AN - I swear to fucking god this AU keeps dragging me back in. A little snack of sorts to tide you over while I work on the sequel. I'm sticking with the water theme for titles, In Too Deep, Swan Dive for the pending sequel (see tumblr), Starting Block for this set. I start with this one-shot that takes place between the final chapter and the epilogue. Content warning for drug uuuuuuuuse. VISION QUESTS WOOWOOO! If you haven't read In Too Deep, you are going to have *zero* clue as to what's going on here, so jump back on my profile and read that adventure first!

Bands.

"Claire Lightning Yun has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" Fang asked her soon to be wife, trailing her slender fingers down the pinkette's chest. A scoff erupted against her hand and the woman in question sat up.

"Well so does Oerba Farron Fang," Lightning said with mild annoyance, though she honestly didn't care either way. She just knew it would stir the Pulsian up. "Are you suggesting that you're more important and that's why your name should go first?"

Dark eyebrows dropped as Fang scowled. "You know that isn't what I meant you bloody... You... You're messing with me right now aren't you?" a light chuckle was her only response as the pinkette got out of bed and padded over towards the balcony of the hotel.

Overlooking Eden, it was a complete mess. The hotel was in one of the districts they'd managed to clear the bombs from, but other parts of the city weren't so lucky. It had only been a few weeks since the Fal'Cie's final stand, but already Eden was picking itself up and moving on. Lightning sighed as she felt Fang's arms slide around her. Leaning back into the brunette's touch, she tilted her head to the side to allow Fang to continue her attentions.

"Does it really bother you? The surnames I mean." Fang asked tentatively. With a slow smile, Lightning turned around and gave her partner a once over.

"How about we flip a coin for it? Lady Luck on your side today?"

Fang swallowed hard. There was plenty she'd left up to chance, but this felt far more significant. She wasn't sure whether she should leave such an important decision to the fate of a coin toss. Lightning pulled out a gil from her pocket and held it up.

"Heads, its Yun. Tails, its Farron." The pinkette said bluntly before flipping the coin in the air with her thumb. Fang gasped and followed the coin's trajectory with her eyes, head tilting up. A pale hand snaked around the back of her neck and pulled her down into an intense kiss. "If I'm with you, I could care less what my name is." Lightning whispered against Fang's lips.

"You're a cheeky bugger, I hope you know." The Pulsian muttered watching the coin drop onto the carpet. Neither of them paid any attention to the tails side landing face up.

"Please, Fang. Over the last few years, I've been so many different people my surname has lost all meaning." Lightning replied with a sigh, nuzzling into her partner's shoulder. Fang smiled wistfully, running her fingers through the pale strands of hair.

"I don't feel comfortable getting rid of your name entirely though. What if we hyphenated? Yun-Farron or Farron-Yun?"

The pinkette looked up from her spot and quirked an eyebrow. "Maybe we'll spar for it, the winner gets their surname first. Any other traditions I should know about, or should we get onto arguing about the rings?"

A nervous cough escaped Fang's throat and she looked away. "Yeah, about that... How attached are you to rings? Wedding bands and the like?"

"If I'm honest, I don't like them. They get in the way of handling weapons. Either blisters or the ring warps against the finger from the friction. It's... Not practical." Lightning said, worried about the reaction. The sigh of relief was not what she expected.

"Thank the Gods. I was thinking the same thing. Knew there was a reason I liked you."

Lightning fiddled with the pendant hung from her neck. "Snow got Serah an engagement necklace instead of rings. They're going to get proper bands for the ceremony though." Fang hummed and unhooked the cord from around her neck that held the amethyst crystal. She carefully placed it around the pinkette's neck and let her hands rest on her shoulders.

"This belonged to my mother. The only thing left of hers that I have. She is the key to my past, but you are the key to my future. Marry me, Claire Lightning Farron."

Blinking away the tears from her eyes, Lightning surged forward and wrapped her arms around Fang's neck, pushing her back towards the bed. "Of course I will." She whispered against the Pulsian's lips.

Far later in the evening, Lightning was sitting up reading through her phone while Fang slept soundly next to her. The pinkette was flipping through various sites on her tablet, looking for what constituted Pulsian wedding traditions. She found what she was looking for when she looked up the Hunter's Way. Scrolling through the information, her eyes lit up when she got to the part she needed. Ever practical, the tradition didn't have wedding bands per say, but a small incision along the ring finger that would serve as the symbol of a union. Ash from a small fire would be rubbed into the cut, to ensure it would scar.

