XXV. Anomoly

How wonderful it must have been to have an eidolon whom was content to walk among mortals. Not in a profound sort of way, but Bahamut loathed to let his feet grace the earth, preferring to feel the wind beneath his wings – while Odin seemed to have no such complaints as he trotted alongside Caius with Lightning upon his back. It didn't make their journey any easier for them not to ride their respective eidolons, but it was certainly easier to take in all of the scenery and appreciate the local wildlife if they went along at a more leisurely pace, he supposed. Plus, he was just about tired of carrying that backpack with him – the one Lightning insisted on giving him at the beginning of their journey, although he was certainly thankful now that they carried water with them – but not thankful enough to admit that he was, even despite Lightning poking fun at him when he took perhaps a longer sip than necessary from either one of their plastic water bottles (newly filled as of that morning in a near-by, meandering river and only just suitable for drinking thanks to those tablets she brought along) or his thermos.

The stubby shoots of grass underfoot was either naturally or had faded into a yellow-green color and crunched underneath his boots; the sky was impossibly blue and clear above them and the sun was damn hot. Not unpleasant, though, as long as they kept moving. Some larger creatures native to the badlands meandered about, although they didn't seem to be too interested in the travelers; a few mild-mannered woodwraiths wandered on the horizon among the buttes and hoodoos that had started rising up – a sign that they were on the right track, to be sure. Although Caius had not walked this path enough times with the Yeuls of past and future to say properly how far they were from Taejin's Tower in terms of distance, he figured that by sunset two days from then, they'd be at its gate. Dahaka already dealt with by Lightning during her time as a Pulse l'Cie, it would be smooth-sailing down to Oerba from there, and then across to the world beyond.

And then they could deal with their Focus. And then he would claim his reward, whatever it may be – but the closer they got, the more he thought to speculate, to mull over the possibilities of what Etro could offer. Yeul's freedom? The final rest of his cursed soul? Something more; something less? She was a goddess, and she'd given special attentions to her very favorite of her 'little things' before (although to disastrous results thus far, and it seemed that as soon as she grew tired of their escapades she cast them aside like broken toys if his unanswered prayers during the first century or so of his nightmare was anything to go by). He hoped that this time, he'd get a choice in the matter, unlike when he'd been 'rewarded' for so valiantly defending Yeul and Paddra with Etro's own heart being forced into his chest.

Broad-winged, dark-feathered birds circled overhead before being scooped up in the jaws of an amphisbaena.

Much of the morning's journey was, of course, spent in relative silence, although they gradually got more talkative an hour or two the sun reached its apex at high noon. Lightning dismissed Odin around then, too, opting to walk alongside Caius, although the pace was in no way lessened and the weight returned to his back given that Lightning herself was far less generous about carrying things for him than her eidolon was. Which, he supposed, was fair enough. They finally broke the silence when they stopped to replenish their water at a mid-size pond that some xolotl lazed around; the contents of their water bottles as they were poured into their thermoses before they were refilled and Lightning dropped in two water purification tablets (to accommodate for how murky the water appeared initially, apparently – although close to the center, where she'd collected it, it ran clearer than crystal).

"They don't seem interested in making us lunch," Lightning muttered, and Caius acknowledged it with a grunt.

"I don't know how it is on Cocoon, but the woodwraiths of Pulse are generally content to leave others alone. And are generally herbivorous."

"All the ones I've heard of have been pretty nasty. Jabberwockies and bandersnatches – the ones I fought, anyway – were aggressive, and about every year there was some horror story about a supposedly-good-natured researcher getting gored by an enki or enlil," she replied, and it was obvious that she meant 'good-natured' in the absolute loosest sense of the term.

"I didn't mean to imply that xolotl wouldn't gore you if you pushed them far enough."

"Reassuring."

"I do my best. They are generally docile, though; I promise."

"I hope so. They're almost half the size of Bahamut."

He shrugged; honestly, he'd pin them at around a third of the size of Bahamut each, but whatever Lightning wanted to believe. "We'll keep our distance from any we run into if it'll put your mind at ease."

