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When Auron dies - for the second time, but this time, for good - his life doesn’t flash before his eyes. Instead, he sees the possibilities. The paths considered, but not taken.
He sees them all in a singular instant that nonetheless feels like it stretches on for an eternity.
Time, he supposes, works differently in the Farplane.
The first crossroads is no surprise, though Auron hasn’t thought about it in a very long time. The offer to marry a Maester’s daughter, set down his sword and enter the political track.
He’s never really regretted his immediate refusal. The Maester never forgave him, and Auron was a social outcast and disgrace until Braska came along, but - he didn’t love the woman, would never love a woman. And the thought of entering into something as sacred as marriage built on a lie, for politics, disgusted him to his core.
Now, Auron watches what would have happened if he’d accepted. Instead of Kinoc, it’s Auron who rises quickly through the ranks and becomes a Maester. The sham marriage is without love, but he and his ambitious wife find some common ground. They become friends, if nothing else. And Auron turns his determination to his career, learning to wield politics as though it was one of his old swords. He’s the most reform-minded of the Maesters, fighting his elders for measures that will benefit the common people of Spira.
This version of his life flashes by rapidly, one day much like another, until - Until he stands staring into the mismatched eyes of his friend Braska’s daughter. One as blue as her father’s; the other as green as her Al Bhed mother. As if Yevon was playing some cruel joke, never letting anyone forget her half-and-half heritage.
Seymour Guado is forcing her into a marriage she doesn’t want. He’s traded in enough favors with the other Maesters that they’re all going along with it, but the dead embers of Auron’s soul look at her misery and reject that. He can’t go through with this, even if it costs him the career he’s worked so hard to build.
“Come with me,” he tells Yuna. “I’ll get you out of here.”
But the years of plenty have dulled his warrior’s instincts. He never sees Seymour coming up behind him. Auron is cut down in an instant, and bleeds to death there on the stone floor of the prison.
The second crossroads revolves around Tidus, of course. Auron had questioned whether or not plucking the boy out of Dream-Zanarkand was truly the right thing to do. Of course, if Sin was destroyed the way Auron planned, Tidus would fade away with the rest of the dreams… but wouldn’t it be kinder to leave him on his own, let the end come without warning, without the misery and pain of fighting his monstrous father in Spira?
This version of Auron doesn’t ride Sin into Dream-Zanarkand. Jecht is outraged at his betrayal. Auron finds himself increasingly targeted by the monster, the dying flickers of Jecht’s will urging it onward. He wanders far from civilization, because he might be Unsent but the people around him are so, so vulnerable to Sin-spawn.
Ten years pass. Yuna begins her pilgrimage. And Auron returns to support her - alone.
He tries to push her out of the cycle of death that claimed her father, every Summoner before her. But Auron’s never been the most eloquent speaker, and he knows his words alone won’t make her see it.
He hopes that seeing the hypocrisy of the Maesters first-hand will give Yuna the push she needs, but even Seymour’s unwelcome advances don’t have that effect. Yuna is just as stubborn as her father, as Auron himself. And she’s been preparing her entire life to make this sacrifice, telling herself over and over that her life was worth buying a few years’ Calm.
Legendary Guardian Auron brings another Summoner to Zanarkand. Yunalesca seems to smirk at him in particular as she explains the Final Summoning.
Neither Yuna nor Kimahri hesitate for a moment. The Ronso dies to become the summon. Defeats Jecht-as-Sin and becomes Sin in turn.
Another temporary Calm is bought with their blood.
Auron, a failure twice over, makes sure that Wakka and Lulu, at least, return home. Then he walks into the forest alone.
An Unsent needs no dramatics to truly die - they can simply fade away when they choose to give up. But Auron deserves the pain of the blade in his gut. He deserves for his last moments to be the agony of seppuku.
The other lifetimes he sees are minor variations.
In one, the group discovers he is Unsent before he’s ready to tell Tidus, though it truly changes very little in the end - it just means he can stop pretending to eat and sleep. He takes every night watch, like some sort of guardian spirit standing over the campfire.
In another, Chappu survives Sin’s attack and joins them in Wakka’s place. It changes nothing at all. Wakka is every bit as capable as his brother - and Auron hopes Wakka will see that someday.
A few times, the Al Bhed do manage to kidnap Yuna for her own protection, but this never ends well. She dies in Seymour’s destruction of Home, or Sin comes for it, or, perhaps worst of all, some other Summoner continues the cycle in her place. None of them are very happy about it, knowing the cost of the Calm.
There’s one constant in the successful versions of their quest, though. Only when Tidus is present do they defeat Sin without Yuna sacrificing herself.
Auron’s not an arrogant man. He may have been famous as a Legendary Guardian, but he didn’t seek the title, didn’t like the praise that came with what he considered to be his greatest failure.
True, he defied the laws of the universe and remained Unsent, an exceptional act of willpower; but it wasn’t for his own sake, like the Maesters or the fiends. It was to finish the job that Braska had started. To see that Jecht was set free from his suffering as Sin. His love of those two had been the only thing that gave him the strength to carry on.
Looking at the other possibilities confirms it for him. He might have been the leader of their expedition, but Tidus was its heart and soul. With just Auron and no Tidus, Yuna wouldn’t have dared to break the cycle. It was his view as a total outsider to Spira - not to mention their young love - that really pushed her to find another way.
Auron doesn’t mind that destroying Sin meant the end of his second, pseudo-life. He’d welcomed death when it came for him. He’d accomplished all of his unfinished business, and could finally be at peace.
