2
Dreamer

Vanille felt as though she was floating above the realms of reality, as she slowly approached the edge of the pier. Her movements felt vague as she dragged her numb limbs forward in a walking motion, desperately thrusting herself down the concrete paved bridge. Overwhelmed by fear as soon as she caught sight of Fang's bright blue sari hanging over the bridge's ledge, she started to run towards the tall black haired figure further down the way. No matter how fast she thought she was running the world around her did not seem to move.

"Vanille..." Fang's faint voice seemed to be whispering to her through the wind. Reluctantly, the younger girl stopped her running so that she could catch her breath.

"Fang?" Vanille shouted, though her panting prevented her voice from projecting further enough to reach the figure further down the pier. Almost as though she had appeared from out of nowhere, a hand gently rested upon Vanille's shoulder from behind. At first the contact had startled her, but as soon as she had turned to realise it was Fang stood behind her, she had felt at ease.

"Vanille," Fang's voice seemed to echo through Vanille's head, "What are you doing?" The hand resting on her shoulder slowly moved upwards towards her flushed red face. The girls' breathing heightened with intensity, each time Fang would raise her hand and move it further up Vanille's face.

Her cold hand was now caressing Vanille's bright crimson cheeks, burning red with anticipation. She could not draw her eyes away from Fang's moist pink lips, speaking to her to kiss her. The way her heart rattled away at the inside of her rib cage, the ice-cold pang to the pit of her stomach, and the way her gullet had tightened to the point where she could barely swallow; they were all foreign feelings. They had seemed to manifest themselves in only the past couple of years, but the more Vanille looked inside of herself the more she realised those feelings had always been there; they had been laying there dormant since the moment she had first met Fang.

"What is this?" Vanille whispered shyly, with tears welling up in the inside of her bright emerald eyes.

"What is what?" Fang asked, her voice still echoing inside of her consciousness, "Vanille?"

For a moment, Vanille felt as though Fang was about to brush her face up against her own. Her body was almost begging for her commanding touch, but she never gave it to her. Instead, Vanille found herself awoken by elder Barthelous' grating voice.

"Vanille?" Barthelous repeated, nudging the rousing girl slightly with his foot.

For the past two days, Vanille had awoken to the damp and musty smell of Archylte Steppe's wilderness. For years, she had wondered what the wilderness outside of Oerba was like; but now that she was there, she realised why Fang had been so eager to hide it from her. If she glanced at the wildlife, Vanille would conclude Archylte Steppe was a beautiful place, but if she was to look a little deeper, to the Gorgonopsid savagely tearing a Flan apart, she would realise it was a place of great darkness. She drew inspiration from the cruelty; it granted her the inspiration to protect her family.

"I'm awake," Vanille said faintly, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Judging on the grey darkness still clinging to the sky, from the night before, she concluded that it could not be any earlier than 5am.

"Good," Barthelous growled impatiently, "then perhaps we can move onwards without getting mauled by the charming wildlife."

Fang grinned as the old man snapped. She knew that he was not comfortable with Vanille tagging along; even she had not felt comfortable with it at first. Both hunters were worried for the less experienced addition, but Fang knew she would be safe. On countless occasions, Fang had found herself astounded by Vanille's strength and determination. Fang would tear the world apart; destroy everything, just to keep the younger girl safe; but even that was not enough to stop Vanille from doing something. It had been at her persistence that Fang had finally caved in and agreed for her to come.

"What's for breakfast?" Vanille chirped, suddenly awake and beaming bright, as she always did. Her voice has rasped from the light sleep.

"Nothing," Barthelous snapped, snatching his spear from the ground so that he could extinguish the fire. Suddenly becoming aware of the saddened expression across Vanille's cute, innocent face, Barthelous threw her his satchel, "Luckily I packed extra, though I don't know where you put it all." He added, indicating to how thin she looked despite the amount of food she seemed to consume.

Fang could not help but find the way Vanille routed through Barthelous' satchel adorable. Almost as though it had been her stocking hanging over the orphanage's fireplace at Christmas, she excitedly delved right down to the bottom of the sack. Finally, she pulled out a bright red apple.

"Hey," Fang snatched the apple from the younger girl, just as she was about to take a bit of its ripe flesh, "that one's mine." She spitefully ripped out a section of the sweet fruit, but the disheartened look on Vanille's face instantly forced her to regret it.

Barthelous rolled his eyes as the girls argued over the apple. He wondered, for a moment, what might have happened if he was not there to regulate their constant frolicking. Perhaps, he thought to himself as he finished burying the burnt out fire, he should not think about what they would do with each other if he were not there. Although he found himself invigorated by their youth, he also found himself isolated by it. Their carelessness reminded him of how he had been, many years ago.

Vanille stared down to the half-eaten apple in her hands, unsure of whether or not she should finish it off. Shrugging, she bit into the still juicy core and skipped along to catch up with Barthelous.

*

After discovering a bear's paw prints in the sticky mud, Barthelous had ran off ahead to track them. Fang, having decided that the elder would be able to determine its location easily by himself, tagged behind with Vanille. Both girls could not help but find themselves entranced by the ways he would crouch, stick his hand in the mud, and appear to place his head only inches apart from the ground. Sometimes, as he examined the prints for indications as to how long ago the bear in question had passed through that particular area, it would appear as though he would edge a tad too close and end up with the sticky tar on his face. Much to their disappointment, it never seemed to happen, no matter how close he seemed to go.

"I never realised how much you talk in your sleep," Fang teased the younger girl, turning around so that she was walking with her back towards the direction they were walking.

"I do?" Vanille bleated slightly, afraid of what Fang might have heard her say during her sleep.

"All I heard all night was 'Fang', 'Fang I love you', 'Fang I want--'" Her teasing was met with a swift, but gentle, prod to her ribs.

