Evolution: Chapter 19, Part 1
Evolution
Chapter 19: More Human than Human
Summary: This is a story of the Evolution of the character of Lightning throughout Final Fantasy XIII. The story will begin in the Vile Peaks and go through the rest of the game. There will be AU components to this tale. No Pairing (although you can read whatever you like into it.)
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. "
-H.L. Mencken
-More Human Than Human-
"So, is it all clear now?" Sazh asks from inside the shadows. Lightning is proud of herself for not flinching. Or, you know, startling and shooting him in her surprise. Really shouldn't sneak up on people, Sazh. Especially when they're on edge. Lightning turns toward the voice just as Sazh steps into the ring of torchlight. He looks like he's still worried that she might eat his spleen. "I mean..."
"No, it's good now," Lightning answers. She feels better than she has in...well, she's not sure anymore. At least as long as she's been in Mah'Habara, but she doesn't think that's saying much. Truthfully, she's not sure how long they've been in this cave. The constant darkness of the caverns has screwed her internal clock and her sense of time. She feels like she's been trapped in Mah'Habara for a week, while she knows that reasonably, it can't be much more than a day. If that.
She thinks. Maybe.
She watches Sazh and Vanille consider their options. Vanille's eyes are nailed to the floor and Sazh is twitching and shuffling under her gaze. She heaves a sigh. She's been too volatile. She's made her friends question their place in her life and on this journey. It's not really all that unusual for her. She's never been a patient person, and she's abandoned these particular companions at least once before. Back in the Vile Peaks, when Hope first followed her.
She flinches at the memory. She'd been horrible back then; back before she'd started turning into a monster. What does that say about her? She looks at her friends now, casting expectant and wary glances her way. Alright, let's get real here. She's not exactly a picnic now either. The only reason that these people are tolerating her these days is a distinct lack of options. She needs to do something to smooth things over. Say something.
"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I've been..."
"A pain in the ass?" Fang supplies. Lightning narrows her eyes at Fang who just winks and smirks. Lightning finds herself fighting against a smile and decides it's a losing battle. She huffs one laugh and nods.
"Yeah. Something like that."
"Nah, Soldier. Don't apologize." Sazh says. He steps forward, hands held out. Like he's approaching a wild animal. "If anyone is sorry here, it's me. I shouldn't have said...I shouldn't have doubted you." Sazh looks like he's not sure he quite believes what he's saying. Like he's saying it out loud to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince her. It's both sad and inspiring.
Sazh continues, "There's too many things to fight out there to be fighting with each other. And I forgot..." he pauses, glances at Vanille who gives him a beaming smile, "that we shouldn't give up hope." He swallows, "Which in this case has a double meaning doesn't it?"
She can't help but smile at him as she thinks about the platinum haired boy. Her Hope. No, she realizes. Not hers. Theirs. "Yeah."
Sazh smiles back at her and looks more certain. Like maybe he's finally managed to convince himself that he's not just spouting platitudes after all. "And while I was being all realistic, I forgot something important."
"What's that?" Lightning asks, intrigued.
"I forgot that that boy will do anything for you." Lightning feels her eyes burn, looks down at her toes for a moment to blink away the tears. I know, she thinks. It's a truth that she's been counting on and clinging to since the cave in. "And that 'Hero' is a lot tougher than he looks."
Her throat feels mysteriously thick and clogged. She swallows, hopes that her voice won't shake as she breathes out a, "Yeah." She thinks about Snow. How many times had he held her up, or just held her over the past weeks? How many times had she fed off of his optimism? His strength? How many times had she used him to buttress her own failing controls. How many times had he gotten kicked, punched or slapped by her? He took it all-all her rage, her vitriol, her desolation and devastation-and came back for more. Tough? "He is at that." Talk about your understatements.
Sazh nods once. "So, I'm sorry," Sazh finishes. "I promised you that I'd follow you and then the first hiccup, I..."
"Stop." She steps forward, grabs his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry about. You're a good man, and a good friend." He eyes her fingers on his shoulder. He's still wary of her, but she supposes that's reasonable. She's rash and unreasonable. Volatile. Not to mention that she's mutating right before his eyes. She drops her hand and her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful thing! Anyone got a hanky?" Fang says. "Let's get going ladies before my teeth rot from all this sweetness." Fang's sarcasm drains the mounting tension, diffuses the group's solemnity and makes it far easier to breathe. Lightning shoots her a look she hope conveys her immense gratitude.
"Fang!" Vanille scolds, smacking Fang's arm. "You're impossible!"
"What?" Fang asks with total innocence. Sazh laughs hard (possibly harder than necessary) and Lightning smiles. She finds herself getting wistful. Thinks maybe the fal'Cie aren't so bad after all. Without them, she'd never have met these people.
Her brain trips on the thought, can get around the ass backwards logic. I really am going crazy. She shakes her head as they start to move on.
Lightning wants to take point. No. That's not right. She needs to take point. She's as twitchy as an addict in withdrawal, desperate for a fix. Hell, she is an addict in need of a fix.
Her fix these days is violence.
There's something euphoric in the act of destruction. She'd love to place the blame solely on her metamorphosis, but that would be more than inaccurate; it would be a bald faced lie. There's nothing supernatural about the enticing draw to, and temptation of, brutality. It's an innate, pervasive and very human quality. She's seen enough evidence in her years to know this as fact.
She's seen small children demolishing sandcastles on the beach that had taken others hours to build. They laugh, scream, jump and pounce with ferocious glee, no thought or care given to the work or time that had gone into the construction. She's seen them demolish ant hills with the same ruinous joy, oblivious to, or uncaring of, the life that they destroy with the act. She's seen some pull the wings off of insects for the sheer glee of inflicting suffering, and watching the creature squirm and die.
She's seen adults line up to watch as buildings that have outlived their usefulness are demolished. They set off fireworks and cheer as buildings that had been someone's home, or someone's livelihood, implode. They eat and drink and turn what should be practical or even solemn events into a celebration. Reveling and glorying in the instant destruction of something that had taken time to construct.
She's seen people kill vermin with sadistic satisfaction: no thought for the life of the animal they've killed. No respect or reverence for the act of killing, or the power that it implies. Only a dim contentment that they have exterminated something they'd considered filthy. Less, somehow.
She's seen soldiers use wildlife for target practice. Watched as trained and allegedly disciplined men act like boys with BB guns firing at empty bottles. Watched as they turned their rifles on an unfortunate animal and reduced it to an unrecognizable carcass: a mass of blood and meat, no more than fodder for maggots. And laughed.