But what was Tidus’ reward? Vanishing, as if he’d never existed.
It was inevitable, because he never existed, the Fayth tells him.
Nothing changes in the emptiness around him. The Fayth takes no physical form. It’s simply there in his mind, speaking freely to him.
“Once I pulled him out of the dream, he was as real as the rest of us,” Auron argues. He speaks aloud even though he knows it’s unnecessary. A small form of protest. “The same as Jecht. Jecht was real enough to become Sin, wasn’t he?”
The dream ended. They wanted to rest - the same as you.
“Not Tidus. He wants to live. Make an exception.”
The Fayth doesn’t answer him.
That’s fine. Auron is stubborn - stubborn enough to clamp his willpower over his own dying body and recreate it, then hang on for ten grim years as an Unsent.
He feels the same resistance now, the same call of the void. Individuals don’t exist in the Farplane. When they arrive here, everyone - sinner or saint - ceases to be, sinks into the same blissful oblivion. Only echoes and memories are ever called back to their loved ones - their real selves are no more.
His refusal to let go isn’t hurting anything, exactly - it’s just not supposed to be this way, and the Farplane regards him with uncertainty, not sure what to do with him. He’s supposed to have shed his unfinished business and final regrets.
But Tidus’ fate is too unfair. He won’t let himself regret that, even if this continued existence does nothing but bring him pain.
Auron settles down in the vast void of nothingness - and he waits.
Time has no meaning here in the Farplane, but Auron knows a long time has passed down in Spira before he receives a visitor. Braska emerges from the void and walks up to him.
He hasn’t aged a day since his own death over ten years ago, but Auron wouldn’t say he looks the same. While his Braska would smile often, it was always slightly sad and wistful, not reaching his eyes. The piece torn out of his heart by his wife’s death had always been present, leaving him somewhat aloof and unreachable.
This Braska smiles - and means it.
“My lord,” Auron chokes out. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He’s talked to the memory of the dead before, in the physical opening to the Farplane in Guadosalam. Most Spirans have. But Auron knows instinctively that this is no memory - it’s the real thing.
“I could say the same to you, old friend,” Braska says. Auron might be older now - and dead - but some things haven’t changed, and the way Braska treats his subordinate as a true friend warms his heart the way it always did.
“This isn’t hurting me,” Braska continues. “All I’ve done is wake up briefly from a long sleep. But you must be suffering. Truly dead, yet unable to rest.”
“It’s not right, what happened to Tidus,” Auron says. Braska has never even met Tidus, but Auron knows that he’ll understand. Something about this place means that even the dead have kept up with events.
“I understand,” Braska says. “You were ready to die, but you still had regrets. It took me a long time to work through that, myself. I knew, the moment I died, that we hadn’t broken the cycle - we’d just played right into it. I knew I’d left my daughter alone, and I even knew that Yunalesca would kill you. I had to realize that denying myself the bliss of the Farplane wasn't productive. It didn’t help Yuna or you or anyone - I was simply punishing myself.”
“I respect that,” Auron says, “But this is different. You couldn’t help Yuna or me, but something can be done about Tidus.”
“Perhaps,” Braska admits. “But it’s not your responsibility any longer.”
“Nevertheless, I won’t rest until it’s done.”
Auron thinks to himself that he’s surprised Jecht was able to find rest, under the circumstances. And then, instantly, Jecht is standing in front of him. As if just thinking about him was enough to disturb him from his peace.
“Yeah yeah, I’m a selfish bastard,” Jecht says. The self-deprecation is nothing new, but his tone is. For the first time, Auron is speaking with a Jecht who’s actually at peace with himself.
“Listen, every moment of being Sin was pure hell. I watched hundreds of people die, unable to stop it, but knowing I’d done it. Granted, I didn’t know the dream would end when I asked you to bring Tidus over, but it’s still my fault. I was only thinking about myself, how I wanted to see him again, how I wanted him to be the one to end my suffering. You think I didn’t have to work through that shit?”
Braska nods solemnly, hiding a smile. “Sir Jecht had, and I quote, ‘a lot of shit' to work through. It took him quite some time to join the rest of us.”
It’s enough to tug at Auron’s withered heart. These were the happiest days of his life - Jecht getting up to some nonsense, seeing how his antics cheered Braska up even as it shocked and appalled Auron himself. They were walking to Braska’s death, but Jecht’s shenanigans helped keep the summoner’s mind off it, and even Auron could manage to forget once in a while.
“I’m sorry,” he tells both of them. “I hope to see you again soon. But for now, I'll endure.”
“Typical,” Jecht snorts. He flicks Auron off - but smiles wide as he does it - and dissolves back into nothingness.
“Until we meet again,” Braska says. And he’s gone, too, just as suddenly, leaving Auron alone once more.
Auron’s not an arrogant man. And that’s how he knows his protest act ultimately had very little to do with the Fayth’s decision. It was mostly Yuna - a grown and confident and very adult Yuna, who took charge in a way she never had with the Legendary Guardian Auron crutch to lean on during her first quest.
Yuna saves Spira a second time. She earns her reward. Tidus, miraculously, swims out of the ocean - exactly the same as he’d been when he vanished into it.
He knows he played a small role, forcing that metaphysical door to stay open - but it’s Yuna who reached in and dragged Tidus out of it - and good for her. He wishes them the best.
Auron smiles, one last time -
And Auron as a distinct entity ceases to exist.
His last thought is that he can finally, finally rest.