"You aren't funny." Vanille pouted and then stormed off further ahead.

Unsure of whether she had genuinely caused the redhead offense, Fang jogged along to catch up with her. A devious grin crept across her face as she watched the way Vanille's shoulders gyrated in the same motion her hips did, as she walked ahead. She always admired the younger girl's demeanour, even if it was something she tended to do subconsciously.

"Okay," Fang waved her hands up in the air to gesture her defeat, "you only called my name out once."

Vanille rolled her eyes, as a laugh crept from her lips. She had not wanted to find it funny, but the cheeky smile fixated across her face melted down all of her barriers. Somewhere deep within her heart, she knew Fang had known she had dreamt of her that night. Fang knew how Vanille felt. Despite wanting to tell her older friend everything about the feelings she had begun to develop since her fifteenth birthday, Vanille knew she did not have to. Sometimes, she wondered if they somehow spoke to each other, without even having to communicate with one another.

Barthelous detected his bright red spear from his thick belt and looked towards the small cave to his right. He was confused, there were tracks leading into the cave, but they seemed to be from a different date to the ones he had discovered along the pathway. Perplexed by his discovery, he stared into the narrow and darkened cave for a few moments; he was wondering how he had managed to lose the prints he had been following. Old age, he sighed as he shook his head angrily, an incompetent old man.

"Gramps?" Fang asked, concerned by the puzzled expression across his face. In the years she had spent with him hunting, she had never seen him so frustrated by a bear's tracks.

"It appears I have lost the track of the bear we have been following for the past few days." He sighed, rubbing his aching face with the clean part of his wrists.

"Maybe that's his home," Fang nodded her head towards the small cave, "I'll go in."

Barthelous thrust his spear in front of Fang to block her path, knowing it was not a good idea to venture in alone, especially if it was the bear's habitat. "No, we should both go in and check." He set down his satchel and nodded towards Vanille, indicating that she prepare herself, "you wait here Vanille, and keep an eye out for the bear. If you see anything, shout for assistance."

The younger girl extended her binding rod and held out it before her, ready for anything that might wish to ambush her. She was afraid, but she was more worried for Fang and Barthelous' safety inside the cave. For all they knew, the bear might have been trying to sleep inside of there. She did not know anything about hunting, but she knew an irritable bear would not be the easiest of opponents.

With her blunt wooden staff thrust out before her, to brush away the thick and deadly webs probably spun by some enormous spider, Fang edged into the narrow cave. From the echoed sound of water dripping onto a surface of more water, it sounded as though they were entering a cave filled with a lake of some sort. Immediately, Barthelous knew they had wandered into a cave not likely to house a bear.

"We should turn around," Barthelous suggested, his voice echoing around the damp cave, "This is obviously not where the bear went." Almost as soon as he had spoken, Vanille's alarming scream emanated across the cave's walls. Fang's immediate and only concern was that the younger girl was safe.

Using her binding rod as poor cover, the redhead had found herself cornered by a frustrated black bear. Paralysed by her fear, Vanille watched as the giant bear stepped up onto its two back paws and thrust its head wildly into the air. She imagined it would tear her into two clean pieces with just one swipe of its sharp steel claws. Although her first instinct had been to scream for Fang's help, something seemed to activate its self within her consciousness.

Fang's mouth gaped open, as she emerged from the cave to discover Vanille retrieving her binding rod from the bear's corpse. It had not been the biggest bear she had seen, but she was so overwhelmed by the relief washing over her like a tidal wave, the doubled over fur was completely irrelevant to her.

Vanille stumbled out from behind the corpse, with her shoulder bleeding and her stomach slashed. Barthelous immediately reached into his satchel for medical supplies, but his attentions had seemed more drawn towards the dead bear. The older girl wrapped her arms around Vanille, whose eyes were streaming with fresh tears, and pushed her face gently towards her shoulder. She held her there for a little while, only just long enough for Barthelous to get irritable.

"Well done, Vanille," the elder smirked with pride as he pulled some bright orange gum from his bag, "but we had better get moving before the mother arrives."

*

Barthelous watched carefully, with a pitcher of matured ale in one hand and a plate of bear meat in the other, as Fang carved out off an extra thick slice of bear meat for the triumphant hunter. He could not help but notice how proud she seemed, and he was sure she appeared to be prouder than she would have been if she had of been the one to catch and kill it. The looks they had shared all night, at the meal they had held to celebrate Vanille's first kill, reminded him of the way he and his wife had behaved when they had been courting.

"I was wondering," Fang said, raising an eyebrow with curiosity, "how did you kill it?" Vanille only grinned in response, secretly happy that she had something to boast about in the future.

Matron topped up Barthelous' drink with water, concerned for his health. She sighed as the elder met her with a disappointed glare. "Just because you're an old and stubborn man, doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself," Matron added. She found that her attentions wandered up to the couple stood beside the bear speared across the spitfire.

"How long do you think it's been?" Matron asked, vaguely. Barthelous was unsure by what she had meant at first, but it bought a bright smile to his face as soon as he had come to realise.

"Since the moment they met, I imagine," he took a sip of his watered down ale. He immediately spat it out afterwards, deciding that the faint bitterness was an acquired taste.

"—And how long did they say about your condition?" Matron asked, her tone suddenly softening. She knew that it was a hard question to answer, but it was necessary for her to know. Patiently, she awaited the elder's answer.

"Two years," he grunted, slamming his pitcher and plate down, "but I'm fighting this thing."

A/N: Hopefully this is up to scratch, writing wise. I've had the flu over this week (poor me D;) but I really wanted to get this chapter out of the way so I can move onto the next ones. I hope everyone enjoyed it:)