Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIII does not belong to me.
Author's Note: Haven't read chapter 12 yet? Make sure to do so!
The Nightmare of Claire Farron
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Claire dreams a nightmare of rolling darkness and a young girl's bodiless voice in her ear, cruel and empty. "Your sister is dead because of you."
The world of the dream breaks and Claire falls through a grey sky, a grey ocean, a grey city. It is a never ending fight as she is eternally caught in a descent with no matter to prevent her from losing against gravity.
When she does finally land it is on a moving train, her hands bound by metal handcuffs and a stiff hood drawn over her face. Claire cranes her neck upwards and glimpses a flash of a red cape, a weapon whizzing through the air and then a crystal figure reaching out for her. Serah's frozen face stares back at her, sorrowful and timeless. Claire blinks and it is her own face reflected back now, mouth agape in horror; she blinks again and the universe expands before her gaze. Twin giggles circle above her head and she follows them, feathery wings descending around her like a halo before she registers the crystal spike jutting out of her abdomen.
She gurgles on the blood rushing to her throat and chokes out a name - perhaps Serah's, or Hope's, or a strange word brimming with malevolence. Bhunivelze.
The victor in their battle laughs, certain of her defeat. She slumps over in pain with anger coursing through her veins - she did not come this far only to fail now—!
A light show bursts to life behind her, souls teeming with energy as they escape her dying body. She will not fail.
The voices of those dead dear to her call her name, give her their strength and purpose. Go.
She knows what she must do. A decision, a crack in time and infinity both stretched far and receding into itself; a conundrum, she splits open the fabric and bids farewell to that which makes her human.
A loop; she is the ouroboros. Possibilities lay them self open before her, the truth hidden within one of them; her soul will not rest, consuming its own self to discover it.
The truth. The truth.
The universe recedes and she falls through a grey world, a grey city with an empty throne. You must control the Chaos now, the Goddesses of the dead whisper to her. This is how it must be. You have taken our place. Join us, Goddess.
The truth. Bring us the truth, Claire Farron, and destroy that which ends us.
Darkness. A multitude of blue haired girls – they are children, old crones, witches; and those who held on, broken and bound by their grief and despair. Their grief for two women, tied together by death and eternal sleep; find us, bring me the truth, and you shall be set free.
Their choice, theirs alone – it is made. The truth is the answer, your journey begins. She is the harbinger and plays time to her tune and they are gone, souls calling to souls – family, lovers, friends. She will not rest - not be allowed rest - until they bring before her the one true world. Her soul churns, calls out to its mirrors across infinity; she is the dream, she is the dreamer; she begun and she will finish. A Goddess.
She is one, she is them all; the soldier, the martyr, the orphan, the citizen, the mother - endless possibilities of what she is, she was, she could be, she never was. She calls to them within their dreams, bids them the story of creation and the conclusion not allowed to be written; and she draws back upon the waking touch, her limits tested, and waits for the truth to come to her.
Waiting. Ever waiting, ever searching for the end.
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AN: So. This is the end. To all of those who have made it this far to read this note, thank you for sticking with me for the past several months. To everyone that has left comments or stopped by to put this on their alert lists, thank you for giving me the drive to keep going with this. A big thank you to all those who have chatted with me and left their own theories as to where I was taking this story, letting me indulge in raving about my feelings on this game series and characters in general. Below, if you are interested, I have compiled a small section of questions I am sure people have had pop up while reading my story. If there is something not answered here, or not to your satisfaction, feel free to ask about it! I will undoubtedly enjoy answering.
So, without further ado, starting with probably the most burning question…
What happened to Lightning and co.?
As the chapter above implies – as does the summary of the story – Lightning failed to defeat Bhunivelze. In the final moments she did become what Bhunivelze intended for her to be, a Goddess that has taken over Valhalla with the blessing of Etro and Mwynn and has left behind her humanity to take control over the power of bending time. The souls of Hope and Snow, as the two linked the most to both Serah and Lightning, volunteered to undertake the journey to try and "fix" the timeline/find the proper timeline where Lightning succeeds in her quest and Bhunivelze is defeated. Until the "true" world, where Bhunivelze is dead, is discovered, their souls will be thrown around and neither they nor Lightning will be afforded rest.
Is this the first time Hope and Snow appear in a different universe?
The way the characters wrote themselves, especially Hope, I personally believe so.
What were Hope and Snow trying to do to stop Orphan?
Snow began his work specifically with the Cavalry, and Snow in the Sanctum to try and bring down the Primarch's reign – as well as the fal'Cie's rule – behind the scenes; they managed to delay Orphan by a few years, but ultimately failed. Their exact work was never something I lingered on, since this is written in Claire's perspective, but I imagine it would have been a lot less violent and brash than what they had to do in the game.
Are the Claire and Serah of this world dead?
Yes. The Cocoon of this universe has been destroyed.
What happened to Snow and Hope?
They have been pulled out by Lightning (less Lightning, more Goddess now) and thrown into another universe.
What happened to everyone else from the original crew? Also, how did Snow and Hope not run into this universe's version of themselves?
Fang and Vanille were both captured and most likely executed. Dajh was featured briefly in a TV report (with Jihl!) and fulfilled his focus as a Cocoon l'Cie. Sazh prominently featured as Snow's personal pilot. As for the second question, I tried to heavily imply in chapter 7 with the woman talking to Claire in the bar being Nora Estheim, who mentions that "she was meant to have a boy but it didn't work out" that as soon as Snow and Hope appeared in this universe, it altered its own history (theoretically spanning another universe) in which both Hope and Snow were never born.
And that is all I can think of to include here. As I mentioned, if you have any more questions, please feel free to leave a review asking! Thank you again for sticking around and reading A Series of Firsts. It has been a blast writing it.