Lightning was striding away from the bandit encampment, or at least, she was attempting to.

"You sure you don't wanna stick around for drinks?" Fang had a grip on her wrist and slight smile on her own face, but Lightning knew firsthand that they were both as exhausted as each other. After a full day of wandering throughout the great desert, battling against enemies who were much more persistent than the more standard fare, it was all they could do just to trek back to camp and brush off the dust from their clothes. "I mean, we've got some stronger stuff in the back, and I'd be more than willing to share."

Lightning almost considered the offer seriously, but she didn't make it outwardly known. "I'm on the job, Fang... Maybe after the world ends?"

"Still got your sense of humor." Fang clapped at Lightning's shoulder, tightly, then released it, before she sauntered back beneath the dusty overhang. "Keep it up, 'Savior'... We're gonna have a heck of a time before all this is through."

Lightning could feel the weight of the sword on her back, but she kept on, across the sandy pathway. She heard Fang's distant footsteps, but she didn't look back at the building itself; she only reached out towards the strange, red statue of a cactuar.

She began to focus, concentrating on the mental image of the train station, one that sat beside the sea, though as she did so, nothing seemed to happen.

"...C'mon." Lightning slowly narrowed her eyes at the statue, before she realized that it wasn't giving off its normal glow. "Teleport."

The statue kept completely still and silent, and the world around them hadn't changed either.

"I have a tight schedule to keep." Lightning stared down at the cactuar, before she started to nudge at it with her foot. "This thing had better not be broken..."

She waited for another moment, but still, nothing.

Slowly, Lightning pressed her boot a bit rougher against the statue, but she didn't quite expect it to suddenly spin around in place, whacking at one of her armored shoulders with its wide, needly arm.

Lightning bit back a curse, and before she could even think of a more appropriate response, lashed out with her boot, kicking the statue squarely in the crotch.

Fang called out from somewhere in the building. "You show 'em, Light!"

She looked down to see pointed needles, sticking out from her boot. Her shoulder ached a bit, but Lightning only huffed when finally, the reddish glow began to reappear. She reached out with one hand (though she didn't touch the stature itself,) and before she knew it, she was racing throughout the fabric of space itself.

She appeared again rather quickly, on a similar sandy surface, just in time to catch the rumble of a vehicle, leaving the station beside her.

"Wait-!" Lightning hissed under her breath, but the train was already halfway off onto the tracks, with only a few stray people in the lobby to show for it.

She reeled around, and even though her expression was just as neutral as ever, a swift, sharp backhand to the resident statue sent it hurtling down, before it swung back up and socked her in the face.

"Lightning!"

She didn't realize for a moment that she was staring up at the sky, nor that she had been lying flat on her back in the desert sand for a good couple of minutes, or even that there was a woman with a truly unusual hat chattering away above her.

"Look, you can't just hit a statue like that, Lightning!" She had bright red feathers all around her, and there was an ample amount of visible skin between her clothes. "Honestly, now!"

"Hello, Chocolina..." Lightning rose to her knees with a sigh. "I really don't need this right now."

"Oh, you-" Chocolina paused, holding her hands on her hips. "Look at your face, Lightning! You're bleeding!"

Lightning stood up, slowly, and touched at the tiny trickle of blood on her cheek. "...It's nothing."

"Nothing?!" Chocolina walked away, only for a moment, before she returned with something from behind the board she always seemed to attend. "You're one silly Savior... Getting all worked up over an itty-bitty cactuar statue!" She held a long white cloth between her (hands?) feathery arms. "But I'll get you all patched up!"

Lightning held up a steady hand, shaking her head while she trudged down from the dunes, towards the little bench that sat beside the train station. "I told you, it's nothing."

"You've got a bad scrape on your face!" Chocolina trotted after her, leaving talon-like prints in the sand as she did so. "And hey, what's that in your shoe?"

Lightning sat down on the bench without another word.

"They;re needles, aren't they?" Chocolina stood beside her, still holding out the rag. "Did that nasty old cactuar do something mean? They're never quite as silly in person, I'll tell you-"

"Don't patronize me." Lightning grit her teeth. "It's just a scrape, like you said... I'll be fine."

"I wasn't-" After a moment, Chocolina giggled. "I guess it would sound a little condescending... But I didn't really mean it like that!" She flopped down on the bench beside her. "...Most people don't take offense, you know."

Lightning kept quiet for a long moment, and when she finally spoke again, her tone was different. "Do I remind you of most people? I'm not even sure what I'd sound like anymore... It's been too long."

"Oh, no." Chocolina beamed at her. "You are not like most people, not at all! You're just a big old grump with a heart of gold, and that means that you should let me-" She took a quick dive towards the injury and started to swab away the blood with her cloth. "-Help you out!"

Lightning winced a little, but her attention was quickly drawn towards the wing-like appendages, which held the rag itself. "...Do you even have hands under all that?"

