[Fanfic] To Learn Something New (ch 6)

Title: To Learn Something New

Author: Vianna Orchidia / Annasthacy Chashyme
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII Series
Character: Lightning Farron, Hope Estheim, Serah Farron
Rating: K
Genre: General
Disclaimer: I do not own the series and the characters, and I do not gain any profit from this fanfiction

Warning: AR, set after FFXIII-2 and before LR

Cat /cat/ n a small animal that is related to lions and tigers and that is often kept by people as a pet

A cat. A snow white, huge cat with other-worldly jade green eyes. It hopped onto Lightning's desk with four lean, powerful limbs, and began circling the whole surface of the desk. It would be kind of normal had its eyes not stared at her general direction all the while.

Besides, her office was like on the third story, among the innermost area of the Military Unit's headquarter. How in Pulse did that thing get inside, anyway?

A soft purr led her eyes back to the offending creature, now stretching comfortably right at the center of her desk, on her bloody report, acting as innocent as a cat could muster. Lightning frowned at it but made no move to shoo it away.

There's something about the cat that caught her off guard. Perhaps it's the eyes. Jade eyes, almost human, that were trained faithfully on her person. She could swear she knew those eyes. A long, long time ago... Maybe almost eight hundred years ago, when it all began with the Purge on Bodhum.

Lightning gasped. The albino cat just jumped off her desk, leaving her room with long strides. What was that about?

That was the first time. She realized the cat began to follow her, appearing all of a sudden in front of her only to leave a minute later. Sometimes she found it watching her curiously from the side but disappeared when she turned her head. It was watching with its jade eyes, menacingly so. Lightning knew it spelled trouble, but she still felt that overwhelming curiosity concerning the cat.

Only after a few years she understood where the color of those irises came from. A white-haired boy. l'Cie brand. Orange jacket and tosca scarf. It had been so long that she took a while to assemble the figure of a boy she once called partner.

The moment she realized, she was already trapped in the illusion of a cat, sometimes a boy, taking her far into the realms of God.

A/N: I was in a sour mood yesterday, so all I could come up with is dark-themed drabbles. This one is based on “Hope got dragged into Valhalla instead of Lightning” what-if. The white cat is supposed to be Hope's counterpart of rose-haired phantom.