Chapter Nine
A flyer passing by overhead in the early evening sky woke up Hope & Lightning lying on the couch, and they stumbled to the kitchen to get water and look for something to eat, as Lightning's appetite was starting to return; they ended up sitting in an old haunt, a hole in the wall that grilled skewers of meat or seafood in front of them in a tiny grill washed down with beer. Hope gently prodded her with questions until she finally saw what he had seen.
What had happened was simply life: Yes, her decisions had steered things in certain directions, but Serah had made choices, and would keep on making bad choices until she learned that she had a responsibility to herself. If it wasn't Noel who wasn't hurt, it'd be someone, somewhere. Hope frowned when he heard the nomad's haughty refusal of her offer, but also defended Noel, stating it was most likely when she said it , or how she said it, versus what she said. "Any offer of love or friendship is quite serious to Nomads; the only thing that means more is the sacred hospitality of the desert traveler. It's not given or taken lightly. But they are a singular lot, Light. Being alone for so long gives even the smallest thing import, with long memories; he may remember a girl giving him a drink at a well when he was 13, then go back 10 years later and pick her out of a crowd and pursue her with an intensity that can draw blood, if challenged. He may have said no today, but don't be surprised if he carves the eyes out of the next man that even looks at you at Valhalla. They all have this thing about waiting for the right time, the right person, the right place. The desert teaches them not to hurry, unlike us in the city. Give him some time."
"I don't think that's going to happen, Hope. I know the ring of truth when I hear it – I'm just a paid whore to that man." What's worse is I agree with Noel – I've been whoring myself for almost 5 years and for what end? To keep a family together that doesn't want me as family? To watch a good man ruin himself? The song's right: All the good ones are taken.
"However, I should tell you something, and it will sting a bit; you were damned foolish for putting Noel with Serah instead of yourself. You're the elder and you've the talent – you were a greater target, the greater loss than your sister; you let your habits overrule your instinct this time. Do you see it?"
Here's something else you didn't see, my jaded blood: It was you he dove for in that attack, not Serah; Shadow Hunter Noel Kriess already picked you as his – it's no surprise to me you'd end up in his arms.
Hope shook off the gut wrenching memory of Noel and Lightning plummeting off the roof into space like a comet, until the spider-silk of his rope unraveling from his waist pack ran out & sent the pair arcing between the skyscrapers instead of lying crushed and broken on the ground. He decided it was time to tell her his theory on why she and Serah were targeted.
"So…Kriess said you had no family? No breeding? No inheritance? Light, you have all that and more."
Puzzled, she simply held his gaze as she tilted her bottle of beer up and swallowed.
"Do you remember your father at all? Ever wonder why you never saw your father's side of the family after he was declared dead? I hate to disparage the memory of your mother, but Light…she made choices without consulting the family; in her defense, I think she was simply in an emotional state after your father disappeared and was doing what she did best: protecting her own. To put it simply, she moved away, cut the family ties and…disappeared from the society she was born into. Your mother kept you from them. She hid herself and the two of you away, and they forgot about you…for a while. Did she leave you anything? Your father did. You have a name, a noble name, Light."
"No I don't! She told me Farrons were as common as dirt. The only thing I have of dad is dad's necklace. No…wait...I gave it to Noel; he gave me his…see? I thought it was something he valued, a family piece, you know? so I took it as my cut, and I thought I might return it later." She sighed a bit sadly before speaking again: "Damn, now I'll never see it again. It was the one thing that kept dad's memory with me every day. I kept thinking maybe Noel did the same with this." She slipped the intricately braided leather cord over her head and idly swung the necklace in her finger, watching the gold discs twinkle in the dim light of the little bar.
"I think so, Light…it looks to be about 5 generations old – and it's pure gold. Nomads wear their wealth; according to the Imperate records, he's a pureblood, so he's not a poor boy by any means. But your necklace was also to be valued, Light."
"Are you sure?"
"It was a lightning bolt, right? Like this?"