Chocolina's nose scrunched up a bit while she focused on the injury. "Of... Of course..." Her face slightly flushed. "I mean, at least... I'm pretty sure I do!"

"Pretty sure?" Lightning almost chuckled. "You haven't... Checked?"

"Would you check if you were me?"

Lightning glanced away. "...Probably not."

Once she had finished wiping off the blood, Chocolina leaned back with a tiny smile. "And there you go."

Lightning felt the words leave her throat, but they were barely even audible beneath the desert winds. "Thank you."

Chocolina beamed at her again. "Now, get those needles out of your boot!"

Lightning lifted one knee, propping it over the other, before she looked down at the spines that were sticking out from the toe of her boot, yet hadn't broken all the way through the material itself. "Maybe I won't, not just yet... They look pretty intimidating, don't they?"

"You do have a sense of humor!" With a laugh, Chocolina began to fold up the cloth across her lap. "That's an important thing to have, especially these days! You should hold it as close as you can." She smiled and looked up at the sprawling desert, feeling the warmth on her face, and then savoring it. "I've been listening real close, you know? Lots and lots of people have so many wishes for you to tackle, and they keep rolling in, every single day."

"Can you... Feel, what those people feel?" Lightning glanced down at the scattered sand beneath the bench. "Their wishes, I mean. What they're hoping for from these last few days."

"They just want to be happy, mostly." Slowly, Chocolina began to kick her feet back and forth. "Or to see something exciting... Or to feel something they've never felt before. You know, just the things that most people want out of life."

Lightning looked off to the side, towards the ocean, which stretched on beside the sand, and then disappeared out over the horizon. "There will be another world."

"I think they know that." Chocolina nudged at Lightning's shoulder with her own. "Hey, you're just waiting for the train, right? Why not grant a couple of those wishes in the mean time?"

Slowly, Lightning rose to her feet. "Better than wasting it." She almost felt the sudden, rushing surge of regret once the words had left her tongue, but as per usual, it seemed like they were hidden far beyond her reach. "That's not to- I didn't mean that, not like..."

Chocolina tried to keep her smile aloft, to keep it from crumpling. "Oh no, I know you've been super-duper busy, Lightning, so don't worry about little old me!" She struck a mighty pose with one of her wing-arms. "Super-duper-splendiferous Chocolina is always on the job too! Not a moment for us to waste..." Chocolina skipped over to the board of wishes, and she waved for Lightning to follow. "Come and hear this one, it's right here in the dunes!"

"Alright..." Lightning walked beneath the station, towards where Chocolina was standing. "What sort of things would I need to do?"

"Ah, well..!" Chocolina began to browse through a long, paper list of wishes. (Where it had suddenly appeared from, Lightning couldn't say.) "Oh, these sound fun! You'll just need some seashells from down by the shore, and then some simply amazing specimens of nocturnal cavernous wildlife, and then-"

"Let's stick with things on the beach." Lightning glanced at the train tracks. "I need to get back here before the next train leaves... I'd rather not miss it again."

"Absolutely!" Chocolina waved at the sloping dunes that led down towards the beachfront. "Then just pick up some of the prettiest shells you can find, Light! Good luck."

Lightning began to walk off without a word, but she soon felt her own footfalls start to slow, dragging slightly against the sand. "...I've never been very good at telling which thing is the 'prettiest'."

Chocolina looked over, tilting her head to the side.

"Maybe-" Lightning cleared her throat. "Do you have any expertise on the subject?"

"Oh, Light!" Chocolina laughed as she ran out across the sand, to Lightning's side. "Sure, I'll help you out! Just this once, of course."

Lightning started to walk again. "Of course."

The ocean rippled, moving back and forth in the light of the sunset, and it almost seemed black in hue when the sun had finally slipped away, which left them alone, beneath the starlight.

"Oh look, it's a nautilus! Look, Lightning, look!"

Carefully, Lightning stepped over a rather large chunk of driftwood, to where Chocolina was appraising an entire pile of shells.

"Hey, did you ever visit that theme park back in Cocoon? The one with the same name..." Chocolina was smiling at the spiral shell, long abandoned by its aquatic owner. "I remember being in there, all the lights and sounds... So many people, too."

Lightning set down another armful of shells on the pile. "When did you go there?"

"Oh, you silly-" Chocolina shook her head. "I thought you could see everything in the past, when you were Etro's champion! I went there with Sazh and Vanille."

"I didn't look at everything." Lightning looked away from her. "You think anyone wants to look at everything that ever happened? There's already a lot of stuff I'd rather not have learned."

Chocolina didn't try to press the subject, so instead, she picked up another shell, which was a tiny, pearly thing. "You didn't answer my other question."

Lightning began to cover her arms with her hands, rubbing away the chill, but with the gusty, beachfront air, the task proved rather difficult. "What is this... An interrogation?"

