Remembering Innocence [Vanille] - Complete

Walking here, walking there, Vanille was starting to feel like a messenger girl. She was called back and forth at times to try and find people, to hunt them down and figure out where they were. Thank the lord for cell phones, it had come in use! It was great what things you could find on crashed PSICOM vessels. Random communication devices? Yes! A win! And it would certainly help her locate some of her friends. She’d already gotten a hold of Snow and Serah. She’d already spoken with Fang and Lightning, so all that left was…Hope and Sazh! Really, in all honestly, Nille was making good progress by now with trying to find the others ever since her and Fang awoke again. It would be nice to have the whole entire gang back together…no, the entire family. That’s what they were, maybe not related by blood or anything, but still, a family none the less.

Vanille happily clutched her cell phone as she wandered back towards the village of Oerba. Her home town, she loved that place, even if it wasn’t in the best shape it was still home sweet home. Smiling as she walked along the crystal sand towards the town. She had called Hope, saying she would come find him, starting here was the best place! She had received a call back but had missed it, luckily he left a message and thankfully he was in Oerba! It was fantastic and she couldn’t wait to see him! Maybe he knew where Sazh and his son Dajh were? It’d be nice to see them while she was in town for awhile before running off to find someone else again. Finally, when the sand turned to a stone path, Vanille stopped and placed the phone she had been gripping tightly back in a pouch by her bear sash that was tied around her waist. How convenient. Now it was mission time! Vanille had to search around Oerba, through all the standing homes to try and find Hope!

Strides began to turn into skips as Vanille wandered down through the town, looking around the different homes nearby for the silver haired boy she had tried to keep cheerful most of their time together. Stopping a bit and shielding her eyes from the sun, Vanille looked around, twisting in a circle before something caught her eyes. Looking in the distance she squinted her eyes to see through the glare of the sun beating down on the stone pavement. She watched someone walking, on the shorter side, especially due to the distance, and whoever it was seemed to resemble Hope. Maybe he had gone outside to wait for her? That was a nice thing to do, but Vanille wasn’t going to start jumping up and down until she was sure it actually was Hope. Resting her hand down at her side again, Vanille started walking, her arms swaying at her sides as she took rather quick steps to close the gap between her and the person she recognized as Hope Estheim. The closer she got, the more convinced she was that the person ahead was indeed Hope, it made her smile.

With the biggest smile she could conjure up, Vanille started waving her right hand around in the air, waving towards Hope before she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted “HOPE!!!!!!!!!” with that followed a few giggles and another huge wave before moving once more. Now this time, she was running towards Hope, arms really swaying at her side with the occasional wave as she ran as well. The distance between the two was closing in rapidly, Vanille was getting over excited and was running at top speed. Knowing her, she was bound to trip or something with going so fast right now. She stumbled a bit, hitting the toe of her heal against the ground causing her to trip up a bit, but she easily gained back her balance before she practically ran into Hope…but she ran into him for a hug of course! “Hope! It’s so good to see you!” She said as she was hugging him tightly, hopefully not hugging the life out of him, she was just happy…if you couldn’t tell.

Hope's expression brightened even more when he heard Fang was back too, not that he'd ever doubted it. Out of all the other members of the group, Fang had been the one Hope was never really sure about. He had admired her for a bunch of different reasons, but he just couldn't seem to feel quite as comfortable around her as the rest, even after she'd helped him with Alexander. He'd been right to be suspicious, maybe, with what happened when they reached Orphan, but with everything she'd done for them in the end, thinking that they'd lost her was just as tough to take as thinking he'd....they'd....lost Vanille. "That's great! Is she around here?" His best guess was no for right now, since he doubted she'd be that far away from Vanille if she was in the same area code. Maybe she was just taking care of something. "Maybe we can all finally meet up someplace sometime. Maybe even my dad will come......he did end up being a fugitive just like us, after all." He chucked. "I guess you can finally meet him."

"Thing’s haven’t been all smiles and sunshine since we returned but hey! We’ve always made it through right?”