He showed her a picture off his cell, her pendant, sparkling, but with icy blue white gems, not the vivid golden shade as hers were. She nodded, now curious. Hope took her hands in his and leaned in close, his soft green eyes sparkling and just as hard as the gems in the pendant as he told her the truth: "That pendant was pure iridium and Sun's Eyes and it's worth just as much as a five generation old nomad necklace, if not more. You could buy Valhalla with the metal alone. Your father tried to ensure you would not be in want, but your mother didn't know. And that's not all. Farron is the most common name out there because it's one of the oldest names on Pulse, woman."
Lightning shut her eyes as she realized she'd been wearing a 5 million Gil safety net around her neck for 6 years. Overwhelmed by her father's secret love-gift she moaned and sought Hope's warm hand to reassure herself she was still on Pulse and not in the wrong timeline. Hope interlaced fingers through hers, kissed the scars on the left knuckles from that fateful day of the Purge, held them up to his cheek before ever so quietly, ruthlessly continuing with the roll list of facts: " Darling girl, my sooty winged angel…Farron means 'handsome servant'; your father Edward was given the surname as his title when the Fal'Cie knighted him before the great purge. You're not from some commoner line scratching dirt with 16 other mouths crammed in subsistence housing. You're like me, Light. You're House Imperate. Both your mother and your father."
After she stared at him in startled silence, she burst out with questions, then shut her mouth when Hope softly hushed her with affectionate 2 fingers over her lips. He continued the story when they got back to his place, pulling his dossier of research into the mystery of why two women, one a bar girl, one a student, were targeted by a professional assassin team. It took another two hours of papers, old news archives, government online records, a half carton of ice cream, a cigarette, two beers and a late-night sushi delivery before she was convinced and he ran out of words. In short, two of the attempts were Fal'Cie acting by command of an insulted god to twist one strong willed shadow hunter, but it was also upper city intrigue: someone knew they were Farrons, and wanted them dead before they found out the truth – and it wasn't the Farrons, either. Noel had done a tremendous amount of research based on his extraordinary flash of intuition and Hope's pattern-seeking, brilliant, theory-hopping brain managed to help put it all together in one cohesive summary. She ceased to underestimate the interior of Noel's head and applauded her cousin's brilliance after nearly screaming once presented with the fact she was what he said she was. After downing a double shot of Hope's top-shelf vodka, gasping at the unreality of the truth and letting Hope attempt to open a bottle of champagne, which exploded and fountained over both of them, did she allow herself one good tackle and a round of enthusiastic hugging.
Clearly surprised, he returned the hugs, and with the clarity that come when one is fairly inebriated, she could tell by the way he kept hold of her longer than necessary, that her painfully shy, gorgeous, elegant cousin was still attracted after 5 years. She almost put him off, but something inside made her re-think her earlier decision at age 16. They were adults now; she was grateful for years of his steadfast support, and she had only one coin to pay him in; herself. So she drifted around the apartment for a few moments to gather her courage to offer herself.
She looked out the window at the cityscape at night strung out in glittering necklaces of sun's eyes in a muted twinkling rainbow below them as she said: "You know, it's too bad we're related, I was just about to see if that offer for a bed was open. Perhaps I should just…go forward. "
"It still is. But I know who your heart really belongs to. I wish I could say I had the passion to match his, but the truth is, my jade, I know you too well; we've been through…too much. " He shut his green eyes as Vanille's face came forward in his mind, piercing him again with pain, despite 6 years distance from the incident . Light simply nodded, remembering with the same pain. "Vanille. Never forget. She'll always live as long as Hope & Light remember." Then she firmly turned her head to Hope to reach out and hold him, sure he was going to weep at the loss again, and her jaw dropped as she saw Hope finish quietly stepping out of his clothes, almost shyly looking over at her through the mass of icy hair waving over an eye like a feral cat, glowing green in the night.
