Lightning's Thoughts:

On Herself

"Nobody's perfect," and certainly, she wasn't. Maybe at one time she was, but she was a different person now. That little girl had long died, struck down by lightning. "And nothing lasts."

Lighting didn't know when the little girl she once was faded away. It started at a young age, holding onto her five-year-old sister's hand, wearing matching black dresses.

She remembered her mother crying and Serah not understanding. The face was what she couldn't remember, the face of the man that meant the world to her. She searched for that face among the boys in the school yard, never finding the kindness she searched for.

Instead, she found bruised knuckles and skinned knees. Claire started to walk away from her and Lightning was left with her fists.

Her mother was dying. Her mother was giving up. Then, her mother was gone.

There was a place in her chest, the part of her that was still Claire, that cracked and crumbled away. It left a hole, a gapping wound that she never took the time to treat. Instead of healing back neatly, it hardened and scarred.

That girl that once was her, had gone. Claire left her so that Lightning could carry both of their weight. War stories always told of boys becoming men overnight, her story told of a girl becoming a woman in a matter of minutes.

She quietly bore her burdens. She quietly hid her feelings away in order to move forward. She gave up childish things, or maybe Lightning never enjoyed them, maybe it was only Claire. While she held herself up on being a soldier, stern, strong, there was always that hole inside. There a little girl curled up, hiding, blocking out the pain.

A smile for her sister, a gentle hug, a kind voice and a guiding arm. Flowers for the table, reminders of the beauties that evade her sight. A salute for the soldier, watchful eyes, and a steady grasp. A finger for the hooligan, anger and hidden joy.

There was always something underneath.

Each day she painted on a new layer, repeating patterns and covering the past up. Each day the paints mixed until she wondered who she had been, who she was, and who she was trying to make herself become. Maybe, one day, they would all peel away and she'd find that underneath it all there was nothing. Just a rotted hole where Claire used to be.

One day everything would fall away and then there would be nothing. Just like Dad. Just like mom. One day, she would stop and everything would keep moving, forgetting she was ever there.

Claire had loved fishing with her father and running along the shore with Serah. She had loved games, and falling asleep under the stars. She loved her mother's warm kisses goodnight.

She loved them, yet even they fell away from her memory.

Lightning wasn't bitter. She was melancholy, hiding behind anger. Her world was a broken place. Evil was patient, cruelly waiting for the most opportune time to rip out people's hearts. The future was bored and as painstaking as the present, as lurking as the past.

And such thinking, such treacherous waters at the back or her mind, only made those hardened scars bleed. It wasn't eggshells that she walked over, it was a tightrope with hot embers on one side and spiked death on the other.

So she exchanged soft smiles and proper salutes, holding her head high and out of the turbulent water with flowers at her table.

With that, maybe, just maybe Claire could stay, safely wrapped within layers of something uncertain.

"Nothing lasts," but screw that, "but it will last as long as I'm here."

A/N: And so concludes this story. A continuation is already posted I the FFXIII-2 category, since FFN doesn't like links you can find it be either checking there of visiting my profile. Thanks for reading!