Hope gave a firm nod. "Right." Compared to everything they'd been through as l'Cie, trying to get settled in on Pulse and having to fight away a few monsters every now and then was like tying your shoe. He didn't know what all Vanille and Fang had been dealing with since they arrived, but he figured that having to see your home filled with Cie'th and crystal dust one minute, then turned into a busy settlement the next wasn't the easiest thing to adjust to. But every one of them.....the two Pulsians especially.....knew how to adjust to pretty much anything. Hope figured that's why most of the people here looked to some of them for leadership. People even tried to get Hope's opinions on things every now and then...even if he didn't really know what he was talking about.

When she agreed to go for the walk, Hope wasn't sure if he should lead the way or not. Where would he lead, anyway? Outside of Oerba somewhere where they could talk without people around? Just through the streets? He was genuinely glad when she took a few steps off in one direction herself after the pause, watching that oddly swaying way she walked for about a moment too long. He found himself rubbing at his neck and taking a couple of steps to catch up.

"Well....not really. I just thought.." He rubbed his neck again, realizing he didn't really know what he should talk with Vanille about. Should he act like everything was the same since before she arrived, or would the whole crystalstasis thing make a difference? Now he was just overthinking things. "What do you think about Oerba? All the settlers mostly kept everything intact. Well....everything but a few leftover Cie'th and the dust. We just fixed everything with AMP and fixed up a few old, broken-down buildings."

"Did...you two have anywhere to stay?" It seemed like everyone had grabbed every place possible in order to settled in here. Hope didn't know exactly how long the two natives had been back, but he didn't think there'd been any open places to stay for a while now. "If not, I think we can hold another couple of people...my dad willing, at least."

Hope thought it was kind of out-of-the-ordinary that Vanille wouldn't know where she could find Fang, but he brushed it off. It wasn't like they were attached at the hip or anything. They probably each had their own business to deal with. He did have to wonder what Fang was up to, though. Maybe she just didn't like all the changes to Oerba. But he could only really guess.....and that wasn't really much use for anything. "Maybe she'll drop by sometime...it'd be nice to see her back again, too." Hopefully she wasn't in a bad mood if she did visit.... That was another thing Hope could never figure out about the dragoon. Whether or not he felt protected or scared to death around her.

Grinning about Vanille meeting his dad, Hope opened his mouth to speak again, but waited an embarrassed moment before he did, looking off at something that was suddenly interesting down the street. His eyes finally rested on the bottom of his shirt. "I've.....told him a lot about you. He'll probably be really happy....you know, to finally get a chance to talk to you." Vanille had been the first person to tell him he should try to connect with his dad again. Of course, at that point, Hope hated his dad, being a l'Cie, the Sanctum.....pretty much everything. When he finally got to Palumpolum and found out Vanille had been right, she hadn't even been there to see it. She might not've been completely responsible for him getting to his dad, but she was definitely responsible for making Hope not turn away before he got there.

He wasn't really sure if Vanille herself was that thrilled with all the Cocoon that was in Oerba now, but he didn't think he should ask her anymore about it. It was all necessity anyway, right? Just like she said about herself and Fang, sometimes people had to make a home out of whatever they had. Hope didn't know what was going on with Cocoon nowadays, since he knew people had been visiting it, but he did know that he kind of missed Palumpolum. But in Palumpolum he hadn't had Light or Snow or Sazh or any of the rest. He could make this place into a home just because he did have all those people around him now. And maybe Vanille, if she ever decided she needed a place to stay for a little while.

Hope had been thinking on this while they continued walking, staying silent as he trailed along beside the orange-haired Oerban. So he obviously didn't see the creature up ahead of them. Vanille's high-pitched gasping finally made him pull himself out of his thoughts and look up at her, but he didn't get a chance to see what she was so excited about until she had a grip on his wrist and started pulling. "Whoa! What...?" For a moment or two he thought something was wrong....until he saw the look on her face. So he just followed behind her for a few steps until he finally saw what she was excited about.

