This is weird and kinda stupid... It starts out fluffy but I've found I'm incapable of being anything but dark, so it's not how it appears. Anyway, enjoy.
Vanille giggled. It was so much fun to watch Lightning spar with Fang. They grunted and grappled and made the most unladylike noises ever to grace the red head's ears, and afterward she got to patch them up.
It was about the only time she felt useful-not that anyone noticed with the constant, carefree smile plastered on her face.
"Don't get too rough with each other today," she called when she watched Fang toss Lightning across the field. No one was surprised when she landed on her feet.
Someone chuckled behind her and Vanille let out a little yelp, causing the sparring girls to glance over for a split second before leaping at each other again. "You can't stop those two. Personally I'm just glad they're not taking it out on me." Snow chuckled again and sat next to Vanille beneath the shade of the dense trees. "My pride won't forgive me for getting pummeled every time they get mad."
The red head just smiled, mostly ignoring the man who seemed to be trying to take the role of father figure in her life. "Aren't they so pretty?"
The question surprised Snow, but he took a moment to seriously consider his answer solely because Vanille had asked it.
If Hope had asked, he would've given him a hard clap on the back and agreed. Sazh would've earned the title of pervert. But Vanille? He didn't understand the girl so he never felt like he could just say whatever came to the top of his head.
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, Light looks a lot like Serah."
Vanille giggled and he suddenly felt like he had said the wrong thing. "No, silly. I mean, don't they look like... gods? They're fighting, but they're dancing," she tilted her head, never taking her serious eyes off the girls in front of her. Her sudden mood swing made Snow slightly uncomfortable, but she giggled again and he shrugged off the strangeness.
"But gods wouldn't make such weird noises." Her voice carried a little farther than necessary, but the smile on her face made it clear she had been loud on purpose.
The women stopped fighting, Fang turning an exaggerated glare to Vanille, and Lightning's ever present stoic visage darkened slightly.
"What'd the little ray of sunshine just say?" Fang turned to Lightning, and much to everyone's surprise, the pinkette went with it.
"I think... she was trying to insult us."
"Oh... Then... I guess we should go... Punish her?"
Vanille squealed, standing to run, but Lightning caught her before she could even turn around. With Vanille absorbing their attention, Snow decided to run-best not to get caught in the crossfire.
"Yeah," Lightning smirked. "I guess we should."
Fang, who had been making her way over to the red head, suddenly stopped mid step and snorted. "Ah, look at that," she cooed. "Our little baby's all red!"
Lightning turned to look, but only managed to catch Vanille flinching away from her line of sight. "Don't hurt me!" She screamed, loudly and dramatically, and clearly in a way that suggested she knew the women wouldn't hurt her, but Snow came running back regardless. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, not daring to get close.
The self-declared hero watched as Lightning's arms circled tighter around Vanille's bare midriff, causing the young girl's blush to spread to her neck.
Suddenly Fang and Lightning simultaneously burst into laughter and Snow ran away again, fears for the red head relieved.
"You're so cute, Van."
Vanille just stuck out her tongue and unwound herself from Lightning's embrace.
"Snow came to save you," Light smirked. "But he ran away before he had the chance."
"Our big hero isn't such a hero then, is he?" Fang shouted, hands cupped around her mouth. If any of the animals hadn't run far from the intruders before, they were long gone now.
"Shut up, Fang," he called back. "I knew you wouldn't do anything to her."
Mischievous grins plastered to both the older women's faces, she yelled, "there's plenty of things we could do to her, you'll have to be more specific than 'anything.'"
A pause. "Things like what?"
His heart stopped when he heard another quiet, high pitched yelp. "Some very pleasurable things to be sure."
Vanille's hand came up to stifle her giggles and she backed into Lightning, silently commanding the pinkette to hold her up lest she fall to the ground in a fit of laughter.
Another pause and this time his voice was much closer. "V-vanille can handle herself... R-right?"
Lightning brushed her slender fingers across Vanille's stomach, slowly making her way to the hem of her crop top. Vanille took the hint and gasped loudly, making sure to moan Lightning's name after. This time Lightning had to hold back her snickering.
Just in case Snow was watching, Fang brought her mouth right next to Vanille's throat, barely brushing her lips over the sensitive skin. "Fang... Oh... Fang! Don't, ah!"
As expected, Snow burst out of the trees and the girls couldn't restrain themselves any longer. Lightning let go of Vanille in favor of trying to keep herself on her feet and Fang simply dropped to the ground next to Vanille, gasping for breath.
