Chapter Fourteen: Worry
"Caius. Wake up."
Caius grunted as he came to full awareness, hearing the stoic voice that spoke to him. Though he had fallen asleep sitting up, now he was on his back. He felt stiff from lying on the grass all night, and now the morning dew was covering him. What joy. He opened his eyes, seeing that Lightning was kneeling down next to him.
"What time is it?" he asked her, slowly beginning to sit up. The sun was in the air already and the air was warmer than it was when he passed out. Despite the obvious time that passed, he still felt really weary.
"I don't know. Maybe nine."
"You look as if you've been up for a while," Caius stated, looking at her eyes.
"Somebody had to get breakfast," Lightning said, jerking her head over to the side. Caius turned to look to his right, blinking in surprise. There was a fire going and she had already cooked some kind of meat. How could he have slept through all this? After yesterday, Caius expected Lightning to be weak. Yet she was the one who was awake, hunting, and cooking for the both of them. As if reading his mind, she answered his concerns. "You obviously needed the rest. Remember what you said before- creating the rifts takes a lot out of you."
"This is the exhaustion that you've been suffering with since the start of our journey?" he asked, surprised. How could she function so strongly when she felt this tired all the time? He knew that he would not allow this to hold him back either, but still, she hadn't shown any signs of being affected by creating the rifts except needing a little more sleep at nights. He got that extra sleep but was still tired.
"Yeah, well…" Lightning rose to her feet, running a hand over the back of her hair a bit awkwardly. "You learn to live with it."
"I'm sorry."
Lightning was as surprised as he was at the two words. "What?"
"I've been unfair. I pressed your buttons and forced you to do a lot, but all along, you were the one doing the real work."
She gave him a look. "And you've been fighting most of the battles," she stated realistically. "We've both been working hard."
Caius gazed at Lightning for a few moments, staying silent. That wasn't completely true; he could only think of one battle where he did the majority of the work, and that was when Lightning took an arrow to the stomach. The rest of the times that they fought, it was a joint effort. Yet how many portals had she created? At least five. Closer to ten, actually.
Yet she was not willing to let him continue the topic; she must have felt odd being praised by Caius. "Now, time to go eat," she said. "I know where we need to go today."
He rose to his feet as Lightning did the same, following her to the nearby fire and the roasted meat. "And where is that?" he inquired, sitting down with one knee up as he reached for some meat.
"We need to go back to Tebros Mountain, 580 AF. We defeated five dragons. We can't let the remaining charm or whatever they drop go to waste."
"But I doubt that we need to strengthen your sword now," Caius said in thought. "I believe that we've defeated all the dragons in history."
"Oh well, we can use the materials for something else, right?"
"Right," he agreed. He took a bite into the meat, thankful that Lightning hunted this morning and allowed him to sleep. Though he did not verbalize his gratitude, he tried to make it evident. Thankfulness wasn't something that he often experienced, but neither was worry. And he had been incredibly worried about Lightning yesterday. Running into Etros' throne room and finding her passed out on the ground was not pleasant. In fact, it was the opposite. When did I actually…begin to care?
He lifted his gaze as he ate, studying the girl who was staring at the fire in thought. She said that she had been awake for a while, yet she still looked very tired. And the way that she stared at the fire showed that mentally, she was a million miles away. Though he felt like a fool for wanting to ask if she was alright, he did it anyway. "Are you-?"
"Fine," she interrupted without looking away from the fire.
But the fact that she had the answer so ready showed that she wasn't alright. She didn't want to talk about it, though, so Caius wouldn't bring it up again. He cleared his throat. "I was going to ask…if you were going to eat the rest of your meat," he lied.
Though Lightning was no fool, she did fall for the lie. She tossed her remaining meat across the fire to Caius, and he caught it with ease before he forced himself to eat it. Lightning isn't alright. But why should I care so much? As long as it doesn't affect her in battle…Yet as he thought this, he felt his stomach drop. That was so insensitive. And false. He cared about her for more than her battle skills.
After a few more minutes of eating in silence, Lightning made the first move to put out the fire. Caius continued to sit, lost in conflicting thoughts of care and apathy. One side reigned over the other, though he wouldn't admit it.
"Are you making the rift or am I?" Lightning asked once her deed was done.
"I will," Caius answered quickly. He mentally swore at himself for jumping on the opportunity to do it so that Lightning wouldn't have to. Stop this nonsense. You care for nobody.
"Alright." The young woman stepped back to give Caius some room to breathe. Trying to focus, he rose to his feet and looked away from Lightning.
My greatest desire in Valhalla was to get Lightning to safety, he recalled. But what is my greatest desire at this moment? It wasn't to face Etro; he was scared of what would become of him and Lightning if they tried to face Etro again right now. He wished for strength, and that strength would be found in 580 AF near Tebros Mountain.