"Ohhhh." He said, the realization dawning on him. With a laugh, he picked up his pace so she could stop having to practically drag him along. It was about time something showed up that didn't want to eat everyone in the whole settlement. At least, Hope had never heard of a chocobo eating anyone. He figured they would be a lot less popular with people if he had. Hope had never really been around that many chocobos in his life, so he wasn't really that sure about them. They were animals, after all.

But that didn't mean he was gonna shy away from this one. Especially not with a woman nearby...

Words - 700
Muse - Gewd.
Notes - The ending's kinda meh, but he'll be more interesting once they're actually interacting with ze bird. XD

"...I hope you didn’t say anything bad about me.”

Hope chuckled a little. "I don't think there's anything bad to say." He'd told his dad as much as he could about everyone - even the ones he'd already met in Palumpolum. And since Sazh was still around, his dad would've been able to meet him, too. Vanille was the only one his dad had never laid eyes on and, for a while, would've never been able to meet. Hope had told him most everything about her....maybe too much a few times. But always good things. Hope still thought it was pretty great that he could think back on a time in his life when he was a fugitive fighting for his life and come up with good memories. He wouldn't want to deal with fal'Cie or a Purge again, but...there were parts that were worth all the trouble. And the friends he'd gained were worth it, too.

Nodding a little at Vanille's comment about the Cie'th, he knew she was probably right. Chocobos weren't the only things that were coming back. NORA and the military had been fighting off all kinds of monsters once the Cie'th were cleared out. At least the monsters weren't people one time....and they couldn't fight almost as well as a l'Cie. "We only had a few big chocobos around Palumpolum....I think I saw one in a zoo once when I was little, but that's about it." He said as he was led along, both as a way to actually say something in response to Vanille and maybe partially an excuse not to be that comfortable around the bird. He'd faced down every kind of ugly monster here at some point, he figured, but that didn't mean he had to walk right up to a chocobo without a little bit of caution...

Once they reached the bird, Hope was almost disappointed to be out of Vanille's grip, and ended up standing a few feet away while she comforted the creature. The racing actually sounded pretty fun...Hope remembered seeing something about chocobo races on Cocoon. They looked pretty fast... Racing on Pulse was probably a lot more fun than Cocoon. And probably more dangerous, too. Maybe he'd race one sometime.

Just not right now.

Vanille apparently noticed Hope keeping a few feet between himself and the bird, and spoke up. Well, so much for trying to hide the fact that he didn't want his head pecked off. Too bad all chocobos couldn't stay the size of Sazh's. Hope took a few steps towards the bird, raising his hand to pat it on the other side of its neck. The bird looked down at Hope's hair with a little bit of curiosity, but after a couple of seconds of Hope staring back up at it with an awkward smile in the corner of his mouth, it seemed perfectly fine with being scratched by two different sets of hands. "He's just as easy to get along with as Sazh's chick.....you think he'd help me clean the house sometime?" He asked, with a grin. Chocobos were smart - that was something Hope definitely knew about them.

Turning back to Vanille, Hope raised his eyebrows, forgetting about the chocobo for a second even as he kept on scratching it. "Yeah?" He had no clue what it was exactly she wanted to talk about, or why she hadn't already said something about it - and he definitely didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Studying her face, he shrugged his shoulders a bit. "What is it?"

"I can't argue with that." was Hope's response to Vanille's talk of the Pulse chocobos. Pulse was something else good that had come out of Hope's time as a l'Cie. All he'd ever known before being Purged was Palumpolum, a city that was nice to look at but stuck in a fairly ugly place (to him, anyway). He didn't mind city life, but that's probably what made him so soft to begin with. And all he'd ever been taught in school (which was another bonus of Pulse - not having any school yet) was that Gran Pulse was filled with witches and barbarians and monsters and pretty much everything no kid from Cocoon ever wanted to see. Maybe some of that had been right - there were plenty of monsters, and plenty of things Hope had never wanted to see. And even though he only knew two Pulsians, he knew that they weren't barbarians at all. In fact, they might have been even better people than a lot of the people on Cocoon. Witches? Maybe...but just because of the magic thing. That made Hope a wizard, didn't it?