She's been disenchanted with humans for a long time. Perhaps that is why she had been so willing-eager even-to serve the fal'Cie. Higher beings with a higher purpose. It's annoying that it turns out they match, or even outstrip humans, in the love of destruction and bloodshed.
So she can't help but figure that their 'Maker' or 'Creator' or whatever the hell they want to call it, must be one twisted monstrosity. One Being responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie. Lightning feels her fists tighten further, driving jagged fingernails deep into the calloused flesh of her palms. She can't help but hope she gets a chance to meet it, just to show it what she thinks of It and Its nasty little 'creations.'
Of course, she's pretty convinced at this point that the tales of an omniscient 'Maker' or 'Creator' are as much fal'Cie fantasy as every other tale the fal'Cie have told to humans. Only this particular bill of goods? It seems to have been sold to themselves. And isn't that just a riot?
Yeah. She'd laugh, but she seems to have lost any and all traces of humor when she lost Snow and Hope. Go figure.
She exhales a breath and continues walking. She'd needed to take point so she could charge into any fray, plunge her weapon into anything unfortunate enough to be in her way. Her breathing had quickened at the thought. She'd felt the buzz of anticipation rattle through her. Felt the blood pound through her dilated vessels and raise a warm, intoxicated flush over her body.
Needed it. Like air.
Which is exactly why she'd insisted that Fang take point. So now Lightning trails behind the group in the rearguard position (Snow's position) to remind herself what's at stake now. Caving to irrational need is another step down a very dark path: one that she's further down than anyone (but her, it seems) wants to admit. She understands the enormity of the position she's taken in this little party. Her companions are still willing to trust Lightning with their backs, and that's not something she's willing to abuse. Or lose, for that matter.
Besides, it's not good or healthy to want something to the point of covetousness. She needs to keep herself in check now, maintain some sort of balance. Throwing herself in head first feels great, sends adrenaline firing through her body and makes her feel alive. It also dredges up all sorts of ugly passions that, on the best of days, should remain buried.
Today is nowhere near the best of days.
Sazh slows his pace enough that she catches up to him in three steps. He casts a concerned glance at her but hides it quickly.
"You alright, Soldier?"
She considers her answer for only a moment before deciding that lying requires entirely too much energy and effort.
"No," she answers. He looks surprised. Not at the answer, but at the fact that she'd been honest. Don't ask questions, if you don't want the answer. She stifles the smarmy internal voice and continues, "but I'm better than I've been. So, you know..." she trails off. Changes the subject. " And you?"
That surprises him too, and isn't she just on a roll today? Two for two here. It once again seems that she hasn't given much consideration to her friends' overall wellbeing for a while.
Yep. She really is a selfish bitch.
"Good days and bad days I suppose."
She chuckles a bit but winces at the obvious sarcastic bitterness. "Oh, yeah? And today?"
He heaves a hard sigh, then gives her a fake grin. "Today's great!" His voice drips sarcasm and she smiles back at him. He lets the fake smile fade into something a bit more genuine. "But we're alive, for which we have you to thank."
"Me?" Oh yeah! She'd been great. She'd suggested they run through the night across the Archylte Steppe, nearly got them trampled to death, which triggered a cave in that almost killed them all and which may, in fact, have killed two of them. Her mouth goes dry and she swallows the rising lump in her throat.
"Uh, yeah, you. Why?" He casts an assessing glance her way. "Soldier?"
She chews on her lower lip for a moment before spitting it back out and straightening up. She needs to get a grip on herself. Her emotions ping pong so often she's getting whiplash. She understands why Sazh might feel beholden to her; at the same time, she knows that he owes her no thanks. She may not be solely responsible for their current dilemma, but she has contributed far more than most.
"Don't thank me." I don't deserve it. "We may die yet."
"You really are a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Sazh comments. She smiles and nods.
"Well, no one ever accused me of being cheery."
"Good thing, or they'd have been lying through their teeth." She feels a smile tug at her lip despite herself and she sneaks a glance at Sazh from the corner of her eye. He's got a secret smile on his face as he looks at his open hands. She spots the chicobo sleeping in the palms of his hands. She reaches into his cupped hands and scratches the chicobo's neck with one nail and feels calm.
The shiver shocks her from her calm and she stops moving and cocks her head. The hairs on her neck and back stand on end and she twitches. Sazh shoves the chicobo into the nest of his hair and walks over to her.
"Trouble?"
"Ssh," she hushes, though she's not sure why. She hasn't heard anything. Just feels it. Her brand flares to life like someone took a butane torch to it. She gasps loud enough to startle Sazh, and he watches her fingers clutch at her brand. Takes a small step forward in concern where she'd expected him to back up in suspicion. She closes her eyes, gets a flash of jagged teeth and narrowed, yellow eyes.
"You have got to be kidding me," she whispers. She's not even sure why she's surprised. Life seems to enjoy kicking them while they're down.
"What's up, Soldier?" Sazh has both hands on her shoulders. She must have spaced out longer than she'd thought because Sazh is right in her face now, and her shoulders ache where his fingers are clutching. "You with me?"
She wets her lips, swallows and says, "Yeah. I'm with you." He sighs hard, steps back and releases her.
"You wanna tell me what that was all about?"
I'd love to. The truth is, she can't explain why these things happen. She can barely define what exactly it is that is happening to her. She's got her right hand pressed hard into her brand. Both her palm and chest burn so hot that she expects there'll be blisters when she separates them. She peels her sweaty palm from her chest, hears the slurp of wet skin separating and wonders for how long a time she'd disappeared into her own thoughts.
Sazh steps closer again and she realizes that she's taken too long to respond. She scans the cave for the predatory eyes she can feel, and whispers, "We're being hunted."
"Aw, man," is Sazh's response. "You were right. We are never going to catch a break."
"No, we aren't." She agrees. She looks around the corridor and decides that she doesn't want to have another showdown here. If she's being hunted, she wants to set up an ambush before they get jumped.
"We need to move."
"Yeah, I don't know where the hell Fang and Vanille went."
"They're right around the bend," she says before she even thinks about it. Sazh gives her an odd look that she can understand but not place. It's not the caution or open fear that he's been flashing in varying degrees over the past day or two. This one is more...morbid curiosity. When they turn the bend and spy Fang leaning against the wall watching Vanille trace invisible drawings onto the walls, Lightning might just understand the look on Sazh's face.
"Neat trick. Want to tell me where you learned it?"
"I'd love to." But I don't have a clue.
"Wanna tell me how you knew?"
"Um..." She considers. "Not really," she answers, deciding that the truth will just freak him out more than not knowing.
