Hoofbeats

by Evelos

An old mare's tale keeps fear at bay, for the time until the sun should rise, for tribes to clash in untapped blood, for life to spill and seep and paint the earth, to quicken and spread freely. A lovers curse, a thirsting blade, a paradise untouched; what dwells beneath the soil is dead, but still not lost to us, for blood is power and life is blood, and death is not an ending.

A/N: I still blame you for this one, Gaby. :P This was supposed to just stay a silly, stupid little idea, but you've gone and gotten me too damn inspired for my own good... At least it isn't suffering too much from the writer's block. (But seriously, this one is for you. I don't think I would have gotten any writing done at all over these past few months without your encouragement. I've gotta thank you so much for that.)

---

In the distance, she could still hear them speaking, but the sounds were no louder than a whisper.

Fang turned to peer out over the low hills, down at the sloping embankment that led towards the edge of the outer floodplains. It was where a long, swift river coursed and snaked its way throughout the reeds, through the mud and the wild grasses, separating the grassy hill she stood upon from the dry grounds that sheltered the wide encampment.

"Fang?" From higher up along the hill, Vanille almost giggled at the look in Fang's eyes. "You don't have to go with me if you don't want to, you know..."

Fang snorted softly at that. "Just thinking."

"About..?" Vanille wandered just a bit closer, enough to gently poke at Fang's nearest shoulder with her index finger. "It seems safe enough here."

"There could always be something lurking around." Fang took one last look at the distant tents and rising wisps of campfire smoke, at the children racing all around in the grass near the riverside, and at those of her own age who were either resting alongside their peers or wrangling their own children into a bath from the river itself. "...Did you hear about the patrol last night?"

Vanille almost frowned at Fang's tone. "I didn't."

"It was some old weapon cache... Weird weapons." Fang slowly crossed her arms against her chest, feeling the soft, worn leather of her tunic. "And I took a look at what they brought back; it's just as weird as they all say." She glanced down at the dagger sheathed on her belt, and then at the long metal spear that was resting just out of her line of vision, though she knew that she could easily grasp it and slash out in front of her, all within the mere time it took for two hearts to beat. "So, on our little trip today..."

Vanille nodded rather sagely, but there was a clear hint of mischief in her eyes. "We'll be very, very careful."

Fang watched the way her friend suddenly darted off without another word, listening to how she giggled again and dashed along through the grass, almost as if she had no worries at all.

"C'mon Fang!"

As she stood there, Fang let her eyes slip shut for just a moment. It wasn't as if Vanille was careless. Fang knew for a fact that neither of them were a foolish sort, not like some, the kind that panicked and bolted at even the slightest hint of danger... But she still couldn't help but wish that her little friend would stay just a bit closer to her, at least in such a strange place, just in case that adventurous streak might get her hurt.

Vanille's voice rang out over the field. "Fang!"

Fang opened her eyes again. "Coming."

The grass rolled and waved beneath the heavy breeze, while the long streaks of cloud vapor began to gust and spread out even faster across the sky, a deep, rich hue of summer weather. Fang peered into the sheer blueness of the realm above, a place of gusting winds, of storms and starry nights, but when she searched for a familiar glint of the distant sun, she realized that it was already hidden away by the clouds.

"Fang, don't be a slowpoke!" Vanille jumped so high above the tall grass, and with a swish of rich orange hair, almost a shade of red, she leaped over to face Fang directly. "Does this really have you so worried?"

Fang tried not to frown. "You saw what the last one looked like." She began to look Vanille over, from the top of her head to the glint of curiosity in her eyes, to the soft pelt of fur on the collar of her tunic, and then to what set them apart from those old relics of a distant past, what made their race swifter than any other, even if neither of them had never truly known of such things. "Fractured bones... Split into pieces."

Vanille followed Fang's gaze for a moment. "It's ancient stuff, Fang."

"I know." Fang stepped forward to gently wrap her arms around Vanille's shoulders, holding her close. "Just makes me wonder what else might still be out there."

Vanille swiftly began to hug Fang back. "You don't think there's anything... Anything still alive, right?"

Fang's thoughts flickered off to her memories of such strange, dusty relics, of calcified skeletons that were formed in a way that seemed to defy any sense of logic; they were bones that branched in ways she had never even thought of, beings that had been locked there beneath the earth for longer than anyone could possibly estimate, only to be found by the changing layers of erosion.

"If we see anything... Then we'll go back and tell the others right away, okay?" Vanille tightened her hug around Fang's torso, and she almost giggled when one of Fang's hooves gently tapped at her own lower forelimb. "Come on, I want to see what's in there! Even if it's scary."

Fang tried not to sigh, though a small smile crept over her lips when Vanille slipped away to run right through the grass again, leaping with each pace. At such a young age, she was seemingly all hooves and gangly limbs, with a bushy little tail that hadn't quite grown out to any respectable length yet... Though Vanille had braided a bright blue ribbon into the strands that were there, and a pair of matching bows fluttered where she had tied the hair on her head back into two separate parts.

Two, Fang mused, two hearts, two sets of lungs, six limbs that Vanille was steadily growing into, though the memory of a stumbling little foal was still quite fresh in her mind. She'd been a young centaur without much in the way of guidance, which had been the main reason she'd sought out Fang in the first place.

As the sun slowly began to shine from behind the clouds again, Vanille called out from above. "Fang, c'mon!"

Fang started off with a quiet click of her own hooves against the stony hill, past the patches of rough dirt and billowing grass, even through dusty gusts of wind, moving as a dark form against the sunny tones of the foliage. She was quite unlike her companion, who could almost blend in with the summer tones of yellow and green, as Vanille's soft orange hue wasn't too far off from the way the sunlight glowed against the earth, especially with a slight speckling of white and tawny brown.

Fang's lower body was just as silky and dark as a raven's beak, and her upper skin was much less than pale from a linage of centaurs who'd lived nearly their entire lives beneath the unyielding sun, though a rather subtle sheen of red on her hair could easily hide her away in the forest undergrowth, provided she was in a wooded area at the time.

Vanille giggled while she leapt up towards a higher ledge of the hill, and she lifted her hands above her eyes to shield them from the sunlight. "I think I'm getting faster than you!"

"Nobody's faster than me." Fang began to grin, despite her concerns about the strange territory, and she took a moment to survey the land around them. "Trust me, they've tried... But nobody's ever beaten me."

Vanille made a scowly face at Fang, but she couldn't quite force herself to look truly annoyed. "Just wait until you get old and-!"

"Hey! I'm not old yet..." Fang sent Vanille a wry little smirk, before she wandered over to stand near a steep ledge in the hillside, gazing down at the deep blue river. "Not that much older than you, at least."

"Yeah, but you were tall like this before I was even ten!" Vanille skipped around in the grass, and she flicked her tail to brush the ribbon against Fang's lower shoulder. "And Chicory says you're old enough for 'you know what' now."

Fang tried to glare off into the distance, towards the distant encampment. "Vanille... That stupid old nag is too damn nosy for her own good." The old mare would often share a tent with them, and as much as Fang had grown rather fond of her elder's quips and brusque advice, there were certain things that she simply wasn't the slightest bit interested in, namely those who were younger than herself, with exception to Vanille, of course. "You don't have to have foals to help the tribe."

"Well, that's true." Vanille soon knelt down on her knees to examine a small patch of wildflowers in the grass, and she kept flicking her tail back and forth in the wind. "Sometimes, I... I wonder what happened before you guys found me."

Fang slowly peered back over her shoulder, gazing at the way Vanille rested against all four of her lower limbs within the grass.

"What sort of tribe do you think it was?" Vanille twirled one of the fallen flower petals between her fingertips. "I still only remember a tiny bit..."

"You were such a little thing when you showed up... It's only natural." Fang stepped back towards the low slope of the hill, approaching the very height of the ridge. "But you remembered your name, even back then."

Vanille stood up to follow after Fang, carrying a few of the flowers along with her. "I remember a lot of smoke; I could still smell it for weeks... I think there was a fire."

Fang leaned off to the side a bit, and she wrapped her left arm around Vanille's shoulders, even while they walked up along the grassy ridge. "No matter what happened back then, you're with us now." She held Vanille's gaze for a long moment, at least until a relieved little smile began to twitch beneath those soft green eyes. "Vanille... Even if they're gone, it's the people around us now who matter."

"I know." Vanille let her gaze wander back along the flowering hillside, and she slowly began to twine one of the flowers into a lock of her hair. "It means... Neither of us are alone."

Fang drew in a deep breath. She could feel how it traveled down into both sets of her steady lungs, and she felt a slight shiver of acceptance rise up along her spine. "Sometimes I wonder if mine might still be out there."

Vanille slowed her pace a bit, but she kept walking along beside Fang.

"People don't just vanish like that... Not without a reason." Fang took a long moment just to travel in silence, but when she caught sight of their destination in the adjacent slope of the ridge, half-embedded in the deep, grassy hillside, her demeanor almost seemed to brighten. "Here we are."

As they approached the very edges of the ruin, Fang started to move more haltingly than before, testing her hooves against the dry, dusty ground and the grasses that grew far more thin than before. Vanille followed her quite closely, and she would occasionally brush her lower shoulder against Fang's flank for comfort, as if to reassure herself that they were both truly near each other.

The shadows held domain over that silent realm, beneath those tall stone beams, yet every so often, a thin shaft of sunlight would trickle right down into the main structure, where it would rest against the upturned rocks. More and more flowers grew inside there as well, but they almost seemed choked by the thick, gnarled grasses, not to mention the slender vines that curled and twisted themselves all along the stones and metal beams like.

"Hang on a minute." Fang held her arm out before Vanille, and she slowly began to reach for the spear at her back. "Better safe than sorry..."

Vanille slowly began to sit within the grass again, watching as Fang approached the old pillars of stone and rusted metal, of lush moss that hung down from the pillars like curtains of verdant green. There was a certain stillness to the old ruin, but no matter how quiet it was, it still made the littlest hairs on Vanille's neck prickle and stand against the gusting breeze.

Fang kept her eyes trained upon the grass, though she would glance over once in a while at the shadows of each column, while she stepped ever so carefully across the jagged stones.

A sudden sound, like the sharp roar of a hissing flame, it was almost enough to make Vanille jump right out of her skin, but when she caught sight of Fang's hard thrust and heard the swift crack of flesh and scales and shattering bones, all fell utterly, unnervingly still again.

"...Just another adder." Fang slowly raised her spear to reveal the blooded neck of a twitching serpent, one that slowly writhed and curled throughout those final waves of pain. "Didn't hit the venom sac, that should make the healers happy."

Vanille almost perked up at the thought of more antivenom; the most dangerous beasts upon the plains were often so very small and quiet, yet they could take down even the heartiest of centaurs in mere minutes, provided that certain medicines were out of reach.

"And the rest of it should even make a decent dinner..." Fang lifted her spear even higher to examine the lifeless snake. "Looks alright in here now, but keep an eye out out for more of them."

Vanille nodded vigorously, rising up to her hooves so that she could enter the shadowed clearing, where the stone pillars towered just as silently as the creature on the end of Fang's spear.

Fang reached up to grab the snake off from the end of the bladed edge, where she began to twist the beast rather roughly by the throat, right beneath the venom sac, just to make sure it was truly lifeless. "Didn't scare you too much, did it?"

Vanille tried to scoff at that. "I wasn't scared."

"Mm-hm." Fang glanced around at the rest of the ruin, searching for any hints of other snakes. "And that's why your ears went as flat as a squished beetle..."

Vanille suddenly realized that her pointy little ears were still pinned back with fright. "Shush!"

Fang chuckled under her breath, and she flicked her own ears back and forth, lightly tufted, as soft as velvet; they were quite pointy like Vanille's, but they were a bit smaller in proportion to her head, due to her near-adult age. "No shame in it... Adders are too damn deadly for comfort." She reached back to open up the satchel on her belt, where she stashed the dead snake away beside some medicinal herbs, which she had picked by the riverside. "Remember that rattlesnake I caught last month?"

Vanille rolled her eyes as she knelt down to examine one of the fallen pillars. "You and your weird dinners!"

"Hey, it isn't that weird..." Fang tried her best to look wounded at such a statement, slowly lifting one of her front hooves in a mock-defensive gesture, though she couldn't stop grinning all the while. "Just stick them right over the fire 'til the scales split apart, rub some seasoning in there, and you've yourself got one of the best damn dinners in the world."

Vanille gave Fang a rather dry look. "And you still wonder about your name..."

Fang's grin parted with a subtle flash of her canine teeth, which were a bit more pointed than most of her fellow centaurs. "Maybe mum should've named me 'bitey' instead."

Vanille couldn't help but smile as well. "That's a horrible name."

"Eh." Fang walked over to poke at one of the loose stone slabs with her spear, prodding at it with one of her hooves as well. "Could've been worse." She knelt down for a moment to carefully touch the faded engraving upon the rock, a sigil that she had never seen before. Fang could feel the softness of the moss beneath her fingertips, as well as a fine layer of cold dew and grit from the recent storms, but when she touched the stone itself, it almost felt warm from the sun.

"I just wish we knew who might have built this..." Vanille turned her gaze towards the splintered fragments of metal and rock, and then to the vines that grew like winding serpents between each column of stone. "How old do you think it is?

"Ancient." After a long, quiet moment, Fang lifted her chin to the faint breeze, and she drew in the deepest breath she could muster. "Smells like rain..."

Vanille glanced up from the scattered stone shards beside her hooves, but she did not turn away from them. "Another storm?"

"Too early to tell." Fang slowly began to stand, and she shook off the bits of dirt and grass from herself. "If you want to keep looking around, that's fine with me, but we should try to get back before the rain."

"Okay." Vanille smiled when Fang walked over to ruffle her hair. "Maybe there's something useful here."

"Maybe." Fang sniffed at the air again, trying not to sound too doubtful. "Smells like dirt and dust in here, not like we'd find any supplies... Not with how old the place looks." She wandered off to the other side of the ruin, where she paused to examine one of the wider slabs of stone. "Hey, look at this one; it isn't even done." Fang chuckled under her breath at the sight of another image, only it was a pair of figures instead of a sigil. "Poor bastard doesn't even have a butt! They cut him off right after the front legs..."

Vanille walked over to peer at the odd carving for a long moment, and she soon quirked her head to the side, squinting to examine it closer. "Maybe they forgot to finish it?"