Embarrassed by their teasing, Snow began to try to defend himself, but he stopped when he realized they weren't listening anyway. As if sensing his distress, Serah walked into the clearing and cast a sweet glance at her breathless sister and Pulsian friends before requesting his help in starting the camp fire.
"Of course! A hero never backs down from a challenge!"
That just sent the girls into another fit of laughter, causing the large man's cheeks to tinge pink.
Once they were alone again, the girls laughter slowed enough for them to breathe, but the red refused to leave Vanille's cheeks. She knew Fang had noticed, but she prayed to Etro that Light hadn't.
Fang shot Vanille a mischievous look and announced she would go help the hero with the fire, leaving the two girls alone.
Lightning made a few attempts to talk to the girl, but Vanille refused to look her in the eye. "... Van?"
"...yeah?"
Lightning laid down on her back in the grass and closed her eyes, hoping Vanille would take the hint to relax a little. "Sorry."
"...What?"
"You know. For putting you in an awkward situation."
Silence. Then Light jumped a little when she felt Vanille drop her head onto her muscular stomach. "It's okay," she giggled.
Lightning smiled, causing Vanille's blush to deepen yet again. Does she even know how pretty that makes her?
"Hey, Van?"
"Yeah?"
Lightning surprised both of them by dropping her hand to her side-landing on Vanille's bare side. Erotic thoughts flashed through Light's mind and she struggled to push them away. "Uh-what're you going to do if we get to Eirba and no one's there?"
The giggly girl burrowed into Lightning's stomach, hiding her face much like a child. "I guess I'll stay with you."
Light couldn't deny the strange bubble of satisfaction she felt at that. Now she really hoped no one was left in the village. "And if I tell you I won't let you stay?"
"Trust me," Vanille whispered, turning her gaze to Lightning, "you'll enjoy having me."
Lightning smirked, willing perverted thoughts out of her head even as a tinge of pink dusted her cheeks.
"And what'll you do for me?" More like to me, a voice suggested in her head. Shut up.
"I can do lots of things." Vanille turned so that Lightning's hand sat directly on her tan stomach, just above her navel. Light didn't miss the suggestiveness she'd put into the word "lots" or the slight pause before "things." "I'm pretty good with my hands."
Oh, dear Etro please stop these thoughts.
Her hand moved on its own accord, rubbing circles into Vanille's smooth skin. "We've got that in common," she chuckled.
Vanille tried to hide her blush and quickly stood up, practically leaping out of Lightning's reach. "I guess we'll have to see if anyone's still there, then, don't we?"
A pause as Lightning stood up, turning towards their makeshift camp.
"I guess so."
.
.
.
Vanille's smile faltered slightly as she ran with Fang toward their home. It looked run down and abandoned, like people hadn't lived there for a hundred years.
"Hey, Van," came Fang's tentative call. Vanille glanced over, smile falling completely when she followed her into the town square-or at least what was left of it.
She froze, hand gripping Fang's. A voice whispered, "cieth," but it sounded so far away that it took a moment for everyone to realize Vanille had spoken.
Fang looked down worriedly at her friend, recalling the day they'd become l'cie. "Van..."
...
Fang had been mad, really mad, and she'd run from the village to prove herself to her father. She was strong, and dammit, she deserved to be a hunter. She needed to be a hunter. The village needed her to be a hunter, and she would become one, wether or not her father approved was irrelevant.
Vanille had followed her-no one else dared. When they returned home Fang bearing the brand of a l'cie, the entire village had shunned her. She had been kicked out of her home, publicly shamed, and eventually run out of the village.
No one knew that Vanille had a brand because hers was hidden, but she still left with Fang because she couldn't bear to abandon her friend. Vanille didn't have to go with her. People loved the caring little red head. She probably would have been allowed to stay in the village even if the villagers knew she was a l'cie.
Fang could remember the last thing Vanille had shouted back at the people: "Even if you curse us, hate us, and run us out of our homes, you'll still regret that we left. Because by kicking us out, you're simply reading the lines in the fal cie's script. You're losing a game you don't even know you're playing!"
...
"You're losing a game..." Vanille whispered again. Fang squeezed her friend's hand, willing the girl to calm down.
She looked fine, but something had snapped inside. Her smile was gone. "A game I had hoped you would realize you were playing."
No one moved. Cieth moaned, wind blew, rotting wood creaked, the ocean splashed against the sand, but the l'cie were silent, waiting for one of the Pulsians to move. "You never listened to me anyway."