The truth is...she can smell them now. Not in a 'we all stink because we haven't bathed properly in days' sort of way, because that's been true for a long while. No, this is more like an 'animal stalking prey' sort of way. So, yeah, she's not really too keen on divulging more information than necessary at this point.
Fang meets her eyes and Lightning could swear the other woman can read her mind. But instead of proving Lightning right, Fang says, "So, moment over? Can we shove off now?"
The question makes Lightning miss a step. Literally. She stumbles a bit at the derailment of her train of thought. All she can say is, "Huh?"
Eloquent.
"Figured you two had more caring and sharing you wanted to do." Fang shrugs. "I was gonna come and smack you both upside the head, but Vanille here insisted I leave you to it." Lightning feels her face heat and she's not sure why. Somehow Fang has managed to insert innuendo into a rather bland and innocent statement. Lightning isn't sure how she manages to do that all the time. "All done then?"
"You are one strange woman," Sazh mumbles at Fang and Vanille bursts out into a fit of giggles. Fang doesn't look even slightly affronted and Lightning feels like she's missed a step somewhere. Like maybe she's slid into an alternate universe. Fang gives Sazh a wink.
It takes a moment before she realizes that she hasn't ever really observed Sazh, Fang and Vanille interacting before. She's been too busy in her own little bubble, insulated by Snow and to some degree Hope. Is it really that big a surprise that these three have formed their own little family unit, complete with inside jokes? That while she's been waltzing through her own melodrama, raging against her inner demon (or not so inner anymore, it seems) they've been forming bonds of their own? The thought both warms and chills her. Makes her ache all over, feel the loss of Snow and Hope again like an amputation.
She can't think about this now or she'll go crazy. She needs to deal with what's in front of her.
"We have to move," Lightning blurts out, hopes that she's blunted the edge to her tone. She knows that she hasn't succeeded entirely.
"Well, I'm not the one who stopped to chat now, am I?" Fang returns. She's not pissed yet, but she's getting there.
"No, I mean..." She needs to stop. She feels her own ever shortening temper start to flare. She stomps on it, refuses to be baited into an argument. She needs to stay focused. She rubs her forehead, heaves a heavy sigh. "I mean, we're being hunted." Her voice comes out through clenched teeth and she rolls her eyes at herself and her own failing controls. She meets Fang's stare. "Again."
"Oh. Great!" Fang doesn't even ask her by what, or how she knows. Lightning figures that either the answer is obvious, or unimportant. "So let's shove on then."
They stick close to one another, Lightning now happy to take rearguard position. Half of her wants to hang back and wait. This monster has tracked her across the Archylte Steppe, survived a herd of stampeding Adamantoises and somehow managed to find a way into Mah'Habara despite the massive cave in that nearly killed all of them. She has no doubt that it'll attack her if she lets her guard down.
Her head buzzes and her body twitches at the idea of a good kill.
She shakes her head to dispel the encroaching urge. She needs to keep her focus now. The pack is near now, and getting closer. They're watching her.
She glances around again, wonders where the hell the monster can be hiding in a cavern, when her eyes skim over scratches in the wall. High up. Deep grooves cut in by what she figures is probably a sharp blade.
Tyrant.
She whips around again before she realizes that she's already slain the Tyrant. Its previous presence explains the overall emptiness of the corridor, and its current absence explains the new stalkers on her trail. Even that ballsy bastard beast wouldn't tread into a Tyrant's territory. Not if it wanted to live to see its next meal.
"Soldier?" Sazh's voice wobbles and she feels all her hair stand on end. "You, uh...you better get over here."
Something in his voice or in the look on his face brings her world to a standstill. Lightning feels an urge to flee. Run before she can see whatever it is that has Sazh stuttering and paling and trying so hard to be steady. She goes so far as to look behind her before steeling herself.
Lightning's is many things. But she's no coward. Now she just wishes someone would tell that to her traitorous knees as they seem to have abandoned her.
The first step is tenuous, but the next is steady. By the third she's running. She rounds the bend in the corridor and comes to a rigid halt. She waits for the visual confirmation of her worst fears. Her heart pounds in her chest, her blood throbs against her throat and temples with enough force to hurt. It's a pure and distilled form of terror pouring through her. She's looks around in confusion.
There's nothing here.
Vanille is squatting down, face buried in her hands, and Fang's got a hand over her mouth. She turns toward Lightning and the look in her eyes is indescribable. Lightning doesn't understand it. She's never seen anything remotely like it in those particular eyes before. Fang looks back down at her feet and Lightning follows her gaze, hopes maybe she'll figure out what's spooked the unflappable woman. Her breath catches before her brain has processed what her eyes are seeing.
Blood.
So. Much. Blood.
Lightning kneels beside the lake of blood on the floor before she's even aware that she's moved. The pool is longer than she is tall and half again as wide. The edges are dried to a matte finish, crackled like an aged painting, but there are spots that shine in the center. She has an overwhelming urge to touch the wet spots, to use the still liquid blood as war paint. She reaches, her fingers shaking. There's a high pitched squeal coming from somewhere that pierces the fog. She clutches her ears, finds the noise even louder. She closes her eyes and breathes, exhalations firing off like an automatic weapon. She feels a hand on her shoulder and shrugs it off. It doesn't return.
It's Snow's blood. She knows it. She can smell it! She has no idea how or why her brain recognizes the smell. Not knowing how doesn't change the fact that it does.
And now that her brain has caught onto that fact, she can't stop smelling it. She turns away and retches, her body doing its stellar best to turn itself inside out, except her stomach has nothing to give. She hasn't fed herself anything in...longer than she can remember. And she'd puked up her last actual meal right after the cave in.
The cave in that had mortally wounded Snow.
She folds in half, presses her forehead to her knees, laces her fingers on top of her head and pulls until something in her neck cracks. She digs the heels of her hands into her ears to block out the sound but nothing works. She feels a dampness spread across the tops of her knees, feels the scrape of the rough stone along her knee caps and shins. She fists both hands, feels and hears hair tearing in her grip and grunts in satisfaction.
She feels hands grip her wrists and pull, so she twists her fingers deeper into her hair. She refuses to uncoil right now. She just wants to be left alone. "It's too much blood," she says, but even she can't understand the words right now. Her mouth isn't cooperating. It's trying to make too many different sounds at once. "He couldn't have survived it."
It's Fang's fingers around her wrist. Fang's voice in her ear. "You don't know whose it is."
"I do," she sobs.
"You can't."
"It's Snow's." She's said it. She has no idea how she's managed to press the words out.
"You can't know that," Fang insists. Her voice is gentler than Lightning's ever heard. She doesn't want kindness. Not from Fang. She whips her head up, nearly clips Fang in the jaw with the back of her head. Considering the force behind her movement, she probably would have knocked them both out if she'd made contact.