Once his mind was set on this one desire, the rift appeared to his left. He lifted his head and looked over at Lightning, who nodded once in approval before she started over. The two of them walked through together and floated in the Histora Crux, and both of them were so used to the sensation of floating by now that they weren't fazed by it. They didn't even bother speaking until Caius told Lightning that the rift was to their left. And she, already seeing it, floated over with him and they exited the Historia Crux.
When the exited, his eyes automatically wandered over the area. "Hmph," he hummed as a satisfied smirk appeared on his face. They appeared exactly where he wanted them to appear: right along the shores, near Tebros Mountain.
"Not bad for your first time," Lightning said nonchalantly.
"Not bad?" he retorted, still smirking at her. You have got to be kidding. She took them all over the place for a long time and she knew it.
Lightning, knowing what he meant, looked over at him. Her lips turned up ever so slightly in a smirk. "Yeah," she responded before starting to walk away. "Not bad."
Caius, however, remained where he was. "Are we splitting up to search?" He wasn't sure if that was such a great idea…
"It'll be quickest," she stated simply. "Besides, what else can Etro send at us at this point? We just defeated five dragons."
"Yes, but…"
"We'll be fine," Lightning reassured him, turning around to face him from her spot a few yards away. The look that she gave him, though not harsh, was enough to convey the point. Lightning wanted to be alone. For whatever reason, she needed some time to breathe.
Because of that, Caius dropped the argument. "Alright. You search the beach and the edge of the woods. I'll go deeper in."
"I think I saw one fragment drop right into an open meadow," she said. "So look carefully around that area."
"This is going to take a while, isn't it?"
"Not if we're lucky."
"And we never are," Caius filled in. He received another faint smirk from Lightning.
"Oh well," the young woman responded with a small smirk and a shrug. "We do what we need to do."
"Right," he agreed. "Shout if you need anything."
"You too."
Before Caius could allow himself to stare at Lightning again, he started into the woods to begin searching. It was going to take an eternity, but it was necessary. Depending on the fragments that were left behind, they could use them for some great purpose. He just did not know what that purpose would be; he only knew how to use the fragments to strengthen weapons. He supposed that their next quest could be to find some way to utilize the jewels since they seemed to have defeated the major threats to the timeline.
Time and humanity appeared to be safe. Now all that was left was finding a way to defeat Etro. Was it even possible? How did one go about killing a goddess? He knew that in the past, Lightning defeated Fal'Cie, but they were not as great as Etro. Etro was in a completely different class.
They would find a way though. They had to.
Caius found his way to the meadow that Lightning referenced earlier, and much to his surprise, he saw a fragment right away. No, he saw five fragments right away. All five of them were piled in the middle of the area, shining in the sunlight. Somebody had already gathered them.
But who would know to look out here? With great caution, Caius scoped the area around him as he approached the gems. Nobody was around as far as he could see. He picked one of them up and studied it. It was the real fragment.
"I decided to save you some trouble."
Caius looked over his shoulder and saw a man standing by one of the trees. He laughed bitterly. "Corin." Of course it was Corin. He was Etro's servant, here to kill him and Lightning. As if he would allow that to happen.
"Defeating the five dragons was very impressive," Corin stated nonchalantly. "You and Lightning are quite the team."
"Flattery does not come naturally from you Corin," Caius commented lowly. "What is it you want?"
"What I want is to see you dead," he said with a bitter laugh. "And what I want is to be the one who avenges my wife and Yeul."
"Then you'll need to go for the one killed both of them, and that is Etro."
"How dare you speak of the goddess like that?" Corin hissed. "Etro is a divine, benevolent goddess who always does what is best for the universe."
"Whatever suits her own desires best," he corrected with furrowed eyebrows.
"Her desires are to save the universe from people like you who are bent on destroying it."
Caius laughed. "You are truly fooled by Etro. Not that I can blame you truly; she is good at telling people lies to pull at their heartstrings. But know this Corin: Etro is the one trying to destroy everything, and this time, I am the one trying to save everything and everyone. Even you, my enemy."
"Hmph," Corin hummed with a dark smirk. "It seems like you've finally developed a heart, Caius Ballad. I'm certain that will change soon enough."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" he growled.
"Well for one thing, you're going to be dead soon. That heart won't do you much good then."
"You really think I'll die that easily?" Caius laughed again. Corin was seriously flattering himself. If he and Lightning managed to defeat five dragons, how did Corin believe that he stood a chance against even one of them?
"I do," Corin said, smirking slyly. "Especially without your teammate."
Caius's amused smirk disappeared at the mention of Lightning. "What?" he grunted.
"You're a fool, Caius Ballad. Standing here, chatting with me while the rest of my allies ambush the girl on the beach."
