Crimson Moon, Second Chapter

"My, my, my. You seem quite upset with me." If the large gash that ran across one side of Lightning's chest bothered her, she didn't show it. Instead, she seemed more put out by the damage that had been done to her clothes. "You do realise that I'm going to need another shirt now."

"Shut up." Fang grimaced as the last vestiges of her transformation faded away. Then she turned on her heel and stomped back toward her cottage.

Ripping Lightning's chest open hadn't been nearly as satisfying as she'd hoped. The vampire was much older than the last time they'd fought and far more powerful. Tearing her chest apart wasn't going to do much more than annoy her. Fang shivered. But even now, after all these years, there was still something irresistible about Lightning.

In her more lupine form, Fang's keen senses were ramped up even further. Lightning's scent, the taste of her blood, the feel of her skin – all of it called out to the part of Fang that was most primal, the part that snarled at shadows and revelled in the light of the moon. That part still wasn't sure whether it wanted to rip Lightning limb from limb or throw her to the ground and claim her.

"Is that an invitation?" Lightning shrugged off her cloak – it would take forever to get all the blood out of it – and hung it on the fence nearby.

The wound on Lightning's chest was already healing, and her torn throat had healed some time ago. Her lips curled. If Fang had truly wanted to kill her, she would have done a lot more than simply use her teeth and claws. Werewolves, especially ones with Fang's lineage and age, had magic of their own – magic that had very… deleterious effects on things like vampires that straddled the boundaries of life and death.

"You're going to come in anyway, aren't you?" Fang growled, a low rumble that brought a smile to Lightning's face. She wasn't some little fledgling to be scared off by a threatening noise or two. "It's a pity that you don't actually have to invite vampires in. They can come and go as they please."

"I'm positively weeping. But, yes, I was hoping that you would be more reasonable now that you've handled some of that pent up aggression that you werewolves always have so much of."

Fang stopped, turned, and bared her teeth. It was a rather impressive display, and Lightning had always thought that Fang was her most attractive when she was like this – so close to losing control. "You have a lot of nerve saying that after what you did."

"Really?" Lightning drawled. She moved with languid grace, gliding over to Fang and pulling back the ruins of her shirt to reveal the scar on the other side of her chest. Eyes gleaming, she grabbed Fang's wrist and lifted the other woman's hand to cover the old injury. "Because if I remember correctly, you're the one who tried to kill me first."

Fang flinched. Lightning bit back a chuckle. Even after all these years, the werewolf still had trouble accepting the… messy way their relationship had ended. "You're oversimplifying things, and you know it. It was… complicated."

"Yes, well, it's very simple now." Lightning brushed past Fang and stepped into the cottage. Her eyes had no trouble seeing in the dark. What a quaint, little place it was. There was nothing there except for a bed, a table, some chair, and a few bits and pieces. "You do enjoy living simply, don't you?"

"Yes. Unlike some people I don't need a castle." Fang walked past Lightning, shoving her none-too-gently out of the way. "That's for your kind."

"We vampires do enjoy the finer things in life." Lightning took a chair at the table.

Fang loomed over her, and Lightning reached out to wipe some of the blood off the other woman's chest. The werewolf's transformation had a somewhat unfortunate effect on her clothes, and Fang was now as naked as the day she was born, not that Lightning particularly minded. Fang was very nice to look at it.

Besides, Lightning was curious to see how much damage she'd done to Fang. She'd landed a few blows of her own, and although all of those wounds had already healed, the blood still remained. She ran one finger along Fang's side – one of her shadows had cut deeply along the werewolf's flank – and then raised her finger to her lips.

The taste of Fang's blood was even better than it had been. The rich, fine flavour was now accented with centuries' worth of additional power and a strange, brooding darkness that hadn't been there before. How interesting. What had Fang been up to?

"You still taste exquisite." Lightning tilted her head to one side, watching the movement of toned muscle as Fang snatched some clothes off the table and put them on. "And you look even better."

"Keep your eyes and hands to yourself." Fang took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Her scent filled the air, heavy with aggression. "You're not going to leave, are you?"

"No." Lightning was tempted to put her feet up, but even she could only push Fang so far. "I meant what I said. You need to go home and take control of your clan. I will not have another war erupt on my doorstep, and the Pact will not hold if the Yun go to war. You know that."

"Why did you do it, Lightning?" Fang's voice was quiet but hard. "Why did you almost let me kill you the last time?"

Any trace of levity fled from Lightning, and her blue eyes grew cold. "I wanted to know if you would." Lightning leaned over the table, her fingers drumming out a slow, steady beat in time with the beating of Fang's heart. "You always said you loved me, but I wanted to know if you loved your clan more than me." She pulled back. "And you made the choice I always knew you would." She sighed. "Now, can I have a shirt too, or are you going to stare at my chest all night?"

