Hi guys!
Here it is, the long awaited next chapter. I´m sorry for the wait BUT as you will see this one is quite long again and as you may understand while reading it, it was the hardest one to write up until now. It took a lot effort to piece this one together, believe me.
So this is probably the most important chapter in the story so far, I did my best to present it´s contents in an understandable manner. However I´m sure there will be a lot of open questions by the end of this one so if you want any of them answered please feel free to contact me per PM or per review as usual. I will gladly answer everything I can. (Please keep in mind that there are some questions I ´won´t answer, as they are probably going to hint at later events I wouldn´t want to spoil for you).
I´m always open for suggestions or improvement tips - especially with this chap so please just let me know if you have are any. I´d be happy to implement them asap.
Also as you will realise there are a loooooot of quotes in this one mixed under the text. Don´t be angry with me. I just love quotes and there were so many fitting this one. I will give credit at the end of the chap.
SO enough of dull bla bla.
Here´s the chapter.
HOPE YOU ENJOY!
(I listened to Yeul´s theme LaLa version most of the time again;) )
CHAPTER IX: PILLARS OF ETERNITY
If the doors of perception were cleansed,
Everything would appear to man as it is.
Infinite.
- William Blake
The air inside the main buidling was mouldy and stale and smelled of leather and oil and freshly baked bread.
It was quiet inside.
With most of the people out working on whatever they needed to get done before winter would approach, not a soul was to be encountered in those narrow musty corridors.
The summer was officially over.
The early autumn sun covered behind a thick cover of dark gray clouds, there wasn´t much light passing through the tiny window of the hunter´s village´s armoury to illuminate those many shelves Etro´s fallen champion was busy raiding for supplies that dreary afternoon in the Archylte Steppe.
Grabbing one of the larger leather bags from one of the higher racks, the pink haired timetraveller hastily started cramming it with random things: a knife, a medium sized Behemoth skin, a piece of flint...
Whatever she thought might come in handy on her upcoming journey.
Completely lost in her thoughts, the fallen warrior didn´t even bother to arrange them into her bag properly, just carelessly stuffed them inside.
She was preparing for her trip to Paddra, for her journey through the uncharted wilderness of the Archylte Steppe and over to the treacherous valleys of the Yaschas Massif.
Her journey to the future.
Home...
Hopefully she would reach her destination soon.
Checking the sky outside to estimate the time of the day, she quickly made to pick up her stuff and hurried over to the hunter´s storeroom two doors further down the corridor, to get her hands on some of that dried meat and a four day´s ration of water, before she searched the stocked up shelves for additional supplies.
She wouldn´t leave today...
No.
It was already getting dark outside and there were still so many things to pack, a lot of preparations to get done.
But soon...
She´d leave soon...
Well...
Lightning didn´t exactly mind the delay.
No.
She had a bad feeling about leaving.
A really bad feeling...
Anyway.
She would gather all her supplies.
Have a good night´s rest.
Say her goodbyes.
And then, when she would be sure she had everything she needed, eventually she´d leave for Paddra.
Would leave for Yeul.
The seeress...
Sure she´d be able to guide her now.
To show her the way.
To point her into the right direction.
Why else could she possibly have sent for her?
Yes...
Lightning was sure.
This time she was finally going home.
And about time too.
She had almost gotten used to the peaceful life of the Archylte Steppe.
Almost...
Well...
It didn´t matter now.
What mattered now, more than anything, was her journey to the future and her mission to keep it safe.
But what was she going to do exactly once she found a way to return?
Inmidst the stress of leaving, her preparations keeping her kind of busy, she hadn´t even given this a proper thought yet.
Well... She could always use the time she had now.
Making her way over to the shelves leaning against the wall on the furthermost side of the room, the pink haired woman took her time taking a look at all the goods stored on those old dusty boards, while silently she racked her mind to come up with some kind of strategy.
What would she do in order to prevent Serah from going on her journey?
How would she keep the world from crumbling into Chaos?
Where would she even start?!
Skipping through all the information that she had there filed inside her head in order to maybe find a clue, a tiny hint, on where to begin, trying to reconstruct the timeline as she remembered it, to put everything into chronological order, with Valhalla, the void beyond, the timetravel and everything, Lightning realised that thinking it all through was actually much more demanding than she would have thought.
Anyway... She was kind of thankful for the distraction.
Thankful to have something to keep her occupied.
Thankful to have something to steer her thoughts away from the purple haired guardian who seemed to constantly haunt her mind these days...
It was the second day after that incident in the woods.
Two days after she had shot him.
And although she had been trying to talk to him, to approach him, to appologize again, he had done his best evading her, had been straightout ignoring her.
They hadn´t talked at all since he had abandoned her that morning back at Cara´s hut.
Sure, their eyes had met a few times since then, but no words had been exchanged..
No, not even one.
Caius...
It didn´t seem like he was going to forgive her anytime soon and sure, Etro´s fallen champion, she understood.
What she had done there, from his point of view, it had to look like an act of madness.
And maybe that was exactly what it had been.
She had overreacted there...
Had lost control...
Had lost control completely.
Had ruined everything...
That fragile construcion of trust, of understanding, that friendship, they had somehow managed to build over all those weeks spent there in the Archylte Steppe, that feeble bond between them, with her foolish actions she had crushed it, had irreversibly severed it, in only a few fatal hasty moments.
Had she sealed her fate there under the shadows of those tall lean trees?
Had she branded Caius Ballad her enemy herself?
Maybe...
But what was she supposed to do?
How could she ever make up for this?
How was she supposed to appologize if he wouldn´t even listen to her?!
What if this had been her chance?
Her only chance to change the future?
Could she have prevented Caius Ballad from becoming her enemy?
What if this had been the reason she had been sent back to the past in the first place? To prevent Caius Ballad from becoming her nemesis by simply befriending him...
But no.
Caius Ballad didn´t only want to be her friend.
Caius Ballad had been trying to kiss her...
Still...
There had been no reason for her to shoot him, had there?
The tips of her fingers pensively running over the smooth surface of the jars so meticulously stored away on those many shelves lining the walls of the hunter´s village´s pantry, unable to focus on the task at hand, the memory of that incident in the woods, of that kiss, still fresh on her mind, Lightning had a hard time getting the irritating male out of her head.
She had tried everything.
Had taken a stroll around the village.
Had taken a bath to try and come down.
Had gone out into the fields to do some hunting.
Had helped some of the villagers tending to their lifestock.
It was no use.
No matter how much she tried to force him out of her head, Caius Ballad kept sneaking back to her thoughts at the very first opportunity.
He was there at the back of her mind, every second of her waking hours.
He was there in her dreams the moment she dared to close her eyes.
Sometimes to haunt her as her enemy.
Sometimes to join her as her what? Companion? Friend? ...
She wasn´t so sure anymore...
Lover?
She almost didn´t even dare to think about this.
And she was horrified, completely mortified to realise that she did feel something for him - something more than just regret and pitty and compassion even - as for what had to be the millionth time that day she found her thoughts drifting back to that incident in the forest.
How completely immersed in her task of finding those blasted leaves they had been sent to retrieve, she hadn´t even noticed him approaching her.
How suddenly he had been standing right in front of her, his hands wandering to her hips and his face only inches fom her own.
How she had snapped, completely lost it, taking out that gun and aiming it straight at his head, his heart.
How he had stood there staring at her. Eyes filled with shock, with disbelieve, with betrayal.
And the way he had spat his words at her. Right before he had left Cara´s hut.
And how it had hurt.
The realisation of what she had done.
The realisation of what she had done to him.
And the fact that there simply was no way.
No way she could ever make this undone.
No way she could ever set this right again.
Caius...
Would he ever be able to forgive her?
She didn´t think so.
No.
Probably not...
Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.
- Darren McGreevy
I´m sorry. So terribly sorry.
The events of the previous days kept replaying themselves inside her head, kept pestering her all day and it was already dark outside when finally the pink haired warrior returned to Cara Ballad´s hut, that she was faced with the consequences of her stupid slip up in the woods again.
It was the way her hostess looked at her, disapproving, askance, when she saw the pink haired female enter through the front door. That frosty stare that told her, that actually she wasn´t welcome anymore, that her presence wasn´t tolerated anymore, that felt like a stab in Lightning´s heart, it made her freeze dead in her tracks halfway over to her bedroom.
The words accompanying that look, they weren´t meant to soothe the pain.
„You know I like you, Lightning..." The purple haired beauty started, her stern purple eyes piercing the remorseful warrior´s blue ones like hot needles would freshly healed skin.
Mercilessly.
Unforgiving.
Lightning knew that whatever would come next, surely it wasn´t going to be anything nice.
„But the way you treated my brother back the other day... I won´t have it." the older woman stated sternly.
The nurse´s eyes narrowing dangerously, determined to bring her point across, she shook her head in disapproval.
Etro´s fallen champion, she could do nothing but avert her gaze.
Ashamed of herself, ashamed of her actions, she wasn´t able to meet her hostess´ eyes much longer.
Cara was right of course.
Caius had saved her, had taken her in, had accepted her, had helped her out...
It certainly was everything else but okay of her to treat him like she had.
„I don´t know what happened between the two of you and I guess it´s none of my buisness..." Cara continued, her tone serious.
„But I know he really likes you..."
The nurse´s voice somewhat softening at the last part, Lightning only gave a tiny sigh.
She knew that much of course.
Had found out the hard way.
Wasn´t that exactly what had let to all this mess?
„I can tell that much for sure." the older Ballad concluded, her eyes staring at her pleadingly.
What was Cara trying to do here?!
Convince her to give Caius a chance?
The purple haired woman slowly turning to exit, to leave the completely baffled timetraveller to herself, she stopped right in the doorway, before she turned around to speak once more.
„That bullet of yours... I guess it hurt beyond the wound."
It was all she said, then she was off, leaving the pink haired female to the semi darkness of the room.
Lightning just remained there.
Rooted to the spot.
Unable to move.
The nurse´s last words before she left...
They made the guilty female´s insides churn uncomfortably, made her heart give a tentative tiny twinge.
Lightning´s eyes cast to her feet, she remained there for a few seconds longer, completely motionless, as trying hard to make sense of the chaos of her feelings, she tried to come up with what to do.
With what to think.
She really did feel bad about it all.
About the whole situation.
Felt guilty.
And sad.
And stupid.
She felt like shit...
But did she really have to?
Sure, she might have overreacted there in the woods, but she had given Caius a warning, hadn´t she?
She had warned him not to move.
Something he had straightout ignored.
And it was still Caius we were talking about!
Caius Ballad!
The man who was going to kill her. Who was going to kill thousands of people in the future!
There was no reason for her to feel bad about something like shooting him, was there?
She had been trying to kill this guy for centuries.
Had pursued him.
Had fought him.
Had attacked him countless times.
She had even pierced his heart with Blaze Edge´s blade for Etro´s sake!
Still...
This man...
He wasn´t the Caius she once knew...
Not the one she´d meet a thousand years into the future.
Or was he?
No. He wasn´t.
There still was no doubt to that.
The Caius from the future...
He would have never tried and kissed her.
He would have never risked his life to save her´s.
And yeah...