He's lying! Caius thought to himself, stunned into silence. But he was the only one lying. It all made sense. He wondered why Corin was babbling to him instead of trying to steal back the powerful fragments…This was a trap set to keep him here while Lightning met certain doom. And he fell for the trap so easily that it was pathetic.
Caius grunted, reaching down and grabbing the five fragments before he sprinted back the way that he came. Corin's laugher echoed in his ears. Lightning had to still be at the beach. That was where he told her to search. He had thought that it would be safer for her to search in a more open area; nobody could sneak up on her. But those precautions weren't going to do her any good when they were planning on ambushing her anyway. How could he have been such a fool! After all that happened, he should have never left her alone. He should have forced her to accept his company so that they could search together, whether she wanted to be alone or not.
The man broke through the edge of the woods, stumbling onto the sand and witnessing the beach before him. He wasn't prepared for what he saw.
Lightning, standing calmly in the sand with her sword out. On the ground surrounding her, five fallen men laid. Defeated.
"Etro must be pretty desperate to send weak men like these to attack us, huh Caius?" Lightning asked calmly, looking over at him. She wasn't even out of breath.
Caius grunted, smiling faintly out of both satisfaction and relief. "Desperate indeed," he agreed, starting towards us. "She's a fool for allowing her followers to use this strategy."
"What strategy, attacking when we're separated?"
He held up the fragments that he held in both hands. "And allowing Corin to gather all the fragments and putting them out of the open to keep me occupied." That part of the plan had worked, but he wasn't about to confess to Lightning how worried he had been over her. He was hardly admitting it to himself at this point.
Lightning scoffed. "Does she think we're that dependent on each other? That we're nothing on our own?"
"That seems to be the premise."
She nodded faintly. "I'd say that we should prove her wrong, but splitting up just to save our egos isn't a good idea."
"Right," he agreed.
Lightning looked past Caius then, seeing a figure standing at the edge of the woods. His expression was shocked, and furious. "Nice to see you again Corin," she greeted calmly. "Hope you don't mind that we turned your own trap against you."
The tribesman was silent, fuming too much to speak.
"Listen up," she continued. "We have nothing against you. You're a puppet of Etro just like we were. But stand in our way again and we won't hesitate to kill you."
"How kind of you," Corin said lowly, sarcastic.
"Yeah," Lightning said seriously. "It is kind. So take the kindness and get out of here before we change our minds. Etro will bring these men back to you if she cares."
As if on cue, a rift appeared next to Corin. Etro wanted her warrior elsewhere. The man, though he may have been on the wrong side, was still human and compassionate enough to glance at his men one more time before he disappeared. He trusted Etro that much? It was going to come back and bite him in the end.
"Come on, Caius," Lightning said after a moment of staring at the place Corin disappeared from.
"Where are we going?"
"Away from all these unconscious people."
Caius grunted and nodded, still holding the fragments in his hands as he started down the beach. Lightning followed, putting her sword away as they walked. There wasn't too much to say, really. They had been apart maybe twenty minutes. He hoped that was enough time for Lightning to be alone, because he wasn't going to leave her side again. Even if she was strong and capable of taking care of herself. Caius was used to being a protector, so leaving alone somebody he cared about didn't sit well with him. And neither did his heart. His emotions were so strong he didn't know what to do with them. His worry as well.
With his worry burdening him, he had to ask Lightning a question. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Lightning nodded. "Those idiots didn't know what hit them. Don't know how they got the idea I'd be some helpless little girl."
Lightning sounds guarded. Tense. Caius was confused at the bitterness in her tone, and though he probably should have dropped the topic, he didn't. "Maybe they heard about what happened in Valhalla."
"What happened in Valhalla doesn't reflect on my weakness or strength," Lightning scoffed. "Etro's in a completely different playing field. Just because she knocked me out doesn't mean that some random person can walk up and kill me."
"Lightning, I know," Caius said as he stopped walking. After walking a few steps ahead of him, Lightning turned around to see his arched brow. Not only was she extremely defensive about this, but she was also speaking as if she were angry at Caius. And for once, he hadn't done anything wrong.
Realizing this, she glanced down at the ground. "Sorry," she muttered.
"It's fine," he replied. "But the more you act so unusual, the more I sense you're hiding something."
"I'm not."
"Do you take me for a fool?"
"Nope. Do you take me for somebody who lies just for the fun of it?"
"No…"
"Then take me for my word and drop it," Lightning said.
Caius studied Lightning. She was wearing a mask. Others would have been fooled by it, but he wasn't. She was keeping a secret from him, whether she admitted it or not. And she wouldn't, so continuing this conversation was pointless. "Fine," he said simply. "Let's study these fragments."
Lightning nodded, still guarded as she looked down at the five fragments Caius held in his hands. "Are you sure these are the real deal, and that Corin didn't just pile up a bunch of fakes to get your attention?"