This suggestion was taken quietly – and Caius couldn't be any more thankful for it. They set out on their way then, leaving the pond and the woodwraiths behind and resuming their trek over the badlands. A far more open expanse than what could generally be found around New Bodhum, the monsters (and animals) had more room to wander and grow – and that went for woodwraiths and other denizens alike. Packs of mánagarmr roamed where normally the stouter gorgonopsids would find purchase on less arid lands, headed by the larger, more strongly-built, more aggressive, and more colorful amam; often these packs thought it wise to mess with Lightning or with Caius and found their sides sliced open in return. Those that were left ran off when their leaders were struck down, and they were more annoying than an actual threat – which, he supposed, was fortunate given Gran Pulse's ever-so-great capacity to have its inhabitants killed.

"This way," Lightning urged when not one but two behemoths, colored deep olive, raced toward a group of grazing xolotl several yards ahead, leaving their mánagarmr assailants confused and in the dust. To punctuate her statement, she jerked her head to the side, and Caius laughed a bit in response, pausing for a moment.

"Kaiser behemoths are nothing, Lightning."

"I'd rather not get involved with them. Not when it's just the two of us." And there were two of them. Her jaw set and a determined spark flashed in her eyes – but after a moment that faded. "We've got ground to cover. Best not to waste our time standing around or fighting when we don't need to."

He let out an amused hum, lips quirking into a smirk before he obliged her and started walking to the side, giving the battle before them a wide berth. Lightning followed in his wake, Blazefire Saber drawn, and Caius tugged the Organyx free of his sling with a bit more effort. He longed for his greatsword, honestly; the blade could cleave through stone and bone like a hit knife might cut butter and even after Lightning's little lessons he had a feeling it would still feel more natural in his hands than the small gunblade he'd been provided with. The Guardian spared short glances over his shoulder at the rose-haired woman, but she didn't return them – her blue eyes were fixed on the behemoths and xolotl, and every curve and lane in her body was coiled like a spring, set on edge, ready to act in the blink of an eye.

Admirable how prepared she always was – but unnecessary in the end, between the two of them and the heart beating in both of their chests. A plume of flame, visible even in the daylight, ignited the ground at a behemoth's feet upon an xolotl's command and as it spread it drew a line in the dry grass, but progressed no farther than three yards in either direction. The xolotl used the flames as their opening to flee and, far faster than one would likely expect for such a stocky creature. Sprinting around the fire, the behemoths attempted to catch their prey once more, but to no avail – it seemed that the woodwraiths won that round and the behemoths roared, perhaps out of frustration, perhaps out of anger, but who could truly know for sure? They paced around each other for several moments, as perhaps Caius and Lightning had in Valhalla a few times, before angry golden eyes fixed on the travelers.

"We may have trouble," Lightning said, and Caius just nodded – no sudden moves, no nothing. They paused in their path and shared a knowing glance just before the behemoths took off toward them. Faster than most – "I'll take the one on the left."

He nodded, raising his blade. Three seconds.

She spread her legs and lowered her stance, drawing one hand in to her chest and brandishing her blade with the other. Two seconds.

The behemoths bared their fangs and roared. One second.

Zero.

Lightning earned her name, skirting out of the way of one behemoth's claws and giving herself a bit of space before firing several rounds into the beast's shoulder. She let herself slip into battle mode, undaunted by the adversary before her and unconcerned for the moment about Caius's antics with his foe. She kept her distance, casting magic – the most powerful stuff she could muster without helping the damn thing, so second-tier magic was about the best she could get with Thundaga out of the question – and, when she could, fired bullets at it. Each round sent her torso back a bit, and after the clip was finally empty she switched the Blazefire Saber back into its blade form with a flick of the wrist and charged, plunging the tip straight into the beasts neck as it began to stand – and its last hurrah was cut just short as warm, thick, bright crimson blood spurted out of its carotid and pooled below the briefly-twitching beast.

