Sometimes, in the hollow expanse of timelessness, Lightning Farron found herself washed up on the shores of Valhalla. Her rose hair tangled with the black grains of the beach as she lay on her side and stared down the endless shore to the horizon. She never remembered how she got there, or when her fight with Caius had ended, or even who had won, but she knew it would begin again soon. Many questions raced around her head about that man in the silences before their thunder shook the sky again, and she realised she couldn't answer most of them. So many questions. But there was one question that surfaced the most and haunted her in those countless days.
What did he fight for?
Who did he fight for? If her suspicions were correct, Caius was fighting for someone too. Light thought of Serah and of the tortures she was willing to endure to save her, of the burning need to protect her and the aching hurt of knowing she was not where she needed to be to do that. She was trapped here, unable to reach her. If Caius felt the same way about someone – about Yeul; if he would never succumb to the failure of losing, what was she supposed to do? Looking at Caius was like looking in a mirror, and so far Lightning Farron had proven to be unbeatable.
Sometimes when she lay there, listening to the shattering sound of Valhalla's bells – a sound she had come to despise – as they tolled in the vastness of her prison, her whole body ached. Every limb was heavy with fatigue and hurt to lift. But she knew it wasn't real. Just a memory of what it used to be to be human, because in Valhalla there is no time (and Lightning was no longer human) so there was no physical fatigue or weariness. But mentally… Mentally she was exhausted. She wondered if Etro knew of her suffering, of the strength it took just to pick herself back up again. Part of her questioned if Etro felt anything at all when she stole Lightning and threw her into this cage of eternity. She wanted Etro to feel something for her loss. But Etro had lived thousands of lifetimes, seen millions of lives end and begin again. What was one single life to her?
As insignificant as one grain of sand on an endless black beach.
In the end it didn't matter. She didn't need recognition, or thanks, or praise. She knew, just as Caius knew too, that she would willingly fade into oblivion, happily give everything she had to give to save Serah, and that no god would ever keep her from her sister.
But sometimes, as she lay there looking up at the lifeless stars, with the waters of time brushing against her fingertips, she thinks – just for an instant – that maybe, this time, she won't get back up. With the simultaneous weight of thousands of hours but also no time at all crushing her chest and splintering her heart, and years of doubt and absolute certainty colliding behind her eyes into fireworks, she falters. Endings bring certainty and possibility. But in a place where nothing ends and nothing begins… How do you know if you should carry on fighting?
The bells of Valhalla chime the hour, both for the first, and the hundredth, and the thousandth time and her heartbeat quickens and the waves crash and Lightning wonders if today this will finally end.
If, for once, Claire Farron will stay down.
