Innocence Apocalypse

By Seishuku Skuld (skuldsai@magicgirl.com)

Edited by Tsukiyono Omi (glowboy90@hotmail.com)

Series: Final Fantasy X

Warnings: angst, hints at shounen-ai between Braska, Jecht, and Auron

Author’s Notes:  This is not your conventional fanfic.  This is an experiment in writing styles, in different ways of conveying emotion and imagery.  This will be very weird, slightly anachronistic, hopefully surreal.  Enjoy the ride. ^_^

This is a little bit of a songfic, this was written for a fic challenge.

Song Artist: Fuel

Song Title: Innocent  (lyrics at end of fic)

I also don’t think fanfiction.net really likes the formatting I use, so please also visit the full HTML version I have:

http://www21.brinkster.com/skuldmirai/yaoi/InnocentFFX.htm

Innocence Apocalypse

There are two names whispering in the wind of the Farplane, cried in the eerie, ethereal voice of the pyrefly, floating unendingly through fields of flowers, graceful waterfalls, watching the Otherworld until the end of time.

“Jecht,” it cries, flitting from blossom to blossom, “Auron…” unable to break the continuity of its lament.  It scarcely knows how much time has passed, or how many others have come and joined it.  It clings to obsessive shreds of memory, tattered and weathered, threadbare and worn as it falls into the vortex of melancholy remembrance, recalling the bittersweet bits of its past life it dares to remember. 

The pyrefly continues down memory lane, mixing in what it sees, what it wants to see, and what was, in a miasma whirlwind that threatens to engulf the tiny entity.

Space-time discontinuity: High Summoner Braska Vision A:

He knows where he is: Here.

He knows he is the first person to arrive Here.

He snatches at little bits of reminiscence, trying to decipher the meaning within those tiny little shards. 

He grabs them, turning them gently over in his hands as they reveal to him their luster, their texture, their internal structure.

He puts them together in what seems to some kind of coherent spectrum.  It is, at least, something that he can understand.

He lays them out on the ground before him, a flat white slate full of endless light, which illuminates the murky slivers.

He watches the little movies inside them, little dancing dolls dangled on pieces of rotten string, waltzing clumsily to song they don’t know, singing in broken voices to a tune long lost.  Thus

He remembers,

He waits, and

He weeps.

Theatrical Still-frame: Affekt of Remorse

The Final Act: Scene One

Monologue (Braska):

A thousand tiny points of light, pyreflies, the souls of the dead, stand between me and Spira.  By my side, I have my good friend Auron.  I wonder if he will thank me for what has just passed inside the Zanarkand dome this night.  I wonder if our friendship transgresses our suffering.

I am too weak to stand; there is blood still on my robes, the life of another dear friend stains not only my hand but my conscience as well.  I lean on Auron for support.  He takes no notice of the blood, he doesn’t care if I drape my arms around his shoulders as we both struggle, finally, to make our way out of this place.  His robe is red, it burns with a fiendish fury in my tired eyes.  I put my hands on his shoulders, and the scarlet cloth absorbs the warm liquid on my hand.  I stare in awe, there is no blemish upon the cloth.  Jecht’s blood becomes a part of him.

We collapse on the ground as soon as we are out of the broken edifice, the little pyreflies gathering around us and laughing with joy in their high, strange voices.  They whisper suggestively to us, of days gone by and happier times when we were three, and not a lonely two.

We were content in our travels, just the three of us.  We talked, we fought together, we slept together often in the same bed, when the oppressive need of the journey weighed us down and we sought each other for comfort, for small fragments of what we lost.

But since we arrived here, our lives became so much more complicated.  Never in all our times together, had we thought it would have come to this.    Nothing warned us of what was to come, no vestige left by history, no legacy for noble posterity.  Just a faith in divine Providence infused by the Temple, and an all-seeing eye with its three arms.  They never armed our souls for the battle ahead, for what the future would hold.  That was when we were innocent. 

And we are innocent no more.

A little jump, a little pause.  And the same thing begins again, the same dance, the same song, the same cracked voice. 

He turns away, looking for missing pieces, small but gaping holes to the puzzle he has laid out before him.

He pools his tears together, elusive droplets of silver, and he cups them gently in his hands.  They tell him a story of another place.  They link him to another man, a man his heart screams for.

Space-time singularity: Jecht

Vision B:

Watch intensely.

Focus.

Sigh.

And never forget when your heart does

Cry.

There was one of Jecht, and only one, and when you said the name Jecht, there could be only he.

Until now, when there are two things you say, and they both point at Jecht.

There is his name of course, and the other:

You draw your lips into a grimace

And carve an image of horror onto your face

Your mind is filled with leaden dread as

Images of death and destruction dance in your head.

Sin.

You hiss the sound with hate.

Jecht wonders in his state of flux:

I wonder if there’s a song that doesn’t end.

