The rain started not an hour onto the Mi'ihen highroad, cold and slimy and genuinely unpleasant, and it is a full day's walk. Jecht, with his typical obnoxious oblivion, isn't fazed in the least. You would think he was having the time of his life, striding though puddles and whistling, rivulets of water sluicing down his bare arms.

The rest of us find it damnably uncomfortable, speaking for myself and the chocobo. Braska has said nothing, striding along the messy road without a word of complaint, mud splattered high onto his robes. I suggested, more than once, that he ride on the chocobo and let me carry the provisions, but he insisted on walking. A pilgrimage is not a pilgrimage if one is carried the whole way, he said, and so I could not convince him to mount. Jecht, naturally, offered to provide the chocobo with a rider, but I was damned if I let him ride while my lord goes on foot. If Braska walks, we all walk. Even the chocobo, who is restless and longing to run out of the downpour.

The bird is a bit of a problem anyway, one of the many gifts given at our last stop to aid the summoner pilgrim on his journey. Braska hadn't the heart to refuse it, even though I've no idea how we're going to feed the chocobo, much less get it across the Moonflow. Braska is certain we can sell it to one of the stables along the highroad; the resultant gil will ease his journey far more than an overweight fowl will.

And maybe, I think, we could cover Jecht in yellow feathers and someone will buy him, too.

So intent am I on being miserable that I fail to notice Braska is lagging until I have nearly overtaken him. It is difficult, considering his robes, to perceive what might be ailing him. Braska's garments were carefully designed so that he seems to glide instead of walk, creating a likeness similar to a moving, breathing statue. Imposing and formal, and next to impossible to travel easily in, the robes must be more of a burden than the journey.

"My lord?"

His face, grey through the rain-mist, is drawn slightly. "Forgive me, Auron. You would be content with speedier travel, I am sure."

"Nothing of the sort. I am merely concerned for you." It is a half-truth. The going is mind-numbingly slow, but I have no heart to hasten to the end of our enterprise. "Are you all right?"

He shakes his head and begins to protest my attention, saying only that he is tired, but he staggers and I let go of the chocobo's bridle to catch him. Even with my assistance, his knees are in the mud. "My lord!"

"You needn't look so alarmed, Auron." He smiles up at me, blinking in the rain. "I won't drop dead."

He leans on me to get up. More, I'm sure, than he realizes, and his weight is gingerly borne.

"There, now, see? And don't open your mouth to say ‘chocobo.'" His expression is wry. "If you must know, I'm wildly allergic to them. It took all I had not to sneeze my head off when that old priest gave him to us. I'd rather breathe and limp, thanks."

He can make me laugh, always, even when I'm worried for him.

"Oy!" Jecht's voice is grating, like his presence. For a moment I could have believed it was only the two of us on this pilgrimage, as it should have been, the summoner and his one loyal guardian. "You lost your bird!"

Braska straightens, and wipes rain from his face with an already drenched sleeve. "And I thank you for catching him, Jecht."

Jecht frowns, as if puzzling out the various reasons why Braska would be clinging to me in the middle of a muddy highway. So help me, if he says something uncouth, I'll knock his jaw round to the other side of his head. Judiciously, all he asks is, "You okay, Braskie?"

"I'm--" Braska begins, but he is using me to remain standing.

"You are not fine, my lord, I insist on a reprieve. And you," I turn to our resident blitzball celebrity, "Don't call him that."

Jecht snorts. "Touchy."

I would give him fair return for that, but Braska is more important, and it is only with my help that he makes it into the shelter of a ruined tower and sinks to the packed earth floor. There are many such ruins along the highroad, and were it not for the sparse amount of travelers then I am certain they would all be full of others waiting out the rain. As it is, this one is quite empty, save for the remains of a campfire.

"If we had pressed on we would have made the inn before nightfall." Braska pulls off his elaborate headgear, revealing hair pressed damp against his head. He ruffles it loose with his fingers and a relieved noise, strands falling into his eyes.