The right behemoth, on the other hand, caught Caius head-on, but that didn't mean much trouble for him – he caught the behemoth's crest sharp-edge first, cutting his own hand open in the process and being pushed back several feet, but it served as good leverage to slam the beast's jaw into the ground, stunning it a moment and allowing him a chance to hop up on its back. The beast bucked once, twice, trying to throw the Guardian off – but he let out a wicked laugh, perhaps involuntarily, before digging the Organyx into the behemoth's right hind leg, the blade carving through thick hide and tough muscle with some difficulty before he pulled the blade out. Caius readied himself to repeat the procedure before he was sent flying as the beast threw him off and stood up, resting little weight on its injured leg but no less of a threat for it. The beast ripped its crest off of its head and out of its back as power surged through every part of its body, partially knitting together its wound and forging a wicked-looking saw blade out of the excess.

A curse slipped past his lips as the beast roared at him, and instinctively he took a half-step back, then moved to put as much space between him and the beast as possible while still being in the fray of battle. His gunblade, bloodied, was returned to its rightful place; then, he drew in one hand to his chest before letting off a number of graviton spells – which collided with the behemoth with sickening cracks and low thuds, as if the spheres of lavender light were solid objects at all. Blackened runes danced in the air around his hands as Lightning joined the fray against his prey, the other beast apparently felled. And he shouted at her to get back when he let the ancient magic loose – and it took a fair amount of willpower to keep the words of the spell as he had first learned them in his head and away from his lips as the behemoth was assailed by winds strong enough to kick up dust and debris, more than any aero spell at any level could carry. His eyes briefly glowed a wicked crimson and Lightning huddled on the ground, covering her head with her hands as the razor-sharp winds bit and slashed at anything they could reach, though the beast seemed more damaged by the debris and being slammed into the ground by the winds than the winds themselves.

When the spell broke it was like coming down off a high – the glow behind his eyes dissipated and he felt all the air rush out of him as if he'd just taken a blow straight to the chest, regardless of his armor. His head spun and his mind swam and out of the corner of his eye he saw Lightning rise and pass some healing light in his direction – and the cool tendrils wove themselves into his body briefly before fading away after finding that there were no physical wounds to heal. Caius took a moment, and only a moment to gather himself and pull himself to his feet, off of his knees – he stood just in time to duck out of the way of a slash of the behemoth's blade, though he swore it stole a few hairs from his head as it travelled in its arc.

Lightning was not as lucky, if the sharp screech she let out was anything to go by – though it quickly fell away and was replaced by silence as she hit the ground with a dull thud and steeled Caius's determination to finish this. He summoned his black runes again – different ones this time, ones that let Bahamut whisper at the back of his mind, ones that the eidolon himself often briefly employed in his ultimate attack. Confined within his human body, Caius couldn't summon such vast amounts of energy, but he could come close: he could let the runes burn and lick at his skin while leaving no marks, let the heat rise in his throat.

And he could let any man or beast that stood in his way burn.

Flames engulfed the behemoth and it roared, flailing and slashing at Caius as the fire ate away at its form – and the scent of burning skin and flesh filled his nostrils, almost rancid. The flames did not die away until the beast was left dead on the ground, skin charred and blood bubbling to the surface as it came to a boil. His gaze lingered on the beast for a few moments before he staggered over to Lightning's corpse, resting several yards away with its chest flayed open just below the bottom rib and the Blazefire Saber still clutched tight enough in its hand to turn its knuckles white. Bright, sticky blood stained that once dazzling-white vest of hers crimson and just within the gash the damage was clearly visible – and perhaps were he a few centuries younger he would have had to avert his eyes, or if he'd lost all his years entirely perhaps he would have turned away and retched in response to the sight and the scent. Any wider and her body would probably have had trouble keeping all of her organs inside. She reeked of death and her eyes were glazed over and half-lidded with it, but her half of the heart started to glow faintly in her chest when he drew near – and then even brighter when he did her the courtesy of closing her eyes for her.