Maybe the Caius of these times didn´t deserve to get punished for his future self´s sins.
Sins he technically hadn´t even comitted yet.
And he definitely didn´t deserve getting shot for her own faults, for her own weakness. Because yes, her body´s reactions toward his advances, they mostly were to blame for the shock that had triggered her reaction.
The touch of his lips against her own...
Although only feintly...
Although only for the fraction of a second...
Why couldn´t she stop thinking about it anymore?
Why couldn´t she stop thinking about him?
It was crazy.
Scary, really.
What she had felt there...
The way he had made her feel there under the shadows of those nightly woods...
Like she had never felt before...
Weak.
Fragile.
Volnurable.
But also strong...
Special?
Desired?
Loved?!
No...
She shouldn´t feel this way.
It was wrong.
It was inappropriate.
It was just completely fucking crazy.
She couldn´t allow herself to feel like this.
Ever.
Not with Caius Ballad in the first place...
He was supposed to be her enemy.
Her mortal enemy.
Her nemesis.
He had cut her throat for Pulse´s sake!
It was sick.
Twisted.
And what was even worse was the fact that she had never felt something for any guy before...
And now?
Now she had to fall for him?
Him of all people?
It was rediculous.
Ridiculous and unfair.
So fucking unfair.
Unfair and just. Plain. Wrong.
In the end we only regret the chances we didn´t take.
- Lewis Carroll
„Does it hurt?"
It was a stupid question, she knew, but she had no idea what else to say, no other words would come to her mind.
She had summoned all her remaining courage and approached him when she had spotted him making down the stairs in front of the community building the morning of the next day.
It was the dawn of yet another cloudy autumn day, with a cool wind blowing in her pinkish strands and the occasional raindrop hitting her cheek.
The third day after he had tried to kiss her.
Three days without them talking.
Three days spent in the Archylte Steppe all by herself.
Three days without Caius...
For Lightning they had been hell.
Had felt like torture.
With guilt eating away at her and the prospect of leaving towards a hazy future, the burden of protecting the timeline weighting heavyly on her shoulders, Etro´s fallen champion wasn´t sure how to cope with this.
All of this.
This whole crazy situation.
This mess she had gotten herself into.
She felt lonely and lost and sad.
And no matter how hard she wanted to deny it, she missed him.
Terrbily so.
Missed his company, his attention, his quiet affection...
Him.
Caius...
She needed him.
The thought of the two of them parting ways like this...
Witout a chance of making up.
Without even talking one more time.
Without an opportunity to say goodbye.
She didn´t like it.
Not at all.
Couldn´t bear it, in fact.
Not even the thought of it.
But no matter how hard she tried, the man she had come to accept as her companion, he didn´t seem to be eager to forgive her anytime soon.
„Uhm...Yes?!" the purple haired hunter retored staring at her somewhat incredulously, his eyebrows riding up in a gesture of obvious disbelieve.
Was she serious?!
Of course it hurt.
What was she thinking?
This wasn´t exactly a scrape he had received there...
The slightly offended male intending to walk straight past her, Etro´s fallen champion made him stop dead in his tracks by reaching out to gently touch his arm.
„Caius... I´m sorry..." she tried again.
Her voice was soft, tiny.
Those words her future self would never have believed she´d ever say to him, voluntarily, not in a million years, they suddenly came bubbling out of her mouth like blood oozing from a freshly cut wound.
The guardian to be, he didn´t find it in his heart to even look at her.
„Caius?"
It seemed to cost him some effort, but finally, albeit only reluctantly, he turned his face towards her, before giving a small defeated sigh, he slowly made to look at her.
His eyes, accusingly piercing her´s for a few long seconds, they warily drifted down to the spot where her hand still lingered on his forearm, then up into her eyes again, where he gave her the most reproachful look she´d ever seen from him, from anybody.
She pulled away instantly.
Almost as if burnt.
Because it hurt.
The way he glared at her, daring her to touch him ever again...
It hurt...
She had taken a step too far back there.
She was aware.
She knew.
And this...
This was beyond the gunshot wound.
This was beyond their crazy fight and the bullet and the blood.
She had hurt his feelings.
And there was no way to repair the damage she had done.
No way.
She had lost him.
She had lost him there under the silver sheen of Cocoon three days ago.
And there was no way to make things undone.
And the realisation of this all, it stung.
Stung badly.
Because somehow, suddenly all she longed for was for them to talk again, for them to make up again.
For him to be her companion again.
For him to tease her again and make fun of her bad deerstalking skills and tug flowers into her hair and watch the stars with her again and for him to let her use his arm as a pillow so she could wake up with her head on it right next to him.
And for a tiny crazy second there, she even wished she´d kissed him back.
Just for the sake of their crazy twisted friendship.
But no...
Of course.
She couldn´t do that.
She had to be insane to even consider this.
Allowing Caius Ballad to kiss her...
Now, that was something guarateed to change the timeline, wasn´t it?
The man she had come to appologize to, turning away from her again to descend the stairs and take down the main road, he didn´t even glance back at her.
Not even once.
„Caius, please!" the pink haired warrior caught herself calling after him as she watched his reatreating back.
She couldn´t just let it end like this.
She couldn´t just leave like this.
She knew there was just no way they would ever make up again, knew they would end up deadly enemies eventually, but still...
She at least needed to try, right?
Rushing down the stairs to hurry after him, catching up with him in no time, panting slightly she skidded to a halt in front of him.
„What do I have to do so you´ll stop ignoring me?!" she asked somewhat pleadingly, her blue eyes huge and her eyebrows knit together in frustration.
„What do I have to do for you to forgive me?"
„What do I have to do to make this up to you?"
Looking at the guardian standing there in front of her, Lightning had a hard time resisting the urge to just reach out and touch him again.
She already knew it would do no good.
Caius Ballad´s forehead wrinkled in confusion, he looked up into those pleading pale blue eyes with surprise, with bewilderment, before carefully contemplating what to say he opened his mouth to answer her.
„Nothing..." he replied completely unexpected.
„I forgive you."
His voice was smooth, steady, controlled, and his dark armethyst eyes boring into her´s sincere.
Their eyecontact, intense, allowing them to say so much more than any amount of words ever could, it only lasted a few seconds though, as after only a few moments, the purple haired guardian tore himself away to turn around and take down the main road again, leaving the completely stunned warrior behind without another word.
An invisible threat connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time,
and place
and circumstances.
The tread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break.
- Ancient Chinese Proverb
Etro´s fallen champion left early for Paddra.
The first sunrays of the next day still veiled by the covers of the autumn night, she relied on the pale sheen of Cocoon as her sole companion to guide her to the other side of the hunter´s village´s walls and out into the fields, south, to where she could see the dark outlines of the Yaschas Massif looming in the distance.
Sneaking outside the wooden gates completely undetected, the pink haired warrior hadn´t even bothered to say good bye.
Not to Caius.
Not to Cara.
Not to anybody.
She wasn´t welcome there anymore anyway, and this way she knew it would be easiest.
Easiest to handle.
To just leave without further ado.
A clean break.
With Caius.
With Cara.
With the past.
With everything.
She was done.
It was over.
All of it.
No regrets anymore.
No looking back.
Before her there lay only future.
Paddra...
Yeul...
They would have to wait a little longer though it seemed as setting her bag down on the ground she let her body sink into the soft high grass of the Archylte Steppe to quickly catch her breath.
She had been walking for hours, had been on her feet all day, had managed to cover a fair amount of distance in her opinion. The intimidating mountaintops of the Yaschas Massif significantly nearer now, Lightning guessed she´d be able to reach them sometime the next day´s afternoon.
But she had done enough for now.
Her feet aching like hell and dusk approaching fast, she knew she needed to find a place to spend the night, knew she needed to rest.
It took her less than half an hour to find a suitable spot.
Sheltered by some larger rocks and flanked by the abundant thicket of some nearby bushes, Lightning spread her Behemoth skin on the dry hard ground that lay beneath the tall green grass growing on those endless plains.
Collecting some of the half withered branches, aimlessly piling them on a heap in front of her, stuffing a few dried up leaves into the tiny gaps, impatiently trying to create a spark by rubbing the blade of her slightly curved hunter´s knife against the piece of flint she had stolen from the hunter´s village armoury just a day ago, the result of her first attempt at building a fire all by herself, it wasn´t exactly something to be proud of.
She had of course seen Caius do it.
Had watched him use that same technique a countless times.
But now that finally she was on her own, she realised that doing it herself, it wasn´t exactly as easy as it actually looked.
Like most of Caius Ballad´s skills, it seemed this one too would come with ages of training.
Well... It didn´t matter now.
Once she managed to return to the future, she would just rely on matches and cigarette lighters to start her fires.
If she ever even needed to create one in the first place that was.
There... No need to perfect yet another of those primitive hunter skills...
Soon.
She´d be home soon.
She just had to hang in there a little longer...
Wrapping the Behemoth skin around her body tightly, with her eyes shut close, it was the image of the guardian that haunted her again, his stupid lopsided grin the last thing she thought of before finally she fell asleep.
We are all on a journey, aren´t we?
Why do we have to fight each other?
Why do we have to make this so hard on one another?
Maybe we could share part of the journey...
Maybe we could walk it hand in hand.
The nights in the Yachas Massif were cold. Intimidating. Eerie.
Not like Lightning remembered them from her last visit.
Fall it seemed had turned the warm sunny clearings of the Vallis Media into cool draughty ravines and the automn wind rustling the leaves of the now multicoloured trees with the creepy sound of cracking twigs, it made her wake up from her restless sleep with a start every other minute.
It was the fifth night on her journey to Paddra.
Five days after she had left the hunter´s village of the Archylte Steppe.
And although she had been planning to arrive at the city of the Farseers within four days, she found that walking Pulse alone, it took her so much more than she had anticipated.
Without the help of a Chocobo the way suddenly seemed so much longer, the slopes suddenly so much steeper and without having Caius Ballad by her side she suddenly felt so much more volnurable, almost helpless even.
Without him, finding a way throught the high grass of the Archylte Steppe and sidestepping all those dangerous beasts was so much harder, fighting a path through the twisted valleys of the Yaschas Massif, it suddenly was so much more demanding.
And it hadn´t been until finally, after hours of stumbling over sticks and stones and holes in the ground, passing the same strangely shaped rock for the third time in two days, that she couldn´t help but admit to herself that she had successfully managed to get herself lost in that maze of tracheous canyons.
Where had she taken a wrong turn again?
She didn´t know.
Maybe she wasn´t as familiar with the uninhabitated lands of Gran Pulse as she had pictured herself to be after all.
The cold wind making her skin errupt in goosebumps, resisting the urge to just lie down onto her side to curl up into a tiny ball and die, the poor lost timetraveller hugged her knees to her body tightly to try and keep in the little warmth she had left inside her slender frame.
Venturing into the wilderness completely alone, so far away from the safe haven of the hunter´s village, completely on her own, she suddenly realised she wasn´t exactly as good prepared as she had hoped for.
Yes, Lightning couldn´t wait to reach Paddra.
Couldn´t wait to finally leave those no man´s lands of Pulse behind.
Once and forever.
But for now she needed to rest again.
Needed to take a break.
Needed to try and catch up on her lack of sleep.