"Van..."
Vanille pulled her hand out of the older woman's grasp. "You never listened," she shouted, drawing their attention. "And damn you all to hell! You deserve to live forever, only remembering your regret, you deserve this retched punishment!" Her shoulders shook when she stalked toward the stumbling creatures. "But I can't let you."
A hand rested itself on her shoulder and she shook it off, tempting death as she shoved her friends back and ran right for the first cieth in her path. "I can't let you live like this," she shouted, and when she turned enough for the l'cie to get a glimpse of her face, they saw tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I hate you, but I..." No one ran to help her. They all watched in awe as their little ray of sunshine hacked through the creatures with a strength none of them knew she possessed. "I can't let you live like this. You deserve it, but I can't let you."
Vanille only stopped once the street was littered with bodies. She stalked over them, eyes trained to the ground in front of her, feet walking down a familiar path, up a familiar set of stairs, through a familiar doorway, stopping once they reached the wire frame of a familiar bed sitting in its familiar spot.
Finally snapping out of her trance, her eyes surveyed the room. A few jars still lined the broken shelf, their contents turned to dust. Rotting picture frames lay face down on the desk, glass scattered across the floor. Her pendant still hung on the metal hook in the corner, just were she left it.
A sob escaped her lips, shaking her shoulders and forcing her to the ground. They were gone. Sure, she figured none of them would still be alive, but she'd never expected the villagers to have become cieth. She'd warned them not to play the fal cie's game, and per usual, they'd ignored her.
A small part of her had allowed herself to hope that they weren't the people she'd known. But no stranger would have left her room untouched, her possessions in their rightful places.
She held back a scream. How many of her friends had she just killed? How many of the villagers had died a normal death and escaped the torture of life as a cieth? How many of them did she never get to apologize to, to thank, to forgive?
She jumped when she heard glass crunch behind her. Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders protectively. "It's okay, Van. They wouldn't have let us come back anyway."
The red head turned in Fang's arms, trying to see her face. Fang looked pained, but it was evident that she felt this was deserved, and she wasn't going to cry over the death of the people who'd earned her hate.
Vanille pulled away, reaching out to unhook her pendant from the wall, unwilling to admit how disgusted she was with Fang's lack of sympathy for the villagers. "Do you remember this?"
Fang's eyes hardened. "Yeah."
"My mother gave it to me before we left." She sighed, holding the worn necklace to her chest. "She told me that it brought good fortune, and that if I wore it, someday we would see each other again."
Her breath hitched and Fang wrapped her arms around the girl protectively. "I should have worn it."
.
.
.
Lightning silently made her way back down the stairs, motioning for the boys to stay away. They happily obliged, minds still processing the death around them. They couldn't believe the cheerful red head had done this. Granted, it wouldn't have surprised anyone if Fang had killed them, and the number of kills wasn't anything more than Hope or Sazh could have managed, but the fact that it was Vanille who snapped... No one knew she had it in her.
Light simply leaned against the railing, closing her eyes and replaying the slaughter. She'd known Vanille was strong, but the girl had always stepped back and allowed the "heros" to protect her, so she was reeling slightly with the sudden revelation. Vanille was terrifying when angered. She smiled ruefully and made a mental note to never frustrate the cute little girl, even as she felt a pang of guilt, having wished that there would be no one in Eirba. It wasn't logical, but she felt as if she deserved a part of the blame for Vanille's pain.
Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to an hour, and the silence stretched on, punctuated only by the splash of the waves and the occasional moan of a cieth that Vanille had missed. Lightning ground her teeth. Vanille reminded her of Serah, and she couldn't help but want to protect her, couldn't help but want to be the only one Vanille turned to. But she hadn't managed to save either of the girls from heart wrenching pain, so it's not like she deserved their trust anyway.
Muscles twitching from her high levels of anxiety, Lightning began to tap her fingers against her arms, eyes frantically searching for something to stare at. After a brief glance at the chopped up pieces of what she might become if she didn't complete her focus littering the streets, she decided she didn't like Eirba-at least not in this condition.
Nothing caught her eye, so she pushed herself off the wall and began the walk to kami knows where, hoping beyond hope that she could find someplace that wasn't either filled with dead cieth or crowded with live ones. Gods above, she hated the fal cie.
Well, there you have it. Probably not going to continue this cause I really don't know what's happening... Thanks for reading ;) Rawrs and Rainbows