"Probably." Fang reached out to slowly trace a line into the dusty grit, one which followed off where the carving's spine had abruptly ended, and she soon branched it along into two more legs, as well as a tail. "Imagine trying to walk around on just two hooves."

Vanille looked almost mortified. "I'd fall all over the place!"

Fang smirked at her handiwork, and she quickly wiped the dust off of her fingertip against some of the moss. "I think we all would..." She looked up at the old engravings on the half-fallen pillars, designs of ancient centaurs and the animals they lived beside; oxen and rams, goats with horns that rose up like curved sabers, even the predators that their kind still faced to that very day; wildcats and wolves, bears and coiled serpents, but there was yet another strange figure upon those stones... An image that Fang just couldn't wrap her mind around.

"Lazy artists." Fang slowly shook her head back and forth. "C'mon Vanille, there's not gonna be anything in here but old drawings." She lifted her spear up against her shoulder, peering around to make sure the other side of the ruin was clear. "Think we should try to catch one of those geese on the other hill? It'd be nice to have something more than an adder for dinner."

Vanille moved to follow after her. "If we had more people with us, we could try to catch a lot of them." She stepped carefully over the cracked stone floor, making sure not to hurt her hooves on the rough edges. "Or you know, at least when I looked at them yesterday... It looked like they might be nesting."

Fang grinned at the thought of that. "Boiled goose eggs?"

Vanille whacked Fang's shoulder with a grin on her face. "No, silly, we'd hatch them!" She ducked out of the way of an attempted hair-ruffle. "Imagine having a pet goose, then you could have eggs whenever you wanted!"

"You've always been the forward thinker, haven't you?" Fang watched the way that Vanille darted right out from the ruins, up to where she stood on the slope that led down towards the grasslands again. "Alright, but if we get pecked to death, you're the one to blame."

Vanille just stuck her tongue out at Fang, flicking her tail back and forth while she did so.

Fang murmured her next few words under her breath. "Silly girl." She gazed at how Vanille kept skipping out into the grass, but Fang's eyes soon wandered back to the carvings on the walls, to scenes suspended in eternal time, records of an age long before their own. "Silly..." Her gaze traveled up the height of a fallen pillar, one that was resting against a different tall slab of stone, making a haphazard archway at the edge of the ruin. She looked further skyward, past the designs that trailed up the weathered lines of sediment, patterns of beasts and birds and stars, of centaurs galloping off into a great circle above the ruin, and of those strange figures with only two legs, all preserved within the stone that almost seemed to form a makeshift roof.

"Just drawings..." Fang narrowed her eyes at the strong figures who held their spears aloft, at those who strung their bows so taut, who drew blood in the form of so many scattered lines, a web that swirled ever inward, towards a place that reigned inside the very center, where an image that she couldn't even hope to decipher stood within a tangled, disjointed supremacy. "Ugly bastard." Even as she said it, she almost wanted to shiver at the one thing she could truly recognize; eyes, such watchful eyes, narrow slits that almost seemed to gleam in the dimness of the shade, a twisting visage of eyes and sharpness and sheer gravity, drawing in each line of blood that the earthly creatures had drawn for it.

Vanille's voice called her back to reality. "Fang? I thought you wanted to leave!"

"...Yeah." Fang clenched her teeth together, and she forced herself to turn away from the macabre design, yet even as she placed one hoof in front of the other, retreating from the silent mural, she only felt as if she could truly breathe again once that image had grown far, far out of sight.

---

She woke to the sound of a mellow wind, one that she could feel brushing along her exposed skin. Lightning stirred from her state of near-unconsciousness, but her thoughts slowly began to flood back into motion when she realized just how quiet her surroundings were.

A certain scent, strong, yet so very gentle, the soft tangs of woodsmoke and rich cooking spices, it made her nose twitch and her arms cling around herself a bit tighter. When she slowly opened her eyes, she realized that she was still curled up in the very same way she had fallen asleep in, nestled there beneath the worn silk blankets, sheets that had supposedly been in her family for generations.

She let her eyes slip shut again. Family. She knew it would hardly do much to think about such things, but even when she pushed the thoughts away with a rough shove, they began to wander back even more stubbornly than before, poking and prodding at her hazy, drowsy mind.

Lightning slowly began to realize something else, something quite different from that. Where were the dozens of little sounds echoing out around the main room of the house? Where was the soft voice gently chiding them all to quiet down and pay attention to their first lessons for the day? Her eyes flickered open in slight confusion, before she slowly began to realize just what day it was.

A pleasant humming sound filled the tiny stone cottage instead, and Lightning slowly turned herself over to face the curtain that separated her sleeping quarters from the rest of the main room. It was quite normal in smaller families to live in such ways, especially if they weren't on the higher end of societal growth.

Lightning simply waited there, feeling the soft gusts of wind, which she supposed must have been due to her younger sister opening the front door for some fresh air. It was gently pushing the curtain back and forth, making the silk shimmer and dance in the low candlelight, though the sun was still quite hidden away by the thick curtains at her window.

The humming paused, and a very soft voice began to murmur. "Almost out of flour..."

Lightning stirred again at the sound of her sister's voice, but when she tried to sit up against her blankets, a sudden stinging twinge caught one of her legs in a steely, relentless grip, and she couldn't even hope to halt a sharp gasp of pain from her throat.

"Light?" The voice grew a bit closer, until the curtains parted with a soft swishing sound. "Light!"

"It's nothing-" Lightning tried to look at anything else but the concern on her sister's face. "Just a long patrol last night, must've twisted it a bit..." She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth together. "Serah, just-"

"Let me see." Serah knelt down immediately to draw the blankets back, revealing the pale white hide of a rather curled up centaur, one who seemed quite adamant on not revealing the bottoms of her hooves. "Light!"

Lightning fought back a wince. "Told you already, it's nothing."

Serah gave her sister a very, very stern look. "That doesn't sound like nothing!" As gently as she could, she began to pry back the leg that Lightning was favoring the most, just enough to reveal a small, blooded mark in the softer area on the bottom of her hoof. "Oh... It looks a little inflamed."

Lightning tried not to roll her eyes at the 'teacher' voice that Serah had suddenly taken on, the very same one that she'd always deny to having used on the more unruly children of their village, but it was as clear as crystal to anyone who took the time to notice.

"Just a second." Serah disappeared for a brief moment, with soft hoofbeats and a rustle of the curtains, and she returned in only a moment with a damp rag, a bit of dry cloth, as well as a small tin of ointment and a handful of dried herbs. "When we're in town today, we can go ask the healers to have a closer look at it; how did this happen? Did you step on something out there?"

Lightning felt her pointed ears flatten in annoyance when Serah grappled with her to get the injured hoof back out from beneath the blankets. "Serah..."

"What?" Serah finally managed to get Lightning's ankle into a steady grip beneath one of her arms, and she feigned ignorance towards the sharp look on her sister's face. "You want to let it get infected?"

Lightning's ears flattened even further, but slowly, gradually, she began to relax the tension in her leg, allowing her front ankle, known as a 'pastern', to go limp in Serah's grasp, where her little sister made quick work of cleaning out the wound with the damp rag.

Serah took a moment to silently wash the injury, and when it looked clean enough to her, she started to open up the metal tin. "What's gotten you so grumpy today?"

Lightning suddenly realized that she was glaring daggers at the curtain. "Like I said... A long patrol."

"Did something happen?" Serah began to smooth a bit of the ointment against the blooded hoof. "Nothing bad, I hope."

"No... It almost seemed too quiet." Lightning closed her eyes at the slight sting of medicinal salve, yet her ears slowly began to relax against her head. "We actually found a dead bear on the southern pass; looked like natural causes, but there wasn't even a hint of rot or any nearby scavengers, so it must have happened right before we came by."

"Really?" Serah crushed the healing herbs against her palm, and she reached out to catch them into the strip of cloth, before she moved to wrap it all around Lightning's hoof. "And what did you step on?"

Lightning felt the tension build in her leg again, but with a deep, soothing breath to relax herself, she found it easier to ignore the pain. "It was... Stupid." She spoke in just a murmur. "I should have noticed it." When Serah gently let the injured hoof rest against the blankets again, Lightning curled her leg against herself, resting the bottom of her hoof against her lower chest. "There was a vine growing over one of the paths... A thorn vine."

Serah tried to adopt a look of sympathy, and to Lightning's relief, she didn't look at all chiding for the mistake.

"I couldn't stop everyone just for that; I'm supposed to lead them, how could I let something so small affect the whole patrol?" Lightning slowly leaned up to rest her cheek against a different blanket, before she slowly began to move entirely; she rolled over to rest on her back, where she could scarcely conceal her hoof, but it was more than enough to relieve the weighted pressure from her leg. "It was a far patrol, out of Cocoon... We're supposed to move efficiently and quickly when we're in that sort of territory."

"But you're only one person, Light." Serah reached out to gently pat Lightning's lower shoulder, the leg with the injured hoof. "I don't think anyone would've gotten upset if they'd known you were hurt."

Lightning didn't speak. She just stared up at the ceiling as her hind legs gradually began to grow numb, at least until she slowly rolled over again to sit upright on the blankets.

Serah smiled at her sister as they became eye level with each other. "I almost thought I'd have to wake you up today; you don't usually sleep in so late."

Lightning stifled a quiet yawn, and she flicked the sleepy feeling away from her ears while Serah stood up to walk back towards the main room, where a rather earthy scent was already drifting out from the hearth fire.

After a moment or two, Serah called back to her. "You'll still be up for going with me to town, right?"

"Yeah." Lightning had already busied herself with using a small comb to brush out the tangles from her hair, though nothing could possibly tame the sharp fringe at the front of her forehead, one which always insisted on resting over her eyes. No matter how many times she had considered cutting it a bit shorter, something deep inside told her that it wouldn't be right somehow, and it hardly ever impeded her vision, anyway. "Remind me what we'll need?"

"Uh... We're almost out of charcoal sticks." Serah hummed as she worked beside the fire. "I'm running low on paper, too, and we could use some more candles."

Lightning glanced at the small mirror on the nearest wall of her quarters, where she could see the full effect of that stubborn fringe. It was a rosy pink hue, soft, rather subtle, though a single streak of white marked the very center of those pointed locks, quite reminiscent of her tail color. She'd often find a few stray hairs of pink among the longer, pale hairs of her tail, but they were never quite enough to make it look like a different color.

Another soft gust of wind brushed along her skin, and she felt the beginnings of goosebumps prickle over her arms.

Lightning slowly shook the feeling away. "Anything else?" She glanced over to make sure that Serah had left the curtain closed. A humble wooden dresser stood right beside the window, and she soon reached over for a thin blouse, as well as a woven belt with a satchel on the side. It was quick work to tug off her nightshirt and replace it with a small wrap of cloth around her chest, before she slipped the blouse over that to keep herself warm from the breeze in the main room. "How are we on food?"

"Well, we still have those tomatoes from last week... And... The pickled turnips." Serah paused to shiver for a moment. "I still don't know how you stand those."

Lightning leaned back to start brushing out her tail. She had to flick it forward so she could reach, but even then, she had to twist her torso over so that her belly nearly touched her lower back to fully grasp it. "Dad used to say it's an acquired taste."

Serah fell silent for a brief moment, but when she spoke again, she gave no hint that the sudden memories might have effected her. "We're out of flour, too; I just used the last of it."

As she kept working the comb through her tail, Lightning tugged at a particularly stubborn tangle. "What about the quinoa?"

"We still have that." Serah's hoofsteps echoed out into the room again. "I was thinking, maybe we could buy some sweets for the midsummer solstice; the little ones always get so excited for it..."

Lightning paused in mid-brush for a moment. The very last thing she needed was at least a dozen tiny foals all prancing and hopping around under the effects of a festival sugar craze. "They can get sweets from their parents."

"Light!" Serah's wry little smile was almost audible. "What sort of teacher would I be if I didn't do something for them?"

"A responsible one." With a quiet sigh, Lightning slowly tested her front hoof against the floor, making sure that it didn't hurt enough to stop her, before she rose up to her feet and gently pushed her way out through the curtain. She blinked a few times beneath the sunlight in the main room; it was certainly large enough to support a dozen or so foals, at least if Serah could keep them all focused enough on daily lessons, but Lightning still couldn't say that it looked anything like a proper schoolhouse. "You know how foals are."

"Well yeah, of course I do... And so do you." Serah was tending to a shallow iron dish above the hearth fire, one which held doughy little lumps of bread beneath a rather thick glaze; it was some sort of brown sugar by the scent of it, rich and dark, with a gentle earthen sweetness. Serah glanced back at Lightning, still stirring the meal around the pan. "How many of them have you brought to their mothers, Light? Foals aren't so bad."

Lightning almost paused at that. "They're different, then... And it's not as if I'm anything close to an actual midwife." She walked past the low little table in the center of the room, over the thick silken rug that stood parallel to the front doorway. "Mom needed more than one set of hands, and it was a good skill to learn."

Serah nodded silently, gazing down at the fireplace as if she was lost in thought. Their mother had been a weaver by trade, quite like most people in their village, but in the absence of a proper midwife, her knowledge of helping foals into the world had come in handy several times over the years, almost more than her own two daughters could count.

Lightning slowly sat down beside Serah, and she peered out at the world beyond the windowpanes, at the tall mulberry trees that were already sporting so many crawling silk worms. The creatures ate away their summer days in relative solitude, only to be harvested later throughout the autumn months, processed for the boon that they were named for.

Cocoon. Lightning stared at those distant mountain peaks, at the towering pillars that sheltered the lush river valley, hiding it away from the lower world. It began with the silk moths, those fluttering little things that journeyed there during springtime to lay their eggs in the tree boughs, which would soon bloom into a rather burgeoning population of hungry silkworms, only tolerated for the gift they that would give near the end of their flightless stage, the true lifeblood of Cocoon.

Lightning's gaze traveled to the soft material of her blouse, silk woven in a nearly seamless pattern. Such things attracted travelers from far and wide, but only a select few were ever permitted to set their hooves within the actual valley. Both she and Serah had been born there, true natives, and despite the lack of specific regulation on whether or not Cocoonic centaurs could lawfully leave the valley or not, there were hardly any tales of those who sought to roam anywhere else, if only for the odd adventurer or two. Although, Lightning realized, that was excluding the merchants that regularly made those long journey to bring in imported goods from all across the continent.