Caius scooped Etro's champion up in his arms, unfettered by the blood even as droplets of it fell and landed on his boots – a few staining the pristine fur lining them. Noticeably heavier than any Yeul he'd had to carry to a final resting place, but still light as a feather to the Guardian, Lightning's form was easy enough to mold – and it conformed to his sharp angles like a puzzle piece meeting its mate. And toward the horizon he started – and after a while he found himself wishing that she would awaken already—

But for as long as he walked, her eyes never flickered open.

"I can't… Stop now…"

She returned to the world through a cold, black haze slowly. Her heart almost beat out of her chest when nothing in particular came into view before she caught sight of a light, off in the distance – and as her eyes slowly adjusted she came to realize that Caius had carried her someplace. He wasn't immediately in view, but she could feel him close by.

Not in any deep spiritual way or anything. If she could, she would be a bit worried. Roughened fingertips traced her jawline and she shifted into the touch with a groan. Her head seemed to be propped up in his lap, which she honestly had somewhat of a problem with, but she couldn't think clearly enough to care. She allowed the gentle touches to continue as she slowly came to and assessed her physical condition – her wound had knitted itself together and nothing seemed to be out of place when she shifted onto her side, letting her head rest over Caius's hand. All five senses seemed to be functioning just fine; she was a little stiff and a lot nauseous but no worse for the wear. Her gunblade and backpack at the fringes of her vision, far out of reach, and it seemed that Caius had taken the liberty of setting up camp despite the lasting daylight outside.

"You were dead for two and a half hours."

She choked out a laugh, though it sounded rough enough from her throat that she initially wasn't sure it was hers. "What, no 'I'm glad you're alright'?"

A suppressed laugh bubbled from his lips as a hum, deep and quiet. "You weren't dead that long the first time," he replied, "and I always woke up in a matter of minutes." She could barely, just barely, detect a hint of concern in his voice, and absently he let his other hand brush her bangs away from her face.

She rolled out of his lap and immediately her body started aching and the world started spinning. She clutched her head in response with a low groan. "Probably nothin' t' worry about." Pause, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Ugh, god. I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Don't do that here."

"Guh."

She rolled onto her stomach and laid there for several moments before skulking toward the entrance of the small cave Caius tucked them away into, and when she almost tripped in a small put dug by something or other she bent over it, clutching her belly as if it would make the nausea go away. It didn't, of course, but nothing came up, either, even after several moments of dry heaving and gagging and misery. Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes as it continued and somewhere at the back of her mind she must have registered the sound of Caius approaching because she didn't flinch when he brushed her hair over her shoulders so that it was out of the way just in case anything did happen to come up. A firm hand patted her between her shoulder blades a few times and he hushed her when she made some sort of noise – not quite of protest, not quite of sorrow, more an emotion she couldn't pinpoint precisely but was certainly foreign to her and certainly served to tie her stomach into awful knots.

"You're going to be alright," he said, distinctly as if the woman he were talking to weren't Lightning. As if he were soothing a child – as if he were talking to Yeul.

She didn't have it in her to be offended. "Is this normal?" she forced out while she made an attempt to catch her breath.

"Not in my experience," he replied before offering her a familiar herb. "Eat this."

Lightning hesitated before she took the leaf and forced herself to pop it into her mouth. It didn't taste any better than it had the first time, but giving her mouth something to do seemed to keep her from retching and the taste took her mind off the nausea – although it would probably be several minutes before the mint worked in any capacity.

"We'll rest here until you've recovered."

And at that, she did make a noise of actual protest. "We need to get to Oerba." The words came out sounding weaker than she'd hoped they would have, and Caius smiled at her – a smile borne of pity and little else that she could surmise, a smile that would have infuriated her if only she were feeling more up to argue with him. But as strong-willed as he was, she knew that in her current state, arguing would likely get her nowhere, especially since she couldn't very well physically drag him along like she probably could otherwise. Once it was clear that she wasn't going to retch anymore, she let herself be lead away by the Guardian, until he urged her to lay down on one of the yakshini robes that he'd laid out. His hand didn't leave her back until she was all settled in.