She would reach the city of the Farseeers in two days the earliest.
If Etro allowed.
If she didn´t somehow happen to take the wrong path once again...
Shivering in the cool autumn breeze, pulling her Behemoth skin tighter around her body, the pink haired warrior shuffled closer to the meager fire she had managed to create.
It was small, the twigs barely catching fire, it was hardly enough to even keep her hands warm.
Oh, how had she gotten herself into this again?
How had she gotten herself stranded here in the unforgiving wilderness of that foreign world, completely on her own?
What had she done to deserve this?
Was this her punishment for failing to protect the future?
Maybe she had been a fool to believe that she could make it all the way to Paddra completely on her own.
Maybe she deserved this...
Maybe she wouldn´t even make it out of the Yaschas Massif here alive...
Those depressing thoughts making her shiver even harder, her sad blue eyes travelled back up to the form of Cocoon, looming there above her like a low hanging moon.
Home...
Would it even be the same place once she managed to return?
How much would have changed already?
How much had she changed the timeline?
She could only guess.
What if in the future she created, there wasn´t any home to return to anymore?
What if there was no Serah, no Snow, no Hope and Sazh, and Maqui and Lebreau and Gadot to retun to?
What if there wasn´t any future worth saving anymore?
Would there even be anything left to fight for?
So many questions, chasing themselves inside her head...
She didn´t have time to dwell on any of them.
A rustle of some dried up leaves, the snapping of some nearby twigs, indicating the presence of what most likely was some kind of bloodthirsty predator waiting to rip the unsuspecting female into tiny bite-sized pieces, the pink haired warrior, nearly shitting her pants, up on her feet in only a fraction of a second, she had her gun out, decocked and aiming at the bushes in front of her in seemingly no time at all.
Only one bullet left inside...
Oh, she was so done for.
Whatever lay in wait for her...
If it was anything bigger than an opposum, she doubted she would be able to bring it down with just one round...
„Going to shoot me again?" the low husky voice of a certain purple haired hunter suddenly carried over from behind a veil of withered multicoloured leaves.
It was him!
Of course it was him...
„Caius?" she asked, completely stunned with surprise. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion, there was disbelieve written all over her normally guarded features as the fallen warrior squinted her eyes to look at him, almost as if judging whether he was actually real or rather an illusion, provided by that overimaginative mind of her´s.
The purple haired guardian, he only presented her with that familiar incredulous stare of his.
The one that seemed to ask whether she had actually lost her mind.
The one she knew so well by now.
„Whome were you expecting?" he contered mockingly, the ghost of one of his stupid grins tugging at the righthand corner of his lips.
It made the pink haired female lower her weapon immediately.
Decocking it, but not putting it away.
„What are you doing here?" she inquired somewhat sceptically. Unable to keep from gaping, her frosty blue eyes still huge with surprise she had a hard time believing that he was really there.
Really there with her.
Of course she hadn´t expected any company.
Let alone him.
„Can´t let you walk all the way on your own, can I?" the dark clad hunter offered as an explanation as hesitantly he allowed his lips to spread into an insecure but all the more adoreable smile.
He was really smiling at her!
She couldn´t believe it...
Her heart giving a tiny crazy flutter, that weird feeling of completely irrational bliss, of happyness from the morning she had woken up next to him in the Archylte Steppe stirring again inside of her, she smothered it with a single denying shake of her head.
„I can go on my own." she retorted rudely, slipping back into the shoes of her usual role immediately.
Well...
They were back to bantering it seemed.
Still, it was to be considered a progress nonetheless.
„I know." he surprisingly agreed, for once acknowledging the fact that the pink haired warrior was indeed able to survive on her own.
She had made it this far, right?
Surely she could make it anywhere.
The pink haired warrior opening her mouth to say something, automatially readying herself to protest maybe, amazed at the guardian´s unexpected approval, it took her some seconds to get herself together before turning her attention back to the campfire, she hesitantly made to sit down in front of it.
The purple haired guardian placing himself a safe distance away from her, rummaging inside his leather pouch to produce two freshly plucked plump fruits he seemed to have collected on his way, he wordlessly handed one of them to the pink haired female next to him.
Suddenly embarrassed by her pathetic excuse for a fire, Etro´s fallen champion didn´t even find the spirit to look into his eyes.
„Thank you." She just said, accepting the dessert with a polite nod, she pensively turned the treat over in her hands to look at it from every angle.
It was awkward.
Very awkward.
With none of them capable of coming up with something to say, the pink haired warrior´s eyes trained at her feet and the guardian´s armethyst ones staring into the tiny flames of the puny fire, the crushing silence of the Yaschas Massif sourrounding them, it did nothing to cheer up their moods.
Etro´s fallen champion studying her companion´s impassive feature´s from the corner of her eyes, turning her head to finally look at him, she felt her eyes darting to the spot above his heart where she knew there was the gunshot wound, still lurking under that thin dark cotton layer of his shirt.
The awkward way he moved around, telling her that still, it hurt, had to hurt terribly in fact, she couldn´t help but feel regret there stirring in the bottom of her stomach once again.
Hearing the purple haired hunter give a tiny sigh, she felt the almost irrepressible urge to appologize again, but then, finally, decided against it.
No.
It would be stupid to appologize again.
He had already forgiven her.
Or at least that was what he had told her.
And it was true, wasn´t it?
He was here with her again, after all.
Talking to her again.
Sitting next to her again.
Travelling with her again.
And somehow, even if it was so very awkward, still she felt happy, so incredibly happy and relieved, that he was back with her again.
That they were back on speaking terms again.
That he was back to teasing her again.
Back to smiling at her...
The fact that he was there right next to her, that she could in fact touch him if she just found the courage to reach out with her hand, causing a warm cozy feeling to spread inside of her body, the pink haired warrior suddenly realised she didn´t have to rely on the fire to keep her warm anymore.
Just knowing that he was there in her presence, it was suddenly enough it seemed.
„I was afraid I might not get the chance to see you again..." the purple haired man next to her said after quite some time spent sitting there in silence.
Etro´s fallen champion finally looking up at him, she found those dark charismatic eyes were glued to her´s.
„Don´t be stupid... You think I´d leave forever without even saying goodbye?" she asked, making her voice sound shocked, upset even.
„Well, you did..." the guardian contered knowingly, his words making her flinch.
They stung.
She hastily looked away.
The way he had said this, he didn´t exactly let it sound like an accusation. More like stating a fact.
But still.
It stung.
And he was right again.
Of course she had had no intention to return to say good bye.
She hadn´t been planning on seeing him again.
Well not in this time at least...
But now that he was here she realised she was happy she had gotten the chance to see him once more.
Those three days of them not talking, they had been torture.
How would she have felt for the rest of her life had she really left him just like that...
„I...I´m sorry... I… I just hate saying goodbye..." she tried to explain.
„Noted..." Caius said, the serious tone in his voice making her look up again.
„No Goodbyes."
„I´m sorry... They just make me queasy... And nostalgic... And sad." the pink haired warrior added pensively.
„It´s okay. I understand." the guardian assured.
She doubted it.
Carefully averting her gaze again, she made to study her hands instead.
There was the crackling of the small sorry fire and the bubbling sound of water flowing in some nearby river.
And now that she wasn´t alone anymore, suddenly the high walls of the Vallis Media didn´t seem so intimidating anymore, the cool autumn breeze not so cold anymore and the nightly Yaschas Massif not so dangerous anymore.
Now that she had Caius Ballad with her, she suddenly felt safe.
Safe in the presence of her once worst enemy.
It felt strange to say the least...
„Did you get the chance to say good bye to your friends in the future?" the guardian suddenly asked, catching the unsuspecting warrior off guard again.
„No..." she stammered, completely perplexed, as for a few moments there she didn´t know what to make of this exactly.
Of course she hadn´t been able to say goodbye before she had been swept away to Valhalla.
Would she have wanted to, if she had had the chance?
„But I´m going to see them again soon. So..." she added, making her voice trail off.
Or was she?
„I´m sure you will." Caius assured, their gazes locking.
Dark amethyst eyes drowning in pale chilly blue ones.
The way he looked at her making her feel uneasy, she hesitantly chose to look away again.
That dark intense gaze of his still gave her goosebumps whenever he dared to turn those brilliant amethyst eyes on her.
„Caius..."
„Hm?"
„Thank you." she said, carefully looking up to meet his gaze again.
The dark clad hunter next to her, he just gave her one of his incredulous snorts.
„What for?!" he asked, raising one of his eyebrows at her crazily.
„Everything."
The guardian to be unable to shake off the feeling that she was talking about so much more than he could possibly understand, he just presented her with a quizzical look.
„You´ll understand someday..." his companion promised.
„I seriously doubt that." Caius Ballad commented dryly.
Whatever the pink haired timetraveller was talking about, there was just no way he would ever have the chance of finding out what was really going on in her head.
He´d given up on trying quite some time ago now.
There was no way she was going to fill him in anyway.
And he understood of course.
With the timeline at stake and everything...
„I know you will." the pretty female insisted, giving the man beside her a sad sincere smile.
„You´re probably the only one who ever will."
The dark clad hunter next to her, completely oblivious to everything the pink haired warrior knew was going to happen, he just shook his head in ignorance.
Of course he couldn´t fathom.
Caius Ballad.
Destined to live until the end of days.
What have you ever done to deserve this?
Why did you ask what when the delicious question is when?
- R. Lutece (Bioshock Infinite)
You can´t repeat the past?
Why of course you can.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
„But... there must be a way for me to return home." Lightning exclaimed.
Standing there in the temple of the seeress, the room dark, only very dimly lit by the few rays of sunlight passing through the silky veil at the entrance and a few low burning candle´s in the corners of the opposite walls, she looked down at the child before her in a mixture of horror and disbelieve.
Paddra Nsu-Yeul the girl cursed to see the future, she just stood there in front of her, her features emotionless, stoic.
One of the countless Yeuls with all the memories of their predecessors, born and reborn over and over.
Destined to die. Over and over.
This young woman in front of her, she was but one of these tragedies.
„No. There is none." The seeress said, her eyes fixed on a spot on the opposite wall, unseeing, her voice sounding slightly muffled. Clearly her attention was elsewhere.
Somewhere centuries into the future maybe.
„You will stay here. For as long as you live."
„What?! But... That´s impossible..." the pink haired warrior started again, brabbling, the palms of her hands sweaty and slightly trembling, she forced them to stay still.
No!
This couldn´t be.
Surely, Yeul had to have it wrong.
Surely she had to be mistaken!
„That will change the timeline! Everything I do... I will... I need to save Serah." Lightning stammered, the remainder of her determination flying out of the window the second the girl in front of her looked back at her, her bright green eyes suddenly snapping into focus, intenly piercing her own.
„When you were there, back in the future... Did you ever encounter yourself from here? You know... Your older self?" the girl asked out of nowhere.
Taking a few tiny steps towards her visitor, Yeul came to a halt only a few feet away. Her hands neatly folded in front of her body, she just stood there, her knowing green eyes studying the pink haired warrior´s features carefully.
With her white/purple pleated skirt and her long blue hair, she looked exactly like the image in the void beyond.