"Almost done." Serah reached over towards a small shelf near the hearth, where she lifted up a glass jar filled with bright red liquid. "Does strawberry sound good?"

Lightning shrugged. "You always were the better cook."

"Hey, don't say that..." Serah scooped out a bit of the strawberry jam with a spoon, which she began to spread over the dish of sweet, doughy bread. "I've never met anyone who can fix up a mountain goat better than you."

Lightning's lips twitched in a slight show of pride. "It depends on the cut of meat." She leaned back against a bit of furniture that was widely known as a 'resting seat', or just a seat, in more casual mention; it was shaped in a slight slope, with cushioning beneath her front hooves and beside both sets of her shoulders, so that she could relax against it in a slightly reclined position. "I would have gone hunting today if we didn't need to go into town."

"Well, maybe we can buy something nice there to make for dinner." Serah soon handed over a plate of breakfast to Lightning, along with an empty clay mug. "You know... To celebrate."

Lightning tried her best not to smirk. "We've already celebrated."

"We celebrated you becoming a cadet, not a real soldier." With a quiet laugh, Serah stood up to approach the small ice box at the other end of the room, and she soon returned with a large glass jug full of goat's milk. "Big sis, a lieutenant..."

Lightning fought the urge to correct that; officially, cadets became 'second lieutenants' after training, even if nobody, including the higher ranked soldiers, bothered to truly make the distinction.

"It's something to celebrate." Serah poured a bit of milk into her own mug, before she handed the glass pitcher over to Lightning. "I'm just not sure if a second knife would be too useful to you."

Lightning glanced down at the leather sheath on her belt, slightly hidden beneath her blouse. The slim little dagger had grown to always be there beside her, no matter if she was on duty or not. "Serah, you don't have to get me anything else."

Serah just smiled. "I can cook us a celebratory dinner, though?"

Lightning couldn't help but smile a little as well. "If it'll make you happy."

"It will." After a quick bite of her breakfast, Serah reached over towards the shelf beside the fireplace. "Here, put some of this in your milk..." She held out a tiny glass bottle, one that contained a mixture of honey and herbs. "For your hoof."

Lightning slowly accepted the jar. "For the inflammation..." She had once heard the same thing from her mother on the health benefits of certain foods and plants, even though Lightning couldn't quite bring herself to memorize the various effects of most herbal remedies, nor did she worry so much over such a small injury. But even still, she spooned more than a few drops of the sweet liquid into her drink, if only for the look of relief it would bring to Serah's face.

As if she sensed Lightning's intentions, Serah tried to make herself seem a bit more nonchalant, even if she couldn't quite succeed in doing so. "I'm just glad there hasn't been anything more dangerous out there..."

"It's been quiet." Lightning paused to take a drink, savoring the subtle sweetness of the honey. "Strange for summer, but we'll keep a sharp lookout."

Serah took a taste of the strawberry jam. "Have there been any new merchants lately?"

"Only the usual." Lightning thought back to the small convoy that had approached just the week prior, but they had all been people who clearly shared at least half of a blood relation to those in Cocoon, so they were allowed to enter through one of the mountain passes without any overt examination. "There might've been more since then."

"We'll have to take a look at the river market." Serah seemed to smile at the mere thought of the bustling marketplace, of goods from far away lands and merchants who would pay more than a fair price for any silk products. "How long has it been since we went shopping together?"

Lightning briefly froze at the thought of that, with her first bite of food halfway lifted towards her mouth. "...Months."

"You've been busy, Light." Serah glanced off to the side when a fluttering little sparrow flew past their house in the wind. "We've both been... It's just harder to do family stuff with so many other things."

Lightning's ears began to droop ever so slightly. "I'm sorry."

Serah just shook her head, slowly leaning back against her own cushioned seat. "It's not your fault."

It is. Lightning tried not to look too disappointed with herself. I've been out there on the mountain more than I've been in my own house...

"Well, with the solstice, I won't have as many teaching days for a while." Serah began to smile again. "I'm sure you can take some time off, too."

"I'll try." Lightning suddenly felt much less of an appetite for her breakfast, even with how good it smelled. "I could ask for assignments inside Cocoon... So it would take less time getting back home."

"Light, eat something." Serah had quickly noticed how Lightning hadn't even taken a single bite. "I didn't mean to make you feel guilty."

Lightning slowly lifted the fork back up from her plate. "Right." She exhaled, before she bit down into the flavor of sweetened bread, a soft crunch of brown sugar and the cooling sensation of strawberry jelly, and she nearly felt a gust of pure memory swirl inside her mind. When she had been young, so young, scarcely able to run around without tripping over her gangly little legs, she remembered the way her mother had placed a plate of breakfast there before her in the cool morning breeze, gently stroking at her odd little fringe of hair.

A voice, so soft and tentative. "Light?"

Lightning suddenly realized that she had closed her eyes to remember, and she slowly willed them to open once more. "It's good, Serah. Thank you."

"...I'm glad." Serah was smiling softly again. "Sometimes... I worry that you might feel lonely out on patrols, but I know I'm just being silly." She paused to eat in silence for a while, though she made sure that Lightning kept eating as well. "Have you made any new friends there?"

Lightning almost flattened her ears at the thought of that. Even with those who she had become familiar with, she could hardly call them 'friends', at least not in the sense that she would ever have anything to speak to them about when not on duty.

"Light?" Serah tried not to sigh. "You're just spacing off all over today, aren't you?"

Lightning slowly drew herself back to attention. "I don't need those kinds of friends."

"At least you heard what I said, then..." With a quiet mumble, Serah placed her plate down beside one of her folded legs, and she leaned back to reach for the shelf again. "These always wake you up."

Lightning's ears began to perk at the sight of a big glass jar with several pickled vegetables inside, slices of turnip that had been dyed a deep pink hue with beet juice.

"The problem is, Light..." Serah tried to open the jar, but she fumbled a bit with the tight cap. "How many people, besides me, your family, can you say are really your friends?"

Lightning said nothing, she merely watched Serah struggle with the cap.

"Oh, fine." Serah huffed a soft sigh as she held out the jar. "But you still have to answer the question."

Lightning rolled her eyes. "I'm friends with Lieutenant Amodar."

"He's practically family, that doesn't count." Serah tried not to grimace at the jar in Lightning's hands. "I mean new friends, someone around your age."

In one swift motion, Lightning twisted off the cap to pluck out one of the strange pink preserves. "Like I said... Certain things are just an acquired taste." Just to amuse herself, she began to smirk at Serah while biting down on the turnip slice, though her sly little look quickly moved into something more contented, for she could already feel the full, yet subtle crunch of the briny little vegetable, so sharp and sweet and tangy all at the same time.

Serah suddenly looked rather pale, almost as if she was quite ready to abandon the rest of her own plate. "So gross..."

Lightning spoke in the driest tone she could muster. "And what happened to your sense of adventure?"

"I've hardly ever had one, and you know that!" Serah began to smirk as well. "Not unless there's something curious..."

"You might like the mountain." Lightning took another bite of her regular breakfast along with a slice of turnip beside it, even when that prompted another grimace from Serah. "Some of the southern patrol scouts were talking about an old ruin they found in the forest."

Serah's ears perked up a bit. "One of the lost outposts?"

Lightning shook her head. "They said it looked like a burial cairn, but it was almost entirely grown over by the trees."

"Oh..." Serah turned back to her breakfast. "What else did they say? Was there anything that might tell us who it belonged to?"

Lightning shrugged. "I don't think they've looked very far into it yet."

A gentle silence filled the air between them, and they both started to busy themselves with finishing their breakfasts. Serah would occasionally wrinkle up her nose when Lightning reached for another slice of pickled turnip, but she made no verbal protests on the matter.

The sun was rising steadily over the horizon by the time they finished, and they soon began to ready themselves to leave. As Lightning paused to blow out the candles in her sleeping quarters, she caught sight of herself once again, namely the slight tinge of drowsiness beneath her eyes. She knelt down, resting there beside the mirror on the wall, trying to ignore the fact that she was looking more and more like her memories of her mother with each passing night and day.

Nineteen, young for a solider. Lightning closed her eyes to block out the sight of her own reflection. How old was dad when he joined..? I should have asked.

Serah called out from the main room. "Light?"

"Coming." Lightning rose up to her feet again, careful not to put too much weight on her injured hoof. "You ready?"

"Yup." Serah was wearing what looked like a woven leather belt over her lower body, which rested against her lower back and her sides, and it carried several small satchels of varying design. "You should bring your canteen too; it might get even hotter outside today."

Lightning nodded. "Right." She had soon strapped her own satchel onto her first belt, as well as one similar to Serah's that she could fasten around her lower back, with more carrying space. Lightning also clipped a small waterskin near her upper hip, right beside her sheathed knife, but she almost paused when she saw her sword and shield resting upon the cabinet by the front door, and she felt an instinctual urge to reach for them. There's hardly any danger on those roads... I'm not on duty, anyway.

Even so, as they both stepped out into the gentle rays of sunlight, beneath the thick mulberry trees, Lightning couldn't help but feel as if the weight of her weapons was sorely missing from herself. She began to grit her teeth to try and stifle that void, even when Serah locked the door behind them.

"So nice today..." Serah drew in a deep breath of the cool mountain air, and her hooves gained a bit of a spring to each step. "C'mon Light!"

Lightning followed after her, walking on down the cobblestone path that wound itself beneath the lush tree boughs, beneath the little caterpillars that nibbled away at the summer leaves. She peered up at the silkworms, wondering how much time was left until they were to be harvested by her neighbors in early autumn; she had struck a deal with several of them, in which they would be given access to Lightning's and Serah's property to harvest the cocoons in exchange for various daily supplies. Neither of the two sisters were very proficient in weaving or spinning silk, so trading for things like goat's milk, fertilizer for the gardens, or even new clothing always felt like a worthwhile deal.

"It still feels like spring in the mornings." Serah's soft pink hair almost seemed to flutter in the gentle breeze, and her pale white tail flicked back and forth with every step she shook. "I've heard it's not nearly as mild below the mountain."

Lightning lifted a single eyebrow at that. "And who did you hear that from?"

Serah glanced away with the slightest hint of a flush on her cheeks. "Ah... It doesn't matter."

Lightning just narrowed her eyes, and she stepped past the front gate without a word.

"Hey! You wanted me to be more adventurous." Serah folded her hands behind her back, resting them against the slope of her spine, where the pale white hair of her lower body met her skin. "I know how it's supposed to be, Light..."

Lightning just stared at the path ahead of them. It's supposed to be mom and dad, not me. She looked out over the cresting hill that led towards the river of their village, a gentle little brook that flowed from the great lake in the center of Cocoon. They're the ones who're supposed to chase off unimpressive suitors from their fillies...

"It's not like I'd want to leave home." As Serah moved away from the stone path, she smiled at the feeling of soft grass beneath her hooves, and she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Lightning was following her. "Even leaving Bodhum... Living somewhere like Eden, could you imagine that?"

Lightning still kept her thoughts to herself. Be glad I didn't enlist with the Sanctum, Serah.

"But it's always nice to visit." Serah's smile widened when she stepped up to the very top of the hill, where the grass grew tall and wild, yet it was not nearly high enough to hide away the full scope of the sprawling valley. She could gaze upon the great rivers that flowed out from the mighty mountain wellsprings, down to the lake of Eden, the very lifeblood that trickled out across their home in great cascades of water, down, down, down the mountainsides, stretching on for more miles than she could count.

Lightning stood there beside her, gazing out at the expanse of rolling hills and scattered farmland, of trees that grew in long, winding rows, home to the greatest population of silkworms in the known world. "It's not that far."

Serah nodded. "We should be there by noon, right?"

"Right." Lightning stepped forward, still favoring her injured hoof, but she manged to keep a steady pace. "Let's get going."

They walked in silence for a while, just enjoying the gentle breeze, yet as they moved away from the tall grasses of Bodhum, out from beneath the shade of the trees, the warmth of the air steadily grew with the rising sun. Farmland stretched out along the pathway for miles, separated by long wooden fence poles, though there were quite a few open fields that had been left unsown for the summer, likely left untouched for a later autumn crop. Every so often, they could see a farmer pushing his plow through the soil, or a group of centaurs would be tending to the crop furrows, already busy at work for the day. Nearly all of them were shaded by wide-brimmed hats, and many carried along big wicker baskets full of freshly picked vegetables, soon to be placed into sturdy wooden wheelbarrows and brought off into town.

After a long while of such scenery, Serah spoke up again. "Do you think they'll bring down enough ice today?" She glanced at one of the distant mountain peaks. "It is a weekend, after all..."

"I'd bet they will." Lightning thought back to the small number of times that the ice cutters had underestimated the needs of the people in Cocoon. Eden was the only settlement to harvest raw ice from the mountainside lakes, due to the fact that it was the only one with a mobilized workforce large enough to harvest it, not to mention a greater influx of ice to begin with. "Do we need more at home?"

Serah nodded. "Most of the pieces in the icebox were starting to melt." She stretched out her arms, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on her skin, before she softly began to murmur an old nursery rhyme. "Snow on the mountain, chills underhoof..."

Lightning's ears twitched at the sound of it. Memories flickered inside her mind like fluttering moths, the old stories her mother used to tell both of them, back when they were only foals. Cocoon, the sacred realm cradled between each of the frigid, stalwart mountains; in the oldest tales, it was said that a great messenger had once fallen to the earth, a being from the highest of the sky realms, more vast and powerful than any other presence in earthly existence. The messenger had descended there, long before any living centaur had ever walked upon the earth, and by its burning, heavenly mien, it had melted the great glaciers down into water, breathing life into the untapped soil. A lush valley formed beneath those mountain peaks, paradise born in the wake of a fiery crater, and long after the water finally settled down into a grand lake, it was said that the first centaur to ever be born in Cocoon had eyes that mirrored the glinting starlight, with a face as smooth and as keen as the peerless mountainsides.