I wonder if there’s a place that stretches to forever.

I wonder if there’s a person you can never forget.

He thinks thoughts that come unbidden to his mind, of ballads, lands, and a raven-haired lover.  He stares forth into the city of lights, the city of life, in his moments of incredible lucidity.  In those moments he is himself again, he is himself, locked inside a cavernous tomb, surrounded only by a malicious permeation of a ghost of a creature.

There it is he prays for strength from whatever higher being he only half believes in.  There it is he laments the times, the events, the things he’s done that were wrong, the things that turn to stone before his eyes, immovable and frozen.  But they are not mute, and they cry to him, their voices slicing through the darkness to torment his mind, slash at his eyes which no longer see.

He moves in a requiem for all the people he has lost, for the fate which binds him and chains him to the darkness.  He mourns for all the colors long since faded, and all the smiles and faces that fall into oblivion. 

He, like the others, lies in wait, the tides of time washing over a naked body and a tattooed chest.  It cleanses away his innocence, but not his will, and not his love.  And in the end, that is the only thing he has left.  The only chain that has not been severed.

He wishes for the briefest moment and the longest instant, that he was back in a time, when we were innocent.

His tears slip through his fingers, they gather in pool on the bleached white floor and they freeze with a clang.  Like ice, it is cold as he picks the small fragment up between his pale fingers.  He marvels at its jagged edges, and carefully puts it into place.

He wonders where the other is, but he has no tears left to shed, and there no voices left to guide him.  He sits in the oppressive quiet, thinking of where his last friend is, and what he is doing.  He closes his eyes against the blinding whiteness, hides his face behind his arms.  And when he dares open his sight again, he sees exactly what he sought:

A red-clad man, who hides his crystal eyes and his face of stone.

Space-time Cross Section: Auron

Vision C:

Auron speaks.

And He listens.

This is prayer is for me tonight.  (It is a disembodied voice, parched from ages and the sands of time.)

For all the good things that have come to an end.

For the friendships that have been lost

For the love that has lain dormant

For the lives that were cut short

For the deaths that were never stopped.

This prayer is for me tonight.

For the beloved that is gone

For the beloved that screams in pain and loneliness.

For the one moment I had, when I could have stopped you.

When I should have stopped you and stopped it all.

This prayer is for the me that atones tonight.

For the innocence that I have lost

For the innocence that I have cast away

For the eternity when I elected not to tread in your path

For the moment when I fell down on my knees and surrendered to my fate

This prayer is for the me that died that night

For the things I never knew

For lies I never saw

For deceit I never questioned, but unerringly obeyed.

This prayer is the longest of all, and it is the last.

I loved you both.

I let you both go.

I damned you both and now I will save you.

You, with you kind smile and flowing blue hair.

You, with your loud grin and flying red banner.

I lift my glass to you (as you come, hidden in heaving shields of water)

To the three words I never dared say

To the children

To the future

To us

when we were innocent.

The vision fades, and he left alone again, just him and his memories in the brilliantly white room.  There is a shard in his hands, flaming crimson but cool to the touch.  He puts it in its place.  The room swirls around, flowers bloom from the sky and water rushes from the walls.  The moonlight shines from the space beneath his feet.  His reflection on the completed puzzle now shows him these things:

a Song

a good Omen

Oneself

Need

the Temple

an Obstruction

Genesis

the Epic

The beginning

their Hearts

the End

the final Reprieve

He saw them and smiled, and understood their message.  The white disappears, and melts into a myriad of colors, a myriad of things, all which make up the place that he calls ‘Here,’ that is the Farplane.

He waits.

He smiles.

and He dances amid flowers

and twinkling lights

and the wind carries the whispers of two familiar names:

Jecht

Auron

“Innocent” by Fuel

Satan, you know where I lie

Gently I go into that good night

All our lives get complicated

Search for pleasures overrated

Never armed our souls

For what the future would hold

When we were innocent

Angels lend me your might

Forfeit all my lives to get just one right

All those colors long since faded

All our smiles all confiscated

Never were we told

We'd be bought and sold

When we were innocent

This prayer is for me tonight

This far down that line and still ain't got it right

And while confessions not yet stated

Our next sin is contemplated

Never did we know

What the future would hold

Or that we'd be bought and sold

We were innocent

Wow…that’s the trippiest thing I’ve written yet.  I hope you guys liked it.  ^_^;;  I just experimented with a new style there.  It’s definitely strange, ne?  Comes from reading Grendel by John Gardner a couple times too many. ^^;;  That book influences me like no other.

Okay, so if you have any questions regarding what the hell I just wrote, you let me know.  I tried to put in a lot of symbolism in there…probably didn’t work.  **sigh** 

And the answer to your first question is: No, I am not high. ^_^;;  I am just inspired.

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