„N...No.." Lightning had to admit.
She didn´t like the direction this conversation was taking.
Didn´t like the way the young girl looked at her.
Knowing, mocking almost.
Yeul...
What was she playing at?
What part was she playing in this game?
„But that´s because I wasn´t there ye-"
„Yes... Exactly... That´s because you weren´t there." the seeress interrupted, her expression changing not one bit.
„You won´t be there."
„But - "
„You feel guilty, Lightning. I can understand." the young girl cut her off again.
„You were unable to leave the unseen realm and so you turned to her for aid. But your guilt, it won´t bring her back to you... Nothing can."
Serah...
She was talking about Serah.
Of course.
„You seek to set things right, to save the future, to protect it. But what you do not want to understand is... The timeline you remember... It can´t be changed." Yeul revealed.
„The future that you witnessed... It was merely the result of the timeline that you have created, that you are infact creating right now in this very moment. Whatever you are doing now. From your perspective in the future, it has already happened..."
The seeress slightly tilting her head, she gave Etro´s fallen champion a reassuring smile.
„It´s a closed circle, can´t you see." she explained.
„Whatever you will do here, it all will eventually lead to what will happen in the future, what has already happened there in your own past."
„No that´s not true." the pink haired warrior protested, her words barely a whisper as she felt the world, the walls around her, slowly closing in on her.
„It can´t be true..."
„It is... You can´t save Serah, Lightning. Can´t you see that?" Yeul insisted.
„The timeline you saw, the future you experienced... It was the timeline as it will be."
„No. That´s not true. There were paradoxes... Multiple ones. Paradoxes that needed to be resolved..." the persistent female contered.
„Serah died from seing a vision BECAUSE the future had changed! Right after she and Noel had managed to defeat Caius, right after all the paradoxes had been resolved, another had emerged. This final paradox, whatever it is, it needs to be destroyed!"
The seeress, she just stared at her, her expression blank, completely untouched by the warrior´s speech.
„That´s what I was sent back to do! I need to return to the future to solve this! To restore the timeline as it should have been..." Lightning uttered almost pleadingly.
„Then everything... The Chaos... Serah... Everything will be set right!"
But the blue haired girl in front of her, she only shook her head.
„You don´t understand." she said, a small weak smile spreading across her lips.
„The paradox created at the end, the events that led to all of this... The thing you think had changed... It was you dying. Dying and travelling through time to come back here. That was what sealed Serah´s fate. "
„What?! But..." was all the pink haired warrior managed to choke out.
„You do remember your vision from Valhalla. The one where you were going to be reunited with your friends. The one in which you managed to defeat Caius Ballad and saved the world, right?"
Etro´s fallen champion only gave a tiny nod.
„It never came true. Because you failed. You failed to complete your task. You failed in defeating Caius Ballad. And therefore the timeline changed."
So that was it?
By not defeating Caius she had created a paradox, had changed the timeline, had erased that happy future she had seen there in Valhalla´s skies all that time, had altered the future as it should have been, had altered it irreversibly and had condemned Serah to die?!
Could that really be?
Her death there, it had changed the timeline...
That much was obvious, wasn´t it?
How was she supposed to be there on Sazh airship deck if she was dead...
What didn´t make sense though was what the seeress had said right before.
That she had caused that dreary future where Serah was going to die and the Chaos was released the moment she had failed to defeat her nemesis, that she had sealed her fate the second she had landed here in the Archylte Steppe.
That everything she did here would bring about the events she knew had already happened in her past...
How was this even possible?
Everything she did here...
Every step, every breath she took...
Every word she said...
Surely they had the potential to change the timeline.
They had to at least have some kind of impact on it, right?
There had to be millions of ways her presence here in the past affected the timeline!
Her presence here...
All that time...
No...
It was simply impossible that her actions here did not affect the future!
Surely she had changed a thousand things by now...
Surely something had to be different!
This didn´t make any sense.
No sense at all.
Something here was wrong!
So very wrong...
How could everything she was doing here lead to what had already happened, what would happen in the future?
There simply was no way her actions here in the past could bring about the events she had witnessed in the future!
She hadn´t even been here to cause them in the first place!
Or had she?
HAD SHE?!
„Time is a creation of men, Lightning." the seeress suddenly spoke up again.
Her voice was clear and steady. Resolute, despite what she was about to say, as she opened her mouth to talk again, crushing every last ounce of hope Etro´s fallen champion had left inside her lonely heart.
Made it crush and crumble and dissolve into nothingness.
Until finally she only stood there, her eyes only gaping in horror as she listened, listened to the seeress´ cruel words.
Knowing that every single one of them was true.
Was true indeed.
„Men created time as a means of orientation. Time and Space... They aren´t conditions of existence... They are merely a model of thinking. They are the framework within which the feeble human mind is constrained to construct it´s experience of reality." the girl explained.
„The present, the future and the past. They are nothing but an infinite number of conditions coexisting along each other, just like a billion seperate pictures creating a movie, each of them differing only slightly, arranged into a closed circle. Melting into each other. Becoming one."
The tiny female taking another step towards the woman she knew as the warrior of the Goddess Etro, her probing green eyes flashing knowingly, the usually tough soldier had a hard time standing her ground.
„Yes, Lightning. The timeline runs in circles. A world without beginning, a world without an end... A world closed upon itself. Until all possibilities have been tested it will remain locked in this arc for all eternity. Moments in history endlessly repeating themselves. You already experienced it... Right there in Valhalla."
Etro´s fallen champion staring down at the blue haired girl with horror, with disbelive written all over her face, Yeul merely presented the warrior in front of her with one of her kind smiles.
She knew it was hard to grasp.
The fact that she couldn´t change anything.
Never could...
That fact that the decision of what would happen in her future wasn´t her´s to make, that it was in fact already set in stone.
That actually she was barely more than a slave, doomed to serve under the tyranny of destiny.
But that was just the way it was.
They all were...
And there was no way out of it.
None that she could see.
The same tale acted out in the same place at the same time for eons beyond counting...
Would it ever come to an end?
Would it ever truly stop?
Maybe it would...
Maybe there was a chance...
If only...
But no...
Such knowledge would never be the province of mankind. Not even the Goddess atop her throne in the timeless realms of Valhalla could see the span of history in it´s entirety.
But she could...
Couldn´t she?
All the Yeul´s could.
Having lived through all those centuries, all those epochs, at those eras, they had seen them all.
Had seen the hidden trails of fate, had glimpsed the cruel paths of destiny.
They were the ones who witnessed it.
All of it.
Dying over and over.
Just to be born again.
Over and Over.
She had been there everytime it ended.
Had been there every single time that it began anew.
The cycle.
In it´s whole entirety.
The only one who could remember, the only one who truly knew, Paddra Nsu-Yeul could only watch.
Watch as history unfolded.
Wait for the inevitable to occur.
And each time she was born again, she looked forward to that crucial moment a thousand years into the future, when the battle to decide the fate of the world would begin anew.
Just to see history evolve again and again.
The same story.
Reenacted again and again.
An endless cycle repeating itself over and over...
Making everyone reincarnate in the bigger picture.
It was crazy really...
Lives, lived, will live.
Dies, died, will die.
Conditions bound to a certain amount of time...
Suddenly so utterly meaningless...
What purpose would those have?
What would we see?
What revelations would we gather?
How would we perceive our own existance, the existance of others?
What menaing would our lives be left with?
If we could just perceive time as it really was?!
„A sum of moments – conditions – states - each of them slightly different, but coexiting side by side. Causal relationships mistaken by the human brain as temporal connections, that is what time really is." the seeress spoke up again.
„Change´s the constant. Entropy. A gradual decline into disorder... That is what´s the driving force behind all things. A strive towards a maximum of disarray, that´s what nature´s tending towards to."
„The Chaos..." Lightning whispered in realisation as she felt the blood drained from her rosy cheeks, felt ther heartbeat stop and her limbs go numb.
„Yes. " Yeul verified her worst assumptions. „The Chaos."
„The chaos has the power to warp the timeline and destroy the past, just to repeat it again to let fate take it´s course anew." the girl disclosed.
„Everytime the circle continues the Chaos inside expands, grows stronger. It consumes us, creating a vortex that some day will suck in everything, making the timeline collapse and condense into a single dark mass..."
„Forever."
It was true of course.
The Chaos.
Lightning had seen it.
Had seen it in her final moments just before Caius Ballad cut her throat.
Had seen it in the enchanted skies of Valhalla.
The temple of the Goddess...
It had become a shrine to Chaos.
That inexorable power, leaking into the world of the living and destroying it, devouring every little piece of it...
Did Caius Ballad know of this?
Was that the reason he wanted to tear down time and space? To stop it from revolving ?
Was that what her nemesis wanted to destroy?
An eternal paradox causing history to repeat itself over and over?
Was Caius Ballad trying to destroy the eternal paradox?!
Or was he just a madman...
Using the cruel fate of a tiny girl as an excuse to justify his ego trip?
Maybe she would never know...
„Sure... The Chaos. The Chaos is the key... The Chaos it grew stronger! I saw it right before my eyes... The Chaos, it needs to be destroyed! It needs to be banned! I need to find a way! I can do it... I have to!" Lightning started, a spark of hope flaring up in those wary pale blue eyes.
The blue haired seeres, she extinged it with just another motion of her tiny head.
„You underestimate the role of chaos." the child just countered wisely.
„Yes, the Chaos will drown this world. But it is also the key to our being. When we are born, we are born of it and when we die, we return to it. When a man dies, his soul melts into the Chaos. But the idea of it - of him - survives intact. Until finally, one day, he is reborn anew and allowed to once again return to the world of the living."
The small thin girl reaching out to gently take the pink haired woman´s hand, she gave it a reassuring squeeze before, looking up into her fearful devastated eyes, she made to speak again.
„It´s been this way forever and it will be this way forever."
„It happened to yourself. Not such a long time ago. Don´t you agree?"
Etro´s fallen champion, rendered completely speechless, she just stood there rooted to the spot, unable to do anything, unable to respond.
Of course Yeul was right.
Was right again.
She remembered it.
All of it.
The way the black flames of Chaos had been licking at her, had been devouring her, back then in the void beyond.
The way she had been floating there in complete darkness, into nothingness.
And the way she had suddenly woken up in the Archylte Steppe.
A thousand years back in the past.
Right where she was standing now.
„The Chaos is within all of us. It is what created us and one day the Chaos draws us back to it. It is the reason of our deaths and the pinnacle of our existance, a threat woven throughout all our lives." the girl destined the spritual leader of the Farseers explained further.
„It is our spirit. An unseen power residing within all of us. The blessing granted by the goddess Etro that we carry in our hearts."
Taking in the pink haired warrior´s bewildered stare, Paddra Nsu-Yeul couldn´t help but emit a tiny girlish giggle.
„Yes. It is." The girl insisted. „People´s hearts are pure Chaos. Formless and everchanging. A paradox noone can solve..."
Lightning´s hands trembling like a madman´s, unable to keep them still anymore, trying her best to keep herself together, she was having a hard time at the almost impossible task of wrapping her mind around all of this.
Could this really be true?
Could they all be part of the unseen Chaos that one day would tear the world apart?