Lightning remembered a certain night when she had simply refused to go to sleep, not unless her mother told her the entire story, including the parts about what the sages said upon the true nature of their people. They claimed that those born in Cocoon were still a part of the sky itself, akin to the falling shards that rained down from the greater heavens, granting their people such unusually striking features. Their lower bodies and skin could be as pale as the snow peaks, or as dark as the soil of the valley, yet nearly all of them were remarkably slender and strong, made in the image of silk from the trees, soft, smooth, and utterly resilient at the very same time. Even a single glance at the face of a fellow Cocoonic centaur was as deeply embedded in their instincts as the voice of a family member, rooted into some deeper part of their minds, a place that was able to instantly recognize each other.

"That's why we look like this, isn't it?" Lightning had been no less than seven at the time, while Serah, at five and a half years old, was more than content to simply fall asleep against their mother's nearest shoulder. "Those visitors from the marshlands-"

"We're... Different from people like them, that's true." Her mother had gathered Lightning up into those gentle arms, trying to soothe such a curious little foal down for bedtime. "But what's inside of us, that's what you should try to focus on."

Lightning remembered rolling her eyes at such a vague answer, but she had been so tired from running around all day to catch even a glimpse of the strange visitors that she had promptly fallen asleep, curled up safely in her mother's arms.

She slowly blinked, as if to try and summon the memory in greater strength, but when she almost felt as if she could feel her mother's voice again, it was a name that she heard, a name that was not her own, not anymore.

"Looks like they're moving the herds today." Serah's voice drew Lightning out of her reverie. "Oh, they've gotten so fluffy!"

Lightning looked out at the sprawling flocks of domesticated sheep in the distance, a herd that was being directed towards the dirt path, right beside a fenced potato field. "They'll be shorn soon." She knew that woolen fabric wasn't nearly as popular or as valuable as silk, nor was it as warm, but when it came to her own personal preferences, she found that she hardly cared which one was more in fashion. "Strange to see them like this, this time of year."

"I think they'll be thankful for it." Serah paused on the road, standing a good distance away from the sheep, as well as the centaur who was trotting around to herd them, so that she wouldn't confuse the flock by her proximity. "I sure wouldn't want to wear a big woolen coat all summer..."

As they waited there for a while, a voice called out from one of the nearby fields. "Hey!"

Lightning felt a sudden pang of dread in her heart, the kind that swiftly swelled up into far more than a slight bit of annoyance, and yet, she wouldn't even turn to look at the one who had spoken, not when she recognized such a voice immediately.

"Hey!" Serah called back with a grin on her face. "Light, I'm going to go say hi."

One of Lightning's eyes twitched. Of course Serah wouldn't phrase that as a question, no, she would just run right over there and act like a starstruck little filly towards the only centaur in Cocoon who Lightning truly wanted to shove off the side of a mountain and be done with the whole ordeal...

"Hey, how've you been?" Even his mere voice annoyed every last inch of her. "Heading into town?"

Serah, however, sounded practically ecstatic to see him. "Yeah! We're going to Eden today, almost out of a few things... It's good to see you again!" She could hardly keep her voice down, and Lightning could hear just how quickly her hooves were tapping against the grass. "How are you liking it over here?"

Lightning tried her best to drown out whatever the big lummox was saying to her sister. She most certainly did not care that he had been finding the farm work a bit rough, but that it was nothing he couldn't handle, nor did she care that he was very glad to see Serah as well, and the fact that they both sounded so utterly enthused with each other didn't even phase Lightning in the slightest.

At least until she looked over her shoulder. Just the sight of that big idiot... Snow, just like his name, scattered and often unkempt, no respect for anyone of any authority, part of a gang of rowdy, carefree colts (she would never call such troublemakers stallions,) and a mare with a rather unruly reputation. They were centaurs who lived from place to place around Cocoon, hardly ever settling down for more than a month or two, which made it seem utterly implausible to Lightning that the centaur who was currently speaking so boldly with Serah could have ever lasted more than a few weeks in 'an actual job'... As Lightning herself had called it.

She narrowed her eyes at the pair of them. She'd spoken in jest the last time she'd tried shooing him away, citing that no respectable centaur would ever live as a wanderer in Cocoon, and that likes of such weren't worthy of Serah's time... Yet the next time they'd both seen him, he was wielding a rather massive plow out in the fields, and Lightning practically had to drag Serah away from the sight of that. Perhaps some mares were simply more attracted to the sight of a stallion's bare muscles and sweat, but it only made Lightning wrinkle up her nose in distaste.

"I've got some work at the farmstand now, too." Snow smiled as he leaned against the fence, seemingly having abandoned his duties for a while. "Hey, if you can make it over there before sundown today, I'll try to get you a better deal on whatever you need."

"Oh, we couldn't take advantage like that..." Serah was practically making heart eyes at him, at least from what Lightning could see. "But if Light's okay with it... Then I think we could stop by after we've left Eden."

Lightning didn't even blink when Snow waved at her from over the fence. She did, however, study him for a brief moment; quite tall and stocky, yet slender in some places, though there was a certain strength to each and every inch of him. Unlike Serah, who had soft pink hair on her head and a body of paler, creamy hues, both the mane on Snow's head and the hair of his lower body looked rather thick and full, the color of ripe wheat, and his hooves had a slight layer of feathering behind each of his powerful ankles, hinting at a heritage from those who lived higher up in the mountains of Cocoon.

"I think I should go now." Serah was still smiling at him with a slight flush upon her cheeks. "We'll try to stop by though... I promise."

Snow smiled at her as well. "No problem, Serah." He leaned away from the fence, but he winked at her before turning to lift up an empty basket and a small trowel. "See you later then?"

"Yeah." Serah coughed a little bit to hide the slight stammer in her voice. "Bye Snow!"

Lightning had already started walking along past where the herd of sheep had been, and she only slowed down slightly to let Serah catch up, but even then, a long stretch of silence began to linger between them.

"He's always so nice..." Serah's fingertips kept fidgeting against each other, for she was holding her hands together to try and keep herself still. "I told you about the time he helped me write notes about that old broken silo in the woods; I could hardly even see inside of it, but he stood right up on his back hooves to tell me what it looked like! He's so tall, and strong, too..."

Lightning tried her best not to look annoyed. You've only told me a dozen times.

"I do have a sense of adventure, even if it's just a little one." Serah almost began to look dejected from Lightning's disinterest. "The stories Snow has, it seems like he does a lot of traveling... His friends have had so many adventures."

"There's a difference between being adventurous and being foolhardy." Lightning tried to soften her gaze at Serah, but it was becoming increasingly difficult with how many times her little sister kept glancing back towards the field Snow was in. "Serah, you deserve someone who's going to appreciate you."

Serah's shoulders stiffened a bit. "Why do you think he doesn't?"

"Because I know his type." Lightning began to speak in a lower murmur. "I haven't told you about the cadets that never passed training, have I?" She glanced over to see a more curious look in Serah's eyes. "Part of being a solider, and a leader, is knowing that your unit is always counting on you... Out on a patrol, if one of us just wandered off because we saw something interesting, or possibly dangerous that we wanted to check out, what would happen if something actually threatening came around? We'd be left exposed, and so would the rest of our unit."

Serah looked away for a moment, but she kept her ears perked to fully hear what Lightning had to say.

"We move as a team, as a single force." Lightning peered out at the winding dirt road that led beside the open pastures, where a mighty number of goats were grazing away at the wild grass. "If a higher-up tells us that something needs to be done, we make damn sure it gets done... Because they're the ones looking out for us, and the same goes for the people I lead." She still spoke softly, and she made sure to keep at the same pace as Serah. "One of the cadets in the first training regiment... She'd go out of her way to do things her way; it was like a game to her, she wanted to win anywhere and anytime she possibly could."

Serah bit back a tiny smile. "...Was this really you?"

Lightning shook her head. "I'll admit, I really admired her at first; she was strong and brave, and most of the time she would do the right thing, but then, when what she thought was right would turn out to be the wrong move for everyone else..."

Serah slowly nodded to herself. "She didn't become a lieutenant."

"I'm not even sure where she is." Lightning narrowed her eyes at the thought of it. "Last I heard, she was talking about looking into what the Cavalry had to offer, but if she couldn't even pass with the Guardian Corps..." She trailed off for a moment, briefly lost in memory. "Maybe they're more interested in lone soldiers than leaders."

"I'm actually kind of glad you didn't go with the Cavalry..." Serah rested her hands behind her back again, something that she often did whenever she was feeling thoughtful. "You probably wouldn't be home nearly as much as you are now."

Lightning felt another twinge of guilt. "I've been on wider patrols with their forces before, but you're right." She squinted when the sunlight suddenly trailed out from behind a puffy layer of clouds, illuminating most of the valley before them. "If I was on real Cavalry patrols, then I couldn't-" Lightning stopped speaking until he could see the look in Serah's eyes. "They all still say it was only a fluke, just some freak wild animal attack... But I knew dad better than that, so did you."

Serah seemed to be trying not to bite at her bottom lip, and her fingertips began to slightly twitch again.

"It was someone, or something who could take down a soldier." Lightning spoke in a hushed, yet harsh whisper. "I haven't stopped searching... I won't stop until I figure it out; I'll keep looking for as long as I possibly can."

Serah whispered as well. "I know you will."

Lightning squeezed her eyes shut for just a brief instant of time, lost in a moment of sheer memory, in the image of deep red upon pale white, of snowflakes drifting through the bitter air of the mountain slopes, where two figures laid beside each other in an unbroken, deathly silence.

"Lightning." Serah was suddenly holding her hand, but Lightning hadn't even noticed the gesture until then. "It's okay, Light."

Lightning drew in a sharp breath. "Still makes my blood boil."

"I know." Serah gently stroked her thumb over Lightning's knuckles. "We've been through the worst of it... But I won't try to talk you out of getting closure."

Neither of them spoke while the long dirt roads reached out to the likes of cobblestone, slowly melding into much wider pathways, where the first few hints of the township sprouted like stray flowers at either side of the path. Lightning kept her gaze forward, but she allowed Serah to keep holding her hand for the comfort it might give to her, even if she never would have permitted anyone else do such a thing in public. When they'd been young foals, she remembered how whenever Serah got frightened, she would grab for one of her parent's or Lightning's hands and hold on tight, seeking a sense of security and closeness; 'herd mentality', some called it, even if most centaurs would flatten their ears in annoyance at being likened to simpler creatures.

Serah only let go once they approached a small clinic near the outer villages of Eden, and she quickly led Lightning over towards the open archway that led to a tiny garden path.

"Look at this..." Serah was soon smiling at a rather prickly plant. "Milk thistle, it's supposed to be good for your liver."

Lightning glanced at the plant for a moment, but she was more intent on getting her somewhat impromptu medical session over with. "You've been studying this stuff, haven't you?"

Serah kept on smiling. "What good is a teacher who doesn't learn new things to teach?" She waved Lightning on over towards the entrance to the clinic. "If they have to something different with your hoof, then maybe I'll learn something new today."

Lightning flattened her ears at the thought of acting as a mere medical experiment, but she followed after Serah into the humble little clinic, where they only had to wait for a few minutes to be attended to. A bit of coaxing allowed Lightning to let one of the healers take off the bandage from her hoof, and at Serah's insistence that she 'stop being such a wuss' about letting the wound be treated with a special salve, Lightning indignantly squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore her way through the entire visit.

"Not to worry now; it doesn't look infected at all." The kindly little mare kept spreading the pale green ointment over Lightning's reddened wound. "But if you hadn't had it cleaned up so soon..."

Serah tried to give Lightning a knowing look, but her big sister was still refusing to even acknowledge the fact that such a benign little accident had even happened in the first place, as if it was an actual stain upon her honor.

"It's not so bad, Light." Serah gently patted Lightning's shoulder. "Hoof injures aren't something you can ignore, though."

The healer nodded at that. "Don't even get me started on laminitis..."

Lightning opened her eyes with a rather sharp look. "That's right. Don't start."

Serah whispered just quietly enough for the three of them to hear. "She's a little grumpy today, don't take it personally."

The healer just chuckled while she rebandaged Lightning's hoof with a clean cloth. "I've seen far crankier patients in my time..." She soon handed Serah a small wooden container of the salve. "Wash and apply this once in the mornings, once at night until you run out, and rebandage it until the wound closes up completely."

"Thank you." Serah smiled at both of them. "See, it really wasn't that bad."

Lightning's expression remained rather sour until after she'd placed a bit of patronage into the donation bowl at the front counter; clinics relied on such funds, for the general law in Cocoon was that public medical services could not deny those without coinage to spare, which led to a cultural taboo upon healers who openly asked for payment.

"I've had worse cuts that healed just fine on their own." Lightning only stopped frowning once they reached the path that led into the main outskirts of Eden, which was still quite populated in it its own right. "Right... Where to first?"

"We should get over to the market before they run out of the freshest things." Serah walked along the narrow stone pathways, glancing around at all of the different houses and commerce buildings, so very foreign from the quiet little village of Bodhum. "But we'll stop by the farmstand on the way home, right?"

Lightning bit back a sigh. "That was your promise, not mine." She almost winced when Serah pinched one of her shoulders. "Alright, alright..."

Serah giggled, leading the way on into Eden.

A river ran through the entire main area of the city, flanked on either side by colorful market stalls and centaurs pushing heavy wagons through the streets, calling out their wares above the thrumming din of voices and hooves. Lightning's ears perked whenever she heard the crashing clang of a blacksmith's hammer, and she found that her eyes often lingered upon the sight of so many gleaming shields and assorted weaponry.

"I still need to figure out what sort of present to get you." Serah grinned when Lightning gave her a weary look. "Hey, you're the one eyeing up those swords..."

"They'll be too expensive." Lightning looked away from the open workshop. "...And I don't need one." She thought back to the steel sabre that she had been issued upon reaching the second stage of cadet training, one that she still used as a lieutenant, for it doubled as both a weapon and a means for clearing pathways on patrol. "If you really have to get me something... Then let's stick with a more practical approach, alright?"

"Alright." Serah glanced around at the market stalls; her satchels were already carrying a few of their previous purchases, general supplies for teaching and writing things down. "You go get the candles, then, and I'll go find something for you."

Lightning tried her best not to go back upon her word, so she merely nodded without speaking, and then parted with Serah to approach one of the shops with general goods. It took only a few moments of wandering around inside to find an open crate full of candles, and Lightning soon had an armful of them, as well as a tin of furniture wax; she had a bit of an idea to use it on the places of their house that were a bit more vulnerable to a crowd of rambunctious students.

