Excerpt: This is excerpted from my novel-length project, TCTNP. The chapter it's a part of has not yet been released. I figured since the excerpt could also be read on its own as an independent side story, I decided to post it as a prompt here too. So it's a slight repost of sorts; apologies for that.

Ships: It's safe to say I'm a shameless Lightning multi shipper at this point. I am currently working on a Caius/Lightning oneshot along with TCTNP at the time I'm posting this! Hell, I ship Faris/Lightning, Fang/Lightning, and Tifa/Lightning, among many others!

She remembers how to believe in the impossible that night thanks to him.

XV - Believe

The moon's rising, colossal, radiant, and teeming a healthy silver that night. It's so idiotic that Lightning wants to flip off the sight.

Six months so far of risking her life in this stupid as hell war in the slim hope that she'll get to go back home, and yet, the moon and sun still rise and fall in this deadly, psychotic hellhole, like everything's fine and normal. As if everyone here is living everyday lives, not nearly dying a number of times. It doesn't fit right; that nice-looking stars and clouds and pretty stuff get to exist in this shitty place at all.

Clicking her tongue, Lightning intertwines her arms, ignoring the chill of the outside air that's always doomed her bedroom to being a fridge. It's so idiotic and nonsensical, all of this: living in some stupidly exposed tower when she's not out there throwing herself in the face of destruction; serving some indifferent goddess that doesn't give two shits about war strategy; the fakeness of it all.

She's standing before her window. Milky whiteness of ageless marble seems to almost gleam in the moonlight, all around her. The silk-thin fabric of her camisole isn't doing much to battle back the wind, but she doesn't mind, really. The bitter weather's refreshing. Unlike Cosmos, Sanctuary, and Chaos, it's something that belongs in actual reality, and isn't just made up from someplace that's a twisted joke of a bedtime story.

Maybe that's why most of the aspects of Dissidia piss her off so much. It's based on what should be the make-believe. Myths, miracles, fairytales. Stupid shit that doesn't make a lick of sense. Except now it's worse because now there are actual lives on the line, some of which she feels responsible for maintaining, along with the fact it's not just some harmless story. And it's all because some gods couldn't do the work themselves.

Screw the abstract. Gods, legends, fables, even hope. They don't fit in with the real world, and Dissidia's the epitome of why that is. Those concepts don't work in existence. Not always, anyway. Or maybe not at all, actually.

Her eyebrows quirk at the mixed answers. She shifts her weight on an inclining leg, outstretching her other. She fumbles for the best answer, sharply knots her brow, hates that doubt is managing to cleave through her mind when it usually never does. She thinks she feels worse now.

Instinctively, she reaches for her namesake-shaped necklace, only to remember that she's lost it. Lost that precious treasure a month ago, somewhere out there. Fuck. She really does feel worse.

There's no way it's okay. Probably got screwed up by those Chaos assholes by now. But still, there's a bit of herself, she thinks, that wants to… dream. But then she shuts it up, curses out loud.

There's the echo of her door being opened, and she tenses, pivoting around, arms whipping to her sides. It's then that she remembers — Ah, fuck — that besides her skin-tight camisole, the only other thing she's got on is her plain panties (because her skirt and shorts smell like crap, and she's got nothing else for bedtime). By the time the doorway's exposed and she sees a tall, familiar man, she's pulling down her shirt as much as she can. Tries to cover what she can.

Her hands remain at the rims of the bottom of her shirt, around her hips. Forcing a keen composure to align her expression, she scowls at Kain. Her oceanic eyes cut through the starlit room. "Knock on the door next time, jackass."

Dressed in smooth slacks, barefoot just like she is, he makes an uninterested-sounding noise, walking forward with the poise of a professional soldier. Broad frame, broad biceps, broad steps. Effortlessly, he towers around a head higher than her.

"I would have if you didn't vulgarly tell me to leave the last time I knocked." His ashen hair flows around an expression that's somehow simultaneously distant and intense.

Unfazed, Lightning rolls with widening her range and intimidation, propping a knuckle on a hip and angling her chin higher. She does her best to ignore the upward peeling sensation at the bottom of her once-tugged camisole. "Why are you here?"