Lightning winced at the description but admired the practicality of it. Sort of like one of Fang's countless tattoos. She drew her thumb over her ring finger. What was one more scar at this point? The ex-gc officer had already had a number since this whole adventure began, at least this one would have significance for them both and not a reminder of the brutal path they both took to get here.

She shrugged, already making up her mind. Lightning had pledged herself to the Creed after all, so it was fitting to go through the practices. She wondered if it was worth asking Fang about participating in the trials. Something she'd like to clear off before they "tied the knot", as it were. It felt like it would be the first true and honest thing she'd done in her life and she chuckled bitterly at the irony of that thought, considering all the lies initially.

As if sensing her melancholy, Fang groaned and turned over in her sleep, sliding an arm across the pinkette's waist and pulling herself over. She draped a leg over Lightning's, pinning the woman in place.

"What're you doin' up at this 'our, Light?" Fang mumbled, words broken in her sleepy state. She practically purred at the hand that ran through her hair, and she snuggled closer with a happy murmur.

"Just thinking. About us, about the future. About what I promised. I was thinking of asking you about the Trials."

One jade eye snapped open at the words, and Fang suddenly sat up in bed. "You're serious, aren't you? You know part of the trials is to... You know, take a mad amount of hallucinogens, right? Vision quest in a forest while tripping out of your skull?" She asked, looking concerned. Lightning nodded, waving her phone.

"I'm aware, I've been reading up on it while you've been asleep. Fang, I want... I want to do this. Think of it as shedding the last of my past so I can focus on the future with you."

Fang considered the sincerity in those beautiful eyes she fell so hard for and sighed. "Thought I was the only one hooked on symbolism..." She muttered, reaching out and stroking the side of her partner's face. She puttered out air between her lips and leant forward to kiss the pinkette on the forehead. "I'll help you in whatever way I can. We'll... Need to take a ride out to Oerba, go to the old tribal lands."

"Let's go in the morning. I am sick of looking at the city for a while."

The two sat by a fire in the middle of the woods the following evening. The clearing was one Fang and Vanille used to camp in often as children, their family reservation untouched from developers following their parents' murder. They had spent the day exploring the lands, memories tugging at Fang's heart as she saw what was left of their demolished home. Though quiet, the peace of the wilderness doing little to soothe Lightning's on-edge nerves for what was to come.

"So what's the plan here?" The pinkette asked, watching Fang rummage around in her pack. The Pulsian looked up with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, the jade irises glinting in the firelight with concern.

"Effectively, the Trials involve reaching the Cradle. The hub of all life. There you'll face your self, or selves, and must overcome them. To do that, you take a shortcut the old priests used to use, being this gross tasting tea. I've got a juice for you to use as a chaser because it sure as hell isn't pleasant." Fang replied, pouring a liquid into a tin mug. She sensed Lightning's hesitation and took her by the hand.

"Look it's up to you. If this is something you feel is truly holding you back, let's face it. If not, we can go home, watch a movie and you can continue to let this eat at you. You've done a shitload of work over this last while on your identity issues and you are already looking and feeling more at peace than I've ever seen you. But this is the last gate. We need to tear it open and tear it down so that you can step into yourself, full and whole."

Fang kissed her on the head and handed her the mug. "Your choice, Light. I'm altering the trials a little and staying put. I won't leave you alone in foreign territory, you'll likely walk off a bloody cliff. I'll be right here."

Lightning exhaled forcefully and slumped her shoulders. "Fuck it." She muttered and downed the contents of the mug in one fell swig. The brunette was on point about the taste, it was absolutely vile. She gagged at the flavour, quickly grabbing the juice out of Fang's hand and drinking it quickly. "Ugh… Goddess that was terrible." She said with a grimace, feeling like she needed to scrape the offending taste from her tongue.

"Well, I did warn ya," Fang replied with a chuckle, sitting back and rubbing the pinkette's back gently. They sat in silence a while, Lightning getting increasingly bored by the hour.

"How long until this stuff is meant to kick in?" She asked, her words sounding a little warped in her ears. She turned when she didn't get a response to find a great beast sitting in the log next to her. A flame coloured mane cascaded from the beast's head, blue skin pulled taut over segmented muscles. Lightning knew instantly what she was looking at, she'd seen it every time she looked at Fang's spine. She gasped and scrambled off the log she was sitting on, stumbling and falling back in the dirt. "Ragnarok.." She whispered, trying to suppress her terror.

"Hrmph. Looks like it's finally working. So, you ready to do this or are you going to just keep sitting there staring at the stars?" The beast asked in a gravelly voice. The pinkette frowned and tried to sit up.

"Th' hell are you... Talking about?" she asked, her voice noticeably slurred. Ragnarok chuckled and shook its great head.