It makes me think of when we were younger, to see him like that. No good to think of such things, better instead to unlace his boot.

"Had we pressed on, you would have lost use of your ankle for a day." As I had suspected, sprained, and swollen. "I thought you said that fiend had not harmed you?"

"It was getting out of the way that did it," Braska's voice is level, but I know injury enough to know how it must have hurt, to walk so far. Cure magic would only take away the pain a little as he continued to use it, preventing the muscle from healing properly. "I'll prepare ingredients for a compress. Jecht, get a fire going, would you?" Coming in the doorway, he shakes off the rainwater and makes a noncommittal noise.

There is roofweed and sawtooth grass both in my medicines, simpler things than the potions and elixirs we carry, plainsmen's herbs. But they will take down swelling, and not deplete our more vital supplies. I am contemplating how much avri oil to use when behind me, Braska cries out. It is a sudden, surprised noise, one of unexpected hurt. I am on my feet and with my sword unsheathed before reason can overtake instinct, expecting behemoths, at the least.

But there is only my fellow guardian, kneeling with Braska's ankle in his hands.

"Jecht! Damn you for a fiend! What have you done?" I need little excuse to swear at him, but to harm Lord Braska, I will flay his decorated skin from his bones.

"Simple enough thing," Jecht says, unconcerned, and carefully eases Braska's foot to the floor. There is a gentleness to his hands that even in my fury, I cannot help but notice. "See it all the time, on the team. Pivot too hard on a goal, swim on it for the rest of the half. My old Blitz captain taught me the trick of fixing ‘em. It's better, right?"

Braska is still pale, but he is nodding, and in his experimental motion I can tell it is easier to move the joint. "Remarkable." He leans forward enough to test some weight on it, and shakes his head. "Quite astonishing, Jecht. You never cease to amaze me." He blinks up at me, mildly curious. "Expecting fiends, Auron?"

My blade is still in my hands, and ready. "No... no, I feared you were... injured."

Damn you, Jecht, and the smugness in your eyes. You're used to being good at everything, aren't you? Well you're still a drunken excuse for a guardian, and I don't expect that to change. What possessed Braska to bring you along is beyond me.

"You look like a man with something to say," Jecht says, and I hear the leather of my glove creak on my weapon, reluctant to put it away.

"Nothing to say to you." But Braska is there, in the corner of my eye, his head falling back against the wall, eyes closing. Jecht raises an eyebrow. "But... I thank you." For this, and for nothing more, for easing his pain, I will thank you.

He shrugs. "Nothing to it."

"I am certain of that."

He must have a tough hide, because he is not stupid, and my barb hits him without the least fleck of blood, earning me barely a grunt of acknowledgement. He stretches out on the floor and yawns lazily, asleep across the entrance like some contented hound, arms behind his head. At least he will make a suitable alarm should anyone try to enter, but he has failed to start the fire. There is wood and flint in a corner, the Crusaders keep these places well stocked for their own use and for pilgrims. The steel strikes the stone with a bit more force than required, scattering sparks into the tinder. I have always found it a comforting thing, building a fire. Somehow it can make almost any place a haven. It is going steadily by the time I pull a blanket from the pack for Braska, and reluctantly fling one at Jecht. Even those I dislike deserve to sleep warmly, at least.

And now is the time I hate the most, alone with the fire, the breathing of my companions. Braska's face is calm; he does not dream, and if he does it is not in fear. I envy his resolve, but I will not pain him by begging him to reconsider. It will be useless, I know. But with night falling, it cannot hurt to ask.

"My lord. Find another way."

The fire pops and Braska sleeps on, not hearing my prayers. There is nothing else for it but to wrap myself in my coat and wait for morning. The minutes will slip to their end, no matter how I might try to hold them in my fingers. Sleep may find me before sunrise, but there is no solace for me in dreaming.