Cracking a smile at the thought, he wondered if he should say something to Vanille and if she'd find it just as funny. But..he wasn't really sure, and she seemed perfectly happy and pretty standing there petting the chocobo, so he decided to stay quiet for now and keep on with the petting himself. He did notice the slightest bit of a distant look on her face every now and then, ever since she'd first gotten here. It could have just been Hope imagining things, since he hadn't seen her in a while and maybe he'd just forgotten how she reacted to certain things, but he definitely thought there was something going on that she was edging towards talking about. Was it something about Fang? Was that why they weren't together right now? Hope could play the guessing game all day without figuring anything out, though.

That's why he wasn't really sure what she was going to tell him when she got that serious look on her face until she actually said it, even if he'd been hoping for something a lot better than what she actually told him... Her bringing up Lightning contacting him made him wonder....he'd talked to her, yeah, but she'd just been checking on him.....right? Was she checking on him because she thought something bad had happened, or something bad had happened to her? Hope's mind raced all the way until the point that Vanille said the name Barthandelus. His jaw dropping, he took a step back from her and the chocobo as she finished what she was saying. "What!?" He yelped out, spooking the chocobo a bit as he did so. That didn't make any sense....it couldn't make any sense...and he didn't want it to make any sense. They'd brought down Barthandelus for good...he knew it....

"How!? We all saw what happened to him!" Hope thought he was done with corrupt fal'Cie. He really did. He thought his worst problem right now was the whole girl thing he was trying to figure out that was made even worse by Vanille standing in front of him. But this...this wasn't right. Staring at the ground in frustration, he stepped back up to the chocobo and started rubbing him again, shaking his head in amazement while he did. "Where is he now?" He looked up and asked her, finally grabbing ahold of himself well enough to make some sense of the thing. Maybe he'd come back......but if he wasn't causing any trouble here, they didn't have anything to worry about? Right? Maybe Titan wouldn't let him on Pulse...

A lot of maybes when it came to fal'Cie.

Slowly but surely, the shock began to settle out, Hope's frantic mind calming down just long enough for him to reel himself in. Instead of barking out, he became quiet, just listening to all Vanille was telling him with a little bit of worry in his eyes. The story had its high points....Raines was back. Hope, honestly, was relieved to hear that Rosch, who had turned out to be a pretty decent guy at the end of the chaos, had been brought back. The rest was mostly a mixed bag, as well. Frustration washed over, thinking that Barthandelus could play with the eight of them, including Dajh and Serah, like they were his toys again. Would the situation have been any better if he were toying with other innocent people? No, not at all. Hope would have still noticed the burning desire to stop the fal'Cie yet again growing in his chest even if Barthandelus was off on another planet, bothering people Hope would never meet. Hope almost wished he had all of his powers again, just so he could stand up to Barthandelus as a l'Cie again and make sure he hit him with so many Thundaga spells that the fal'Cie would never come back again.

Heh, that seemed like something Snow would think. Hope seemed to feel that old anger he'd felt at Snow once in the past over the death of his mother at Barthandelus, though this time his new family were the victims, and he had just as little power now to do something about the perpetrator as he'd had to stand up to Snow. At least he had the courage now....what little good it would do him. What else wouldn't do him any good? Getting discouraged. He should have learned that lesson long before now...like the last time he got so discouraged that it basically made him sick. And when he radiated discouragement, it passed over to other people. He noticed Vanille's expression fall, and a weird feeling compelled him to take an awkward step towards her. He always said he didn't want to bring the people around him down, and it bothered him to see that happening now. With things as they were, Vanille probably didn't need another reason to feel down, but Hope still felt kind of responsible.

His mouth fumbled open for a moment, trying to think of something reassuring to say, but Vanille beat him to the punch. Straining his mouth into a smile, he nodded in agreement with her. "Right." Not the most reassuring of rights, but Hope used it to swallow his despair. He really really really wanted to give Vanille a reassuring pat or squeeze or something (despite being the one that probably needed more reassuring), but he ultimately just kept on scratching the neck of the chocobo. The bird was a welcome distraction. Too bad he couldn't take down Barthandelus. The chocobo seemed to warp at Hope's thoughts.