Chocolina laughed. "Hey, it's not every day that you get to help out the Savior with her mission! I'd like to learn everything I possibly can, but that might be a bit impossible..." She handed off a couple of shells back to Lightning. "These ones won't do."

Lightning merely began to toss them out to sea. "People always seem to do that..." She watched one of the rounder shells skip across the ocean waves, before it slipped down into the dark. "They always want to... Dig up everything, learn everything that they can about someone, even if they don't need to know it."

"And you don't?"

Lightning shook her head. "I can learn everything I need to just by watching." She stared out at the horizon, and then at the last few blotches of sunlight, within the clouds above. "Or, by what people say about things... You don't need to ask if you listen close enough."

Chocolina held up a particularly shiny shell. "Well then, I'd say you're very observant." She giggled quietly. "Especially for a human! Imagine being a chocobo who can't talk at all... It does make communication a bit harder, for sure."

"But Etro gave you a voice."

"She did, indeed!"

Lightning slowly sat down upon the sand, crossing her legs. "You seem to use it well." She began to trace nonsensical patterns beside her feet, and some of the soft, white sand stuck to her fingertips. "You use it to help people... Anyone who asks, really."

"Anyone with a wish!" Chocolina set aside a long, pale shell. "Even your wishes, Light! You needed some help, and I was happy to pitch in. We've really been doing the same thing all along, you know!"

Lightning could feel the tiniest hint of a smile, tugging at her face, but even when her muscles began to twitch, it felt like little more than that. "Then... I'd wonder what your wish is, Chocolina."

"My wish?" Chocolina shook her head back and forth. "Oh no, I already wished to Etro for all I needed, and she gave it to me."

"What you needed..." Lightning gestured at the pile of shells. "I don't think someone needs a bunch of those... They want them."

"Well then, I want to help people!"

"Is that really all?"

Chocolina nodded.

Lightning leaned back, slowly, bracing herself on her hands. "My train's gonna be here soon."

"You've gotten us more than enough shells." Chocolina smiled as she stood up, carrying the bounty in her arms. "I'll be sure to send them off right away!"

Lightning didn't stand as well, she merely stared up at the sky for a while, and then down towards the lapping ocean. "You need to be there, after the end... And if that's gonna happen, there's something I need to do." Her gaze slid up to Chocolina's face. "What's your wish, really? How do I save you, too?"

Chocolina froze, stark still, almost as if the thought had never occurred to her. "Save... Me? Save my soul..." She moved back a bit, clutching at the shells. "You'll miss your train if we don't get back."

Lightning finally stood, leading the way back up, along the scattered dunes. "There has to be something." After a moment, she glanced back over her shoulder. "There always is."

"Well..." Chocolina almost seemed to be at a loss for words. "How does it usually work? You just go up and make a person hopeful? Do something that they need you to-" She muttered on for a while, closely following after Lightning's footprints. "You can save them from despair, but I'm not in despair at all! Really, Light... I've never, ever been any more happy!"

"Then what would make you happier?" Lightning glanced up at the dim lights of the station, approaching it from the side. "There has to be something."

When they had finally reached the building, Chocolina knelt down to place the seashells underneath the wishing board, but when she returned, there wasn't any trace of the doubt she had before. "There might be something..."

Lightning nodded. "And what's that?"

"Well." Chocolina turned away, and her tail-feathers swished with the motion. "I already told you that I've been doing everything I can to help everyone."

"You did."

Chocolina reached up to primp up her hair a bit, as well as the feathers on the back of her hat. "Then there's nothing that would ever make me happier, other than to help you." She turned back with a wide, beaming smile. "Just promise you won't get mad? I just couldn't bear it, Light! You're always so brave and awesome, and cool, so when you run off to go change the world, change peoples lives... If I can just do something, even the tiniest thing-"

Lightning stepped to the side, glancing away. "Do what you need to do." She almost didn't realize the sudden warmth at the side of her face, not until she felt the gentle pressure on her wound, the kiss, pressed against her reddened scrape.

"...All better!" Chocolina laughed out loud, skipping away with her feathered arms aloft. "I've saved our Savior from the most terrible fate you could imagine! The dreaded, loathed... Un-kissed boo-boo."

Lightning could feel the darkening flush, the almost invasive sensation that crept along both her face, neck and nose, but she merely reached up to rub her wrist against the tiny scrape. "You-" Lightning went quiet when she saw the shimmering, almost otherworldly light that had fluttered up to her, drawn into the silver symbol at her chest.

"Now my dear, I believe you have a train to catch..." Chocolina started to wave at the approaching sight, the sleek train that was rumbling down the tracks, towards the tiny station. "Have a most wonderful, amazing trip, Miss Savior! And come and visit me again as soon as you can."

Lightning strode off without speaking another word, but before she had stepped up along the platform, and before she disappeared into the night, she reached up to wave over her shoulder, tapping at her cheek with the other hand.