His mauve eyes scan her own intently. Almost as if in something of disappointment or disapproval. "I approach you whenever you're brooding in your lonesome a trillion times, and yet you still ask?"

Lightning huffs, forcefully yanking down one side of her shirt again. Unevenly exposed, one half of her underwear lingers in his view, and she resists the itch to growl. "Well shit, it's not like you could've picked a better time to do your stupid schtick. Or whatever."

"Au contraire, sarcastic woman," — Kain's getting all smirky, risking a glance that's lower, away from her face — "this was perchance the best time to do so."

She's been around him so long that she doesn't get offended as she expects to at his prying gaze. It's not like it's the first time she's been scantily dressed around him, anyway, now that she thinks about it. He's been so close to her, actually, all these months, that she's strangely… okay with it.

Not entirely. She's still a little embarrassed, wearing less than what she typically does around other people. But, then again, that's her with everyone. And she's okay enough with his behavior to the point that she's not considering decking him in the face for coming here and doing that, as she would do with any of the other guys if they dared.

It really doesn't make sense to her. Him always being around her, her always putting up with his sophistic jargon. And now suddenly she can't tell when she started to feel so… alright around him.

Her eyes grant passage, let him tread that boundary further.

"Oh, shut up," she says, but the tone's not as biting as she wants it to be. A smile wants to twist her lips, but she rejects it before hints of it show up. "Smartass."

Kain's eyes are focused on her own again, despite her previous consent. "Perhaps you may consider getting a thesaurus. Your retorts are becoming repetitive."

Lightning turns away from him, draping her arms on the spiral-patterned windowsill, letting the haunting chill seep into her skin. She focuses on the inky night and its beautiful stars. "Hn. Your whole act is."

"Are you so certain of that?" When he asks the question, she feels the warmth of his torso rush along her cold back, and before she can blink, there's a flash of something metallic, shiny, pretty, dangling in front of her. And then the breath that barrels out of her lungs, she can barely keep it calm…

The oxidized, bronze-spotted pendant manages to take some pure moonlight captive. Its edges are impossibly intact, and when Kain perfectly hooks the necklace around her neck, the coldness soon lingers there, right around her chest. Right where it should be.

She wants to disbelieve it. But no, it's really right there, still fine and well…

"Kain, you…" — she scrambles for a reserved response, presses eager fingers to the rough-textured jewelry, slowly re-faces him — "you found it."

She wants it to sound like a question, but her articulation fails her.

There's something between a smirk and a smile on his face, and he's leaned in closer. "I was scouting the coasts of Cornelia Plains earlier today when I found it. I hadn't had the chance to return it until now."

Their stares persist on one another's. For a long time. In gazing, she sometimes finds it okay to say "thanks". But even though she's getting her freezing irises to be more like the skies or seas, she finds that it's not enough.

Kain nods, gradually turning back to the door. "That is all. Now sleep well, lest you wish to wake up with eye bags."

She's hearing his footsteps on the tiled floor. Shit. She's running out of time. Fuck a verbal thanks; he deserves something more."Thanks" is intangible, forgettable, and too much of a pussy move to say. Screw tomorrow. Forget consequences. All that matters is that she's gotta repay the damn favor right here and now, the way she believes is best.

So she runs. Runs before he's even halfway to the door, her wild feet slapping against the frigid tiles. By the time he's turned around with clearly held-back shock, she's got her arms hooked around his neck, standing on her tippy toes. And when she puts her lips to his, she can sense the boiling restraint in the biceps that capture her arching waist in crisscrosses.

Saliva slides down their motioning chins, runs down her curves and his pectoral muscles. He nips her bottom lip, so she bites back on his upper one. She brushes fine hands along his steep cheekbones while his arms also change positions, strong fingers clawing along her scalp and shoulder-resting hair.

She likes his warmth. His fervor.

It's some time amid all of this, that Lightning realizes that, maybe, just maybe it doesn't kill her to… hope or dream a little. To believe that the impossible can happen. In all kinds of ways.

A part of herself always felt that way, in fact. And now she's realized that… or rather, remembered that.

And it's all thanks to him.