I would like to note that the locations and relative distances stated are most likely inaccurate. I am ignorant. Also please review, I want to know if I'm doing something wrong.
"Lightning."
"Hope Estheim."
Kevin Yeegar nodded at each thoughtfully, "Beautiful names," While Lightning began to unclip the wet red cape from her back the old man extended his hand, palm upwards,"Your jacket…?"
Lightning obliged without batting an eye, "Thank you."
"You're quite welcome," was the cheery reply. Then he gestured towards the man beside her, "Ah, apologies, I forgot to introduce whom was beside you."
Not that Lightning particularly cared; her eye flickered towards the trench coat beside her.
The man had cropped black hair along with thick side burns that streaked down into stubble on the chin was quick to introduce himself, "My name is Thierry, a pleasure to meet you," He offered then offered a hand which Lightning shook.
"Perhaps I can ask a question of you, Miss Lightning?"
"Shoot."
Yeegar looked curiously between Hope and her for a moment, "…For what purpose were you and a child doing in wandering that road?"
The moment Hope opened his mouth, Lightning was already ahead of him, "We got lost," she stated simply.
"Unfortunate."
"Yup."
"May I ask where you hail from or what is your destination? The road we are traversing is incredibly perilous."
It really did feel great to not be treated like an outcast – a freak. A very nice change of pace but other thoughts was on Lightning's mind at the moment, "Where I'm from…?" she rolled the jeweled lightning bolt pendant between her fingers slowly, "Bodhum. Hope's from Palumpolum."
"I've never heard of such places."
That grabbed Lightning's attention, causing her to let the dangling pendant fall limp. Who had never heard of Bodhum or Palumpolum…?
"Cocoon..." the simplifying word spoken sounded almost like a question. Yeegar nodded in understanding but Lightning could see uncertainty lingering in his fogged, appraising gaze.
"I see," the old man took off his coat before standing, "Take a seat, Hope. Would any of you like a meal?"
"Yes, please!" Hope eagerly answered. Yeegar smiled.
"Very well, then. Please sit down and make yourselves at home," he said while pulling something out from under the cabinets. As he did so, Lightning could have sworn she spotted the glint of chains tucked inside the shadows of the man's sleeves but shrugged it off as imagination.
"It has been a long time the last I was in the presence of company," Yeegar continued, slapping a hunk of raw, bloody meat into the iron skillet.
It seemed like forever since the last time she had sat down at a table and eaten dinner, so this brought about a lot of memories - along with crashing wave of guilt.
Tuning out the old man's small talk, Lightning began to think. Her priorities were on Serah, but how could Lightning find Serah if she didn't know where her sister was or how to even do it? Wasn't that the reason they went to Pulse, to find a way to stop the fal'Cie, Barthandelus in order to rescue everyone…? To defy their Focus.
She was confused, she felt useless and hopeless. The moment the word crossed her, Lightning snapped out of it. Fighting without hope was no way to live. Metaphorically speaking, of course, but Lightning didn't know what would have happened if Hope wasn't here, considering the boy had most likely saved her life from those spherical creatures.
Though the teenager had his social quirks, he was a breath of fresh air and lightened her mood. The same couldn't be said for him, however. And at the moment he looked terribly stricken by remorse.
It didn't take long for Lightning to puzzle together that the smell of cooking was reminding him of his mom, Nora, who was also dead.
"Hey," Lightning tapped on his knuckles, "Don't lose hope, Hope."
In response, Hope tried to pull off one of Vanille's horribly happy smiles but failed miserably. Lightning rose an eyebrow, "That was ridiculous," she deadpanned.
Hope chuckled a bit sadly, "Sorry, Light."
"You're not alone," she patted again reassuringly. That seemed to brighten him up, considerably but not by much.
"That's an interesting tattoo."
Hope scrambled to roll up his leather glove to hide his brand, earning a chuckle from the trench coat next to her, "Aren't you a bit young for something like that?"
"Ah….Oh…," To others, Hope's stutter and chocobo-in-the-headlights look would have been interpreted as embarrassment but Lightning knew it was because it was the Pulse l'Cie brand but this man – Thierry, Lightning reminded herself - thought it was a tattoo?
l'Cie tattoos of any kind were illegal on Cocoon, to the extent where the law regarding them stated that officials who discovered l'Cie tattoos on any person were subject to their obligation of interrogating and incarcerating said individual due immediately.
Cocoon l'Cie were remarkable heroes and their crystals were set on display in Nautilus and Eden.
Pulse l'Cie were classified as terrorists whose bodies were more or less staked and put on display like war trophies.
That was absolute basic history and knowledge of Cocoon that had been drilled into the people's heads when in school.
The possibility of this place being Cocoon went flying out of the carriage's red-curtained, tinted windows and somewhere deep in Lightning's mind brewed a humorous thought that told her she wasn't on Pulse either but that was dismissed.