That invisible power, unleashed by a single man, all because he wanted to stop time and space for a single girl he loved?!
Caius Ballad...
If only she could have stopped him earlier.
But she didn´t...
She didn´t, and she couldn´t...
She just couldn´t bear it.
„Noone can truly control the Chaos." the serress´smoky voice made her snap out of her musings.
„It has a power of it´s own... A mind of it´s own."
„It´s potential is limitless. An immense and inexorable force, a creeping doom acting without unified purpose or will... Where the Chaos of Valhalla leaks into the mortal realm, the laws of the physical world are undone. This paradoxic energy, it seeks to return all existence to the unseen realm, but at times it seems to show almost an affection for those who share affinity with Chaos..."
Looking down at the back of Lightning´s hand, the young girl made a tiny pause, before finally looking up into her eyes again, her lips parted to speak again.
„Just like you."
The pink haired warrior giving a tiny gasp, her blue eyes huge and her mouth gaping in shock, she knit her brows together in confusion, as desperately trying to make sense of what the seeress told her, she clung onto her every word.
„When you came in contact with the unseen Chaos, you touched a darkness that should never have existed in the human world. Etro dammed the unseen Chaos in her temple. But when you died there in Valhalla, there was noone left to stop the catastrophe that would ensue." the seeress continued nonchalantly, as if she were recounting nothing but some dull insignificant fact.
„Listen Lightning. Each human being has it´s own heart. When Etro gave upon mankind this gift, a cylce was established." she continued, her voice suddenly serious again.
„The souls of the deceased, they enter Valhalla to sink into the sea of Chaos. The heart dies while the soul from inside the heart is sent back eventually just to be reborn in a new form with a new heart. A piece of Chaos was to be placed within each newborn life, keeping the level of Chaos constant."
„Reincarnation keeps the Chaos in the mortal world, each rebirth splintering the soul and adding to the Chaos festering between the realms..."
„You see now why you can´t defeat the Chaos, Lightning? You are part of it. And your soul... It is splintered as well."
„The Chaos it is every - present. Ubiquituous."
„But I don´t understand!" The pink haired warrior cried.
How was she supposed to just accept this?
How was she supposed to understand?
„How did all of this come to happen!? How did this come about?! The Chaos. That paradox. This should have never happened. I saw it. The future. How it was supposed to be... Everything was supposed to be alright! Why did all of this happen Yeul?!" the ex soldier roared.
She didn´t care whether she was shouting at a 10 year old.
She didn´t care whether it was rude, or impolite, or whatever...
All she cared about was finding a way.
A way out of this mess.
A way to just wake up from this neverending nightmare she had somehow gotten herself imprisoned in.
To just find the exit.
And be gone.
There needed to be some way out of this, right?
There just needed to.
„You. Me. Everyone. We all lived countless different lives. With every repetition of the cycle. All of us. Born over and over. Each time with a new soul..." the child tried to explain.
„Some of us die early. Some of us die later. But one day we all return to this world, can´t you see?"
Yes, she could see.
Suddenly she could...
And there was more.
Yeul.
Never even reaching the age of twenty.
Condemned to die, every time, before she even had a chance to truly live.
A countless Yeul´s roaming the endless plains of history.
A countless times that soul´d been splintered...
Was Yeul the one who started this?
Was she the one who had created the Chaos in the first place?
Could it be?
Yes...
Sure...
It could.
„The timeline runs in circles. Revolving around the eternal paradox." the girl continued, ignorant to the path the timetraveller´s thoughts were taking to.
„This paradox is ancient. It stretches over hundreds of years, thousand even, and was created when Caius Ballad first received the Heart of Chaos." she just stated matter of factly.
„What... You mean to tell me that this paradox was created back then... All those years ago?! But then I... What... How is this even possible?" Lightning choked out, unable to get what this implied, unable to understand what all this in fact meant for her.
„To you a thousand years might seem a long time but for the universe, it might as well be just a moment. A tiny second. Laughable looking at it from a bigger picture." the seeress answered, a tiny girlish giggle following that last comment.
„A mortal being such as you could never possibly understand..."
Lightning didn´t see what was so funny, but with one thing Yeul was right.
Yeah...
She´d probably never be able to understand.
Any of this.
„I bestowed him with the power of Chaos all for that wish..." the child added sheepishly.
„Huh? Who?!" The pink haired warrior´s forehead creased in wrinkles, she had a hard time holding on to this.
„Caius..." The seeress said.
„To have somebody understand me. To have somebody to be there for me. Be there for me forever." Yeul admitted.
„To be there to stay with me when noone else could..."
„Wait... So this all began because you couldn´t let got of Caius?" Lightning asked incredulously, her mouth gaping stupidly as she tried to process the information she had just received, to make sense of those words so casually thrown at her.
„The Chaos and all it´s power grew out of your need?!"
„Need? Yes, I needed him. Needed him more than anything. He was everything to me!" Yeul replied, now sounding slightly upset herself.
„The fear of being alone consumed me. Became monstrous. It was the reason why I couldn´t let him go... Just like you..."
„What are you talking about?!" Lightning whispered.
„Don´t you try to fool me. You can´t even fool yourself." the girl in front her suddenly spat at her.
„What -?!" Etro´s fallen champion, she didn´t understand what was going on.
This was crazy.
This was insane!
„You need him just as much as I do..." Yeul said, sounding slightly hurt, angry even.
„Bullshit..." Lightning contered almost automatically.
Whether the girl had said this in order to deceive her, or to just make her determination waver...
It didn´t matter, she hit dead ends anyway.
She didn´t need Caius Ballad for anything... Or did she?
Thinking about the last few days she had to spend without him, the pink haired timetraveller suddenly wasn´t so sure anymore...
The blue haired girl just shook her head in irritation.
„Of course you do." she insisted.
„Once the unseen Chaos was freed it could not be stopped. It reached out and dragged you into the other realm. It broke the dam that the Goddess had built. It shattered the boundaries between worlds and it dragged you into it. It is the unseen Chaos. The strands of our minds woven together. We are one and the same. You and I. Can´t you see?" the seeress said, looking up at the woman in front of her with big round eyes, almost as if begging her.
Begging her to understand.
„We are the ones who yearn to be with him. We are the ones who give him life when he cries for death... But we are also the ones who pray that he finds peace at last. We are a contradiction that cannot be resolved..."
"And the Chaos is our love for him."
The tiny girl finally letting go of the completely startled woman´s hand, she continued to stare up into the ex-soldier´s eyes, those fearful pale blue eyes she had gazed into so often, so many times before.
The wheels in the pink haired warrior´s brain, working at full speed, it was when the seeress gave another tiny sigh, that suddenly something inside her head just clicked in place, that all of a sudden realisation downed on her.
„It´s all your fault..." Lightning started, her voice trembling as taking a few startled steps backwards she felt her back bump straight into one of the solid stone pillars supporting the roof of the high walled building.
„You are to blame for all of this!"
„It was you all along!"
And it was with the pent up frustration of the past few months in the Archylte Steppe, of that eternity spent in the timeless realms, that acting completely on impulse, she pulled out that ancient sixshooter again.
Loaded with that one remaining bullet, she aimed it straight at the seeress cursed doomed heart.
But the girl infront of her she didn´t even flinch.
The patient young woman, she only gave a knowing smile instead.
„Go ahead. Kill me." She encouraged.
Her voice steady.
Unwavering.
„My days are counted anyway."
She had died so many times already.
„And so are the days until I´ll be born again."
She was not afraid to die once more.
„You might delay it, but you won´t change anything."
„In the end no matter what you do, no matter what´s the reason, Caius Ballad will kill you and the cycle will start anew... Always."
Taking a step towards the pink haired woman who clearly hadn´t decided whether or not to due her in yet, Yeul slowly extended her hand to reach for the weapon, slowly made the completely perplexed timetraveller point the gun back to the ground.
„I´ve seen it. Countless times." She assured her.
„You try so hard to set things right, but in the end nothing ever changes."
„Every timeline that doesn´t serve the cycle will just collapse into nothingness."
„Whenever you do something that prevents you from ever coming to the past, everything you did here will be made undone, will just cease to exist. A whole universe erased and you wouldn´t even notice. Noone does."
"They never do."
„No... That´s not true." the warrior whispered suddenly completely terryfied.
„It is. The final paradox it cannot be resolved. It is eternal and it is what holds the universe together in the first place. It´s the heart and the axis of all things." the child informed.
„Everthing you do here... It will contribute to create the future you have already witnessed. If it wouldn´t then you wouldn´t be here in the first place. Your existence here is a paradox in itself."
"Your presence here. Your rebirth. Your travel through the times. They mark the transition into a new cycle. The eternal paradox is everywhere. It surrounds us, here in this very moment. And You. Are part of it."
The pink haired warrior´s hands shaking more than ever, with all that information she had been provided with finally starting to sink in, she suddenly had a hard time staying on her feet.
„You see Lightning? You are not here to change it... You are here because you already made it happen." the girl insisted not even batting an eyelid.
Her words, her explanations, her whole damn speech...
To the pink haired warrior standing there, suddenly feeling weak and insignificant in the vastness of the temple, they were overwhelming, were more than she could deal with, more than she could take.
They rendered her unable to think.
Unable to move.
Completely devastated.
And utterly speechless.
„We are both responsible for all of this..." The seeress went on.
Somehow this would never stop, would it?
„I was the one to bestow him with the Heart of Chaos. You were the one who brought him here..."
„Ignorant to your past lives you head towards your fate oblivious of what your actions will ensue, doomed to repeat the mistakes of your pasts again and again... It´s pitiable... Really." Yeul said teasingly, throwing her a mock pitiful glance.
„Pathetic. Almost." She added at an afterthought.
That mocking smile on her face...
Lightning wanted nothing more than to wipe it off with one of her fists...
„You can go now." the small girl suddenly said out of the blue.
„What?" Lightning began.
„You can go now." Yeul repeated indifferently.
„You served your purpose here, Lightning. You brought him here to me... Can´t you see it?"
„No."
„Yes..." the girl insisted. „You are the reason Caius found his way to me... Without you, he might have never come to Paddra in the first place."
„Can you see it now? You cannot change the future!"
"No..."
Denial.
Always so much denial.
Yeul had seen it a thousand times.
The denial in those fierce blue eyes.
That woman...
Always so strong and defying.
Defying fate.
In all the countless lives she´d lived, in every single run of the cylce...
Never had she witnessed a Lightning that didn´t fight to escape her fate.
Never had she met a Lighning that wasn´t defying.
There wasn´t a single one of them that wanted to accept her fate.
„The eternal paradox is everywhere. It surrounds us. It is in us. It is part of us. Of who we are. It is the ground that you walk on, it is the air that you breathe. No matter what you do, you can´t escape it. You lived inside of it for all your life, all those years without even realizing it." the seeress said, slightly cocking her head.
„And everytime you fail to defeat Caius, he will come after you, will kill you. And the cycle, it will start anew."
„Then Caius needs to be stopped!" Lightning cut in as suddenly she managed to find her voice again.
„There must be a way for me to stop him. To defeat him. To... Kill him." Those words suddenly tasting bitter on her tongue, for some strange reason the pink haired warrior had a hard time getting them out at all.