"Wasn't talking to you, love. Was talking to her." The beast said, pointing behind over Lightning's shoulder. The pinkette turned to find her own self standing behind her in that old familiar orange jumpsuit, grinning manically. Unsettled, Lightning tried to say something, anything, but it all came out as a low moan. She suddenly couldn't move. Her fingers grew rigid into claws, bones creaking as they moved of their own volition. Her face twisted into a grin, mirroring the criminal standing behind her as the copy moved closer.

She felt pale hands around her own throat, choking the life out of her like in so many nightmares she'd had. Wrestling with control, she could feel the criminal seeping into every crevasse of her mind, trying to destroy her from within. A clawed hand reached out and took her hand, smoothing the bends in her knuckles.

"If you have no value in yourself in the here and now, in YOUR. SELF…" Ragnarok boomed, voice shaking the trees.

"Others will find a value, a use in you. Like they have so many times before." The criminal in the jumpsuit said with a sneer, stalking around her. A pale hand moved across her orange attire and Jihl stepped into view.

"I've always known what you were Farron. Nothing more than a rabid animal that needs to be leashed."

Lightning felt the chain around her neck before Jihl moved. She reeled back, being pulled by Nabaat and the apparition of her in the jumpsuit in one direction, while another variant of her in her GC uniform appeared and pulled in the other. She felt like she was being torn in two. Gasping for air, she clutched at the chain around her throat and yanked herself forward, falling to her hands and knees in the dirt. Familiar tanned fingers guided her jaw up, and Lightning looked up into a sea of endless green swirling within her partner's eyes.

Fang.

Fang was her anchor amidst the madness. The lighthouse in the storm. She saw through the worst of the pinkette and brought out the best of her. Fang was her light.

"You're in there still, I can see that. You need to stop letting the past take control. You are limitless, Lightning."

Limitless.

The word kept echoing around her, bouncing off the trees that surrounded her. They turned to crystal and shattered, leaving her in darkness.

Limitless. Why limit one's self to any one thing? She was more than the criminal that ran with the Valefor gang. More than the Guardian Corps lieutenant desperate to make up for her past while still running for it. More than the Fal'Cie puppet who was sent into the behemoth's den with a fake identity. The more she thought about it, the more the two doppelgangers in front of her began to fuse and fade until all that was left was her looking at herself in the mirror.

Lightning was more than her past, fragments of her identity merely experiences that brought her to this point, right here, with Fang. Fate has a funny way of manifesting, in a way without everything that had happened she would never have met the Pulsian. So why spend the time feeling guilt over things she couldn't change? She could acknowledge them, integrate them, and move on. Far more productive use of energy.

Why keep up the pretence that you are anything more than you are? She heard Jihl's words reverberating in her head. Lightning stood and turned to face her old trainer and pinned her with a cold stare.

"Because I am limitless."

The pain in Lightning's stomach hit her before she'd even fully returned to the waking world. It was grey dawn around them when she finally opened her eyes. There were remnants of colour and patterns on the edges of her vision, which made her feel more than a little nauseous. She groaned and rolled over, drawing the attention of the brunette sitting up next to her.

"You back with me, sweetheart?" she asked gently, her voice hoarse from sleep deprivation. A slow nod from the pinkette was all she needed, and she exhaled with relief. "Thank the Gods. You had me worried for a while there." Fang breathed, resting her forehead against Lightning's.

"Etro. How do people do this shit for fun?" the pinkette complained, rolling closer and bundling herself into Fang's lap.

"It isn't all bad, pop a smaller dose and watch stupid B grade movies all night and everything is hilarious."

"Pass. Hard pass. I feel like I could sleep for a week." Lightning muttered with a frown. Fang simply smiled and began toying with the pale hair, knowing the effect it would have on the grumpy woman.

"There's nowhere we gotta be, Sunshine. Get some rest. We'll talk more in the morning." She whispered, shifting down into the bedroll by the campfire and tugging the blankets up over them.

The next time Lightning opened her eyes, things felt less painful and her mind more clear. She felt calmer, somehow, that she had come out the other end of the night settled within herself. She looked up towards the face she hoped to wake to every morning to find her still sleeping. The pinkette leant up and kissed along the tanned jaw, smiling as she felt the Pulsian stretch and wrap her arms tightly around her.

"Mmmm. How are you feeling?" Fang asked sleepily, ensuring the pinkette was pulled flush against her.

"Lighter. Mildly hungover. Better." Lightning hummed in contentment. She was happy to lay there, in the morning sun as the embers from the fire still gave off the slightest of warmth. "Probably a good thing you didn't leave me to my own devices to get out of the forest alone. Who knows where I could have ended up."