"Why would someone defile their body at such a young age…" Yeegar mused disapprovingly, glancing backwards as he cooked.
"I didn't choose to get it," Hope grumbled with slight annoyance.
"Someone forced it unto you?"
Queue the flipping of meat, the noise of sizzling now making Lightning notice the gorgeous scent of food wafting around, "You could say that," she remarked. Technically, it was true.
Thierry tilted his head slightly in analysis, "Could I see it?" Out of the corner of her eyes, Lightning could spot Yeegar's sideways, objecting glance towards the inquirer, "Please?" he added, seemingly getting the message.
"Uh…"
"Go ahead."
"Sure," Hope pulled the skin of the glove away from the brand, flinching inwardly in fear of rejection.
But instead of rejection, the man gave an honest compliment, "It's really interesting," but Hope's eyes widened in shock as he inspected the brand on his hand.
"Lightning, my brand..." Raising an eyebrow, Lightning trailed down and adopted the same expression. Instead of black arrows with an eerily opening red eye, the curse mark was stark white; almost crystalline.
'Just like Fang's,' Lightning remembered. A l'Cie with a white brand was free from a Focus, to do as they pleased but still at the benefit of their powers. They didn't have to worry about becoming a Cie'th either, since their brands were, for lack of a better term, 'frozen'.
"Is yours like that too, Light?"
"I can't check it now."
"You have one too, miss?" Trench Coat asked. Hope flushed somewhat, having already known where her brand was.
Not to mention Lightning's answer was extremely blunt, "On my chest."
The look on the man's face was hilarious, "Ah…"
"It is a sin to defile one's self in such a manner, Lightning," Yeegar scolded seriously, setting a few baskets of salad unto the table followed by small plates of faced with meat, "And yours is identical to hers, you say?"
To some, this situation would have been highly amusing. Trench Coat was trying to decide between a chuckle of pity or perverse understanding. Lightning rolled her eyes under Yeegar's expecting gaze, already knowing what they were thinking.
When she or the blushing Hope didn't answer, he continued, "Yet you claim that the markings were because of circumstance?"
Lightning sighed heavily with impatience at the ludicrous assumed insinuation, "Look, it's...-"
Yeegar raised a hand to interrupt before speaking, "My apologies. I did not mean to offend you; it is not my place to ask now, is it?" He said sincerely. With the same hand, he gestured towards the food laid in front of them, "Please, it is rude for a cook to deny guests food."
Well, that saved her a potential embarrassing explanation. The situation had merely postponed the inevitable, however, but Lightning or Hope didn't say anything as they focused on their meal.
The moment she popped a piece of meat into her mouth, she brightened with surprise and suppressed the urge to groan. It was, simply put, absolutely delicious. Not as good as Serah's cooking, but it came damn close.
It had been so long since Lightning had eaten a nice, warm, homemade meal. Of course, it wasn't that Fang and Vanille's cooking wasn't its own type of 'special', their meals only lacked the certain flair that a well-prepared homemade dinner had.
"This is great," and Lightning agreed with Hope since all they had eaten since becoming l'Cie were ration bars, which quite frankly were disgusting or whatever Fang/Vanille managed to salvage from a monster or several.
"Do not speak when you eat, but you have my thanks."
Dinner was uneventful after that. The old man offered them to cook more of a meal but they both polite fully declined. After that, out of sheer boredom, Lightning accepted a game of chess between herself and Yeegar.
He thoroughly trounced her into the night without an ounce of mercy. Although he did offer helpful advice instructing with great detail the inefficiencies of her halfhearted tactics, Lightning only listened with deaf ears.
With a yawn, she looked out of the side of the carriage window. Night had long since fallen so there wasn't much in terms of sight except a transparent, darkened reflection in the window thanks to the lanterns that dimly lit the compartment in a wavering light. Lightning was fairly certain the time was somewhere around midnight, but she wasn't very tired.
Thankfully, operating with few hours of sleep came a bit as a habit but she couldn't do it for many consecutive days. The thought of sleep was looking like an attractive venue, however it didn't help that in order to sleep she would need to move Hope's sleeping head away from her shoulder.
As much as she would have loved to relieve the appendage of its stiffening, tingling, and soreness, Lightning just couldn't find to heart to do it.
"I truly am sorry for putting you under such conditions," Yeegar said regrettably. Lightning made noise of lazy agreement.
"I'm used to it."
He began to put the chess board away. Remarkably, not a single piece went flying even when they crossed bumps in the road, "You should sleep."
She made another noise of lazy agreement, "So should you." Yeegar released an amused chuckle and began to set up the board once again.
"If you do not mind me asking, where is your destination? It would be quite troublesome if we were heading in the opposite direction of your hometown," the old man said.
Lightning yawned again, "We're adventurers."