Fang backs off and Lightning gets her first glimpse of fear in her eyes. One hour ago, it would have made her sick. Right now it's immensely gratifying. "I know it," she growls. "I can smell it."
Fang looks like she has no idea what to do with that particular revelation. She keeps her face neutral, her tone soft. Like she's dealing with a lunatic.
"Okay then," Fang says. "But he's not here, right? I mean, where's the body? You know damn well that the kid couldn't carry the Hero. So if he's..." she pauses, unwilling to say the word 'dead' it seems. "Where the hell is he then?" Fang's voice is soft and Lightning understands that the other woman isn't trying to be contrary. She's trying to help, to present a possibility where Snow is still living and breathing.
Lightning knows that Fang is talking sense but she can't comprehend it right now. Not while she's kneeling three feet from an ocean of Snow's blood. Not with the stink of blood and pain soaking into her. She looks back over at the stain on the floor and wonders if this is really all she's going to have left of him. A big blood stain like some Rorschach ink blot on the cold stone.
A hand comes down on her shoulder and she stiffens, and sniffles hard. She rubs the heel of her hand over her face and it comes away wet. She looks at her hand, half expecting it to be coated in blood, but it's clean. Wet from tears, not blood.
She's not sure why she's surprised by the discovery. She just knows she is.
She's losing the final shreds of her sanity. That must be it. The last tatters have finally come unraveled. Soon, there'll be nothing left of herself to lose.
Is it strange that the thought comforts her?
She glances at the fingers gripping her shoulder, follows the line of the arm to look into Sazh's kind face. Anger explodes through her like a flash fire and she has a sudden and irrational urge to punch Sazh square between his pinched eyebrows. The light from the still lit torch catches on the pooling tears in Sazh's eyes and all her anger evaporates like morning dew. She puts her hand over the fingers on her shoulder and squeezes.
He's lost something here too.
"Oh no!" Vanille gasps and Lightning can't be bothered to find out what's startled the exclamation from the girl. Vanille tends towards histrionics at the best of times. Fang disappears from her side and Lightning catches the whispered, "What is it, love?" before she tunes them both out. Lightning fixes her eyes on one shiny wet patch in the vast sea of blood and exhales again.
So sorry Snow. So sorry Serah.
She bites down on her lip, sinks teeth deep into the flesh until she tastes blood. She worries the cut until the sting starts to throb and she has something else to think about. Her own blood rather than Snow's.
Sazh hasn't taken his hand from her shoulder. He kneels down next to her in a silent offer of support. A steady, silent rock beside her. He doesn't try to make things better. Doesn't offer platitudes. He's too honest to lie to her, even to make her feel better.
She loves and hates him for that right now.
"Um, Lightning?" Vanille squeaks out, and Lightning really wants to ignore her. If she'd thought the girl would leave her alone, then she probably would. But Vanille isn't one for subtleties. She's not one to take hints and quietly take her leave. And even if she were, she deserves the respect that Lightning herself demands. She deserves acknowledgement.
"Yes?" She looks up at Vanille, sees a hint of her own defeat and desolation mirrored in the girl's eyes. It makes her angry.
Everything makes her angry, it seems.
"Snow wouldn't go anywhere without this, would he?" And Lightning has no idea to what Vanille is referring until a small hand opens and reveals the treasure within.
Serah's tear.
Lightning recoils, tastes bile in the back of her throat, feels tears overflow from her eyes. Sazh's fingers tighten on her shoulder, and he's speaking quietly into her ear, but Lightning can't hear him over all the damn noise. She recognizes the shrill sound from before as her own keening. She's horrified at the noise but can't silence it. There's a pain tearing through her chest and she can't seem to catch her breath no matter how hard she tries. She wonders if she might be dying, wonders if she might find peace there. Might find Serah and Snow there. She reaches for the crystal tear, finds that her whole body is quivering and shaking too much to control her fingers.
She can't do this. She has no idea how she's supposed to pull herself together again. She'd known that the odds were against Snow and Hope. But she's not sure if she can keep going now that her worst fears are realized.
It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do.
The words startle her from her wallowing. She'd spit them at Hope all those long weeks ago. Now, she needs to believe them. She can't afford to fall apart. She needs her mind intact. Even if Snow is gone (she feels her stomach wobble a bit, feels fresh tears well), Hope might still live. He's going to need her. She can't afford to sit here and wait for death or insanity or mutation. She takes one breath and holds it, blows it out slowly. She needs to get a hold of herself. This sort of loss of control is totally unacceptable. There's no time for self indulgence or grieving. There's too much left for her to do. She'd promised Hope she'd protect him, and she's not going to fail him too.
"I'm so sorry Soldier," Sazh whispers. She takes another breath, exhales and finds her calm. She reaches for the crystal, plucks it from Vanille's outstretched hand. She clutches it tight, feels the edges prick into her palm before opening her hand to look at the crystal.
There are smudges from her palm prints on the crystal and reddish brown flecks on it. Blood, she recognizes, and is amazed by her own lack of reaction. She rolls the crystal between her thumb and pointer finger, watches the crystal scatter the light. Watches colors dance across the blood pool.
Remembers that so-long-ago night in Vallis Media. When was that? Last week? A lifetime ago.
/I. Forgot. Serah...I had no idea what it was, or why I would be holding it...I dropped it. Right there, in the middle of nowhere./
The memory kindles an ember of hope in her broken heart. To answer Vanille's question: No. Snow wouldn't voluntarily leave Serah's tear behind. But involuntarily? That's possible. Likely? No. The most likely scenario is that Snow died and is food for the massive predators of Gran Pulse. Hell, the pack that's stalking her might have devoured him for all she knows. So, she'll ignore likely and grab onto 'possible' with both hands right now.
She stands so abruptly that everyone startles, takes one step back from her. She ignores her friends' flinches and slips Serah's tear into her pouch. If Snow's gone, then it's up to her to keep her sister's memory alive. If Snow's alive, then she plans on returning the token of his lost love to him.
She casts one more forlorn look at the blood pool. Offers up a silent apology before she balls up all her regret and buries it as deep as it will go and hopes that it will stay there.
Lightning finally meets her friends' eyes. They all look a bit wrecked, stooped with grief. These people who have followed her and stood beside her. These people who have fought with her and will more than likely die with her. Remembers something Snow said to her: 'A burden shared is a burden halved.' She feels the weight on her chest lessen enough to get a full breath.
"Let's go find Hope."
