Final Fantasy X: Missteps
The fire crackled and cast odd shadows on the tent where Yuna slept with Rikku. It rustled as one of the girls jostled in their sleep, and Lulu hoped it wasn't Yuna. Too many of her hours were spent in silent worry and stress.
She turned her eyes back to the fire and the man sitting an arm length away from her, powerful hands moving over her doll, the firelight catching the needle in his fingers. The moogle looked so small on his lap, stark against his dark clothes, even though it was covered in mud from her fall during the fiend attack. Lulu closed her eyes to take a deep breath. She had cried on the battlefield, her torn moogle in her arms. She had lost her focus, made a mistake—taken her eye off the target, as Wakka would say.
Auron's silence had not ended since the battle, and Lulu's face colored with the shame of it. She was no longer a child to make these mistakes, and she was embarrassed for herself. She knew no one judged her—except for Auron. But that was unfair, because she didn't know what he was thinking. None of them ever knew, save for Tidus, and Lulu couldn't decide if she envied him for it.
The needle and thread moved like a dance, and she wished she were less sore so she could have taken up the job herself. It felt like she was making Auron pay for her bad judgment, and that galled her worse than the event itself. He had taken it from her an hour ago after she had struggled with it through the pain, and she hadn't known what to say—hadn't expected the skill in him. The more she learned about the man in front of her, the more intrigued and confused she became.
"Thank you, Sir Auron." She forced herself to meet his gaze. "I appreciate your kindness."
He pushed the needle through fabric, pulled, and repeated twice more before looking up at her. "It is only a tool. It can be mended." He went back to his work. "Yuna does not know the magic yet to mend her Guardians should they fall."
Lulu felt her hands shake at the rebuff. "It was a momentary lapse. It won't happen again."
"Chappu gave you this doll." He said it with no inflection, and Lulu was surprised. "Yuna told me this earlier. But Chappu is gone, and you and Yuna remain. Would you forsake her and yourself for a memory attached to stuffing?"
Tears threatened, but she held them back. "I have never—I have always been strong enough. It was never an issue."
"The closer we get to Zanarkand, the worse things will be. You must take more care." Auron bent his head over his work, and tied off the sturdy thread he was using. He held the moogle up at her, and flopped its arm at her in a silly greeting. She smiled at it, and the seriousness of his expression while he did it. No longer ripped down the side or missing an arm, the moogle looked the same as it had that morning if she ignored the dirt.
"Thank you," she said, when Auron handed it back to her. He startled her by touching her arm, fingers holding her wrist gently. His skin was softer than she had imagined it would be, with all his sword work, and she flushed, unable to keep it back.
"You would know what is real, and what is only in our heads. I hope you have learned this today." His voice was quiet, missing his normal brusqueness.
"I have. You don't need to worry." She wouldn't let it happen again; saving a moogle, gift or no, wouldn't save anyone. Yuna was her charge now, and she had never been able to save Chappu from any of his big dreams.
"I would like to see you at the end of our path," he said, and took his hand away to stand. She stared at him, touched and unsure of what to say. She chose only to nod, and he might have smiled at her, she thought, before moving to the edge of their camp to relieve Kimahri.
Or perhaps it had just been a trick of the firelight. She fingered the tight stitching on her moogle.
Perhaps.