"You overcame your focus. Isn't that right, Serah?"
Snow stares past the ravine in front of him, said crystal in his gloved hand, the huge recede before him clasping the long-awaited open air, once at the very end of the tunnels and deep trenches they came from. In the not too comforting distance there is a large quantity of beasts swooping around. Near, and surrounding him—in there dozens, are gigantic white-headed flowers; the native variety, never before seen on their home planet Cocoon, sprouting to bloom throughout the greens of the rock canyon. Muffled footsteps follow behind him.
"Will you look at that view," Sazh announces, as Snow turns to him. "I say we set up camp right here tonight."
He is tired and worn-looking, much like the rest of them whom strolled up near the edge of the massive crevasse, all taking in a similar glance. Sazh crouches down, with a long and pained sigh-of-sorts.
"My legs are killing me" he admits. Snow simply giggles at this.
He turns again to the great beyond of the large ravine. It showed the nature under the sun of Gran Pulse they were unable to see in the nights spent under rock; those long days and nights inside the tunnels of Mah'habara, only to find retracted lights days later from the orifices over the rock ceilings of the Sulyya Springs.
The party eventually starts looking to Fang, who helped them set up camp in the tunnels; those times without the small words of advice from Lightning. She'd guided them to secure walkways, highlighting facts about the Pulsian automaton—what were old excavation and engineering drones from past mining operations, and other wildlife so as to help them all stay alive. She created with their help, small but effective barricades made out of easy to acquire materials, that allowed them to stay reactive in the nights, to anything that may try to happen to them.
She is quiet, stepping towards the near-edge of the ravine, peering through it and down. She looks weary, but not as weary as the others. She walks back, eyes tracing the floor of grass in front of her.
"So?" Sazh asks, sitting with a noticeably tired Vanille, that chocobo chick chirping merrily in her hands like it had just got out of its slumber.
"Okay," she says simply, before then hoddling away from the group.
She wasn't normally a quiet person, but had moments such as this where she would be stuck in her head, contemplating something—most likely important. She headed towards the bags of supplies, which at most only three of them at a time had been carrying portions of.
Decidedly small their shared inventory was, Fang told them that hunters would usually scavenge most of the equipment and materials they'd use from the nature surrounding them, visiting various, certain locales to grab materials, so the notion was that there was a lot to discard if needed be. The Cocoonians were also told that hunters left behind their own equipment for the other hunters to use, which Fang did uncover some of previously for the party's use.
It was safe to say that on Gran Pulse, Fang, as well as Vanille, were the ones in charge of the l'Cie—Fang, the leader from the world below who kept them all alive if you followed her instruction—and Vanille, the Cocoon-born l'Cie's supporter, who kept everyone up to speed, and together.
Without them, the l'Cie would have definitely been dead by now—but that conversation had already left them if it was even there to begin with, as it was true for the Pulsians as well. It was a fruitless exercise counting how many times the Cocoonians had saved them in a pinch during battle.
"It might rain tonight," Fang adds to the air some moments later, to the chuckle of Sazh who was hovering right behind her, "after the sun's gone it'll be rain and buckets."
"Who would have thought? Weather working against us. Really?" Sazh says for like the third or fourth time. Fang did chuckle at him, though then faces away as if wanting to head out, "will ya help me out then?" She asks over her shoulder.
"Save some time for foraging, rather than complaining about some rain." She adds rather nicely, she'd admit. They were all too familiar with their impending deaths of late, and they hadn't even crossed Taejin's tower.
"Hey guys." Snow approaches them.
His light blue eyes settle on Fang, and what he has in his arms said about as much as he wanted to say. "Take these." The heap of thick branches of wood are dropped to the floor. They knew he was being hasty for whatever reason, and why, it may be just to spend time alone with Serah, the azure crystal tear the blonde giant held so close to himself.
Still, more conversation about the surrounding area, the certainty of rain, and eventually, subtly fortunately, moving onto reminiscence of times before the war; a continued conversation; Snow left the two to ponder, as the calling for some alone time from earlier was taking its hold on him. A sort of new occurence, of course, as he'd found a new infatuation with his thoughts.
He gets to his bag, to make sure it and the rest of them were secure, and it was, with a busy Hope cleaning his boomerang, and Lightning opposite the bags facing Hope as she was cleaning her boots. "Where are you going?" she asks him suddenly, eyes lifted from her boots.
He doesn't speak straight away, instead he grabs out the sharp, blue crystal of Serah's, which he knew, as well as they, that he relied on and held so close to his heart, and spent so much time pondering things with, tightly in his grasp.
"Just spending some alone time with Serah," he speaks, swaying forward but then away to leave with a grin.
"Not quite alone are you though," Hope says.
After a moment from hearing it, it pulls both Snow and Lightning's cheeks into a sincere smile.
"No. I'm not," Snow goes over to ruffle the boy's hair, and glancing at Lightning he sees her smile, but her eyes just as soon had darted back to her shoes. He holds a lingering grin.
"Well, I'll see you guys later," he says with his boom, turning his back to them and heading out. He makes a single wave behind him, before pulling his right leg up a tall hill, leading out of the small trench.
Soon after, Lightning would stand up again, and head towards his direction, only after a small compliment about Hope's efforts for that day.
If there was something between them still, then she will be rid of it. The amount of times he saved her, and she him, their kinship, friendship—doesn't equate to it. Snow was an important person in her life—who made her believe it possible. He will know it.
That he is her family. Much like the rest of the l'Cie, journeying with her, and she with them...
A future with Serah, Snow her husband, with Hope and the rest of them, living on, outside of the rule of the fal'Cie.
To her, that was her real focus—not some mumbojumbo plan conjured up by the fal'Cie. Nor dying for nothing, (but living on with them all).