Posted in 2 parts due to size...See next post Onto the conclusion-- frkmgnt1.livejournal.com/6381.html
Chapter 19: More Human than Human
Summary: This is a story of the Evolution of the character of Lightning throughout Final Fantasy XIII. The story will begin in the Vile Peaks and go through the rest of the game. There will be AU components to this tale. No Pairing (although you can read whatever you like into it.)
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. "
-H.L. Mencken
-More Human Than Human-
"So, is it all clear now?" Sazh asks from inside the shadows. Lightning is proud of herself for not flinching. Or, you know, startling and shooting him in her surprise. Really shouldn't sneak up on people, Sazh. Especially when they're on edge. Lightning turns toward the voice just as Sazh steps into the ring of torchlight. He looks like he's still worried that she might eat his spleen. "I mean..."
"No, it's good now," Lightning answers. She feels better than she has in...well, she's not sure anymore. At least as long as she's been in Mah'Habara, but she doesn't think that's saying much. Truthfully, she's not sure how long they've been in this cave. The constant darkness of the caverns has screwed her internal clock and her sense of time. She feels like she's been trapped in Mah'Habara for a week, while she knows that reasonably, it can't be much more than a day. If that.
She thinks. Maybe.
She watches Sazh and Vanille consider their options. Vanille's eyes are nailed to the floor and Sazh is twitching and shuffling under her gaze. She heaves a sigh. She's been too volatile. She's made her friends question their place in her life and on this journey. It's not really all that unusual for her. She's never been a patient person, and she's abandoned these particular companions at least once before. Back in the Vile Peaks, when Hope first followed her.
She flinches at the memory. She'd been horrible back then; back before she'd started turning into a monster. What does that say about her? She looks at her friends now, casting expectant and wary glances her way. Alright, let's get real here. She's not exactly a picnic now either. The only reason that these people are tolerating her these days is a distinct lack of options. She needs to do something to smooth things over. Say something.
"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I've been..."
"A pain in the ass?" Fang supplies. Lightning narrows her eyes at Fang who just winks and smirks. Lightning finds herself fighting against a smile and decides it's a losing battle. She huffs one laugh and nods.
"Yeah. Something like that."
"Nah, Soldier. Don't apologize." Sazh says. He steps forward, hands held out. Like he's approaching a wild animal. "If anyone is sorry here, it's me. I shouldn't have said...I shouldn't have doubted you." Sazh looks like he's not sure he quite believes what he's saying. Like he's saying it out loud to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince her. It's both sad and inspiring.
Sazh continues, "There's too many things to fight out there to be fighting with each other. And I forgot..." he pauses, glances at Vanille who gives him a beaming smile, "that we shouldn't give up hope." He swallows, "Which in this case has a double meaning doesn't it?"
She can't help but smile at him as she thinks about the platinum haired boy. Her Hope. No, she realizes. Not hers. Theirs. "Yeah."
Sazh smiles back at her and looks more certain. Like maybe he's finally managed to convince himself that he's not just spouting platitudes after all. "And while I was being all realistic, I forgot something important."
"What's that?" Lightning asks, intrigued.
"I forgot that that boy will do anything for you." Lightning feels her eyes burn, looks down at her toes for a moment to blink away the tears. I know, she thinks. It's a truth that she's been counting on and clinging to since the cave in. "And that 'Hero' is a lot tougher than he looks."
Her throat feels mysteriously thick and clogged. She swallows, hopes that her voice won't shake as she breathes out a, "Yeah." She thinks about Snow. How many times had he held her up, or just held her over the past weeks? How many times had she fed off of his optimism? His strength? How many times had she used him to buttress her own failing controls. How many times had he gotten kicked, punched or slapped by her? He took it all-all her rage, her vitriol, her desolation and devastation-and came back for more. Tough? "He is at that." Talk about your understatements.
Sazh nods once. "So, I'm sorry," Sazh finishes. "I promised you that I'd follow you and then the first hiccup, I..."
"Stop." She steps forward, grabs his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry about. You're a good man, and a good friend." He eyes her fingers on his shoulder. He's still wary of her, but she supposes that's reasonable. She's rash and unreasonable. Volatile. Not to mention that she's mutating right before his eyes. She drops her hand and her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful thing! Anyone got a hanky?" Fang says. "Let's get going ladies before my teeth rot from all this sweetness." Fang's sarcasm drains the mounting tension, diffuses the group's solemnity and makes it far easier to breathe. Lightning shoots her a look she hope conveys her immense gratitude.
"Fang!" Vanille scolds, smacking Fang's arm. "You're impossible!"
"What?" Fang asks with total innocence. Sazh laughs hard (possibly harder than necessary) and Lightning smiles. She finds herself getting wistful. Thinks maybe the fal'Cie aren't so bad after all. Without them, she'd never have met these people.
Her brain trips on the thought, can get around the ass backwards logic. I really am going crazy. She shakes her head as they start to move on.
Lightning wants to take point. No. That's not right. She needs to take point. She's as twitchy as an addict in withdrawal, desperate for a fix. Hell, she is an addict in need of a fix.
Her fix these days is violence.
There's something euphoric in the act of destruction. She'd love to place the blame solely on her metamorphosis, but that would be more than inaccurate; it would be a bald faced lie. There's nothing supernatural about the enticing draw to, and temptation of, brutality. It's an innate, pervasive and very human quality. She's seen enough evidence in her years to know this as fact.
She's seen small children demolishing sandcastles on the beach that had taken others hours to build. They laugh, scream, jump and pounce with ferocious glee, no thought or care given to the work or time that had gone into the construction. She's seen them demolish ant hills with the same ruinous joy, oblivious to, or uncaring of, the life that they destroy with the act. She's seen some pull the wings off of insects for the sheer glee of inflicting suffering, and watching the creature squirm and die.
She's seen adults line up to watch as buildings that have outlived their usefulness are demolished. They set off fireworks and cheer as buildings that had been someone's home, or someone's livelihood, implode. They eat and drink and turn what should be practical or even solemn events into a celebration. Reveling and glorying in the instant destruction of something that had taken time to construct.
She's seen people kill vermin with sadistic satisfaction: no thought for the life of the animal they've killed. No respect or reverence for the act of killing, or the power that it implies. Only a dim contentment that they have exterminated something they'd considered filthy. Less, somehow.
She's seen soldiers use wildlife for target practice. Watched as trained and allegedly disciplined men act like boys with BB guns firing at empty bottles. Watched as they turned their rifles on an unfortunate animal and reduced it to an unrecognizable carcass: a mass of blood and meat, no more than fodder for maggots. And laughed.