Fang chuckled and arched her back in a languid stretch. "Probably up a tree somewhere I'm sure."

The two laid about in the bedroll until the sun was high before finally making a move to tidy up their camp and head back. Lightning stared at the campfire and saw the ashes amongst the stone. "Wait, Fang," she called out, drawing her partner's attention back over. "Do you remember what Pulsian tradition is in place of wedding bands?"

The brunette gave a short laugh and shook her head. "Yeah, I do. Crude but effective, and practical to boot-ohhhhhh. Right. You already knew."

Unclasping the chain from around her neck, Lightning took the bolt pendant and placed it against Fang's skin, hooking it up again. "Marry me, Oerba Yun Fang. I don't care for ceremony, just you."

With a beaming smile, Fang leant forward and wrapped her arms around the pinkette, kissing her gently. "As if there was ever any doubt."

They knelt by the fire and took each other's hands. Now seemed as good a time as any. Fang ran her thumb over Lightning's finger and closed her eyes with a deep inhale. "Blood of my Blood, borne of Etro the Divine. Bone of my Bone, borne of Anima's earth. I give ye my body, that we two might be one. I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be done and we return to the seas of Vahalla."

Lightning took out her survival knife and handed it to Fang. The Pulsian suppressed the hiss of pain as she made the cut along her ring finger, and passed the blade back. The pinkette smiled softly and kept her expression even as she made a clean incision in the same place on her own hand. They each kissed the wound gently, and Fang reached into the campfire, grabbing a handful of cooled ashes between her fingertips. As she pressed the ash into the wound she grimaced in pain.

"Etro that fucking bites... Uh. Where was I.. Right. I vow you the first cut of my meat, the first sip of my wine, from this day it shall only your name I cry out in the night and into your eyes that I smile each morning."

Lightning repeated the action with the ashes, closing her eyes tight with the sting but keeping her reaction far more muted than her partner. She took a breath and opened her eyes, recalling what she'd been studying.

"I shall be a shield for you back as you are for mine, no shall a grievous word be spoken about us, for our marriage is sacred between us and no stranger shall hear my grievance."

Fang's eyebrows raised, not expecting the pinkette to have known the ceremony, let alone be able to recite it from memory. She caught the sly smirk and cupped Lightning's jaw with her hand.

"Above and beyond this, I will cherish and honour you through this life and into the next."

Lightning leant forward and kissed Fang deeply, threading her fingers of her free hand through the dark hair with a content hum. "At the rising of the moon, and the setting of the stars. I will love and honour your home and hearth, through all that may come. May we take the path of the wilds together."

With only the silent trees surrounding the clearing as their witness, the two kissed and held each other, bound by the Hunter's Way to each other. It felt like the final closing of their past, that they would restore Lightning to her whole self, and for Fang to bring such love and renewal into a place that was once nothing but loss to her. With the hallucinogens still making their way through the pinkette's system, every touch was an explosion of colour, the synaesthesia turning every kiss into a symphony of sound and light. She was certain that Fang could see it too.

After a while, the throbbing of her finger got a little too distracting and she finally broke away. The brunette smiled and tucked the pale strands of pink hair behind Lightning's ear. "So, what's say we pack up and go find breakfast back in Eden?" She said, chuckling at the disgusted groan that came from the pale woman's throat.

"You've got to be kidding me, Fang. My guts still feel like they're on fire."

"Maybe a light tea for you then," The Pulsian replied with a smirk, helping her now wife from the ground. "What's say we go do the paperwork and then rack off to that private beach on Besaid?"

Lightning thought that was the best way to spend a day, and pulled Fang down into yet another kiss, feeling breathless but not caring. They stayed close together as they packed up the camp and headed back towards the car, holding hands the whole way. After everything that had happened, the pinkette was hesitant to put any distance between them. She giggled quietly to herself as she saw Fang's tattoos moving along her skin as she slid into the driver's seat. The brunette quirked an eyebrow at her but said nothing, turning the keys over.

"So, our sisters are likely going to kill us for not letting them plan anything." Lightning muttered, resting her head on her hand against the window once they were back on the highway on their way to Eden. Fang shrugged and slid her hands around the steering wheel.

"Eh, with all the media hype surrounding us it wouldn't have been easy anyway. We'll just cop them yelling angrily for twenty minutes and then let them plan a party before we go away." She replied with a roll of her eyes. The brunette looked over at her bride and grinned. "Still the matter of the surnames you know… What was that suggestion about sparring for the order?" Glaring at her with an exasperated expression, Lightning shook her head and rubbed her face with her hands.

"Pull over. We're sorting this out now."