"I'm just...wondering if this won't happen over and over. If we have to stop him again...or even if it's someone else this time...what if he just comes back again and again and again? It's all the same both ways." The next words he kept to himself. Once a l'Cie, always a l'Cie. Even if there wasn't any brand or any focus for he himself or for Vanille, wouldn't they always feel like they were responsible to fight against something like Barthandelus? Wasn't it almost like a responsibility? Hope found himself literally shaking his silver hair back and forth to stop writing the book before he knew the facts.

But they had more to rely on now, right? More knowledge of how to beat him, more friends to help them. Heck, the military might even try to fight Barthandelus this time. Thinking about how much they'd gained since their time as l'Cie was at least encouraging. "Maybe if he sees the whole world's against him now, he'll back off." Hope thought out loud. "We've still all got each other. And maybe Rosch and Raines. I guess it's not us against the world this time around. It's him against all of us." The words actually felt kind of comforting to him....hopefully, they would do the same for Vanille.

"Maybe we should have known it would be like this. I mean, we were always fighting a god...and gods are supposed to be eternal. We got caught up in the fight and forgot that the fal'Cie were the ones that formed the worlds we live in. I guess as long as the worlds exist, the fal'Cie will too. Doesn't mean we can't stand up to them, but...." Hope reluctantly added to his depressing points, but saying all these things out loud at least kept the weight off of his shoulders. He knew what it felt like to have too much baggage, in the form of anger and sorrow, hanging from his shoulders. Telling someone what he really felt, even if it was something the other person wouldn't want to hear. "...they'll always outlast us anyway, won't they? Humans can get old....and, well, you know. Fal'Cie are always going to be around."

Actually, something ironic occurred to him. Again, instead of keeping it to himself, he kind of thought out loud, his eyes just kind of wandering along the ground. "Heh...they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot with l'Cie...they just make those humans angrier and give them the power to fight back against them. Now that we've showed people that a l'Cie can beat a focus, Dysley might think again before trying to use people. If he's supposed to be a higher being, he should be smart enough to figure out he's just wasting his time trying to fool people." It kind of helped to think about Dysley as the stupid, stubborn one, when he liked to think his 'piteous l'Cie' or whatever he'd called them were the foolish ones. He also seemed less imposing when you thought about him as a ranting old man who was set in his ways. After all, he pretty much was a ranting old man, even if he did have godly powers. But as long as he kept giving humans godly powers, his own abilities wouldn't matter much.

He already felt a lot better about things, and thinking about an entire world's worth of people against a corrupt fal'Cie like Barthandelus only made him feel better. The corruption of fal'Cie was no longer a secret now, as it had been when the brand sat on Hope's arm and marked him as a Pulse l'Cie to be feared. People knew what the corruption had done to Cocoon - they could see their planet looming above them every day of their lives and knew about Dysley's plot now. Even though they tolerated the Pulse fal'Cie like Titan and Atomos mainly because they minded their own business, they were still unhappy with fal'Cie in general for orchestrating the destruction of their home. If they saw that Barthandelus had come back to bother them again....it would be a much different story than last time. "Yeah." Hope chimed in, finally managing a genuinely optimistic tone and looking Vanille straight in the eye. "He's just a coward. Once he finds out people won't let him control them anymore, he'll give up. And if he doesn't...everyone will show him why humans control their own fates now."

A small, absent grin actually crossed his face, with him almost able to see Dysley's face if a million people or more stood up to him. Would he really have so much power with so many people against him? Hope didn't think so. His power was built on fooling people, and he wouldn't be fooling anybody anymore. Hope meant to say something to Vanille about that, but when she recommended changing the subject, he gave his head a slight nod in agreement. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea." He answered, his good mood mostly renewed. He glanced again to the chocobo that he'd temporarily forgotten about, scrunching up his eyebrows in focus and thought. "Do.....you think there are any more around?" He asked, not betraying his reasoning behind asking.