It's past the steppe, over the range, following the gorge but somehow she knows where she will be.
Lightning barely whispers it, almost not believing that she's actually there, that she can't actually hear her, "Hey."
"Hey there yourself" Fang looks up at her, pauses then motions at a spot next to her on the grass "Must've taken you a while to get here, sit down"
It is silence that accompanies them. The sounds of a flock wyverns, that hover not too far off, wanes as they fly further away from the patch of grass they lay. The silence between them like an old friend, between Lightning's avoidance for words and Fang's lack of affinity for them, it's not awkward rather it just is.
Fang breaks first. "Of course, you'd find yourself here… " Fang's lengthy exhale left little to guesswork of her present feelings. Lightning shifts slightly, the metal clings softly in the zephyr.
"So you've been expecting me?" Lightning's reply bordering playful, something the Pulsian was not expecting. Fang wasn't sure if she was just imagining things. She let several thoughts abscond back in the recess of my mind. Her eyes never leaving the big blue in the sky; there wasn't actually anything to look at – not even a cloud.
"Something like that, once you started walking off trying to find a way… You just couldn't let it go, could ya?" It wasn't a question to Fang. Fang wasn't angry, nor did she sound like it. But she felt like she really should be.
"So where are we? It's beautiful"
"Of course, it's Gran Pulse! The name is Ge-"
"Names mean little to me."
Fang raised a brow in question, "Says the one who changed her name to change herself?"
"Heh, I walked into that one; I admit." Lightning let out a chuckle but the brief elation turned somber immediately. "It was past happiness I wanted to let go of."
"You're so depressing you know, Light. Like who the hell willing lets go of happiness – past, present, or future? A ray of sunshine"
"Says the one who sacrifices herself to save a bunch of people she swore she hated, vipers was it?" Lightning looked directly at Fang this time noticing Fang shifted her eyes to her feet.
"You called Gran Pulse: Hell if I remember correctly." Fang suddenly looked back at Lightning, "Also if we are taking about sacrifices, no one holds a candle to you. Hypocrite." The fire in her voice and eyes dimmed as she continued speaking.
"It wasn't a sacrifice"
"Then what was it, huh? You didn't owe anyone anything. It's not fair." She let the last word hang for a moment. "I didn't want you to"
Lightning was ready to say something but instead she swallowed the words.
"I was fighting alone, same battle over and over. Like an instant and eternity was one in the same." She continued. "But when I was fighting alone all of us fighting together with me. That somehow when I was alone, I wasn't"
"After everything, I think our lives are not our own, you know? Like we are bounded by each other somehow, in someway. I felt you in here. I don't understand it and I'm not even gonna try"
"Like how we are here, talking?"
"Yeah it hurts my brain trying to rationalize everything"
"And I have none of the answers." She let the conversation end and start anew "So you never answered my question, where is this to you? This is your dream after all"
"This place? It's kinda like an ancestral tribe ground. In the Yun clan, it's a place where every father would take their child, on their 13th, on a hunt to slay a rather nasty variety of behemoth"
"But-"
"Heh, I went at it solo. Scared the shit out of the matrons at the orphanage"
"Sounds like you" The mirth evident in Lightning's tone.
"This is kinda weird"
"What?"
"This. You and me. Talking. Being all introspective and stuff" She waves her hand like they were physical entities in the air.
"I guess being stuck in crystal til' the end of time does that to you. Sorry"
"For what?"
"Not being able to get you and Vanille out. It was what I-"
"It's not what I wanted you to do. You're not dead, at least; I imagined you lying in a ditch somewhere, dead"
"I remember dying"
"Like that would stop you"
Lightning rose and offered a hand to Fang.
"Huh?"
"Come on, we have a hunt don't we?"
"I'm not 13" Fang replied curtly
Lightning shrugged and turned away from Fang. "We're not a lot of things."
"What if I am tired." Fang didn't know if she meant it, was she tired?
"Tired my ass. You're supposed to be the one-" Lightning paused, "'I've missed you." It sounded awkward coming from Lightning.
Instead of allowing the conversation continue, the armored clad warrior made a dash away from Fang downward toward the valley. The Pulsian watched from afar as she made a huge leap nearing the bottom. In mid-air, as she hung in the air for what seem like far too long to be possible to Fang, she had summoned a weapon Fang had never seen before.
She saw the lightning strike before she heard it. Perhaps Fang was tired, but she wasn't going to let Lightning hog all the kills.
This was going to be fun.