"I'm sure," he reassured her. "The aura radiating from them cannot be impersonated. These are definitely the remains of the dragons."
"Okay, well, good," Lightning said with a nod. "Any ideas on what we can do with them?"
"At the moment, none." Originally, he and Lightning had planned to use a few fragments to strengthen her weapon so that she could fight the dragons. But they just defeated the last dragons that harassed Gran Pulse and Bhunivelze, so there was no need for that. A weapon, no matter how strong it was, probably couldn't defeat Etro. They'd waste the materials if they used them on Lightning's gunblade now. "I assumed that our next adventure would be to research uses for the fragments."
"Alright. Let's get going."
"Right now?"
"No, in two weeks," Lightning said sarcastically. "Yes now. Unless you have something else to do in this time period that I don't know about."
"No," he said as he shook his head. "Let's go. Where am I making a rift to?"
"Maybe Academia sometime. That's the most advanced city in the future, so they should have the most information on any topic."
"That works." Caius handed the fragments to Lightning before he walked a few steps away, trusting that she would put them in her pouch with the other fragments to keep them safe. He had to focus; they wanted to go to Academia. Or did they? Did they really want to research the dragon fragments right now? Honestly, he was starting to doubt that Lightning was in the right place mentally to continue full speed ahead with this journey.
He sighed, shaking his head faintly. I don't know what's best. I want to go wherever is best, as long as that place isn't near Etro.
A rift appeared before him and Lightning. Without looking at each other, both of them walked through to their next destination.
*…*…*…*…*…*
Hours and hours later, Caius was positive that Lightning would never allow him to create another rift. He couldn't bring them to Academia no matter how hard he tried. First they wound up in the Vile Peaks, then the Palumpolum, and then Nautilus. Lightning kept urging him to try and get them to Academia, and he didn't bother to argue with her. If he did, she would suspect that his motives were not what they should have been.
Resigned, Caius had a change of heart. All that he wanted was a place to rest for the night. That was when he was finally able to create a portal to the Bresha Woods again. He somehow convinced Lightning that they needed to rest for the night, and she agreed.
"I'll take the first watch," Lightning said as Caius sat down against a tree. "Rest up. Tomorrow we're going to Academia."
"Right," he agreed lowly, nodding. Lightning would create the rift and she would lead them there. He was certain of that. Unless…
It clicked. The reason that Lightning allowed Caius to create the rifts was the same reason that he allowed her to create them on the first half of their journey. Lightning had another desire that was going to block her from creating a rift. Or that desire would lead them somewhere and she would have to admit that something wasn't right.
He shut his eyes before he could stare at her longer. Sooner or later, she would have to open up about what was wrong. It was going to hinder their journey, and he knew that was the last thing that she wanted. Within a few minutes, exhaustion took over for Caius. He breathed evenly and slept.
Hours later, he awoke on his own terms. Lightning hadn't woken him up so that he could watch for a while and she could sleep. Opening his eyes and looking closer to the river, he could see why.
Lightning was laying on her side, facing away from him. Asleep. Despite himself, he smiled faintly. "You couldn't hide your exhaustion forever, I suppose," he said quietly, rising to his feet. He grunted at his stiffness, walking closer to the river. He knew it was impossible to tell the time by the moon, but he felt like gazing up at the sky anyway. Then he would fall asleep again and trust that nothing would come hunt them. This area was proving to be a safe haven.
Caius stood next to Lightning, glancing down at her briefly before looking upward. But then he did a double take. He grunted, eyebrows furrowing as he studied her. "Lightning?"
Her expression was twisted in pain, just as it was when he brought her here after their encounter with Etro.
That settled it. Something was seriously wrong. Caius made his goal at that moment that they would go to Academia tomorrow, but it wouldn't just to research uses of dragon fragments. He would research and discover what was wrong with Lightning.
If he didn't, his heart could burst with worry.
*…*…*…*…*…*
Welp, that's the end of that chapter! Hope you all enjoyed; I'm sure you did. (: Just a general thanks to all of you—your reviews are always so encouraging! I can't believe I have such a supportive fanbase. So thanks for being awesome!
I'm purposely choosing to ignore some questions to not spoil the story, so don't be offended if I didn't answer yours. Your answers will be coming in the story eventually. :3
Ballad JR: "I like the fact that you didn't over do it like other fanfictions…where they just make Lightning look like a damsel in distress :)". I'm glad I did a good job with that! I wanted to show that Lightning IS human and can be vulnerable, and just how dangerous Etro is to be able to take her down so easily. The goddess really is in another level entirely, but Lightning and Caius obviously aren't going to let that stop them. (:
Riku91- I believe I explained why Etro appointed Lightning as her knight in past chapters, but I can't remember the answer for the life of me! If I remember or ever go back and reread that stuff, I'll let you know. xD
That's it for today, so until next time!
Peanut