sometimes you have to lie about stuff.

[escapedpandora]

Who: Hope Estheim and anyone else who runs into him.
What: End of the line. L'Cie who fail to complete their Focus in time turn into Cie'th.
Where: Streets of Promenade, edge of the city.
When: Early evening
Warnings: Angst, violence. Spoilers.

Comments

[needsheadphones]

She didn't have any idea what the day would hold when she went out that afternoon. She certainly hadn't been expecting Hope, maskless and clearly... beyond upset, to rush past and nearly shove her over.

"Hope?!"

She shouted after him, but he didn't respond. He was running from something, and for a moment, Rebecca couldn't figure out what. Then she remembered what he told her, the mark on his wrist, and she paled. Then she ran after him.

Intellectually, she knew there was nothing she could do, but part of her was screaming that if she could just get there, if she could just show that he wasn't alone and it wasn't his fault, if she could find some way to help, that it would be okay. Hope would be okay, maybe not forever, but longer -- long enough for someone to find a way to fix it, to freeze the magic or something. She was still holding onto that hope when she rounded a corner

[escapedpandora]

There was nothing (nothingnothingnothing) that could make up for the pain. Nothing, and nothing, and why wasn't everyone else in as much pain?

Pain, and rage, and failure-- why? Why was it here, why had it failed when it could have succeeded and rested and never again worry or be expected to continue?

No! No, they would pay for this outcome; this rage and this pain!

[needsheadphones]

If sharing that hurt was what it wanted to do, it was certainly succeeding. Rebecca had always hated failing, but this... this was far beyond a project that didn't quite work out. This was a mission that failed and took lives of her friends, this was... this was Hope, a fourteen-year-old boy who didn't deserve this, didn't deserve any of what had happened to him, and who wasn't even himself anymore.

"Hope..."

She wouldn't attack it, not unless it attacked her or someone else first. She was having trouble switching over to the cold assassin facade that she needed on field missions. Instead, she was just Rebecca, all bleeding heart and optimism that was being crushed by the sight of a crystallized creature.

[escapedpandora]

This place was different. No power, no gods, nothing to fulfill. This place was empty and full of people but none of them right.

But the call of life was beckoning, and like a moth it followed, steps slow and clumsy and uncertain. A newborn creature, from the ashes of someone else. One of constant pain and the knowledge that it was created from failure and not meant to exist. Outside of the Maker's sight. No relief, no redemption.

Buildings. With dim crystal vision, it slowly made its way toward where there would be people and warmth and perhaps happiness (happiness that it couldn't have; born without it, dropped into the world without it).

It let loose another screech as it found a pinprick of warmth. A living being. Not cold, not crystal. Different.

And not in as much pain as it. Kill it, kill it, it doesn't deserve to live--!