Killing Caius Ballad...
Although she had been ready to do him in just about a week ago, actually almost had, suddenly, now that she thought about it, she wasn´t sure whether she could actually do it anymore.
Whether she had it in her anymore...
But did she really have to?
Did Caius Ballad really have to die?
Or maybe...
Could there be another way?
„If somehow I manage to keep him from becoming your guardian... Then maybe I can change the timeline." Lightning whispered more to herself than anyone else.
I didn´t matter.
The girl heard anyway.
„Maybe I could save Caius..."
Paddra Nsu-Yeul just shook her tiny head.
No...
„The one with the power to change the timeline must choose between those who live and those who die. They must bear the burden of the eternal paradox." the seeress answered cryptically.
„But this power isn´t your´s." she added. „It never was and it will never be. You are merely a pawn in this giant chessboard of eternity. There is nothing you can do."
Resisting the urge to yell at the child in front of her, Lightning returned her revolver back to it´s place under her belt with shaky fingers.
That blasted thing, she had still clasped it in her sweaty palm.
Taking her time to neatly readjust her shirt, less for the sake of it than just to have somthing to do, it was almost half a minute later that slowly she made to look up again.
„What am I to do now?" she asked tentatively, her voice sounding nothing like the fearless warrior she used to be.
It rather reminded her of a frightened young child.
Was timid and small instead.
Trembling with the tremor´s of insecurity.
Of fear.
Of despair.
„It doesn´t matter." Yeul informed. „Disappear from the pages of history or remold it as your heart desires."
„The more you change, the faster you will make the world spiral towards Chaos, towards destruction, towards imminnent desaster. You can try and repair the timeline, or warp it beyond recognition, as your conscience allows. In the end it will not matter either way."
The pink haired warrior giving a frustrated sigh, her arms uselessly dangling at her sides, she hung her head defeatedly.
„Time isn´t static. Time is a mouldable material, shapable, pliable. But flexible all the same. No matter how hard you try and change the timeline, to alter history, your path, it will eventually lead you back to where you belong, to where you started, right in the beginning." the girl continued.
„Your adventure will be over. Just like it will start anew."
„It always was like that. And it will always be like that."
The pink haired warrior´s breathing slightly laboured, the weight of all that information so unexpectedly thrown at her more than she could actually bear, she was feeling slightly dizzy, the air was feeling hard to breathe.
„This makes no sense... No sense at all." She uttered there under her breath, shaking her head in disbelieve.
There it was again.
Denial...
So much denial...
„I can´t believe this..."
Yeul only gave an impatient grunt.
And staring at the devastated woman right in front of her, her lips parted to talk once more.
„Tell me Lightning... Have you memories ever changed since you got here?"
Her voice was dead.
Completely devoid of emotion.
And it were exactly those words that gave Etro´s fallen champion the final blow.
Her eyes went huge with shock and an audible gasp escaped her lips as finally realisation hit her.
Because they hadn´t...
Of course they hadn´t...
They hadn´t changed one tiny bit.
She remembered everything.
Every tiny bit.
Her memory was still consistent.
Had been all the time.
Nothing altered.
Nothing missing.
Not even hazy...
Everything was still the same.
Was the way it should be.
But that could only mean one thing...
It meant...
That somehow...
Against all hope...
Against all logic...
Against everything she had believed in...
Paddra Nsu-Yeul was right.
The blue haired seeress, watching the floor swept away beneath the pink haired warrior´s feet, she only nodded in approval, allowed a small triumphant smile to dance across her lips.
„What we call Chaos is just patterns we haven´t recognized." she told her somewhat reassuringly, her merciless gaze fixed on the poor timetraveller´s face as the latter tried her best to keep herself together.
Big blue eyes panickingly darting around the room, searching the walls for a route of escape, for some kind of emergency exit to free her from that wicked curse, to free her from that nightmare.
They came up empty.
The suffocating feeling in her chest, making it almost impossible for her to breathe, her vision suddenly clouded by a thousand pitch black dots, and her ears ringing with the seeress´ ancient voice, the pink haired woman trying hard to keep herself on her feet, she had the palm of her right hand pressed to her ribcage tightly.
The seeress eyes, dulled behind the veil of indifference, she only watched the warrior in front of her needing to grab the tall high pillar for support.
„What we call random is just patterns we can´t decipher. What we cannot understand we call nonsense, what we can´t read we call gibberish..." the girl went on, regardless of the other female´s obvious predicament.
„There is no freewill. There´s no way out. There is only the inevitable."
It was true of course.
The cycle...
Each run a whole new universe.
A million, million worlds.
All different and yet similar.
Constants and variables...
She had been gazing all of them.
Sometimes something was different.
Different, yet the same.
Constants and variables...
„We swim in different oceans, but we all land on the same shore." The girl added almost dreamily.
Etro´s fallen champion, she weakly shook her head.
Constants and variables...
„I still don´t understand." the pink haired woman murmured defeatedly.
She wasn´t sure she could take this any longer.
This whole conversation, this whole speech.
It was slowly beating her brain to pulp.
Made her insides twist painfully inside her body.
Made every last ounce of hope slowly drain from within her broken heart.
„You don´t need to. It will happen all the same." the seeress said indifferently.
„Why?!""
„Because it does. Because it has. Because it will."
„But... There are so many choices, so many possibilities." The ex-soldier contered pleadingly.
Yeul shook her head again, slowly loosing her patience now.
„They´ll all lead you to the same place... Eventually. Where it had all begun."
The pink haired warrior´s world suddenly spinning around her, she couldn´t find it in herself to object again, couldn´t find it in her to accept what she had learned there either.
What was this?!
Some terrible nightmare?!
Was this all some kind of crazy dream?!
It had to be...
Please just let this be a dream...
Please just let me wake up already...
But no, she wasn´t granted the mercy of being released form her torment.
Not yet anyway.
She had to endure it, it seemed.
All of it.
„No one tells me where to go..." the pink haired female whispered weakly into the darkness of the dimly lit room.
Her voice breaking on the last part, there was not an ounce of her once so praised determination left in it.
No resolve.
„You my dear, have already been." Yeul commented dryly.
„There is no such thing as coincidence."
Canstants and variables...
„Whatever you do you can´t escape your fate."
Constants and variables...
„Time is merely an illusion. Fate always finds a way."
Constants and variables...
„You can struggle, scream and fight all you want. But let me asure you, in the end, repeat the past you will."
History is nothing but a cyclic poem written by the hands of time.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (altered)
It was completely shocked at Yeul´s revelations, and utterly paralyzed to say the least, that Etro´s fallen champion hurried ouside, almost running into her purple haired companion faithfully waiting for her somewhere half way down the stairs.
The bright rays of the sunlight blinding her for a tiny moment, although Lightning had entered the seeress´ temple sometime in the morning, now the sun, it already stood high in the sky.
How much time had she spent in there exactly?!
The pink haired warrior, she didn´t really care.
It didn´t really matter anyway.
Nothing mattered anymore...
Brushing past the guardian to be and hastily making down the remainder of the stairs towards the crowded streets of Paddra, Lightning definitely had other things on her mind right now.
She needed time to think.
„Lightning?!" The guardian to be called after her.
Rushing down the stairs to follow her, he caught up with her in no time.
„Light?! Hey wait!"
The pink haired female hurrying to cross the main street obviously ignoring him, unceremoniously grabbing her wrist, Caius Ballad had his companion stop and spin around to face him in a matter of seconds.
„Leave me alone..." the woman spat at him, trying to wriggle free the instant that he caught her.
He didn´t let go immediately.
Something was off...
It really didn´t take a genious to realise that something was bothering her.
A lot.
„Light..." he started, carefully trying to establish eyecontact in an attempt to calm her, the caring male lifted his other arm to comfortingly touch her shoulder.
His attempts where pointless though.
„I said leave me alone!" the pink haired woman yelled as alerting the attention of several unsuspecting bypassers, she violently pushed him away from her.
The guardian to be, stumbling a few feet backwards, startled at his companion´s sudden outburst, he just stood there in the middle of the street, looking after the pink haired woman´s retreating back until swallowed by the crowd, finally she was gone.
What the fuck was going on?
He just couldn´t fathom.
Well, there certainly was one way to find out for sure...
His eyes wandering back up to the entrance of Paddra Nsu-Yeul´s temple, where somewhere behind that veil of light white fabric he knew there lay all the answers, all the answers to every question he could ever pose, the purple haired hunter pondered on what to do.
He could just go inside and find out from the seeress...
Everthing he wanted to know...
What would happen to Lightning.
What would happen to him.
Why they would be fighting in the future.
What would happen in that war.
What had upset her so much...
Or he could simply follow his companion and risk another bullet to his body by asking her herself.
Which thing was the right to do?
Contemplating both his options for another tiny second, Caius Ballad sighed in defeat.
And with another swift glance at the spot where Etro´s fallen champion had vanished in the crowd, he turned on his heels and went straight back up the stairs.
Fate spares noone.
Especially not you.
„Caius Ballad..."
It was the voice of the seeress coming out of the shadows, reaching out for him, that made him look up with a start.
With the room in front of him lying in nearly complete darkness, the small frame of the girl leaning against one of the high stone pillars completely motionless, he hadn´t realised she had been standing there, in wait for him it seemed.
„Finally we have time to speak." the seeress greeted him, pushing herself to her feet and slowly making towards him.
„I´ve been dying to talk to you..."
That voice.
It was haunting.
Sounding as if belonging to a woman much older, ancient actually, that tone of her´s, it was sending tiny shivers down the dark clad hunter´s spine.
The seeress´ eyes fixed on her future guardian at all times, there was the distant glint of longing in those depths of emerald green as she took another small step into his direction, slowly extending her hand to try and reach out for him.
„What did you tell her?" Caius Ballad inquired harshly, taking a few wary steps backwards instantly, his behaviour rude and his demeanour hostile.
It made the young girl´s small heart ache.
The way he talked to her...
The way he glared at her...
Accusingly and full of hate.
What had she done to evoke his wrath?
Hadn´t Caius always been the one to treat her with nothing less than kindness and respect?!
Wasn´t Caius Ballad supposed to care for her?!
To love her till the end of days?!
A little bewildered at her future guardian´s behaviour, Paddra Nsu-Yeul, letting her hand drop back to her side, she just remained there standing, her piercing stare turning slightly glassy as she appeared to look straight through him.
„Paddra Nsu-Yeul... Please." the guardian´s tone of voice changing instantly, sounding suddenly pleading, it made the blue haired seeress snap back to reality at once.
Caius Ballad standing there in front of her, not having a clue on where to go fom here, he had no better plan than hoping for the little girl to help him figure this one out.
Why did he have those visions?
Why did he meet this woman?
Why were they going to fight in the future?
How was their battle going to end?
There where so many questions...
So many question swirling around inside his head.
Which one would he dare to pose?
„Please... I need to know what´s going to happen..." The Guardian to be finally opened his mouth to speak. „I need to know what is going to happen in the future... What did you tell Lightning? Why am I going to fight her?"
The tiny seeress, her impassive features not giving the slightest indication that she had actually heard, the purple haired hunter had a hard time resisting the urge to just grab her by her shoulders and shake her.