"I'm going to find us some food and water. I'll return shortly."

"I'm not a child. Also not hungry."

"You're going to eat something whether you want to or not."

"Mmn. No meat."

He could have laughed at her, but instead he nodded. "No meat," he repeated. The Guardian lingered for a few moments longer before it became clear that she had no more requests to make and he rose from his place beside her.

Lightning's gaze followed him for several moments as he scooped up the bag and made his way to the entrance before Bahamut, little more than a black blue, whisked him away at the cave's entrance. And then she was alone.

It felt like an eternity before she had the heart to swallow the mint leaf; her eyelids felt heavy but not heavy enough to prompt her to sleep. As far as she could tell, there was still plenty of daylight left. Which was a shame; she really would have liked to cover more ground, but if Caius had anything to say about it then what she would have liked didn't matter. She wiggled out of her ruined vest, the blood not even dry for how much had soaked into the fabric and the AMP technology woven into the fabric yet to mend the very prominent tear. Maybe it'd been ruined when she died, two and a half hours ago. Maybe it just needed to recharge in the sun for a while. Maybe the poor thing finally went kaput for how much abuse it had taken both as her time as a Pulse l'Cie and recently. No matter the case, she chucked it to the opposite wall.

Two and a half hours. That was a long time – far too long. When Caius killed her, she'd awoken about twenty minutes later no worse for the wear. All the times she'd killed Caius in Valhalla, he was up and about in even less than that, maybe five, maybe ten. But then, it was probably easier for the Heart to fix a shattered spine and a broken skull than it was to mend muscle and guts and then regenerate all the blood that was lost. She dragged two fingers across where the wound once was – although the wide, ugly gash had been replaced with smooth skin before she'd woken up. Tender to the touch; if she applied pressure then a dull wave of pain started to eat at her nerves. Even a weak Cure spell didn't do much to help it – or at least, not for long. The cool tendrils of the spell wound through her body just fine, and lingered where the damage had once been but as soon as they left it was back to being stiff and a little bit tingly, although the heat was gone until she found herself unable to resist lightly pressing a finger or two to that spot, as if anything would have changed.

Her gunblade was collapsed and piled with the rest of their supplies to her left but even in light of the comfort it would have brought her to have it in her hands and just feel its familiar weight, she couldn't bring herself to reach for it. Part of her wished Caius would return, comfort her like he might comfort an ill Yeul. She'd gotten a taste of it briefly but didn't realize that she'd appreciated it until he was long gone and it dawned on her that she'd probably shot any chance that he would continue treating her so nicely with her harsh words and insistences that she was absolutely fine. Like hell she'd request it; she was Lightning. Ex-soldier, former Pulse l'Cie, defier of fate, champion of Etro. Lightning didn't request special treatment.

She just took whatever hand life happened to deal her and made the best she could out of it.

That was just the way things were.

Caius returned sometime later and roused her out of a dreamless, shallow sleep. Lightning was certain that he'd said something about needing to drink something, but honestly her head wasn't clear enough to be absolutely certain until she pulled herself into an upright sitting position and, promptly, Caius thrust a refilled water bottle into her hands and urged her to drink. She complied with some hesitation; the taste of the purification tablets lingered in the water but she was fairly confident that Caius wouldn't have urged her to drink from the bottle if the water were unsafe. Nonetheless, despite the taste, it was rather refreshing and several small sips later she was glad she complied.