She paid for the goods with a few iron coins, and she gently placed the candles and the tin into one of her satchels, before she began to travel back into town, towards the place where she had split up with Serah. The streets were still bustling away in the early noon, and she could already smell the burgeoning scents of peddlers cooking up food to sell towards street travelers. Lightning couldn't help but indulge in a certain merchant, one who was walking around with a cart carrying what looked like tender goat meat wrapped up in a flat layer of toasted bread. She bought one for herself, and one for Serah as well, though Lightning didn't wait very long for her sister before she started on her own portion, for knowing Serah's tendencies, she might be left alone there for a while.

It was almost hard to admit just how at ease she felt, merely sitting there in a bit of grass beside the road, eating her lunch while the world bustled on around her. The river flowed beside the little meadow in the market, moving on down from the high mountains to reach the lake in the center of Cocoon, a body of water with the same name as the city itself. Lightning could occasionally feel the cool temperature from the open water, brought on by the gentle summer breeze, but the sunlight was still quite strong against her skin, and it created a sense of balance between the wind and warmth. Perhaps because of that sensation, many others had already taken refuge there beside her, either speaking amongst each other or enjoying their own noontime meals, and Lightning slowly began to realize that she didn't even feel much like a soldier in that moment.

She was alone with her thoughts and the hum of so many voices, ever so slightly detached from the fruitless search that had taken her so many hours, so many endless days, months she could scarcely count, and yet she found herself rebelling in silence against that sudden sense of calm; they were gone, hardly anyone in Cocoon even cared, and even if seeking justice wouldn't ever bring them back...

Serah called out from somewhere in the crowds. "Light!"

Lightning was ripped away from her thoughts in a mere instant, and she realized that she had only taken a few bites of her lunch, even if it felt like so many moments had slipped away with the summer wind.

"I tried not to take too long..." Serah smiled as she approached, and the look on her face only brightened when Lightning handed her a share of lunch, which had been wrapped up in wax parchment to keep it warm. "Thank you!"

"Don't mention it." Lightning stared at the river while Serah sat down beside her, and she hoped that her growing sense of unease wouldn't be too easy to notice. "These looked too good to pass up."

"It's not mountain goat, is it?" Serah peeled back the paper covering to examine the texture of the food. "I doubt they would sell wild meat like this."

Lightning nodded. "Probably domestic."

Serah took a small bite, and she seemed to mull over the taste for a while. "It's good... But not as good as what you can make, sis."

Lightning rolled her eyes. "It's more of a difference between the types of meat, like I said." She took another bite of her own lunch. "An animal raised in the same conditions year after year, the same as the rest, it's not going to give much variation."

Serah had already heard Lightning say the very same thing on several other occasions. "'Yeah, 'but it's different in the wild'... That doesn't mean you aren't a good cook."

"Hm. Glad you appreciate it." Lightning glanced at the satchels on Serah's back. "So what did you get?"

Serah just shook her head.

Lightning had to fight back a tiny smile, but she couldn't quite hide all of it. "You're not going to show me?"

Serah smiled as well. "It's supposed to be a surprise! You can have it after dinner."

Lightning lifted an eyebrow at that, and she reached for a sip from her waterskin. "And here I thought I was the strict one."

"Hey, you've seen how I handle roughhousing in my classes." Serah smirked to herself. "Not to mention impatience..."

"'Impatience'? I wasn't the one who insisted on it." Lightning felt just playful enough to smirk back at Serah. "I thought you weren't a mean teacher."

Serah scoffed under her breath. "Some foals even think that staying to a schedule is 'mean'..."

Lightning had never felt more sure that Serah was indeed related to her, even though they looked almost identical in certain ways. "Don't let it get to you; your job is to teach them, not coddle them." She knew just how incredibly compassionate her little sister could be, though Lightning had a strong feeling that nobody with ill intent would be able to push those feeling around, no matter how gentle Serah was at heart. "You just have to keep a balance."

"I know." Serah smiled again. "I don't regret any of it, Light; I love this kind of work." She took a moment just to watch the long reeds swaying back and forth near the riverside, brushed along by the wind. "I still think I might be the youngest person to ever formally teach in Bodhum..."

Lightning gave Serah a look of quiet pride. "I doubt anyone's kept a record, but I'd agree with you."

"I really wouldn't want it to be any other way, but... Sometimes... I just can't help but wonder what would have-" Serah paused for a long moment, almost as if she'd lost the will to continue that line of thought. "I don't think mom was right about what she wanted for you."

Lightning's ears almost began to droop. "Serah..."

"You're good at what you do, too." Serah started to speak with that same firmness to her tone, a return of the voice that she always used when trying to make her point clear. "You're strong, you're brave, and you'd be miserable with normal work, we both know that."

Lightning didn't respond for a long while, not until she felt that the other people in the little field weren't listening. "When I was fifteen... This happened while I kept asking dad to think about letting me enlist." She fell silent again, feeling the gentle summer breeze on her skin. "Mom told me something." Lightning stared at the grass beneath her hooves, beneath the soft white hairs of her ankles, ever so slightly feathered, just like her mother's had been. "She... Said she was proud of me for wanting it, even if she didn't want it for me."

Serah slowly leaned over to hug Lightning from beside her nearest shoulder, and she began to smile when Lightning gradually began to hug back. "I think she would have changed her mind."

She wouldn't, Serah. Lightning kept gazing out at the river's flow, never pausing, never turning back towards where it once began. But I think she'd still be proud.

They quietly finished their lunch, speaking of the things that they had yet to purchase from the market, which led Serah to the topic of whether or not they should buy any sort of vegetables in Eden.

"He's not a bad person, Light... Even if he does seem a little bit reckless." Serah was looking around at all of the different food stands in the street, and she would occasionally pause to inspect a bit of fruit or the various burlap sacks of raw grain, or even the odd sight of exotic imports from beyond Cocoon. "But he's trying to do something good with his time, something more productive, isn't that enough reason to try and be friends?"

Lightning didn't look up from a big pile of crates that held fresh fish from the nearby lake. "I doubt his intentions are as innocent as yours, Serah." She reached out to briefly touch the chunks of powdered ice that kept the fish chilled, and she felt satisfied that it didn't seem to be melting quickly in the shaded street; she had already bought a few bags of ice for their icebox at home, and it was a relief that it seemed just as cold as the package in her satchel. "Come look at these; maybe we could make trout tonight."

Serah stepped over to examine the sleek, speckled fish. "We could... But it's not very special." She glanced around at the rest of the street. "C'mon Light, we're celebrating; it should be something good!"

Lightning nearly rolled her eyes at that. "You just want me to cook for us tonight, don't you?"

Serah had the grace to look indignant, but she still had a rather sly look to her gaze. "I do make breakfast almost every day..."

Lightning sighed without a sound, and she soon began to lead the way towards where she knew Serah was likely hoping she would go, off to the part of the street where various butchers and purveyors of animal products were selling their wares from covered pavilions.

"It's okay to let loose once in a while, Light." Serah could see just how much Lightning was trying not to look more interested in the various cuts of meat than she'd been with the likes of fish. "I'm not that strict... Remember that one time when we had lemon cheesecake for your birthday? Mom was so good at making those."

Lightning gave Serah a look that asked: 'how could I forget?' Considering the price of raw sugar and imported lemons, Lightning assumed that the two of them would likely never again see another dessert of the same caliber, if only for the fact that they were no longer living under their parent's income.

"It's okay to treat yourself now and then." Serah glanced at the satchel on her back that held a package of tiny crystallized candies, made out of honey and dried fruits. She had convinced Lightning into letting her purchase them for her students, if only for the fact that they wouldn't be staying inside for class very long on the summer solstice. "Pick something nice, okay?"

"...Okay." Lightning offered her a tiny smile, for even if she didn't feel fully at ease with Serah trying to take care of her in such ways, she still appreciated the thought behind each gesture. "I haven't made anything in a long time, have I?"

Serah smiled as they walked along into one of the open pavilions, but she kept very quiet while Lightning inspected the various types of meat, examining the different cuts, trying to find the freshest piece they could afford.

"Lamb is good in the summer..." Lightning was scrutinizing a rack of rib chops, which were displayed upon a thick bed of mountain ice. "Sounds good to you, Serah?"

Serah nodded. "Sounds great."

Lightning waited for the butcher to finish packaging a purchase from another customer, but after she gave her own order, and waited for it to be picked up and wrapped in parchment paper, a steady set of footsteps registered in her peripheral hearing.

Only a mere moment passed before rather strong, yet familiar voice rang out behind them. "Lamb chops, eh?"

Lightning almost had to take a moment to register her surprise, but she recognized his tone of voice before she even turned around to face him. "Sir..." She quickly lifted her right hand to her chest in salute, tipping her head slightly with respect. "Lieutenant."

"At ease, Farron; we're both off duty here." Amodar was rather distinct from his peers by a mixture of stockiness and sheer musculature to his stance, yet his height was such that he was hardly taller than any other stallion. He stood a good few inches above Lightning, though, and she was rather tall for a female centaur. "Eden, huh? Good day for shopping, I'd say..." He chuckled at Serah. "Keeping your big sister on a close leash today, eh Serah?"

Serah couldn't help but giggle under her breath, and she nodded.

Lightning smiled softly. "Yes sir, she is..." She'd never called him by any other name, even when she had been only a child. "We both have the free time for it on most weekends."

"Good, it's good to keep each other close." Amodar shifted his weight from hoof to hoof, not a nervous or uneasy gesture by any means, but Lightning knew that it meant he was feeling contemplative. "Funny thing, running into you both; I was gonna bring over a few things I've been holding on for the two of you... You'll be back home by tonight, won't you?"

Serah nodded. "We're actually celebrating... It's for Light's promotion; it's a little bit late, but we've both got the free time now."

Amodar glanced between the two of them. "Oh? Better late than never; good on you both." He flicked his ears at them with a grin upon his face. "I can bring 'em over tomorrow if that works better."

Lightning turned back for a brief moment to hand over a few silver coins in exchange for the wrapped parcel of lamb. "Actually, sir... If you don't have other plans tonight, you'd be welcome to join us." Even if the words felt so strange to say, she had known him for all of her life, and had sat beside him for more dinners than she could count, all while he laughed and spoke with her father upon matters of Cocoon's guardian forces, as well as their own personal escapades. "We'll be having leftovers with this much anyway..."

"For you, Light? I'd be honored." Amodar's chin always twitched a certain way when he was about to call her 'kiddo', yet even if the old habit died hard, he hadn't called her that in many years, not since she had turned fifteen. "And that choice cut you're holding there doesn't make this offer any easier to refuse, you know..."

Lightning gradually smiled at the sound of Amodar's full-belly laughter, and she felt a sudden sense of true peace wash over her, one that she hadn't felt in such a long time, so much that she had scarcely even realized its absence. It wasn't the sense of blind calmness that she had felt at the riverside, nor was it the quiet tranquility of waking up on a calm summer day, no, it was the warmth of true comradery, of family, of happiness shared between those she held close to her heart.

It was almost hard to say goodbye to him, even if they would be seeing each other soon enough, back home in Bodhum. Lightning felt a slight twinge in her heart when the jolly old stallion waved at them both from behind the crowds, the same sort she had always felt when her own father left home each morning for duty.

They both kept quiet for a while as they moved to depart from Eden, carrying all of the various things they had bought, silently reminiscing over the afternoon that had passed between tall brick walls and colorful market stands.

After a brief time of traveling, once they had reached the long, hilly roads that marked the outskirts of Eden once more, Lightning couldn't help but whisper at Serah. "See? I do have friends."

Serah rolled her eyes at that, pausing at the top of the hill. "I already told you! Amodar doesn't count..." She glanced back over her shoulder, at the grand buildings of stone and thatch, at the river that snaked its way throughout the city in silence. "He's always been so much like a second dad."

Lightning just closed her eyes for a single moment, before she slowly turned to face the road home.

---

It was the sounds that greeted her first, a steady rhythm of hooves and voices and rough material noise, tent hammers pounding down against the earth to raise leather flaps into the air, foals darting around their parents hooves to run and play and squeal with laughter, while a grand number of campfires began to glow even brighter beneath the fading light.

Fang carried her spear over her shoulder, with three dead geese in her grip, though she had a far greater number of eggs safely stowed away inside her satchel.

"I'll meet you back at the tent, okay?" Vanille was still smiling so brightly, even with her own hunting prize clipped to a leather loop on her belt. "Don't take long!"

"I won't." Fang smiled back, and she waved at Vanille as they parted. "Hey! If that stupid old nag is smoking again, try and steal her pipe for me!"

Vanille's laughter reached her even through the crowded din of the encampment.

Fang exhaled, slowly feeling both sets of her lungs grow a bit more at ease among her fellow centaurs. She tried to tell herself that it was just her nerves, only a natural protective sense from being in unfamiliar territory, but somewhere deep down, Fang had to admit that there was something still so tense and jumbled inside her mind. After a few minutes had slipped by, she drew in a much deeper breath, before she started off towards a tent she knew by heart.

She didn't stop there for more than a few moments, just long enough to hand over the dead geese with a slight nod, acknowledging the old stallion who always handled giving out food among those who could not hunt or gather for themselves. It was customary for a benefactor to take something in return, an item that had been made by those who would receive the food, but instead of choosing a bit of handmade clothing or a simple tool carved out of bone or chiseled rock, Fang only paused beside a tall cask of cider, filling up her canteen to the brim.

The drink was made of fermented fruit and dried spices, a medley of whatever wild plants could be gathered out on the plains, tart yet subtly sweet, mixed in with more than a few flavors of herbs. It would calm both her mind and body down, Fang felt sure of that much, yet with each tiny sip she took, Fang couldn't quite soothe the prickling feeling beneath her skin, nor the nagging thoughts at the back of her mind.

She shook her head to try and clear it away. Fang paused again, just standing there in the middle of the encampment, while she watched her people mingle and work into the early hours of the evening, tending to cookfires and tents, feeding their goats and oxen, and even the occasion flock of chickens. She looked down at her satchel, at where so many fragile, pilfered eggs were waiting, yet Fang could only focus upon her memories of moss and stone, not those moments of joyful goose-chasing and galloping through the grass.

It wasn't a very long walk to the shelter that she shared with Vanille, which was a rather humble leather tent that stood on four corners by tall wooden poles, with a single beam above to form a slanted roof. She ducked down a bit to move beneath the entryway, where she had to blink a few times to let her eyes adjust to the low light.