„Yeul?!" he tried again, feeling his patience slip away from him as the young girl just continued to stare at him.
„I can´t tell you now." the seeress finally said, her voice suddenly laced with sadness.
„But in due time.. You will understand." she added somewhat reassuringly.
The dark clad man already fed up being put off with that same excuse over and over again, with Lightning silencing him with almost the exact same words whenever he dared ask any questions about the future, he certainly was in no mood to play those games any longer.
Of course he would find out sooner or later.
That much was obvious of course.
But by the time he would, it would already be too late, wouldn´t it?
There wouldn´t be a way to change things leading up to this anymore because by the time he would find out himself, things would have already happened.
What sense was there in seeing the future if one didn´t bother to share one´s knowledge with the people who obviously were affected?!
„No, I need to understand it now!" he growled, taking a threatening step toward the defenseless child in front of him.
Those words of his, they had come out a lot more aggressive than he had intended.
„Caius!" the seeress warned him somewhat pleadingly, making the hot headed male back up instantly, making him hang his head and shyly avert his gaze, suddenly ashamed of his behaviour.
What was he doing here?
Shouting at an innocent ten year old girl...
He was loosing his temper again.
He needed to get himself together.
This wasn´t her fault...
She wasn´t to blame.
She was only a messanger after all.
Right?
„I´m sorry." he appologized, his voice suddenly small, low in volume.
There were a few minutes of silence, before the blue haired seeress taking a few determined steps into his direction, she approached him once again, before coming to stand right in front of him, she extended her arm to carefully take his hand, before cautiously she made to look up into those brilliant amethyst eyes of his again.
„Caius..." she began, her voice trembling in anticipation.
„Will you become my guardian when the time has come?"
Those words, so unexpectedly leaving her pale tiny lips, they left the man standing in front of her completely startled.
Speechless even.
It took another few long moments for him to remember how to speak again.
„You want me to become your guardian?!" The dark clad hunter stammered, utterly perplexed by the seeress´ unexpected offer.
„Yes." Yeul answered evenly, her unblinking eyes not leaving his face for even a tiny second as she nodded her head encouragingly.
That look of otherness about her...
Those eyes that had seen far too much...
That sudden invitation of her´s...
They made the purple haired man feel uneasy, made him nervously shift his weight.
The seeress´ guardian?!
Him?!
Him of all people?!
What did she need him as a guardian for?
Weren´t there enough men willing to do that job?
More suitable candidates than him?
Of course there were...
There had to be...
Becoming the seeress´guardian, it was an honour.
An honour of the highest kind.
Everybody knew that!
Who was he to deny her that wish?!
„Caius...?"
Still...
The fact that she had asked at all striking him as odd, the prospect of the seeress wanting him as her guardian, it worried him to say the least.
Something about this was off.
Was wrong.
The man in front of her suddenly looking troubled, panicky even, Yeul thoughtfully let go of his hand, took a few steps away from him to give him some space.
Sure, he wasn´t ready for this yet.
He wasn´t ready to come to a decision yet.
She knew that of course.
Knew that it wouldn´t happen here right now.
Still, Yeul wished for nothing more but for the two of them to be reunited once again.
She and Caius...
Her guardian.
Soon they would be together again.
Soon everything would be set alright.
There was no way something could ever take him away from her anyway...
She just had to be patient.
Just had to give him a little more time.
Then one day, he would come and join her of his own accord.
„Don´t worry... You don´t have to decide right now." She told him, giving her best to sound nonchalant.
„You can think about it... There still is time."
The purple haired guardian, taking this as a clue to leave, he didn´t waste any time lingering in the chamber of the seeress.
Excusing himself with a curtuous nod of his head, he swiftly spun around to exit through the silky veil softly blowing in the autumn breeze.
The future lies before you,
like a field of snow,
be careful how you tread it,
for every step will show.
- Author Unknown
Caius Ballad stepped out of the tall green bushes and into one of the Vallis Media´s many grassy clearings just to face the barrel of his companion´s ancient sixshooter again.
The sigh of it getting old already, he only gave her one of his accusing glares.
„Save your bullet." he adviced, before simply ignoring her threats, he made over to the spot on the ground where a miserable heap of dryed up leaves and branches indicated the timetraveller´s pittyful attempt at creating yet another campfire.
„You are lucky you´ve got me with you or you might have frozen to death with that fire building skills of yours."
Giving a tiny chuckle in an attempt to lift the mood the guardian to be made to work on building a proper fire instantly.
The pink haired warrior lowering her gun to wordlessly put it back to it´s place under her belt, she only shook her head.
She already knew of course that he would catch up with her eventually. But still, his sudden appearence had taken her by surprise again.
He should know better by now than to sneak up on her like that.
This stupid habit of his, it might as well cost him his life someday.
Letting the guardian to be take care of things at camp, she decided to take a tiny walk over to the next bend of the valley where the path vanished behind another corner. Resting her body against the cool blank rock of the towering stone walls, she made to stare up into the sky above, her eyes searching for the silver shimmer of Cocoon, but with the nightsky covered behind a blanket of thick dark clouds again, there was nothing to make out up there.
Nothing but darkness.
It didn´t matter.
She would never see it from the inside ever again.
Not in this life at least...
There was no way for her to return.
No way for her to change the timeline.
No use for her here anymore, here in this long forgotten past...
Her gaze wandering over to a miserable bunch of already wilting bioluminescent flowers, their once brightly shining blossoms now strangely dimmed, their otherwordly glow slowly fading, dying, she couldn´t help but give one of her defeated sighs.
Her journey, it was finally over.
There was nowhere else to go.
Nothing else to do.
She had served her purpose, as Yeul had so `sensitively´ put it.
What reason was there left for her to live?
Her existence here was now redundant.
She would just wait here now...
Wait until the day she died.
So one day she could be born again.
Raised just to complete her fate.
Unable to interfere.
Unable to change anything.
Unable to save anybody...
Because yes...
There simply was no way she could beat Caius Ballad.
Not with him having the Heart of Chaos.
She was too weak.
Not strong enough.
She knew that now.
Accepted it.
Should have accepted it a long, long time ago.
She had been a fool to fight him in the first place.
A fool to believe that she could actually stand a chance.
He had been merely playing with her.
All those times she had faced him in Valhalla...
He could have crushed her easily, right there on their first encounter.
But he hadn´t, right?
Why hadn´t he?!
„Lighting?!" Caius Ballad´s voice suddenly called out from somewhere next to her.
She hadn´t even realised he had approached her.
His deer stalking skills, they seemed to work on her as well.
Or had she just been too preoccupied to notice?
Her purple haired companion, careful to keep his safety distance once again, he made sure to come to a halt about one and a half meters away from her, a kind attempt not to upset her yet again.
It seemed to work this time.
At least for now.
The pink haired ex-soldier giving another devastated sigh, she nervously ran her fingers though her pinkish strands, before letting her arm fall back to her side, she carefully made to look up at him.
The worried look he gave her, she realised he had been trying to get her attention for quite some time now.
Great.
„Lightning... What is it?" he tried tentatively as taking in her completely lost expression, he carefully made to move in front of her.
„Nothing... I´m okay." the pretty female assured him pensively.
Caius Ballad didn´t buy it.
Not even for a second.
The way her eyes were staring off into the distance, the way she spoke those words, softly, almost reluctantly, he could tell something was bothering her. That she was hiding something behind that mask of indifference she always used to show him, to show to everybody.
„Come on... Lets go back to the fire. It´s getting cold out here..." the guardian tried carefully.
He really had no intention of upsetting her any further.
He really hadn´t.
„I´ll join you in a sec." came the timetraveller´s short response. Her voice unsteady, shaky, Caius Ballad knew whatever it was that bothered her, it had to be something serious.
The pink haired female walking away from him with small purposeless steps, the dark clad hunter watched her retreating back with concern, with worry.
Should he leave her be and give her some time to get herself together?
Or should he just go after her and make sure she was okay?
His instincts telling him to do the latter, but his brain reminding him of that revolver she still had tugged under that belt of her´s, the guardian to be decided to listen to his heart this time, telling him that whatever it was that had upset her, she might need somebody to talk to now, somebody to be there for her. And he knew that whatever it was he was supposed to do now, he couldn´t bring himself to actually leave her on her own.
Of course he did respect her wishes.
He always had.
But this time...
He simply couldn´t comply with what she asked of him.
He wouldn´t leave her by herself.
No.
Not in this condition.
Following his companion up to yet another bend in the path, he found her standing just around the corner, right under the protective shadows of yet another broad leaved tree. Leaning against it´s trunk for support, the way her slender fingers were clawing at the dry dark bark, as if trying hard to cope with some terrible kind of pain, it definitely didn´t escape his notice.
„Lightning... What´s wrong?" the guardian asked tentatively, not daring to move any closer as he came to a halt a few meters away from her.
„Please just leave me alone..." Was all the answer that he got.
Etro´s fallen champion, she couldn´t say much more.
Afraid the next sound coming out of her mouth would be a sob, the pink haired warrior sealed her lips shut instantly.
Just to be on the safe side...
She just needed a few moments to get herself together.
Just a few minutes to deal with the overwhelming flood of despair raging right inside of her, threatening to drown her any moment...
The insufferable male behind her, he didn´t seem to grant her as much as a second though, as sensing him standing some feet behind her, he didn´t even make to move a toe.
„What did Yeul say?" she heard him ask from behind her back.
He was curious of course.
He was always curious.
However, this really was none of his business.
„Nothing really." she just said to evade his question.
She had a hard time keeping her voice steady.
Her lips quivering with surpressed sobs, Lightning was glad she faced away from him, that he actually couldn´t see her face.
This time keeping up her carefully controlled composure took some real effort, was almost impossible.
She wasn´t sure if she could make it this time.
Wasn´t sure she could stay strong this time.
Wasn´t sure if she could fight it like she was so used to do.
Because this time she was weak.
This time she was volnurable.
This time she had nothing left to fight for.
This time she would crumble.
And she definitely didn´t need him there.
Definitely didn´t need him there to watch her when it happened.
Because no way was she going to let down her guard in front of him.
No way was she giving him the satisfaction of seeing her cry in front of him.
She hadn´t done so in Valhalla, and she was definitely not going to do it now.
„She didn´t... I... It doesn´t matter." she added as some kind of explanation, her voice breaking at the last part, to her horror she heard a soft whimper there escape her throat.
Making her sound almost as if she were in pain.
And maybe she was.
For all she knew.
Because it hurt.
It hurt so terribly.
The fact that she couldn´t save the future.
That she couldn´t save Serah.
That it was her fault all of this had happened in the first place...
The crushing load of her fate, her destiny, of what she had actually done, it made her chest constrict with heartache, made her lungs cramp up in pain.
How often had this happened already?
How often had she landed here in this past, stood here in exactly the same place, breathed exactly the same air, said the exact same thing?
How often had she roamed these lands and shot Caius and talked to Yeul?
It could have happened a gazillion times already.
She would never know.
No matter what she did, in the end everything would lead right back to where it started.
Wasn´t that what Yeul had said?
Going to see her back at Paddra all this weeks ago, she had led Caius straight to her, had paved the way for the start of yet another cycle.