She's been disenchanted with humans for a long time. Perhaps that is why she had been so willing-eager even-to serve the fal'Cie. Higher beings with a higher purpose. It's annoying that it turns out they match, or even outstrip humans, in the love of destruction and bloodshed.
So she can't help but figure that their 'Maker' or 'Creator' or whatever the hell they want to call it, must be one twisted monstrosity. One Being responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie. Lightning feels her fists tighten further, driving jagged fingernails deep into the calloused flesh of her palms. She can't help but hope she gets a chance to meet it, just to show it what she thinks of It and Its nasty little 'creations.'
Of course, she's pretty convinced at this point that the tales of an omniscient 'Maker' or 'Creator' are as much fal'Cie fantasy as every other tale the fal'Cie have told to humans. Only this particular bill of goods? It seems to have been sold to themselves. And isn't that just a riot?
Yeah. She'd laugh, but she seems to have lost any and all traces of humor when she lost Snow and Hope. Go figure.
She exhales a breath and continues walking. She'd needed to take point so she could charge into any fray, plunge her weapon into anything unfortunate enough to be in her way. Her breathing had quickened at the thought. She'd felt the buzz of anticipation rattle through her. Felt the blood pound through her dilated vessels and raise a warm, intoxicated flush over her body.
Needed it. Like air.
Which is exactly why she'd insisted that Fang take point. So now Lightning trails behind the group in the rearguard position (Snow's position) to remind herself what's at stake now. Caving to irrational need is another step down a very dark path: one that she's further down than anyone (but her, it seems) wants to admit. She understands the enormity of the position she's taken in this little party. Her companions are still willing to trust Lightning with their backs, and that's not something she's willing to abuse. Or lose, for that matter.
Besides, it's not good or healthy to want something to the point of covetousness. She needs to keep herself in check now, maintain some sort of balance. Throwing herself in head first feels great, sends adrenaline firing through her body and makes her feel alive. It also dredges up all sorts of ugly passions that, on the best of days, should remain buried.
Today is nowhere near the best of days.
Sazh slows his pace enough that she catches up to him in three steps. He casts a concerned glance at her but hides it quickly.
"You alright, Soldier?"
She considers her answer for only a moment before deciding that lying requires entirely too much energy and effort.
"No," she answers. He looks surprised. Not at the answer, but at the fact that she'd been honest. Don't ask questions, if you don't want the answer. She stifles the smarmy internal voice and continues, "but I'm better than I've been. So, you know..." she trails off. Changes the subject. " And you?"
That surprises him too, and isn't she just on a roll today? Two for two here. It once again seems that she hasn't given much consideration to her friends' overall wellbeing for a while.
Yep. She really is a selfish bitch.
"Good days and bad days I suppose."
She chuckles a bit but winces at the obvious sarcastic bitterness. "Oh, yeah? And today?"
He heaves a hard sigh, then gives her a fake grin. "Today's great!" His voice drips sarcasm and she smiles back at him. He lets the fake smile fade into something a bit more genuine. "But we're alive, for which we have you to thank."
"Me?" Oh yeah! She'd been great. She'd suggested they run through the night across the Archylte Steppe, nearly got them trampled to death, which triggered a cave in that almost killed them all and which may, in fact, have killed two of them. Her mouth goes dry and she swallows the rising lump in her throat.
"Uh, yeah, you. Why?" He casts an assessing glance her way. "Soldier?"
She chews on her lower lip for a moment before spitting it back out and straightening up. She needs to get a grip on herself. Her emotions ping pong so often she's getting whiplash. She understands why Sazh might feel beholden to her; at the same time, she knows that he owes her no thanks. She may not be solely responsible for their current dilemma, but she has contributed far more than most.
"Don't thank me." I don't deserve it. "We may die yet."
"You really are a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Sazh comments. She smiles and nods.
"Well, no one ever accused me of being cheery."
"Good thing, or they'd have been lying through their teeth." She feels a smile tug at her lip despite herself and she sneaks a glance at Sazh from the corner of her eye. He's got a secret smile on his face as he looks at his open hands. She spots the chicobo sleeping in the palms of his hands. She reaches into his cupped hands and scratches the chicobo's neck with one nail and feels calm.
The shiver shocks her from her calm and she stops moving and cocks her head. The hairs on her neck and back stand on end and she twitches. Sazh shoves the chicobo into the nest of his hair and walks over to her.
"Trouble?"
"Ssh," she hushes, though she's not sure why. She hasn't heard anything. Just feels it. Her brand flares to life like someone took a butane torch to it. She gasps loud enough to startle Sazh, and he watches her fingers clutch at her brand. Takes a small step forward in concern where she'd expected him to back up in suspicion. She closes her eyes, gets a flash of jagged teeth and narrowed, yellow eyes.
"You have got to be kidding me," she whispers. She's not even sure why she's surprised. Life seems to enjoy kicking them while they're down.
"What's up, Soldier?" Sazh has both hands on her shoulders. She must have spaced out longer than she'd thought because Sazh is right in her face now, and her shoulders ache where his fingers are clutching. "You with me?"
She wets her lips, swallows and says, "Yeah. I'm with you." He sighs hard, steps back and releases her.
"You wanna tell me what that was all about?"
I'd love to. The truth is, she can't explain why these things happen. She can barely define what exactly it is that is happening to her. She's got her right hand pressed hard into her brand. Both her palm and chest burn so hot that she expects there'll be blisters when she separates them. She peels her sweaty palm from her chest, hears the slurp of wet skin separating and wonders for how long a time she'd disappeared into her own thoughts.
Sazh steps closer again and she realizes that she's taken too long to respond. She scans the cave for the predatory eyes she can feel, and whispers, "We're being hunted."
"Aw, man," is Sazh's response. "You were right. We are never going to catch a break."
"No, we aren't." She agrees. She looks around the corridor and decides that she doesn't want to have another showdown here. If she's being hunted, she wants to set up an ambush before they get jumped.
"We need to move."
"Yeah, I don't know where the hell Fang and Vanille went."
"They're right around the bend," she says before she even thinks about it. Sazh gives her an odd look that she can understand but not place. It's not the caution or open fear that he's been flashing in varying degrees over the past day or two. This one is more...morbid curiosity. When they turn the bend and spy Fang leaning against the wall watching Vanille trace invisible drawings onto the walls, Lightning might just understand the look on Sazh's face.
"Neat trick. Want to tell me where you learned it?"
"I'd love to." But I don't have a clue.
"Wanna tell me how you knew?"
"Um..." She considers. "Not really," she answers, deciding that the truth will just freak him out more than not knowing.