Their lunch (what a rare occurrence, that they would actually sit down and have lunch instead of eat on the road!) was comprised mostly of mildly sour, deep violet berries that insofar as appearance went, reminded her of the blackberries that had been common in grocery stores (and, well, wherever they grew naturally, she supposed) inside Cocoon – but given where they were traveling, were assuredly not actually blackberries. Along with those, not much else; she had specifically requested no meat but she didn't think that Caius would extend that command to himself, everything given. Perhaps he intended to hunt for himself later. She didn't really care to ask. But figs – she was surprised that he'd managed to get some figs for them, and honestly she wondered exactly how far he'd carried her in the wake of her death. Far enough for figs. She was never a huge fan of them, if only for their texture, but their sweetness was much appreciated and she devoured four plump ones, leaving the six scrawny ones remaining for Caius to enjoy (which he did heartily and quietly, skin and all).

"I'm feeling better," she attempted, and Caius only smirked and shook his head in response.

"Rest. We are not pressed for time."

Of course. "Don't you want to go back to Yeul?"

"I do. But it is a simple matter to cover lost ground; you'll be more of a hindrance than anything else if you can't keep up."

She pressed her lips together, eyebrows lowering ever-so-slightly. "There's still daylight. What do you honestly expect to do in the meantime?"

Really, what? It wasn't like they were back at the house or anything; they were out in the wilds of Gran Pulse. And neither had really thought to bring any form of entertainment with them, for that matter. But the smirk on Caius's lips did not fade, did not even waver. "I'm sure making sure you recover will take up some time."

'Do you think this is a game?' she wanted to ask. "I'm fine," she said instead.

"You were out for two and a half hours. You were ill when you woke up. Honestly, Lightning, you expect me to believe you've already made a full recovery?"

"If I say I'm fine, then I'm—"

"Are you in pain?" The smirk faded.

Lightning froze, dropping one hand to her healed-over wound without thinking. "No."

Amethyst eyes flashed; Caius tilted his chin up almost imperceptibly while his lips set into a frown. No use trying to deceive him, she supposed; Yeul was only ever a child, she reminded herself, and he probably knew all the tricks in the book – even better than she knew any of Serah's probably, given that she distinctly remembered falling for a few way-back-when. But he didn't call her on it, much to her surprise; instead, he simply said: "If nothing else, give me the luxury of overcaution, just for today. We will leave before the sun rises tomorrow morning."

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment before she conceded with a curt nod of the head. She laid back on the robe and traced a pattern with her fingers over the soft, crimson material, tearing her eyes away from the man across from her for several moments. "You didn't answer my initial question," she muttered, and Caius let out an amused noise. "You really expect me to just – lay down and sleep for the rest of the day and night?"

"No," he admitted with a noncommittal shrug after retrieving a bone-carved comb from a small pouch that until then, she didn't even realize was there (hidden beneath the decorative leather piece attached to his armor just below the small of his back) and pulling out the bone-carved comb. He looked it over for several moments before undoing his headband and starting to remove his feathers – but notably, not his beads; the golden piece that held the long, violet strip of fabric together in place of a knot clattered to the stone floor of their little grotto, followed by his headband itself (which he had no problem letting fall into a heap in the dust) and the feathers, once their clear beads were freed from their strands of hair. "If you are truly feeling up for it then we can go hiking. The stars will come out later—" he paused, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips and he ran the comb through his hair several times—"if you would care to indulge yourself in my ramblings again. All I ask is that you take it easy until morning and give your body time to recover."

She grumbled, something like "Yeah, sure, whatever," before rising to her feet. Caius's eyes followed her and, after a moment, he set his comb down and slipped his headband back on – although the feathers remained out of his hair for the moment. Lightning was too busy trying to keep the world from spinning on account of the fact that perhaps she had risen a bit too fast to notice – but after her head stopped pounding, she retrieved her gunblade and returned it to its rightful place in its sling. After a moment's consideration, she picked up and slung the backpack over her shoulder as well. And she cast a fleeting glance toward her white vest, still lying in a heap, before picking that up too – but she didn't put it on, instead looking over the damage. The tear in the material seemed a fraction smaller than before, and the blood had cooled and turned from a bright red to a much more faded shade – but it was still sticky to the touch. She made a face at it before casting her gaze to Caius.

As she wished he would, he replied, "There's a spring you can wash it in nearby."

So it was decided.