"You choose strange attire to go about in doing so."
"Helped us get along this far."
"You told me you were from this 'Bodhum' and that Hope was from 'Palumpolum'," Yeegar said, "I've lived for quite some time and taught students, but never have I heard about those places you mentioned."
Earning a prompting glance, he continued, "And what is this 'Cocoon'? Not the canal for more than a few species of insects; your manner of speaking told me it was of a place, not an object."
The chess board scraped softly against the polished wooden table as Yeegar sat up and rummaged through the cabinets before elegantly pulling out a scroll and laying it on the table, "This is a map of the world and its nations," he stated patiently.
Lightning's expression was roulette between disbelief, fear, and anger that was trying to be neatly sorted by logical reasoning.
No outdated, piece of parchment could successfully document Cocoon's structure in 2D Format and according to Vanille; there was no map of Pulse because of how tribes weren't really tight-knit enough as an organized community to do so.
But this…? This incredibly large, parchment map was precise to even the smallest of details. Mountains, towns, plains, cities, lakes, each individually shaded to represent the climate.
"Unbelievable," Explanations surged through her mind in attempts to grasp for an answer. If they were lucky, this was all some sort of practical joke, "Is this a joke?"
Yeegar was dumbfounded, "I'm sorry?" It had to have been a joke from Snow. He was getting back at her for leaving that pool of blood.
Yeah, that was it, it had to be.
….No, it wasn't. Shaking her mind off from any thoughts that would put herself in denial, Lightning reassured herself and tried to think logically.
Snow wasn't the type to actively take out revenge on somebody. If he were, Hope would have died a long time ago when the teenager tried to kill him.
Pranks? Those would be more of his type of thing, but even then they most likely wouldn't be serious. Not as serious as this. This was extremely elaborate and Lightning doubted it was some sort of hallucinogen.
….They must have turned to Crystal. That was the only other reasonable explanation Lightning could imagine. It would explain the white brands however it didn't explain the reason why everything looked so primitive.
Oil lamps, beast-drawn carriages and now paper maps? Not even the eccentrics living in Eden went that far out of the cultural code to achieve difference.
Lightning pinched her brow, not even bothering to show her tired frustration.
"Is something wrong, Lightning?"
Should she confide to this old man – this stranger? Yeegar wore an air of wisdom that had been accrued over the years and he himself told her that he used to be a teacher.
There was no use lying, especially to someone who used to teach individuals for a living.
A teacher. 'Serah wanted to be a teacher…'
"Have I upset you?"
"…No," not upset, just confused the hell out of her. All of the explanations available to her contradicted themselves in some way or another.
"Very well," Yeegar smoothed out the edges of the map, "Could you perhaps point to where this Bodhum or Palumpolum is?"
Lightning arched over to observe the map's geography, trying to pick out details that could have even resembled Cocoon. But found none, "I can't find it."
"You were not perhaps, lying to me, were you Miss Lightning?"
Lightning sighed and shook her head while rubbing a hand across her forehead, "Not at all," There was no response from Yeegar for a while as he observed her acutely.
After a few moments of dissecting the map, Lightning steeled herself, "What if…" she couldn't believe she was about to suggest this, "What if I'm not from this place…?" seeing Yeegar's expression, she elaborated, "This world."
"What ever do you mean?"
Lightning's words were sharpened, "You've never heard of Pulse?"
A shake of his head.
"Gran Pulse?"
And another.
"Eden? Nautilus…?" Lightning then began listing off every town she knew, every landmark she memorized. But the answer was always the same.
She grit her teeth and mumbled silently, "Dammit."
"Am I under the impression you are not of my world?"
Lightning's head snapped up at his question.
"Do not be afraid or offended," he consoled, "I shall not judge you. I do not know whether this is a truth or a lie you could very well be a blessing from God himself."
"It would explain you all very well."
"Maybe," but she doubted it, "What do you mean, 'God'?"
"He who is the Almighty Lord; He who chooses disciples to carry out his sacred will," the old man said.
"Where is 'He'?" the question was almost threatening, but a patronizing smile was all Yeegar's reply.
"God resides in Heaven; he speaks only to you when he wills it," he stated factually. Lightning pondered for a moment.
The moment dots were connected they were erased. Judging by how Yeegar said 'God', she assumed it was a sole deity and not a hive network –unlike the fal'Cie. And if it truly was a fal'Cie that had chosen her, she would have her Focus and the brand would still be ticking its tock.
"….We shall adjourn this discussion for tomorrow."
"…You're going to believe me? Just like that?"
"I've met many liars, Miss Lightning. You are not one of them," rolling up the scroll in a single swipe, Yeegar swept that and the chess board off the table and silently stashed them away.
When Lightning blinked, her eyes didn't open.
Not much, sorry, this was supposed to be a much larger chapter but I decided against it due to pacing.