The first thing that Fang noticed was Vanille, who looked quite busy with plucking the feathers from the dead goose in her hands, while a small cookfire was already growing steadily in warmth. Fang sniffed at the air, tasting the aroma of smoke and earthy wood, but there was yet another scent that mingled in with the rest, an admittedly pleasing aroma.

"Don't you go cuttin' the head off that bird, that's the best damn part of it." A wrinkled old face peered out from the far corner of the tent, where an utterly ancient looking mare sat upon a woven mat of reeds and cotton, idly drawing every other breath from an old, curled bull horn pipe. Nobody in the tribe quite knew where the elderly little mare had even come from, or what lineage she might have amongst her peers, for she had been there far longer than anyone else could even remember. "You ever tried the brain of a prairie squirrel? Cooks up real nice if you treat it right."

Vanille kept placing the plucked feathers down into a neat little pile. "No... But I've had it from a sheep, once or twice."

"Suppose that's almost as good..." The old mare slowly exhaled, and her breath formed a number of hazy little smoke rings, which drifted up throughout the evening light, until they dissipated through the angled gaps in the leather tent, designed for ventilation from a campfire. "You gonna stand there all night?"

Fang flicked her ears at the old mare; she hardly ever thought of her elder by her true name, for a delicate blue flower seemed almost the exact opposite to such a cantankerous old crone. "And who said you could keep squatting here?" Fang sniffed at the scent of the pipe smoke, a far more subtle fragrance than it had any right to be. She would not abide by the presence of anything that gave off a displeasing scent or made her lungs hurt, but the old mare seemed to prefer much lighter herbs in the first place, so the peace between them was usually untarnished. "You could always go bother someone else."

"You'd toss out your elder, girl?" Chicory smiled through her teeth, which were admittedly a bit less in number that what Fang imagined she had been born with. "And here I was, all ready to help you with those baby birds you've brought back..."

Fang glanced over at Vanille, who just smiled innocently.

"Bring 'em here." Chicory slowly began to unwind a long length of smooth, colorful fabric from her wrists, revealing the way her dusky blue veins showed through her skin. "Can't put 'em by the fire, or they'll cook... Gotta warm them next to yourself, or you'll go crazy trying to keep the heat at the right place." She smirked when Fang gave her a look of disbelief. "Oh, you think I'm the type to pilfer them, eh?"

"No, you're just the type to look for snacks wherever you can find them." Fang sighed as she walked into the dim light of the tent, closing the leather flaps behind her. "We're hatching these... So if any of them happen to missing-"

"Sheesh, keep your tunic on, I won't have a go at 'em." Chicory grunted when Fang opened the satchel at her belt. "So much for hospitality..."

Fang carefully handed over the small, speckled eggs one by one, until her satchel wasn't quite as heavy as before. "What are you planning to do with them, exactly?"

"Just you watch." Chicory smoothed out the folded fabric so that it resembled a long, narrow sheet, before she began to carefully place the first egg towards the very center. "I know a thing or two about these; I can play momma goose." She began to loosely knot each end of the fabric around the egg, leaving just enough space so that it was visible from the outside, but that the egg wouldn't fall out from the makeshift chamber. "I won't even tell 'em that you're eating their real mum for dinner."

"Nope, this one's a boy goose!" Vanille held up one of the crested feathers that she had plucked from the unfortunate bird, which was distinctive from the opposite sex of that species. "And we left lots of eggs for them... We only took a few." She went back to cleaning the carcass, removing each fluffy tuft of plumage. "And we made sure to take each one from a different nest, so if they grow old enough to... Make more geese-" Vanille suddenly tried to hide a soft blush on her cheeks.

Chicory began to tie another egg right beside the first one. "Eh? Didn't know you were so business-minded, kid."

Vanille just shrugged. "If we can get even more geese... Then everyone can have them." She paused to look at the entrance of the tent. "I don't think I'd want us to sell them though, it should be a gift."

"We won't if you don't want to." Fang settled herself down upon one of the woven cushions beside the fire, and she started to examine the dead serpent that she had brought back home with her. "It's a good idea either way; hunting isn't always going to bring the tribe back enough food..." She unsheathed her knife from her belt, and with a slow, gradual cut along the adder's throat and head, towards the mouth, she began to remove the fleshy little venom glands, careful not to puncture a single spot. "And I'm already getting a bit tired of trading for chicken meat."

Vanille smiled softly at that. "I just really hope we can tame them..." She stared into the fire for a moment, before she handed over the plucked goose towards Fang. "Baby birds think that the first thing they see is their mother, right?"

Fang nodded while she removed the venom sacs all the way to the deadly teeth, gently extracting the entire mechanism. "If you're the one taking care of them, Vanille, then it should be you." She gave the snake a few last touches with her knife, before she traded it to Vanille for the plucked goose. "But we'll have to clip their feathers to keep them from flying off."

Vanille frowned. "Oh... I guess so." She reached for a thin metal pole from the pile of supplies near the campfire, and she began to finish the job that Fang had started; the adder's head was already removed, as was the inedible section of the tail, so all that Vanille had to do was use the holes that Fang had carved in the belly to attach the snake upon the spit pole, which she could then place above the fire. "You season it after it cooks a little, right?"

Fang nodded, and she slowly cut through the underside of the goose. "Most people don't know how to make the scales split open on every side... You just have to carve it a certain way." She vaguely gestured in the direction of her handiwork. "Just give it a few minutes to cook."

"Okay." Vanille stood up to retrieve a bag of wild potatoes from the other side of the tent, along with a few pouches of cooking herbs, but when she saw the nearly empty bucket of water, she almost frowned. "Should I go get more water?"

"Probably a good idea." Fang kept cleaning the plucked bird, removing most of the innards and the parts they could not eat, and once Vanille had trotted right out of the tent with the water bucket, she slowly looked over at her elder companion.

Chicory had the goose eggs all tied up in what looked like a rather strange sash. She had draped it around her chest and shoulders to keep the eggs warm beside her body heat, and it almost looked rather comical to see her puffing away at her ornate pipe while she did so.

"Hey." Fang paused in her task, leaving the goose half-cleaned. "Tell me what you know about history... The stuff from before centaurs were around."

Chicory slowly blinked a few times, but her old hazel gaze never left the sight of the rising smoke plumes. "I don't look that old, do I?"

Fang rolled her eyes. "Just answer the damn question."

"Well... I know we've been around for a lot longer than most folks think." Chicory slowly stretched out her front legs, warming her hooves by the glow of the fire. "Kentauros, that's where the word really comes from... But those ones, they were different from us, the 'centaurus'."

Fang vaguely remembered the old stories of the horned centaurs, their ancient ancestors from an age long lost to time.

"They'd have hooves that split right down the middle, like bulls, and they had the horns to match." Chicory waved her pipe around for a moment, before she puffed a number of delicate smokes ring directly at the fire. "But I don't think we've changed much, elsewise... Still as much bloodshed as those stories."

Fang's spine prickled at the thought of it, all the way down to her tail, and she glanced off to the side to see if Vanille was safely back yet. "Are there any stories... About blood, specifically?"

"Might be." Chicory slowly narrowed her eyes at the way the adder's flesh curled within the heat, revealing the curved marks that Fang had cut, allowing the scales to split open and rise. "Depends on if I've got an invitation to dinner or not."

Fang gave her odd companion a look of disbelief. "We aren't going to starve you..." She wondered to herself whether or not the old mare was more like a houseguest or a pet, and the answer didn't come easily. "It's important, you silly mooch."

"Right, right." Chicory sighed, breathing out a gentle plume of smoke. "Well, 'blood is power', in most of 'em, blood is power, life is blood, and love is life." Her gaze drifted over towards Fang for a moment. "When are you gonna get yourself a good stallion to teach you that instead of me, eh?" She barked out a raspy laugh when Fang gave her another sharp look. "Hey, you're the one askin'..."

Fang used her knife to slice off the feet of the goose with a bit more force than she really needed, before she began to rub the spices that Vanille had chosen over the plucked skin. "I'm not getting a stallion."

"Less to worry about with one around." Chicory exhaled again. "And if you get foals out of it, they'll take care of you once you get all crooked and wrinkled up like me."

Fang drew in a deep, silent breath, and she held it for as long as she could. "...I'm not having foals."

Chicory kept quiet for a long while. "No, not when you have the kid to take care of." She looked over at the entrance of the tent, and then back at the crackling fire. "How long's it been? Seven years, now?"

"Eight." Fang reached for a thin metal pole to stick the whole goose upon. "She was... Somewhere around six when they found her."

"Older than I would've guessed." Chicory tapped at the edge of her pipe, as if in deep thought. "Still no more memory of what happened?"

Fang shook her head. "The nightmares haven't stopped, and she'll talk about some things... I think it might be more about pain." She placed the skewered goose up along the branched metal poles beside either side of the fire, just below the adder. "Can't be easy to want to remember something like that."

Chicory didn't speak again for a long while, but when she did, it was in a hushed tone. "I'll tell you this." She waited for Fang to look her right in the eye, dark hazel to sharp green, unwavering and strong. "There's power in blood... For good or bad, there's power there, and it's not something you see very often."

Fang waited in silence, gazing back into those old, weathered eyes.

"Just keep your pretty nose out of trouble." Chicory's ears twitched at the sound of a distinct set of hoofsteps. "I might not be your mum, but if you're all that the kid's got, then I'm all you've got... So don't you go turning over old rocks, 'cause you won't be happy with what comes crawlin' out from under them."

Fang had to stifle a mirthless laugh. "Sure... But that's not why I'm asking." She fell silent when Vanille appeared with a full bucket of water, and she smiled when her little friend almost immediately knelt down to give her a big hug in greeting, even if they had only been minutes apart. "Hey, you."

Vanille hugged Fang tight, smiling from the warmth of her companion. "I saw these really cute ducks in the river!"

"Just don't get any more ideas..." Fang chuckled under her breath, and she slowly began to detach from the impromptu embrace. "We've got enough pets on our hands, now."

Vanille only giggled, leaning back beside the fire.

"What, don't I get a hug too?" Chicory grunted at the rather unexpected answer towards her question, and she had to set her pipe away to gently pat at Vanille's back. "Hey, watch your birds, kid! Don't want to crush 'em before they hatch..."

Fang could only smile as she watched Vanille sit back with a giggle, as to not harm any of the delicate little eggs. She watched the two of them, young and old, the two mares that she held closest to her heart, even if she would never outwardly admit to being fond of the cranky old nag.

With such warmth on her skin, the glow of the fire, Fang drew in a slow, calming breath, and softly smiled.

---

A soft hiss of ignition, the strike of a match, and the curled wick of the candle gradually bloomed to life, drawing out the faintest whiff of smoke.

Lightning knelt beside the low table, where each little flicker of light spun in slow circles upon each empty dish, on each unfilled cup, over the slender curves of each metal article, works of true mastery in their own right. Ore was not in abundance upon the mountains, not with layers of sheer rock and sediment, hidden away beneath the deep, dark snowfall that never melted at such heights. Nor was there gold or silver within the valley, only a hint of gemstone or copper, but beneath the frigid snows and rugged, unflinching rock... There was iron, and there was coal.

Her blade gleamed as an equal in that firelight, rivaling the rare silver that her mother's family had owned for generations, a silent presence in the light of the evening, resting there beside the slight glimmer of her shield.

Steel, Lightning told herself, steel could dance just as beautifully as any other metal, though it was not meant for the likes of a simple dinner table, not where simple iron could serve just as well. She looked down at the polished utensils that she had been holding in her other hand, before she slowly began to place them out towards where they belonged.

"Light, I think the oven is almost ready." Serah was sitting beside the hearth fire, with a basket of half-peeled potatoes resting between her front legs. "Been a while since I've smelled that..."

Lightning inhaled to taste those gentle scents, a living memory of the fresh bread her mother used to bake on every weekend, even if it only remained as the aroma of earthen heat and smoke. "It's nice." She slowly rose up to her feet, but not before she gently blew out the matchstick she was carrying. "I think we should use it more often."

"Yeah." Serah smiled when Lightning walked beside her, towards the quaint little oven that stood in a corner by the hearth. "Light, maybe... Uh, maybe we can talk about what happened back there?"

"Nope." Lightning knelt down to open up the hatch of the oven, and she squinted to look inside, determining if the big wooden logs were hot enough by then, which they were not, so she merely picked up a few more from a basket beside the wall, and then carefully angled them inside. "We are not having this conversation."

"Light..." Serah sighed when Lightning walked right off towards a small preparation table beside the oven, pointedly facing away from her. "He was only trying to be friendly, you know." Serah huffed under her breath, and she looked back down at the basket of potatoes. "You don't have to visually castrate a guy every time he tries to joke around."

Lightning flicked her tail in an uninterested manner. "Must've been one bad joke, because I sure didn't notice it."

Serah rolled her eyes. "Some people try to tease each other to make them feel more comfortable." She started to peel another potato, slowly working the edge of her knife beneath the russet skin. "He's only trying to do the right thing... Even if he doesn't know what that is yet, not entirely."

Lightning couldn't help but snort. "...And you're going to teach him?"

Serah blinked at the gift in her hands, at the food that Snow had insisted on giving them for far less a price than it was truly worth. "Maybe I am."

Neither of them spoke for a long while after that. Serah almost wondered if Lightning was truly cross with her, for it was quite normal for her big sister to fall silent for a long time, even when they were both at ease. She though back to the look on Lightning's face, the sheer contempt in her eyes, all for a stallion who couldn't quite find the right way to show her how much he cared.

Serah sighed, but not a single sound left her lips. The gift was almost invisible in that sense. Lightning was simply not the type to accept an offering from someone who she wasn't close to, and with Snow having insisted upon the matter...

Lightning was working with such diligence, such swift precision and a form of brutal grace that was almost never associated with butchering a rack of lamb ribs. Soft streaks of crimson painted her fingertips, while a glint in her eyes revealed that she was actually finding such motions therapeutic, perhaps in the way of imagining that her knife was actually severing a certain source of annoyance instead.

