water damaged the stucco walls and shag carpeting. The old ceiling fan whipped around on high. Mountains of unlabeled moving boxes blocked the windows. Auron descended the stairs and waded through clothes strewn on the floor, kneeling by the stereo in its usual spot on the shelf, below Jecht's trophies, which were dusty, but not broken. Grimly assessing the stereo's knobs and dials, Auron picked the largest button and pushed it. Except for the ringing in his ears, the following silence was flawless.
A sixth sense alerted Auron he wasn't alone in the room. Behind him, Tidus was holding a box of more trophies, rooted in place, looking as alarmed as Auron felt. The trophies jangled together as Tidus dropped the box at his feet and marched across the room.
Quickly standing to brace for the attack, Auron inadvertently knocked over a pile of disk cassettes and they clattered to the floor. After marrying Tidus' sister without permission, Auron knew he earned the assault and he knew Tidus was justified in doing it, but what happened instead made Auron wish it had been as simple as a fight.
Tidus slung his arms around Auron and he had to elevate his chin to avoid colliding with the boy's forehead. Auron's elbows were pinned to his sides as Tidus fiercely squeezed, beating Auron's shoulder blades with his palms in an affectionately masculine embrace. Auron tried to retreat but Tidus hung on and Auron decided the fastest way to end it was to hug back. He felt oddly paternal with his arms around Tidus and after a moment, rested his chin on top of the boy's yellow mop of hair. Tidus sniffed against Auron's collar and the former warrior-monk's face hardened to hold back stinging tears.
That final day in Zanarkand Ruins, before Tidus disappeared with Yunalesca down those paradoxical stairs to nowhere, Auron and Tidus had parted with a sturdy handshake and a nod, after an awkward almost-hug Tidus started to initiate. Auron regretted their weak goodbye. Their amount of time together in the Zanarkand dream rivaled that of any father and son and Tidus deserved better.
Auron
deserved better.
Stepping back, Tidus efficiently rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and smiled broadly, delivering a cheerful clap to Auron's shoulder. "Welcome to the family, old man."
Auron's face slacked in disbelief, but Tidus only laughed.
"Having a younger wife must suit you. You look good!"
"As do you," Auron said, eying Tidus' seventeen year old physique. The boy was wearing a pale peach tunic, loose linen pants and plastic sandals. It was strange to see him out of his Blitzball uniform, but he seemed relaxed, like he was on leave. Auron supposed in a way he was.
"Come sit." Tidus eagerly waved Auron into the circular parlor, scooping a heap of laundry off the couch and adding it to another pile at one end to clear off space.
Auron came in gradually, reluctantly.
"Want something to drink?" Tidus walked backwards into the galley, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the refrigerator.
"No. Thanks."
Sinking into the couch, the same one he and Raine had chased a litter of geckos out of once upon a time, Auron noted it was almost new. The houseboat was in the condition it was when Tidus lived there, before Raine had finished renovating it, before it was gutted, before the flood Jecht caused as Sin.
"Moving in?" Auron asked, eye drifting to the boxes that nearly touched the ceiling. Some were dangerously close to the ceiling fan blades. He wondered what was in all of them. Tidus didn't have much for belongings and he knew for a fact Tidus had only brought a backpack of clothes and a regulation-sized Blitzball with him to the real houseboat.
Real houseboat. Auron shook his head to himself. Did he actually just refer to Dream Zanarkand as real?
Tidus opened the refrigerator. "Moving out, actually. This is the last of it."
Last of it? Sweet Yevon, how much had been there before?
Auron leaned sideways to peer into one of the open moving boxes sitting next to him on the couch. As if hastily tossed inside, there was an old armguard, some faded Blitzball magazines and a pile of yellowed family photos. A wad of thick, fibrous construction paper was carelessly folded and wedged against the side of the box. Auron flattened them on the side of his leg and turned them over to look. Children's drawings. Rainbows, trees, suns—and Raine's name autographed at the bottom of each, scrawled in random colors in handwriting advanced for her age. They had probably all been shown to Auron at one time or another and he most likely paged through the amateur artwork with hurried disinterest, but now he considered each one with fresh sentiment. Especially the last one.
It was a family portrait of stick figures. Jecht was first, separated from the rest of his family by a squiggly brown line and surrounded by clouds of every color. The Farplane, when Raine still believed in it. On the right side of the Farplane's barrier, Raine's mother was next with scribbles of brown hair, Tidus and Raine followed with shocks of buttery hair. Last was Auron. His figure of sticks was drawn in brick red, the lower half of his face concealed with a grey box, his collar, and his hair was an inkblot with white sides. He stared at it with a face of stone to keep his reactions in check.
"Whatcha got there?" Tidus asked.
Auron cleared his throat. "Nothing," he said and shoved the pictures under the stack of magazines.
Tidus was scratching the back of his head when he returned with a dark mug filled with some liquid, shoving aside other dirty mugs on the coffee table to make room for the new one. He flopped down on the sectional opposite Auron and propped a flip-flop next to his beverage, relaxing for only a moment before lifting his hips to fidget with something in his pocket. "I have something of yours."
At first Auron peered over with only muted curiosity, until he saw the gold wedding bands lying half-stacked in Tidus' palm. Auron snatched them, studying the rings for authenticity. Raine had thrown them into the gorge the last he saw of them. How did Tidus get them?
"I guess this makes us brothers, huh?"
"It appears so," Auron mumbled, stuffing the rings safely in one of his inside cloak pockets. He couldn't be sure how real they were or if they could be taken from this place when it was time to leave, but he had to try.
"Cool, I always wanted a brother. I just always thought he'd be younger." Tidus grinned cheekily and then shrugged, reconsidering. "I guess Raine was kind of like a brother. She wasn't afraid to play in the dirt with me."
"She looked up to you."
"Maybe until you came along," Tidus laughed.
"Hmph." Not anymore. Glancing back into the box next to him, he found Raine's hand-drawn family portrait staring back at him, the magazines he'd piled on top had disappeared. How did Tidus do that? "Where is she?"
"Safe," Tidus said. But something in Auron's face must have compelled him to add, "I swear."