Fang snorted. "Don't flatter yourself." She threw a shirt at Lightning. "And you're oversimplifying things again. Did you really think we could run off together? There was a war, Lightning. They would have hunted us down, and back then neither your nor I were anywhere near as strong as we are now. We wouldn't have lasted a week."

"True." Lightning pulled on the shirt. "But that's what happens when you're young. You come up with the most foolish ideas." She gazed across the table, eyes boring into Fang's. "But I grew up, only you never did. You're still hiding away from the world instead of taking what is yours by right."

"I never fit in with the others," Fang replied. "I never gave a damn about them either. The only one I care about is Vanille." She folded her arms over her chest and gave another one of those low, rumbling growls. "You know what my clan prizes. The Yun talk about pack – about family – but when my parents died, what did they do? They left me to rot. All that talk of pack and family was just that – talk. No, what they really care about is strength and power, and I wasn't strong enough or powerful enough to care about. The Dia might be a bunch of aggravating, overly curious fools, but they understand what pack is. They understand what family means."

"You're strong enough now, though." Lightning stared at Fang.

She wondered if the Yun even realised what they'd done. By mocking Fang for her weakness and ostracising her, they'd forced her to develop the power and strength she now had. Being this close to Fang was like being around another ancient vampire. The werewolf radiated enough power to cow most other beings into submission with her presence alone. Even now, powerful currents of magic rustled through the werewolf's body. Even without transforming, Fang would be able to match her physical strength. Once she transformed, Lightning wasn't sure if there was any vampire strong enough to match Fang's in physical combat.

"Why not make them suffer then?" Lightning asked. "If you're in charge, you can make them pay."

"I don't want that." Fang shook her head. "I tried living with them again for a while after the war, when I could show them I was stronger. They never changed. They never stopped wanting another war." She gazed down at her hands. She'd done some awful things back then to try to win acceptance. "But only a madman wants to go back to the days when we sent children into battle. If I took control, I'd never keep it, not for long."

Lightning held her tongue. Fang had a point. But there had to be others who felt as Fang did. Even amongst the Yun, it could not be possible for all of them to want a return to the days of war and bloodshed. Her jaw clenched. Werewolves and vampires had died in droves during the war, ripping and tearing each other apart. Only a handful of the ancients from that era had survived to take leadership afterward.

Both their races had come close to extinction before taking centuries to rebuild their numbers. Lightning had been young then, a foolish vampire warrior with nothing more than a couple of centuries under her belt. She was one of the oldest now, a ruler amongst her people. She pushed her fledglings hard, but she had not desire for them to see war like she had.

"You will never know if you don't try. Besides, I never thought you were a coward."

"It's not cowardice." Fang banged one fist on the table. "Only a fool tries to change what cannot be changed."

"I once knew someone who wanted to change the world," Lightning replied.

"You killed her when you put a sword through her chest."

Lightning laughed and tapped Fang's chest. "Oh no, she's quite alive. And I was only repaying the favour."

She glanced out the window. Dawn was only a few hours away, and she'd said more than enough. If she pushed any harder, Fang would simply dig her heels in and refuse. Fang had to believe that the final choice was up to her. She also needed to find a place to rest during the day. A vampire her age could walk in the sun, at least for a while, but the effects were extremely unpleasant. It had taken her days to fully heal all of the burns the last time she'd spent more than a few moments in the light.

"I will leave you to your thoughts." Lightning stood and walked to the door. "Think about what we went through, Fang. Do you want anyone else to end up the way we did?" Then she was gone, vanishing into the darkness.

X X X

Fang tried to sleep after Lightning left, but she couldn't. Part of it was excitement. Even now, she had to fight to keep from shaking. There was nothing in the world like facing an opponent of Lightning's calibre. She didn't have to hold back against the vampire. She could bite and rip and tear without worrying about killing her. That alone was intoxicating. It made it almost impossible to keep the monster inside her under control.

But more than that, she couldn't stop thinking about what Lightning had said. Lightning was capable of great cruelty and subterfuge – Fang knew that from personal experience – but she wouldn't lie about something like this. Another war would put Serah at risk, and Serah was one of the very, very few things in the world that Lightning genuinely cared about. The younger vampire had come close to death during the last war, and Lightning had never forgotten that.

She wasn't stupid either. Lightning would never have been able to find her without help. Fang was a superb tracker in both her human form and her werewolf form. Nobody could find her unless she wanted to be found – not even Lightning with her inhumanly keen senses and vampiric powers. There was only one person who knew roughly where Fang was: Vanille.

And although her adopted sister was… excitable at time, Fang trusted her judgement. The Dia as a whole were also quite peaceful. If they were truly worried about another war…

"Damn it." Fang sat up in bed. There was a war coming, and the Yun were going to be at the forefront of it. And Lightning was right – Fang could try to put a stop to it.