Serah almost shivered at that, even if the thought was ever so slightly amusing. She thought back to the first time that she had ever met Snow, a day when she had gotten quite lost out in the open fields beyond Bodhum, for she had been searching for a rather rare type of meteorite to teach her class with. It was the kind that only fell when the skies above Cocoon burned the night away with brilliant streaks of color, flashing and dancing throughout the crisp, cold air. Before long, she had finally managed to recover one from a small ditch near one of the many unsettled riversides, only to realize that she had lost track of her location.

She remembered the soft pangs of fear in both of her stomachs, in both of her trembling hearts. She had resorted to following the position of the setting sun to try and find her way home, but the fields and hillsides seemed almost endless within the late evening, and it had been swiftly growing darker.

She'd nearly started to cry. She wasn't scared to admit that, even if nobody would ever ask. Lightning would have thought the whole thing was so very silly, running off in search of a boring little rock without even telling anyone where she had gone, much less her own big sister, who was likely off training to lead her own kind across similar terrains, to use the stars above to guide them.

Serah slowly began to shake her head at the memory. She remembered wishing so terribly that Lightning would just appear over the next hill, that she would gallop on over and hold her hands just like when they were foals, gently guiding her back home with words of soft encouragement... But it was an entirely different mare who filled that role, someone utterly unexpected.

She remembered that first thrum of hoofbeats out on the plains, when a streak of velvet black cut through the last fading rays of sunlight, when it was quickly joined by so many others, or at least it seemed that way, beside how alone Serah had felt. Mares, in general, held a certain mental sense towards when their own kind were distressed, even from distances that seemed too far to be true.

It was that first voice that called to her, that first moment when a sleek young mare ran over to stand right beside her, soon joined by her fellows in the grass. Five of them, though they claimed that there were many more in their little band of wanderers, even if those five seemed to be the backbone of such a group. A single mare, three stallions, and what looked like a much older colt than Serah's students, they had all found her out there in the wilderness, and they'd quickly tried to determine which way Bodhum was from that one spot.

How strange it was that the mare, Serah remembered that she'd mentioned her name was Lebreau, had almost seemed to take charge of the group from that point onward, perhaps having sensed the true extent of Serah's panic beforehand. While the littlest one chattered on about all of the places their group had just been in the past few days, most of the others had simply followed along with quieter conversation. One of them seemed a bit less talkative than the others, yet he was far more visually striking, for he had an unquestionable mark of Cocoonic origin, hair that looked as if it was a fallen shard of the sky itself. There had also been the one who towered beside Snow in sheer height, yet both of them seemed to fall in behind Lebreau while they traveled, at least in that point in time, even if Snow was referred to as the 'boss' in nearly all conversation.

Serah smiled softly at the thought of that. A family, or perhaps a herd to be more precise, for none of them looked even the slightest bit related; Snow was the one who kept them all together, guiding them along in his cheeky, yet nonchalant way, even if he would occasionally lay down a bit of slight verbal discipline when the younger colt grew a bit too bold or excited for his own good. Serah truly wished that she had gotten the chance to ask all of them their names, but it had happened within such a swift blur; one moment she was nearly to the point of tears, and the next a gentle mare was asking her where she needed to be, then they were all swiftly guiding her off along the plains, and then, before she even knew it, she was looking right at the lazy little river that flowed out alongside Bodhum.

And Snow... Despite his initial reluctance to lend much in the way of conversation, at least not at first, not when Serah had seemed so upset, a few days later, while she was tending to a few herbs in the garden beside the house, Snow had simply appeared, as if out of nowhere. He leaned his arms against the front fence and called out a greeting, asking if she was feeling alright from her little misadventure.

Serah's smile widened at the memory of her initial surprise, then at the feeling of warmth from seeing his gentle eyes. "Hey... One of my heroes returns."

He'd started to grin at her, and his slightly tufted ears twitched in amusement. "A hero? Now that's a first... Wouldn't most people just call it common decency to help someone who got lost?"

"Well... Maybe if she wasn't so lost that she couldn't find anyone, or anywhere." Serah remembered how she stood up, moving away from the furrows of soil, from those leafy little plants, how she slowly approached the mossy wooden fence, only to feel a slight bit of warmth creep along her face from the sight of such a dashing young centaur. "Really... Thank you."

And that was how it truly began, Serah decided, an exchange of pleasant words, of gentle gazes, and then it seemed as if Snow was out to prove the title she gave him, to be her hero from the smallest task to the largest venture, to the dense woodlands and the rolling plains and everything in between.

Of course Lightning couldn't see it. She hadn't been there to hear his soft voice, nor to see how he strived so very hard to do everything that he possibly could to help, no matter if it was merely sorting garden herbs or charting out the distance between one pen of goats and another, if only to help Serah hone her mathematical skills.

No, Lightning had only seen a self-sure stallion out to steal away her time with her little sister, a bold young centaur with little regard for anyone who might call themselves a solider, even if he often tried to be on his very best behavior around her. That sense of culture clash, a mare of little words and a temperament of diligence, crossed with a stallion who lived by the whims of wherever his herd might feel like wandering... Serah just couldn't quite see a way to truly close that gap.

Lightning seemed rather busy with getting the lamb chops seasoned with oil and salt. Serah gradually began to stand up and approach her, all without much more than a sound. The warmth of the woodfire oven cast a certain light upon them both, and when Serah knelt down to slowly, gently hug her arms around Lightning's chest, pressing her forehead against one of her shoulders, neither of them looked quite perturbed at all.

"You know I'm not little anymore, right?" Serah almost hated the way her voice was wavering. "I'm... I'm not a filly who just chases after the first person to say something nice to her."

Lightning paused in her work, and she almost looked as if she was about to close her eyes, but by the smallest of margins, they remained slightly open. She gazed out without truly looking, staring off into the waves of heat from the little clay oven, so close and fiery and warm. "I know you aren't."

"Then... You don't have to protect me like this." Serah tightened her grip a bit, clasping her hands against Lightning's opposite shoulder. "I know he's not like you, or really like either of us, but he does care... He cares about his family, Light."

Lightning kept silent, with hands of dripping scarlet, with eyes that could not possibly grow any colder than the point they had previously reached, for there was nowhere else to go but down. Perhaps it was the physical warmth, the heat of that cheery little oven, the glow of the evening sunlight, or even the way Serah hugged her so tightly, almost like such a little foal again, some part of it slowly began to grasp at the part of her heart that could never refuse such things.

"He doesn't try to be thoughtless." Serah couldn't help but exhale in relief when Lightning slowly hugged her as well, though not enough to stain her clothes with the effects of their uncooked dinner. "He's not a bad guy, Light, really..."

"It's still my job to protect you." Lightning spoke in a low murmur. "But... If you don't think you need it when it comes to this..."

As it fully dawned on her, Serah laughed almost breathlessly, but the sound was just as quiet as the evening breeze. "Light-"

"This doesn't apply if he ever does anything to upset you." Lightning stiffened slightly, a flicker of terseness to her tone. "And don't think this means I approve of him."

Serah nodded, slowly leaning away from Lightning's shoulder to stand up again. "That part's going to take time, isn't it?"

Lightning just grunted under her breath, before she moved back to the work at hand, seasoning the chops of meat within a mixture of olive oil and salt, as well as crushed leaves of rosemary and thyme, but she didn't even look up when Serah gently patted the top of her head.

"Amodar might be here soon." Serah smiled at Lightning, and she walked back to where most of the potatoes were still unpeeled. "It's been a while since he's been over, hasn't it? I wonder if he's going to bring those cheesy garlic biscuits he used to make..."

"He always does." Lightning felt her mind wander back to the old memories of such gatherings, where her mother and father would host dinners for many of their peers. It was customary in Cocoon for guests to bring a small gift of food along to a gathering, elsewise it was polite to show up early and help with preparation of the main meal. Her father's fellow soldiers, her mother's friends in the local weaving community, they would all bring their contributions and sit there at the little table as equals, talking throughout the long nights, though the two little foals had always been put to bed whenever the hour grew too late. "Serah... Do you remember the time when dad had one of those Sanctum officers over?"

Serah tried to think back for a moment. "I don't think so."

"You were pretty young, so was I." Lightning smiled softly at the memory of a tiny little foal, one who could hardly even walk on her own yet without tumbling over. "Mom already put us to bed, but you still wanted to hear what they were saying... I couldn't understand all of it, but I remember he kept hinting something to dad about a transfer to Eden." While she spoke, she kept turning the rib chops over in the olive oil mixture, making sure they were evenly coated. "But I guess he didn't take them up on the offer."

Serah glanced away from her own work. "I'm... Glad he didn't. I like it here."

Lightning slowly began to place each of the chops upon a wide wooden platter. "I've explained the difference between commissioned and non-commissioned officers to you before, haven't I?

"Yeah, I think so." Serah looked back over her shoulder, but she could not discern much of anything from Lightning's expression. "Non-commissioned officers are always lower rank than commissioned officers."

Lightning nodded. "It's all a chain of command; these days, you don't see anyone rising very far above major, or maybe even colonel." She leaned back to wash off her hands within a small basin of water, which stood beside the preparation table. "If we weren't in peacetime, or if I wasn't... If dad hadn't been who he was, then I would have probably enlisted as a regular soldier."

"It's interesting, but..." Serah paused. "Why are you telling me this?"

Lightning kept silent for a long while. "Amodar told me... When I first talked to him about enlisting, he told me that I had a good mind for leadership." She slowly ran her fingertips against a soft cloth rag. "And it's not exactly classified information, so I can tell you this." Lightning looked over as well, gazing at that subtle hint of wariness in Serah's eyes, the same soft blue as their father, yet her own eyes were harder, less like the sky and more like tempered steel, keen and sharp and calculating. "We keep watch on what goes on below... What the people down there are doing, who fights who, and who dies out because of it."

Serah fought back a tiny shiver, yet she never allowed her gaze to waver from Lightning's face.

"If they ever try to come here... If we're ever forced to retaliate-" Lightning's ears twitched back ever so slightly, just a hint of protectiveness. "Eden is safer, Serah, and I don't want to leave here any more than you do, but someday, we might not have a choice." She slowly looked up at the window above the preparation table, curtained in soft silk, hiding away only a slight view of the front gardens. "...Especially if I ever become a real lieutenant."

Serah slowly stood up to walk beside her sister again, and for a moment, the soft echo of hoofsteps was the only thing keeping them from silence.

Lightning stared out at the fading rays of sunlight, at the clouds that rolled out across the skies of Cocoon, and at the mountains that sheltered them from harm. "Mom said she never liked it when dad and I would spar out in the yard... But I don't think she really disapproved of that part."

Serah smiled as she sat down beside Lightning again. "She knew how to use one too."

Lightning nodded. "When you first enlist... It's pretty clear that they want to weed out who's signing up to 'attack', and who just wants to defend." She watched as the last few rays of sunlight trickled out along the windowpanes. "They try to keep the hotheads in line, but there's always someone who still gives you the feeling that they'd rather it not be so calm..."

Serah couldn't help but frown at that, though she did not say a word.

"I just don't want it to come as a shock, if it ever does." Lightning suddenly glanced up at a familiar sight from beyond the window, and in just a few moments, she was standing up from the floor. "But we won't be alone if it happens."

Serah's ears twitched at the sound of a steady knock upon the door, and at the hoofsteps walking over to answer it. When she rose up to her own hooves as well, peering out at the one who felt as close to being family as her own sister, she found that a true smile reached her face again, much more easily than she would have thought.

---

She could hear the whisper of the rain, pattering down along the outside surface of her tent. Fang's eyes were half-shut, hazily staring at the one who had fallen asleep beside her, who was all curled up against the soft, yet threadbare blankets, silently dozing away.

In the opposite corner, the old mare was snoring steadily from her makeshift bed of worn cushions and a small number of of stray blankets. Fang examined her for a moment, but she felt quite sure about leaving the goose eggs with her elder, because Chicory was well known to sleep more soundly than an obtuse boulder, and nothing in the world could ever wake her up when she was feeling comfortable.

Fang slowly flicked her ears in contentment. Vanille's head was resting against one of Fang's front legs, and she could feel each gentle breath upon the silky hairs of that limb, warming her heart in a way she hadn't felt in ages, not since she'd been able to relax so soundly beside her own mother and father.

How many years, Fang wondered, how much time had passed by since she'd lost them? And Vanille as well, how long had that little speckled foal been wandering out there, all alone, hapless and frightened in the wild?

Vanille mumbled something in her sleep, before she slowly rolled over to lay against her back, all sprawled out over the blankets.

"No more of those nightmares, now..." Fang briefly glanced at a cup of sheep's milk beside the fire, which she had told Vanille to mix a certain herb into; over the past few months, they'd been trying all sorts of different remedies to try and soothe Vanille's night terrors, and Fang silently prayed that the most current one would prove successful. "Get some good sleep."

Time slipped by with the sounds of the rain, with the distant, fading campfires and gradual hoofsteps, and Fang gradually began to close her eyes all the way, leaning down to rest beside Vanille. She remembered the first time that they had slept beside each other, when Fang was an older filly at the age of nine, rather unused to having a tiny little foal follow her around like a lost duckling.

She chuckled quietly. Vanille had been so very small, she first thought it was a wonder that nothing had snapped her up out in the wilds... But perhaps she wasn't as meek or as helpless as she looked upon first sight. That tiny, speckled foal, wide-eyed and curious about everything in her new tribe, she had practically latched onto Fang from the first moment they met, even if her newest friend hadn't been quite so keen on such a clingy companion.

Fang remembered the first time that she had tried to teach her how to use a bow, but as much as Vanille tried, she just wasn't strong enough at that age to fully draw an arrow back. Fang simply told her to wait a while, at least until she was older and stronger, but the very next day, she had found little Vanille out there in the grass with a bit of twine and a long branch, trying to make something that she could practice with.

"You just don't give up, kiddo." She stared at the soft blue ribbons in Vanille's hair, which had originally come from the scraps of one of Fang's old tunics, once she had fully grown out of it. "You're a fighter, like me... No matter how much of a sweetheart you are."

Fang slowly closed her eyes. She could feel the warmth of the fire, the waves of heat on her skin. The gradual snoring of one grumpy old mare gradually began to lull her off to sleep, but her mind remained as awake as it had ever been. It was as if all sensation had left her limbs, all cognizance, all awareness, yet she could still see out into the darkness, even if shadows were all there was to see.

She listened. No, there was more than she first thought. It began as an inkling that there might others there with her, whether they were aware of her presence or not. Fang felt the urge to stamp her front hooves against the ground to make herself known, if only she hadn't been so frozen.

