AN: This story is set at the end of 13-2, but before LR:13. It also uses the canon ending to the game. NoelxHope.
Preludes to a Fall – Nascence
The sky was clear and bright, the wind whipping his tie and hair around as he landed on the top of the ship. It clashed strongly with the scene in front of him. Jogging up to the kneeling figure, he slowed.
"Noel..?" He asked. The figure, sitting bent over an unmoving body glanced back, then shook his head. Confusion and pain drilled its way in without asking, and Hope voiced the only thing in his mind.
"But why?"
He could feel his own hope dying inside, staring down at Noel and Serah. She was gone. And he had missed the chance to say goodbye by seconds. Anger was the next emotion to surface, though muted. Noel sat silent.
"You were safe. Everything was fine!" He said. He knew he should be reacting more, but the scientific part of his mind was well trained. He waited for an answer.
"The future changed. It changed." Noel said haltingly. Looking down, Hope tried to piece it together to understand. Noel continued. "If you change the future, you change the past. The effects ripple outwards, up and down the timeline. The seeress is forced to see it all."
Still looking down, something clicked. "You mean Serah… she saw this vision?" He pulled his eyes back to Noel, who still sat with his back to him, cradling a lifeless body. He couldn't help his brows from knitting together.
"Yes. And it killed her." Noel looked down at Serah, grief obvious in his countenance. He didn't cry. Mog, whom Hope had not even greeted, hovered above Noel's head looking down on Serah. The creature's heartache was obvious. Noel gently rubbed a hand down the side of Serah's unmoving face. "She knew the risk. If we altered the future, she knew what would happen; that her life could be in danger." He moved his hand from her face to under her waist. "I wanted to protect her."
Changing his hold, Noel came close to breaking down. "I thought I had." He cradled her to his chest and stared at the too-perfect sky. "I thought she was safe!"
At a spike of anguish in his chest, Hope scrunched his face and looked down. He didn't want to cry; not in front of Noel's so barely contained suffering and Mog's obvious confusion.
Just as the waves of grief crashed into Noel, a deep, penetrating boom filled the skies. His eyes snapped back open, alert. Life had taught him to never let his guard down, even in suffering. Confused, he looked around.
Hope had heard the same sound, but had not focused on it until the second pounding. The thought that it reminded him of a heartbeat was fleeting. Neither of them saw Mog flapping his arms as if trying to stay up until he fell. Hope, being closest, caught Mog. He saw for the first time how dull the crystal sat on Mog's head. No one had thought about what kept the creature here, what kept him alive.
In a small voiced filled with pain, Mog made his final statement. "The goddess… she has gone, kupo." With that, the crystal bobble fell heavy with gravity to the ship's surface, the light from the crystal burning out in a way that Hope knew was permanent. He looked up at Noel, unable to hide the emotional pain from his face. Noel met his eyes with an expression of hardening, and of sympathy.
Around them the sky grew dark, and the sounds of an otherworldly heartbeat continued. They heard a wind abruptly rise in the distance. Strong wind. Standing, Hope whirled around to where the sound came from, still embracing a dead Moogle in his arms. Noel made to step next to Hope, when he remembered words spoken so very long ago by a man once a friend.
Caius's words echoed in his head. Words about having the heart of a goddess. Shock, fear, and numbness settled into his bones, and he lifted his hands to look at them. "I killed… the goddess?!" Caius's words were the same, though Noel failed to catch the most important line. Noel fell to his knees once again with the realization.
At that moment, black winds buffeted the ship, trying to fling its two outside passengers over the edge and to a drop of frightful length. Hope tried to maintain his balance, forgetting the Moogle in his arms as he, too, fell to his knees. At a sound from behind him, Noel glanced back to where he'd left Serah's body to find… nothing.
"No!" He shouted, scrambling towards the edge. He knew it would be dangerous in this wind, but needing to give her proper rites came first to his thoughts. Only, when he looked out over the edge, there was… nothing. But that wasn't right either. He knew he should have seen if she fell, but the sight before him stopped all thought. Below him was not Pulse and Academia, but Valhalla. Shocked, he looked out over the rest of the city, only to find that it was still there. In parts.
Valhalla seemed to be merging like they had been warned, but not completely. It was almost as if two puzzles had been forcibly jumbled together, pieces jammed side-by-side when they shouldn't have fit.
"Hope!" He cried, turning to the other man. The winds were knocking that part of the ship so badly that Hope was now on his side in the fetal position, still clutching Mog. Noel tried to force his legs into action, but was only halfway back to Hope when the black wind enveloped him. He froze, jarred, thinking he had lost his only acquaintance left in this time. It wasn't a thought born of fear or anguish, but of resignation.
In the next instant, the black winds traveled out to surround Academia's largest building, and many of the smaller structures further out. Noel watched, detached. Headquarters slowly disappeared, and at the same time another building was appearing. In the seconds it took to complete, Noel did not think. The black winds stopped, and where the building had stood was a familiar building; Valhalla's throne room. He turned and saw that Bhunivelze was still in the sky, its lights out completely. Thinking about the darkness, he remembered Hope.
His head and eyes snapped down to see Hope re-emerge from the black cloud. Mog was no longer with him. He was still in the fetal position, but he now clutched air to him. He was also decidedly unconscious. "Hope!" Noel shouted, finally getting his legs moving again.
"What the hell is going on up there? You screaming, sudden turbulence, and now my cargo is melting. Hope, what do I do? Hope?" The voice was somewhat garbled, but still recognizable as the pilot Noel had met earlier. Serz? Saze? He knew it started with an S at least.
"We need to land. Serah's dead. Hope's not awake. Mog is gone. I think we failed. We can't be in the air." He yelled back. Silence spoke back to him. After a few moments he felt the slow descent of the airship. Maybe he'd been too rough with Sahz. That was it; Sahz. "I'm sorry. I know you knew them all better than I d… did." Was all he could say. He wasn't even sure the older man heard him. He'd completely forgotten about Dajh, the boy.
As the ship landed minutes later on a foreign landscape, Noel sat cradling a limp body to him for the second time that day and for the third in his life. The only difference was that he knew this body still lived. That made him apathetic. He had nothing to worry about, so long as the breathing from this one in white never stopped. It wasn't much, but it was all he could hold on to in the face of such utter failure.
Distantly he heard a bell in the throne tower gonging. Over, and over, and over….
AN: I know it follows the end very close, but I'm building something here. I'm in the mood to write, so there might be a few updates today. Or at least this week. I really need to get this story out. RnR!