She got up and paced, fighting the urge to pick up some furniture and break it. She hated this! Already, she could feel the walls closing in on her as the weight of more unwanted responsibility fell upon her shoulders. There had to be someone else who could do this. Why did it have to be her? She'd given more than enough during the damn war and during all the skirmishing and fighting that had gone on after it as the clans turned on each other and the Yun turned on themselves.

She snarled, and the magic inside her built, whipped into frenzy by her agitation. She had to force the transformation back. Turning into her werewolf form and running wouldn't solve a damn thing. It hadn't worked before, and it wouldn't work now. But... she looked around the cottage. It wasn't much, but she was happy here. She didn't have to care about what happened to anyone else. She could hunt and live without anyone telling her what to do or who to be.

Hadn't her kind lived like that once? She knew the legends. Long ago, they hadn't had lands of their own. They hadn't lived in great clans either. Instead, they'd lived in smaller packs – families – that wandered the world, hunting and living as they pleased.

But things had changed. They always did.

The humans had grown stronger and more organised. They'd learned how to hunt her kind. The vampires had been there too – organised, powerful, already rulers. Werewolves had been forced into larger and large groups just to survive, and then they'd claimed lands as their own. She'd always believed that the Yun's fury, their desire to fight, came from that loss of freedom – the beast inside raging against any form of confinement.

She shuddered. The Yun were one of the great clans, but she'd seen them turn upon other werewolves without a moment's hesitation if they thought it was necessary. She could still remember the wariness of Vanille's clansmen the first few times she'd visited before they'd learned she was different. They'd been watching, waiting for her to strike.

But she couldn't let another war happen. If it did, the bloodshed would never end. And Lightning was right. The humans would pick them off once they were weakened. True, both vampires and werewolves had human followers, but the human nations would strike if they saw an opportunity. And there would be one because the war, if it came, would be catastrophic.

The war would start with fledgling and young werewolves, but it would escalate. Vampires like Lightning could slaughter young werewolves by the dozen. That would force older and more powerful werewolves into the fray, and it wouldn't be long before the casualties got completely out of control.

There was also still a part of Fang that still believed in that silly dreamed she and Lightning had shared so long ago, a dream that had died on that night when everything had gone wrong. There could be peace, or at least some semblance of it, but someone had to fight for it. Fang took a deep breath. Lightning had read her right, just as she always had before – except for the one time it mattered most. Fang couldn't afford to let this chance slip away. She just had to be strong enough. If she were, then the Yun would follow.

She spent her last day at the cottage gathering all the things she needed and piling everything else into the cottage. When dusk came, she set the cottage alight.

It was better not to leave anything behind. Now, she had no choice but to go forward.

Then she waited in the gathering dark for Lightning to come.

X X X

"That is a rather dramatic way of making your decision."

Fang didn't bother to turn as Lightning appeared beside her. The smell of smoke filled the air. She watched the cottage burn and felt a pang of sorrow in her heart. For years this had been her home.

"Be glad that I'm helping at all." Fang turned and walked toward the road. "Go home, Lightning. You can't follow me. Where I'm going, your kind isn't welcome."

"Be safe then." Lightning's voice was unexpectedly gentle. "And if you really have to… if nothing works… then leave them. You owe them nothing."

Fang nodded. "If that happens, if the Yun turn on me…"

"I will send Serah to get Vanille. We will keep her safe."

"Thank you." And then Fang was gone, walking along the road toward the lands of the Yun.

Lightning watched Fang go until even her supernaturally keen eyes could no longer see her.

X X X

Author's Notes

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

Hurray, I finally got this chapter out! To be honest, I've been sitting on the draft of this for more than a week now. But all sorts of things happened, such as my laptop needing its battery replaced, my original fiction needing some attention, and a few other Final Fantasy XIII stories fighting for my attention (in my head, each story is represented by a little cartoon character wielding a pickaxe).

Anyway, I've decided that for this story, I'm going to make a conscious effort to keep the chapter length down to something manageable. That should – in theory – allow for more frequent updates since I won't have to be managing colossal amounts of proofreading and scene building.

So, in this chapter, we have some more Lightning and Fang goodness. I've never really delved too far into the whole werewolf thing, so hopefully that side of Fang came across okay. As you can see, however, there's a lot of history between them, quite a lot of it unpleasant. But Fang has always been a pretty decent person, so she can't just ignore the possibility of another war starting. Unfortunately, seizing control of the Yun won't be all that simple – as you'll see in the next few chapters.

Finally, I also write original fiction, mostly fantasy. I've recently released my newest original story on Amazon. It's called Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf. If you have enjoyed my more light-hearted and humorous stories, you will absolutely love this one. Trust me. It's a fantasy with plenty of humour, warmth, action, and a healthy dose of craziness (the kind you've come to expect from me). You can find links to it (and the rest of my original fiction) in my profile. If you're after something a bit more serious, try The Last Huntress. It has plenty of atmosphere and action.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.