They did share the bed that night; they both knew their hearts were in someone else's hands, but Hope couldn't help wanting to hold her through his lonely nights as an Academian. He'd been approached by men, but he was geared towards women, and they seemed afraid of him, or such opportunists, he retreated behind a polite mask of a professional. He never told Light, but Serah had given him his first experience in sex; he was ashamed to admit he had closed his eyes and imagined it was Lightning, even at age 15 he'd had been intrigued by her. She did not disappoint him in the least, and it did his confidence a lot of good to be able to hold a beautiful woman all night and wake up next to her in the morning, relieved it wasn't his imagination and his left hand.
He was always a considerate, polished, lover, and she gave him the tenderness he needed, as in many ways he was still so young inside. He was in a top position, a protégé of the Fal'Cie ruling class, and it set him apart. Being seen with a mortal woman like Lightning, especially with her scandalous past, actually did his own reputation as a man good instead of harm.
The affection was not one-sided, and Light did not stint her cousin in anything he asked; she gave with a real sense of tenderness, brought his gentle wit out, slowly influenced his reticent personality until he began to shine like the polished, warm, clever and strategic leader he so wanted to be.
Over the weeks they were together, he slowly hammered and forged his Light with lessons until the rough edges were smoothed away, and the address and etiquette of the high court came as naturally as breath to her. There were secret lessons in sensuality taught which she never forgot: hours of a hand simply caressing her head as she leaned it against his knee….an afternoon spent in nothing but her prized pink ice high heeled sandals, being slowly dressed from head to foot in sparkling gems 'borrowed' from the Estheim estate; Hope throwing a credit chip at a waiter as he reached across the table and pulled the stopper of the crystal bottle of 50 year liquor, then ever so delicately tilting it over her bare shoulder and licking it off; she didn't remember if the waiter closed the curtains to the booth, but she remembered the way Hope was just as delicately fed his dessert, one strawberry at a time…the supremely erotic hour of being slowly dressed in a high court kimono, the layers of thin silk the only barrier between herself and Hope's hands; the obi being tied with a breath-taking tightness and with the tenderness that a dominant has when preparing a submissive for the rituals of pleasure…and even more so, the secret delight of knowing she was the one whom would be leaving with the very handsome young man with arresting argenate locks over eyes like the new green of the spring leaves now outside.
Noel would have never recognized the sleek image of lightning in the news cams, or the blogs; elegant and cool, the lost line of Edward Farron was found , and in the notorious Valhalla, no less. She and Hope were made into a star crossed couple for about 9 weeks, until she rejoined the Corps. Hope didn't mind the temporary fame; he & Light were no strangers to each other and it kept some of the more pushy men & women in the Academy off his back. With a secret humor, he ensured she was on his arm at all academy functions, just as she done for him so long ago. She was now gowned to advantage, her hair tinted icy silver white like his, and elegantly bejeweled according to her status in the Fal'Cie class. In fact, it gave him a great deal of pleasure to undress her from all these fine things, he would whisper in good humor as he would kiss her shoulder to start a gentle session of loveplay.
Edward Farron's holdings had gone to a second cousin and the government, but Hope had cleverly claimed only a 20% right, so it was simply reimbursed from the treasury & the cousin' s holdings with little argument. He knew once they met Lightning, they'd accept her and the 20% would grow from wise investment advice from the House Farron; however, the real goal was for her to know she had family.
She was invited to visit and remake family acquaintance, so she went, leaning on Hope; it turned out fairly well, they were reassured she was not a guttersnipe as Noel so kindly put it, but someone they had let fall by the ways due to faulty relations with her parent; by all means she had the family traits - she'd pulled her weight in caring for her sister, made the most out the situation she had been in, just like any of them would have done & kept her head up and her nose clean, and with determined stubbornness they knew so well, as each of them had it in plenty. She finally stood before the portrait of Edward Farron that afternoon and saw she was more like him than not; they brought out more images, books, cammed recording from family functions; other cousins were called and they simply talked through the evening, fueled by liquor and firelight, music and their children's and grandchildren's eager eyes; the elders all told the old stories of Edward Farron, until she put down her glass and wept, slowly realizing all this, a family, a name, pride, honor, had been kept from her all this time. They were pleased with her then, as she longed for the things naturally that were her right, and took into their hearts.