Her vision slowly fixated on the negative space between each shadow, each line that curled and swirled and twisted in upon itself, whispering such softness into her ears, brushing against her sense of consciousness, dancing without a sound. Fang would have felt a sharp prickle of fear if she hadn't been so very lost in the dream, floating there in what felt like an abyssal nothingness, caught within the spiral that swam and spun along in the outer corners of some lost reality.

She hadn't yet realized that there was fire, nor that she could feel it whisking all around in the air beside her, yet it only gave off the faintest ghost of heat, burning away at nothing, yet even lacking such things, it did not die.

Vanille... Where are you? Her consciousness was fading, bleeding, bruised and broken without her even realizing it. Won't let it hurt you... You'll be safe-

Narrow, gleaming fissures gazed right back at her, unblinking, searing, as if an empty void could somehow hold fury and utter desolation all at once.

What is this? Fang felt her own temper flare. What are you?

The presence stirred and shuddered, a mountain of fractured immenseness, churning and cracking and bellowing out a thousand sounds that could not reach her ears, but she felt the rupturing tumult of her own self, her own body, lifeless as it currently was. Yet even then, she could only answer it in turn, a sound that stained her own throat in scarlet, though it was born in a rivaling fury.

And beyond the darkness, beyond that dream, Fang's eyes flickered back and forth beneath her eyelids, while her ragged breaths grew swifter, and then fell slow.

---

The fireflies were out to dance that night, as was a flutter of moths and chirruping crickets, but inside the warmth of that little stone cottage, only a stray house spider stood witness to their tiny gathering.

"Hey, I dunno Farron, if you weren't so damn good with a sword-" Amodar laughed as quietly as he could, which was no easy feat. "You could make a living off of these, you know."

"Thank you, sir, but as my sister likes to put it..." Lighting shared a glance with Serah. "I think I'd be miserable with a 'normal' job."

"We'd miss you at the barracks, that's for sure... Not to mention out in the field." Amodar gently swirled a glass of rather mild wine, though his eyes were focused more on those who sat across from him, each at their place beside the little round table. "Not the same without a Farron there... Just isn't the same at all."

Serah nibbled on a small biscuit, though her plate, just like the others, was beginning to look almost empty. "Light told me that her unit found something strange on patrol."

Amodar's gaze almost seemed to waver for half of a second. "Hm... The wildlife report, right?"

Lightning nodded, idly pushing the mashed potatoes on her plate with a spoon. "The grizzly bear, it was dead when we found it, but it didn't look unhealthy... Or old." She was swept in the memory for a short moment, so much that she could almost feel the cool air of the forest on her skin, nearly enough to smell the thick scents of pine and soil and moss. "Wounds on the chest and throat, but we couldn't tell exactly what caused it; no discernible claw marks, no weapon patterns we could recognize, and it definitely wasn't hit with an arrow."

Amodar shrugged. "Might've been a bigger grizzly." He sipped at his wine, before he glanced back at the second item he had brought along to the little gathering, other than a basket of freshly baked biscuits. It was a tall wooden crate, one that was resting on the nearest wall to the table. "Hey... Have I ever told you this one? Your old man once socked a baby bear right in the mouth for trying to climb up one of his legs."

Lightning felt a smile cross her lips before she could even try to hide it, while Serah stifled a giggle against her wrist.

"Must've thought he was a tree; the poor little bastard ran off faster than anything I've ever seen." Amodar closed his eyes and smiled. "Of course, that might've turned out a lot differently for your pops if mama bear had been keeping a closer eye on her cub..."

Lightning finished chewing a small bite of lamb before she spoke again. "I've been meaning to ask; how old was he when he enlisted?" As much as it felt bittersweet to think of her father again, when she spoke about him with someone who had known him nearly his entire life, it almost felt like a salve towards a half-healed wound, soothing an ache that had persisted there for years. "I know nineteen is young for a cadet, much less a second lieutenant."

"That was... Let me think." Amodar slowly began to cut up the last morsel of lamb on his plate. "I was twenty-two when your dad convinced me to join the corps with him, and he was a year and a half younger than me." He paused to chew another bite. "We were just a couple of dumb, stubborn colts back then, even at that age... They saw us rightened out, though." Amodar waved his free hand in Lightning's direction. "Wasn't anything like you at your age, no; you've got that good soldier spirit from your dad right from the get go... Or maybe you've gotten it from the other side; your mom was one tough mare."

Lightning tried not to feel slightly embarrassed by his praise. "It's... Not as if I'm anything revolutionary, sir."

"I'm not just sayin' this, Farron." Amodar smiled when he saw how Serah slipped away for a moment to retrieved a small wrapped parcel from the nearby countertop. "Look, if you were more on the average end of capability, it'd be a different story... But you've always got something there in your eyes whenever you've gotta fight, the same sort of fire I'd always see whenever your old man was in the thick of things."

Lightning felt a faint sense of pride towards her father, a longing inside her heart, or perhaps even a sense of remorse... But when had remorse ever felt as light and delicate as a silk moth?

"You are your father's daughter, no damn doubts about it..." Amodar grinned with mirth. "And I think your sister here wants to congratulate you on a job well done."

Serah smiled softly, holding out the colorful little paper parcel, wrapped up in ribboned silk. "I know you aren't the type to ever get lost, Light..."

Lightning slowly accepted the tiny gift, and she began to carefully loosen the silken knot, before she pulled back the wrapping paper.

"But if you're ever somewhere you don't know well, or if it's dark and you can't see the sun from where you are-" Serah bit back a breathy laugh when Lightning's gaze flickered with clear fondness. "You won't lose your way."

Lightning traced her fingertips over the polished glass, across the star that pointed in each cardinal direction, towards the little emblems that showed each skyward constellation by name. "Serah." She touched the smooth metal backing of the compass, engraved with an image of Cocoon, from a viewpoint far below the towering mountainsides. "Thank you."

Serah stifled another tiny laugh behind her smile. "I wasn't sure if you'd like it or not-"

"It's perfect." Lightning moved the compass around in her hands, rather satisfied with the accuracy of the pointer. "Practical, too."

Serah smirked at her. "I knew you'd like that part."

Lightning glanced up when she suddenly noticed a bit of movement from her houseguest, who was carrying over the large wooden crate he had brought along with him.

"Alright, now... This is from your dad, not me." Amodar knelt down to place the crate beside the table, and he soon began to lift open the lightly dusted top. "I knew that it'd be... It'd be hard at first, to see these again, but with how much time we've all had, and your new rank, Farron... I know he'd want you both to have these."

Lightning blinked at the first sight of a deep, midnight blue, a long sheet of fabric emblazoned with white silk. Her gaze traveled towards the part of the sash that held a sizable number of small metal pins, ranging from hierarchy indicators, to medals for various services, along with one that she had never seen before, a pin with two red gemstones, both fused into a single mark.

Serah whispered almost silently. "Dad's..."

Lightning gradually reached out to trace her fingers over the newest medal, a title only granted upon certain circumstances, the type that a soldier would never see themselves receive. "He... It didn't happen in battle, why would-"

Amodar shook his head. "We don't know that." He lifted the fabric towards both sisters, holding it with a steadfast look in his eyes. "And either way... He earned it."

Serah reached out to gingerly hold the deep blue sash, as she had done so many times in her youth, when her father would take if off teach her the meaning behind each and every mark. "...Dad." She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to smile, even when her eyes were threatening to well up with tears.

Amodar sat silently for several long, lingering moments, content to let Serah reminisce within the distant whisper of nighttime crickets, but when she slowly opened her eyes again, he nodded at her, and then turned towards Lightning. "And this..." He reached in to push back a bit of woolen cloth, likely there to protect the contents of the crate, and he soon lifted up a rather sizable carrying case, but the object itself gave no hint to whatever was inside. "Farron, this is yours."

Lightning slowly accepted the case. She looked back at Amodar, who merely nodded at her once against, so she glanced down at the thick leather container, and reached for the buckles on either side.

Serah fought back a sniffle, but she still smiled as best she could. "Oh, Light..."

The sheathe was the smoothest leather that she had ever seen, dyed deeper than the midnight sky, wrapped within beaded twine that crisscrossed back and forth across the diameter, where it finally ended at the hilt. Lightning blinked at the very sight of it, the same she had seen so many early mornings whenever her father kissed he forehead goodbye, only to return with it in the very same place on his belt, where he would often tell her the stories of how he fought off something fierce with it. She inhaled sharply, forcing herself to be as swift and unflinching as that same steel, before she grasped the hilt and pulled.

The blade gleamed in the low candlelight, a metal that reached almost a sheer white hue, a tapered longsword with swirling, branching runes from hilt to edge. At the very height of it, the pommel was born of a far different breed, a deep, dark gray metal that had been forged down into the shape of a slanted hoof, subtle, quietly imposing, a reminder of the power behind each limb of a fully trained centaur, one who could gallop and launch a deadly slash just as easily as it could bash in a skull with the other end of that same weapon.

"Took them a bit of work to reforge it... Those runes are stubborn as blazes." Amodar pretended to wipe a bit of imaginary sweat from his brow. "Still not sure what could've broken a beast like that in half, but there's not even a mark left in it now."

A beast. Lightning examined the blade back and forth once more, over those polished lines of metal, and a bittersweet smile crossed her lips. That's what it must look like to anyone facing it down from the wrong end...

"Took me my own bit of work to track it down out there... This was in that same winter, of course, before you'd enlisted." Amodar only had to wait a brief moment for Lightning to meet his gaze. "Don't think you can get anything past my nose, Farron... You've been scouring that scene out whenever you have a single moment to spare."

Somehow, Lightning didn't even have the will to look as if she had been found out.

Amodar gave her a knowing smile for that, but there was something else in his eyes that almost looked unfathomable, something she had rarely ever seen from him. "When you've got another spare moment, I'll give you the rest of the details... Might not be much to give, but I always know that look when I see it." He gently reached over to clasp her shoulder, a gesture of strength and unity. "But there's... Something else you'll have to know first, but not right now."

They soon returned to the last of their plates in a gentle silence, though they all felt somehow closer than before, as if the sword that was resting atop the wooden crate had brought something else back into the Farron household, something that they hadn't even noticed was gone.

With the meal finished, and with the hour growing far later into the night, Serah excused herself for a moment to store the dark blue sash in a safe place, before she returned to clean up the dishes and utensils from the table. When Lightning tried to help her, Serah merely swatted her away and claimed that she should see to accompanying Amodar to the door instead, to which Lightning simply shrugged, and walked over to join her senior lieutenant by one of the front windowsills.

"Never gets old, does it?" Amodar was gazing out at the fireflies, watching how they floated all across the garden, between the leaves of the mulberry trees. "Bodhum might be the largest town out there... But there's just somethin' else about it." He turned to nod at Lightning. "Thank you for a lovely evening, Farron."

Lightning smiled just a bit. "You're always welcome here, sir." Yet even as the words left her lips, she couldn't help but feel swept up from the memories of those same eyes, the very same place where he had once knelt down to struggle for the right words, all upon a frigid winter night.

She remembered that sheer cold, the feeling of so many soldier's eyes upon her as she put her own stubbornness to the test, trudging down through the deepest snowfall that she had ever walked within, so much that her belly brushed against the freezing surface with each step of her shivering hooves. But it was nothing compared to the sight of that one mountain slope, the sheer, blank canvass of seemingly endless white, where she first saw the image that would never, never leave her mind again, not while the bloodshed was still casting off steam into the winter air.

That pattern, swirls of flowing liquid that refused to freeze, spiraling far and wide around those who were locked in the very center, lost in a motionless whirlwind of scarlet.

"You don't have to look." Amodar had stood there beside her with one hand on her shoulder, though she hadn't quite been sure if it was to keep her steady or to reassure himself. "Claire..."

She had left that name behind, abandoned there between the bodies held in a final embrace, the center of some twisting, macabre design. She had looked upon the inward motion that the crimson pattern cast, where the blood had been spilled so meticulously, so perfectly that it almost defied the notion of something real.

"Claire." Amodar's voice had felt so distant, even if he'd been standing right there. "We can-" But that was when he had noticed it. There were no tears in the young mare's eyes, no lines of shaking grief on her face. There was only the look of sheer calculation within her gaze, a set of eyes that only had interest in mentally counting the residual snowfall upon each track of hoofprints, the ones that led towards the bodies, determining that they were quite different in level. Amodar looked up from his companion to the blooded scene, then back towards his young protege."Would you look at that... One of them... Must've followed the other, later on..."

Lightning blinked, and the memory slowly began to fade again, but she knew it would never fully disappear.

Beside the little round table, from where she was picking up the last of the wineglasses, Serah paused to listen to two sets of gentle hoofsteps, and she looked over to see the front door click shut. She lifted an empty plate from the table, before she peered back down at the silent longsword. "...Keep her safe."

Amodar strolled out along the cobblestone path, flicking his tail in time with the thrumming fireflies. "They call them 'cold cases'... Just wish the irony wasn't so strong with this one." He looked up towards the distant moon, and to the stars that held so many stories of their people, where the falling stones spelled out anything from omens to good fortune, but he could see no movement that night. "I know you're like him, Lightning... Because no matter how much you might be fighting it, you can never let things go unfinished."

Lightning walked up beside him, standing there in the cool summer breeze that swept throughout the garden. "I need to know what happened."

Amodar turned to face her with a look of silence and solemnity in his eyes. "I only wish it weren't that way." He shook his head, and the grief almost seemed to take hold of him again, but he kept it at bay with a sigh, and a slight kick of his front hooves. "You're young, you've got a whole career up ahead of you... Bad business to have to deal with our own being taken." A certain tone flooded his voice, a ghost of the anger that he had stifled for so many years. "Some might say you're too close to this case."

Lightning felt her jaw clench in protest, but she knew not to utter a word.

"But I've seen what you're capable of, doubly so with that new title of yours." Amodar began to walk forward again, almost leisurely approaching the edge of the yard, but there was a sense of stiffness to each step he took. "Farron, we're going to get to the bottom of this, no matter how long it might take..." He paused beside the edge of the fence, where the moss grew in soft layers against the weathered old wood, where the flowering vines stood in full bloom. After so many moments of near silence, Amodar slowly turned to look at her, and his words almost stole the air from her throat. "There's been another killing."