Had sealed her fate, and Serah´s and Hope´s and Sazh´s and Snow´s.
Her friends...
Her family...
Would anything have ever changed if she had decided to head to Paddra all alone? Or was the seeress true and it would have happened anyway?
Was this her purpose all along?
To lead Caius back to her?
To start another cycle?
Was it really true?
Would everything she had ever done in her life, everything she would ever do, really lead to this, to that reality, somewhere at the end of time, when finally everything around her would cease to exist, to be swallowed by the unseen Chaos and do what exactly?
Start all over again?
„Light?!" her purple haired companion stepping right in front of her, he could have sworn that he saw tears there swimming in those pale blue eyes of her´s, as fighting hard to not just reach out and wrap his arms around her, he settled for again calling her name instead.
The pink haired warrior, she didn´t seem to hear him though.
Didn´t respond at all.
Her gaze slowly wandering up to look at him, she couldn´t help but give a painful resignated sigh.
Had everything she had ever done really lead to this very moment, this very moment right here, right now, when finally she would understand that all she did was done in vain, that her only purpose was to unite the seeress with her guardian, to that very moment she would stand here, right in front of him?!
Everything?!
Every single step, every single action, every decision?!
„Lightning?"
She seemed so... Lost.
So helpless.
Her breath coming in tiny shaky bouts and her lips trembling violently, Caius knew the woman in front of him was fighting hard to keep her indifferent mask up.
Was fighting hard, but failing terribly.
„Lightning... Please... What´s wrong?!" he asked again, alarmed by the way she made to stare right through him, the way she didn´t even seem to realise that he was standing there in front of her, he suddenly felt he needed to hear her voice.
Needed her to talk to him.
Needed her to say something.
Anything.
Just so he´d know she was alright...
That she was going to be okay...
But the pink haired woman there in front of him, she just chose to remain silent.
The corners of her lips trembling, twitching dangerously, her features contorted in silent torment, Caius Ballad knew she was fighting hard to hide her emotions, was fighting hard to contain her pent up pain.
Those drowning tides of despair raging there inside her heart threatening to break again, threatening to consume her, to overpower her, to overcome her.
This time she was helpless.
This time she would break.
The guardian to be taking in those pale blue eyes, glassy with her unshed tears, her chest heaving with her repressed sobs and the fingers of her left hand digging deep into the soft bark of the poor tall tree, seeing his companion suffer like this, it was making his heart ache.
And it was unsure of what to do, that slowly he reached out for, as putting his hands on both her shoulders in an attempt to steady her, he lowered his head in order to try and look into her eyes again.
„Is it about home? Did she say you can´t go?" he asked cautiously, his eyes never leaving the woman´s devastated blue ones, desperately trying to coax at least some kind of answer from those pinkish lips.
But Etro´s fallen Champion, she just chose to look away.
She couldn´t tell him.
Not in a million years.
What Yeul had told her there...
She couldn´t talk about it.
To nobody.
Shit, now that she knew herself, she wished she had never found out in the first place...
What she had learned there, back at Paddra, back at the temple of the seeress...
It was...
It was just...
Oh Serah...
A stifled sob forcing it´s way past her throat, her knees going week, she suddenly had a hard time keeping herself upright, keeping herself on her legs.
That sinking feeling in her chest...
Drowning...
She was drowning again.
Drowning in a sea of despair wthout a glimpse of land in sight.
And it was then that suddenly the wave inside her broke, that she felt her throat close up, the air around her suddenly becoming hard to breathe, she felt her heart racing away inside her chest in irregular painful beats, had a hard time remaining on her feet in fact, as she felt an invisible weight threatening to force her to her knees.
To wrestle her to the ground.
To crush her.
With her blood running through her veins suddenly turning to ice, her fingers suddenly numb and her hands trembling uncontrollably and with that crushing feeling in her chest, suddenly so much more than she could bear, making her slightly dizzy, faint, as feeling her world dragged away from underneath her feet, slowly falling apart behind that marble mask of sanity she was forcing herself to put on every day, finally after all that time, after all those years, her steely facade cracked.
It cracked and shattered and crumbled into a thousand tiny pieces until there was nothing left to protect her.
Nothing left to support her.
Nothing left to guide her.
Nothing left of the once fierce warrior, the knight fighting for the Goddess Etro in her shining armour.
Noting left but herself.
A helpless pathetic girl.
Naked.
Weak.
Defenseless.
Stripped from the bulletproof body suit she had put on the day her parents had died, volnurable, she stood there before her worst of enemies – Caius Ballad - the man who was going to kill her, who actually already had, trapped inside this nightmare she unfortunately couldn´t wake up from, no matter what she tried.
And suddenly she was unable to breathe.
Feeling as if all the air was sucked from her lungs.
And she knew that it was over.
That finally she was done.
That she couldn´t keep this up a second longer.
And she hastily tried to turn away from him.
To bolt.
To run.
To try and push him away.
It just made him grab her shoulders even harder.
„Lightning what´s wrong?!" The guardian asked more urgent this time, his voice suddenly alarmed, increasing in volume, he was about to shake her by her shoulders, was about to shout at her to make her give him at least some kind of answer when suddenly she opened her mouth to speak again.
„No- Nothing... I´m o – okay..." she stuttered.
It was the last thing she said before she lost control, before he saw her break.
The woman in front of him suddenly breathing heavily, her knees giving in completely suddenly and without warning, if he wouldn´t have been standing right in front of her she would have just collapsed to the ground.
The guardian to be, he caught her in his arms almost instantly.
Held on to her as slowly, carefully he lowered her to her knees.
Continued to hold on to her as he sat down on the ground with her.
As he pulled her close to him.
Continued to hold her in his arms as her body shook with sobs.
As her chest heaved with her stifled cries.
As the nails of her pretty slender fingers dug deep into the skin of his chest.
His arms.
His shoulders.
He didn´t care.
All he cared about was her.
And the fact that he had to be there for her.
The woman lying in his arms...
She needed him.
More than anything.
Needed him to be there for her.
She was relying on him.
That woman crying in his arms...
Her face buried in his shirt, slowly getting drenched with tears, her hands clawing at his arms, his sides, he felt her chest moving against his own with every shallow breath she took, felt those heart wrenching sobs, like tremors running through his body.
Seeing the once tough warrior break, it was almost more than he could bear.
He needed to find a way to make her feel better...
He had to.
But was there any?
Sure she hadn´t told him what had happened, what the seeress had revealed...
But it didn´t matter.
He could guess anyway.
She was here after all.
Still here with him.
Surely that could only mean one thing...
That for some reason she couldn´t return to her home in the future.
Or she would already be on her way for sure.
And although he knew it was insensitive and selfish and mean, although the fact of seeing her like that, broken, desperate, so full of pain, hurt him, made his heart ache, he couldn´t help but feel relieved. So infinitely relieved that she wasn´t going to leave, to leave him here in the Archylte Steppe, with nothing but a memory and the thought of what there could have been.
Because this way he wasn´t going to loose her.
This way he would get another shot.
Another shot at whatever it was they had going on between them.
Maybe if she´d finally accept the fact that she was going to spent the rest of her life here with him, maybe she would change her mind.
Maybe she would open up to him.
Maybe she would give him a chance.
Maybe he just had to give her time.
A little time to get over this...
Some time to heal...
He´d give her all the time he had, all the time she needed.
That much was for sure.
„It´s okay... I´m here." He softly whispered into her ear.
„I´m here for you."
It only made her sob even harder.
He didn´t care.
„I´ll always be there for you."
He wanted her to know this.
To know that she could always count on him, that she could always rely on him.
That he would never let her down.
Never.
And it was there on the cool, hard ground of the Vallis Media, the crows sitting on the nearby trees their only witnesses, that he kept holding her in his arms, that he kept holding her tightly, the fingers of his left hand tracing soothing patterns all over her back, her arms, her shoulders, until finally after what seemed like almost an eternity he slowly felt her sobs subside, felt them ebb away and turn into soft tiny whimpers, felt her breathing somewhat calm, felt her grip on his shirt slacken.
And he continued to stay with her, continued to hold her tight as, her hands still slightly trembling she just sat there, as leaning against his thorso, with her head resting on his chest, she listened to the beat of his heart.
His heart.
Not the heart of Chaos yet, but his very own.
Steady.
Strong.
That constant succession of slow rhytmic beats...
They were strangely calming her.
Caius...
With those strong arms around her...
She couldn´t help but realise that she felt save and protected there.
With him...
That for some strange reason knowing that there was someone who was there for, that he was there for her, was making her feel strong again, was making her feel so infinitely better.
And for a few tiny moments nothing of this mattered.
The timeline.
Their fight.
Their fate.
As if all those problems that she faced, that she had to face right now, were suddenly unimportant and small...
As if none of those things out there could actually do her any harm...
As if they somehow couldn´t reach her.
Couldn´t hurt her anymore...
Just as long as he was there with her.
Just as long as he was by her side.
If she could only stay like this forever...
Wrapped into her companion´s arms...
Where she could hide away...
Shielded from the outside world...
Far away from this horror that had suddenly become her reality...
Well, she was lucky this time it seemed.
For Caius Ballad wasn´t going to let her go anytime soon.
He so wasn´t.
Conscious of the way her breath was ghosting against the sensitive skin of his collarbone, sending tiny shivers up and down his spine, the way her hands were still clinging to his shirt, much gentler now, he had a hard time resisting the temptation to kiss her forehead as he burried his face deep into her pinkish strands instead.
„I won´t let you down." he whispered into that soft silky hair of her´s.
His arms unvoluntarily tightening around her body once again, he couldn´t help but feel the need to pull her closer.
To keep her there.
To never let her go.
Constants and variables...
„Ever." He assured, his voice slightly husky as he brought up one of his hands to gently cup her cheek.
Husky but sincere.
„I promise..."
And with just those few tiny words, the world around her crumbled once again.
Never could I breathe love if I didn´t first inhale a little bit of Chaos.
- Christopher Poindexter
We are all broken, that´s how the light gets in.
- Earnest Hemingway
Thanks for reading guys. Terrible long chapter I know.
Quotes from FFXIII-2 and LR as well as their respective FF Wiki entries. Also a looooot of stuff taken from Bioshock Infinite ending. And there´s also some quotes stolen from Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking + Some things taken from the Matrix trilogy as well.
So yeah... I hope you somewhat enjoyed that chap and I am already looking forward to your feedback this time, if you are kind enough to give me some. (*hugecutepuppyeyes*)
I did receive a lot of reviews on my last chap. And I am really grateful for all of those. I appreciated every single one of them. Feedback wasn´t even as bad as I had thought... No flames for shooting Caius... I actually was a bit disappointed (NO guys only joking^^)
Also I want to thank those of you who have added my story to favourites and of course my new subscribers.
Thank you for your amazing support. You are awesome.
And also I owe my thanks to XxShyxX again, who is doing such a good job keeping me motivated and helping me out with everything I need. Huge thanks there as well! Don´t know what I´d be doing without you!
Next chap will be up in two to three weeks approximately. (Chap won´t be that long, but I won´t be able to get anything done next week so...) So Keep looking forward to reading the next bit and please stay tuned!