The truth is...she can smell them now. Not in a 'we all stink because we haven't bathed properly in days' sort of way, because that's been true for a long while. No, this is more like an 'animal stalking prey' sort of way. So, yeah, she's not really too keen on divulging more information than necessary at this point.
Fang meets her eyes and Lightning could swear the other woman can read her mind. But instead of proving Lightning right, Fang says, "So, moment over? Can we shove off now?"
The question makes Lightning miss a step. Literally. She stumbles a bit at the derailment of her train of thought. All she can say is, "Huh?"
Eloquent.
"Figured you two had more caring and sharing you wanted to do." Fang shrugs. "I was gonna come and smack you both upside the head, but Vanille here insisted I leave you to it." Lightning feels her face heat and she's not sure why. Somehow Fang has managed to insert innuendo into a rather bland and innocent statement. Lightning isn't sure how she manages to do that all the time. "All done then?"
"You are one strange woman," Sazh mumbles at Fang and Vanille bursts out into a fit of giggles. Fang doesn't look even slightly affronted and Lightning feels like she's missed a step somewhere. Like maybe she's slid into an alternate universe. Fang gives Sazh a wink.
It takes a moment before she realizes that she hasn't ever really observed Sazh, Fang and Vanille interacting before. She's been too busy in her own little bubble, insulated by Snow and to some degree Hope. Is it really that big a surprise that these three have formed their own little family unit, complete with inside jokes? That while she's been waltzing through her own melodrama, raging against her inner demon (or not so inner anymore, it seems) they've been forming bonds of their own? The thought both warms and chills her. Makes her ache all over, feel the loss of Snow and Hope again like an amputation.
She can't think about this now or she'll go crazy. She needs to deal with what's in front of her.
"We have to move," Lightning blurts out, hopes that she's blunted the edge to her tone. She knows that she hasn't succeeded entirely.
"Well, I'm not the one who stopped to chat now, am I?" Fang returns. She's not pissed yet, but she's getting there.
"No, I mean..." She needs to stop. She feels her own ever shortening temper start to flare. She stomps on it, refuses to be baited into an argument. She needs to stay focused. She rubs her forehead, heaves a heavy sigh. "I mean, we're being hunted." Her voice comes out through clenched teeth and she rolls her eyes at herself and her own failing controls. She meets Fang's stare. "Again."
"Oh. Great!" Fang doesn't even ask her by what, or how she knows. Lightning figures that either the answer is obvious, or unimportant. "So let's shove on then."
They stick close to one another, Lightning now happy to take rearguard position. Half of her wants to hang back and wait. This monster has tracked her across the Archylte Steppe, survived a herd of stampeding Adamantoises and somehow managed to find a way into Mah'Habara despite the massive cave in that nearly killed all of them. She has no doubt that it'll attack her if she lets her guard down.
Her head buzzes and her body twitches at the idea of a good kill.
She shakes her head to dispel the encroaching urge. She needs to keep her focus now. The pack is near now, and getting closer. They're watching her.
She glances around again, wonders where the hell the monster can be hiding in a cavern, when her eyes skim over scratches in the wall. High up. Deep grooves cut in by what she figures is probably a sharp blade.
Tyrant.
She whips around again before she realizes that she's already slain the Tyrant. Its previous presence explains the overall emptiness of the corridor, and its current absence explains the new stalkers on her trail. Even that ballsy bastard beast wouldn't tread into a Tyrant's territory. Not if it wanted to live to see its next meal.
"Soldier?" Sazh's voice wobbles and she feels all her hair stand on end. "You, uh...you better get over here."
Something in his voice or in the look on his face brings her world to a standstill. Lightning feels an urge to flee. Run before she can see whatever it is that has Sazh stuttering and paling and trying so hard to be steady. She goes so far as to look behind her before steeling herself.
Lightning's is many things. But she's no coward. Now she just wishes someone would tell that to her traitorous knees as they seem to have abandoned her.
The first step is tenuous, but the next is steady. By the third she's running. She rounds the bend in the corridor and comes to a rigid halt. She waits for the visual confirmation of her worst fears. Her heart pounds in her chest, her blood throbs against her throat and temples with enough force to hurt. It's a pure and distilled form of terror pouring through her. She's looks around in confusion.
There's nothing here.
Vanille is squatting down, face buried in her hands, and Fang's got a hand over her mouth. She turns toward Lightning and the look in her eyes is indescribable. Lightning doesn't understand it. She's never seen anything remotely like it in those particular eyes before. Fang looks back down at her feet and Lightning follows her gaze, hopes maybe she'll figure out what's spooked the unflappable woman. Her breath catches before her brain has processed what her eyes are seeing.
Blood.
So. Much. Blood.
Lightning kneels beside the lake of blood on the floor before she's even aware that she's moved. The pool is longer than she is tall and half again as wide. The edges are dried to a matte finish, crackled like an aged painting, but there are spots that shine in the center. She has an overwhelming urge to touch the wet spots, to use the still liquid blood as war paint. She reaches, her fingers shaking. There's a high pitched squeal coming from somewhere that pierces the fog. She clutches her ears, finds the noise even louder. She closes her eyes and breathes, exhalations firing off like an automatic weapon. She feels a hand on her shoulder and shrugs it off. It doesn't return.
It's Snow's blood. She knows it. She can smell it! She has no idea how or why her brain recognizes the smell. Not knowing how doesn't change the fact that it does.
And now that her brain has caught onto that fact, she can't stop smelling it. She turns away and retches, her body doing its stellar best to turn itself inside out, except her stomach has nothing to give. She hasn't fed herself anything in...longer than she can remember. And she'd puked up her last actual meal right after the cave in.
The cave in that had mortally wounded Snow.
She folds in half, presses her forehead to her knees, laces her fingers on top of her head and pulls until something in her neck cracks. She digs the heels of her hands into her ears to block out the sound but nothing works. She feels a dampness spread across the tops of her knees, feels the scrape of the rough stone along her knee caps and shins. She fists both hands, feels and hears hair tearing in her grip and grunts in satisfaction.
She feels hands grip her wrists and pull, so she twists her fingers deeper into her hair. She refuses to uncoil right now. She just wants to be left alone. "It's too much blood," she says, but even she can't understand the words right now. Her mouth isn't cooperating. It's trying to make too many different sounds at once. "He couldn't have survived it."
It's Fang's fingers around her wrist. Fang's voice in her ear. "You don't know whose it is."
"I do," she sobs.
"You can't."
"It's Snow's." She's said it. She has no idea how she's managed to press the words out.
"You can't know that," Fang insists. Her voice is gentler than Lightning's ever heard. She doesn't want kindness. Not from Fang. She whips her head up, nearly clips Fang in the jaw with the back of her head. Considering the force behind her movement, she probably would have knocked them both out if she'd made contact.
