He is bleeding, and he is freezing, and he is weeping, and he does not know which of these is killing him. Blood in his mouth, blood on the snow, blood in the footprints trailing down the mountain, and when he touches the wetness on his face he feels a new shock of pain and realizes there is blood there too. When he began his descent he was walking but he crawls now, awkwardly, on his knees, one arm over his chest to hold his guts in, his sword still in his hand, trailing after him in the red snow. He knows he should let it go. He is certainly too weak to use it, yet his hand remains closed around the hilt, as though the sweat on his skin has frozen it in place. Perhaps it has.

Auron wants to wonder how this happened, how such a little time ago the three of them could have been alive and now one is dead, one is dying, and one has become something else entirely. He wants to wonder where he thinks he’s headed, a red smear on the mountain’s face, leaving a trail of more red behind him. When he tries to concentrate all he can do is stare ahead, at the endless white, so very white, and above it the blue stretching to places he cannot reach.

White, and blue, and memories waiting to ambush him, like fiends sensing weakness in their prey.

--

White candles and white sheets and white skin, and waves of blue spread across the pillows; he feels it sliding through his hands like silk, tastes the salt sweat under his tongue, slender fingers twining with his own as they move together, and Auron can feel the name in his mouth as he gasps it against the other man’s ear.

Braska…

Braska, who loves his wife, loves his daughter, loves Spira, loves him. He never doubts that Braska loves him, and that hurts more than anything else, because it makes him realize how greedy his own love is.

They had wanted him to marry a girl, and he had turned them down. He had disappointed countless people... it wasn't even that he hadn't liked her. She had been kind, and pretty; but she was not Braska. She was not Braska, and so she was not good enough, and so he had acted selfishly again.

--

Whiteout. Heat. Fire - through his lungs, his sliced-open chest, his ruined eye. Somehow he pulls himself onward, somewhere the snow gives way to dirt and grass scorched from a battle too recent, too horrible.

There is a shape in front of him - he can make out nothing but blue. A sudden flash, in his mind a pair of mismatched eyes - depths of water, flourishing leaves. A promise.

Auron can hear his own voice, muffled to his ears, and he knows somehow that this Ronso, member of such a proud race, will fulfill his request.

A promise kept. He wants nothing more, now, than to sleep. He can feel his pulse moving slower and slower, as though there is mud in his veins; someone grabs his arm and he sees a flash of serious gold eyes above him. And, oh, he’s so tired, if he can just close his eyes, just let out one last breath to hover ghostlike in the air above as he sinks into the welcoming darkness…

--

So dark. Dark tangled hair, dark flashing eyes, dusky skin, the smell of musk. He tries to fight the pull at first, but it’s hopeless. Warm and smothering, the cocky stranger with the dangerous smile. Auron sinks, trying to struggle, realizing that he is powerless, that he likes it this way, this difference. Callused hands on his skin, insistent fingers delving under clothing; Auron remembers the moment he knew the seduction was over, when the man’s name had been torn from his throat in a moan.

Jecht!

The other man’s voice. Different time, different words. Gruff, as usual, but choked with emotion – surprisingly, perhaps. Perhaps not. Jecht’s heart is softer than he would like to admit.

He needs someone to hold his hand

It’s impossible, of course. Auron doesn’t know how to get to Zanarkand. But seeing the two of them standing there, Jecht fumbling for words and Braska standing as serene as the statues they will build for him afterward, he cannot refuse.

You have my word.

I will guard him with my life.

An embrace that he knows will be the last. Tears held captive behind three sets of eyes. A goodbye left unsaid. He can still feel the words sticking in his throat.

I will guard him with my life.

With my…

--

He wakes suddenly, pulling air into his lungs all at once. He feels… strange, as though he is suddenly aware of every particle in his body, and of how little is really holding it all together. He climbs from the strange bed stiffly. Someone has bandaged his wounds; he appreciates the effort, vain though it may have been. He hears a familiar ethereal voice in the air and turns once, twice, before realizing that the pyreflies floating about the room are coming from him. He will have to do something about that. Auron touches a hand to the thick bandage over his eye. He will never see from it again, which is just as well. One eye, one friend lost. He knows when the second will close forever.

A tan-skinned blond man is sleeping sitting up in a chair next to the fire. Auron wonders if he should thank him, but no. He takes his sword in hand and slips quietly out into the vastness of the Calm Lands, headed for Zanarkand. There’s nothing else to lose, and he has promises to keep.

+End+

--

Thanks to whoever sent the song, to Miriya for inspiring me to write angst (although mine isn’t as good as hers), and to Robert Frost, without whom I would be titleless. (Now you will never read “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” again without thinking of Auron. I’m sorry.)

--

Hanging By A Moment
By Lifehouse

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I’m closer to where I started
Chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me

Now I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose
Nothing else to find
There is nothing in the world that can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I’m closer where I started
Chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

Just hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment here with you

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