Fang backs off and Lightning gets her first glimpse of fear in her eyes. One hour ago, it would have made her sick. Right now it's immensely gratifying. "I know it," she growls. "I can smell it."
Fang looks like she has no idea what to do with that particular revelation. She keeps her face neutral, her tone soft. Like she's dealing with a lunatic.
"Okay then," Fang says. "But he's not here, right? I mean, where's the body? You know damn well that the kid couldn't carry the Hero. So if he's..." she pauses, unwilling to say the word 'dead' it seems. "Where the hell is he then?" Fang's voice is soft and Lightning understands that the other woman isn't trying to be contrary. She's trying to help, to present a possibility where Snow is still living and breathing.
Lightning knows that Fang is talking sense but she can't comprehend it right now. Not while she's kneeling three feet from an ocean of Snow's blood. Not with the stink of blood and pain soaking into her. She looks back over at the stain on the floor and wonders if this is really all she's going to have left of him. A big blood stain like some Rorschach ink blot on the cold stone.
A hand comes down on her shoulder and she stiffens, and sniffles hard. She rubs the heel of her hand over her face and it comes away wet. She looks at her hand, half expecting it to be coated in blood, but it's clean. Wet from tears, not blood.
She's not sure why she's surprised by the discovery. She just knows she is.
She's losing the final shreds of her sanity. That must be it. The last tatters have finally come unraveled. Soon, there'll be nothing left of herself to lose.
Is it strange that the thought comforts her?
She glances at the fingers gripping her shoulder, follows the line of the arm to look into Sazh's kind face. Anger explodes through her like a flash fire and she has a sudden and irrational urge to punch Sazh square between his pinched eyebrows. The light from the still lit torch catches on the pooling tears in Sazh's eyes and all her anger evaporates like morning dew. She puts her hand over the fingers on her shoulder and squeezes.
He's lost something here too.
"Oh no!" Vanille gasps and Lightning can't be bothered to find out what's startled the exclamation from the girl. Vanille tends towards histrionics at the best of times. Fang disappears from her side and Lightning catches the whispered, "What is it, love?" before she tunes them both out. Lightning fixes her eyes on one shiny wet patch in the vast sea of blood and exhales again.
So sorry Snow. So sorry Serah.
She bites down on her lip, sinks teeth deep into the flesh until she tastes blood. She worries the cut until the sting starts to throb and she has something else to think about. Her own blood rather than Snow's.
Sazh hasn't taken his hand from her shoulder. He kneels down next to her in a silent offer of support. A steady, silent rock beside her. He doesn't try to make things better. Doesn't offer platitudes. He's too honest to lie to her, even to make her feel better.
She loves and hates him for that right now.
"Um, Lightning?" Vanille squeaks out, and Lightning really wants to ignore her. If she'd thought the girl would leave her alone, then she probably would. But Vanille isn't one for subtleties. She's not one to take hints and quietly take her leave. And even if she were, she deserves the respect that Lightning herself demands. She deserves acknowledgement.
"Yes?" She looks up at Vanille, sees a hint of her own defeat and desolation mirrored in the girl's eyes. It makes her angry.
Everything makes her angry, it seems.
"Snow wouldn't go anywhere without this, would he?" And Lightning has no idea to what Vanille is referring until a small hand opens and reveals the treasure within.
Serah's tear.
Lightning recoils, tastes bile in the back of her throat, feels tears overflow from her eyes. Sazh's fingers tighten on her shoulder, and he's speaking quietly into her ear, but Lightning can't hear him over all the damn noise. She recognizes the shrill sound from before as her own keening. She's horrified at the noise but can't silence it. There's a pain tearing through her chest and she can't seem to catch her breath no matter how hard she tries. She wonders if she might be dying, wonders if she might find peace there. Might find Serah and Snow there. She reaches for the crystal tear, finds that her whole body is quivering and shaking too much to control her fingers.
She can't do this. She has no idea how she's supposed to pull herself together again. She'd known that the odds were against Snow and Hope. But she's not sure if she can keep going now that her worst fears are realized.
It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do.
The words startle her from her wallowing. She'd spit them at Hope all those long weeks ago. Now, she needs to believe them. She can't afford to fall apart. She needs her mind intact. Even if Snow is gone (she feels her stomach wobble a bit, feels fresh tears well), Hope might still live. He's going to need her. She can't afford to sit here and wait for death or insanity or mutation. She takes one breath and holds it, blows it out slowly. She needs to get a hold of herself. This sort of loss of control is totally unacceptable. There's no time for self indulgence or grieving. There's too much left for her to do. She'd promised Hope she'd protect him, and she's not going to fail him too.
"I'm so sorry Soldier," Sazh whispers. She takes another breath, exhales and finds her calm. She reaches for the crystal, plucks it from Vanille's outstretched hand. She clutches it tight, feels the edges prick into her palm before opening her hand to look at the crystal.
There are smudges from her palm prints on the crystal and reddish brown flecks on it. Blood, she recognizes, and is amazed by her own lack of reaction. She rolls the crystal between her thumb and pointer finger, watches the crystal scatter the light. Watches colors dance across the blood pool.
Remembers that so-long-ago night in Vallis Media. When was that? Last week? A lifetime ago.
/I. Forgot. Serah...I had no idea what it was, or why I would be holding it...I dropped it. Right there, in the middle of nowhere./
The memory kindles an ember of hope in her broken heart. To answer Vanille's question: No. Snow wouldn't voluntarily leave Serah's tear behind. But involuntarily? That's possible. Likely? No. The most likely scenario is that Snow died and is food for the massive predators of Gran Pulse. Hell, the pack that's stalking her might have devoured him for all she knows. So, she'll ignore likely and grab onto 'possible' with both hands right now.
She stands so abruptly that everyone startles, takes one step back from her. She ignores her friends' flinches and slips Serah's tear into her pouch. If Snow's gone, then it's up to her to keep her sister's memory alive. If Snow's alive, then she plans on returning the token of his lost love to him.
She casts one more forlorn look at the blood pool. Offers up a silent apology before she balls up all her regret and buries it as deep as it will go and hopes that it will stay there.
Lightning finally meets her friends' eyes. They all look a bit wrecked, stooped with grief. These people who have followed her and stood beside her. These people who have fought with her and will more than likely die with her. Remembers something Snow said to her: 'A burden shared is a burden halved.' She feels the weight on her chest lessen enough to get a full breath.
"Let's go find Hope."
Posted in 2 parts due to size...See next post Onto the conclusion-- frkmgnt1.livejournal.com/6381.html