Chapter Text
The hospital room was completely silent, aside from the overly-loud tick of the clock mounted on the wall and the occasional creak of springs as Fang shifted restlessly on her bed. Every time she moved, made a noise, whatever, the room temperature felt like it dropped several degrees as Lightning's frosty silence continued.
Anger curled through Fang's stomach and chest. As if she didn't have enough to bloody deal with! Her head was throbbing something nasty, she couldn't see out of her left eye, and her ribs were doing a wonderful job of reminding her of just how much her l'Cie magic had faded since the whole Ragnarok business. She didn't need Lightning's continuing stroppiness pissing her off, too.
In all fairness, it wasn't like Fang was the only one who made it out of the incident more worse for wear than not. Clicking her tongue in annoyance - and knowing the noise would serve to irritate Lightning further - she cast a sidelong look across the room. Lightning was tucked up all safe-like in the room's neighbouring bed, her leg in plaster and covered in scrapes and bandages from her close encounter with a rock face. The woman was still wearing a scowl as black as a storm cloud, same as she was the last time Fang looked over.
At least the ire was mutual for once. No matter how well they usually managed to get along, Fang was not exactly enchanted with Lightning at that moment. The hard-headed woman hadn't spoken so much as a word since they'd both woken up in the hospital following the accident, and the silence was so tense Fang could have cut it with her hunting knife.
Lightning's bad mood was just that obvious - and more than a little unfair.
It hadn't been at Fang's suggestion that they'd travelled out to Brolga's gully - that was all on Lightning and her bloody over-competitiveness.
'Over-competitiveness' is probably too kind a word a for it, Fang decided, her lip curling. After yesterday's fiasco, she'd be hard-pressed to name a poorer loser than Lightning in all of Gran Pulse and Cocoon.
She snorted to herself, crossing her arms against her tender chest stubbornly and looking back down to her scratched-up, bandaged stomach. It had been Lightning's fault things had spun so horribly out of control, and she'd be damned if she'd lie down and allow herself to take the blame.
Honestly? Injuries, anger and wounded pride aside, Fang just hoped her hoverboard was still in one piece.
###
The house at the edge of New Bodhum was empty when Fang arrived home. It was early afternoon, so of course Lightning wouldn't be home for several hours. The Corps usually kept her late - not that it was really Fang's business what her time-poor housemate did, but she could have used the sort of distraction Lightning usually provided. The woman was smart, challenging, and best of all, she seemed to understand just how difficult reintegrating into society was for Fang.
Who would have thought I'd ever have made nice with the vipers in the sky, Fang thought, looking back over her shoulder. Or that I'd actually end up living with one.
The crystal pillar that had stopped Cocoon from falling to Gran Pulse was visible from the beach-side township Team NORA and Lightning had established, still looking as impressive as it had the day that Fang and Vanille had created it. Unlike the pillar, the world had moved on. Difficult and distasteful as it sometimes felt, Fang knew she couldn't stand in the way of making the planet fit for humans again. She definitely did not have to enjoy them doing it, though.
Feeling dispirited, Fang dumped off the pelts from her day's hunt onto her makeshift workbench outside, a little too emotionally drained to summon the energy required to treat and prepare them properly.
The sparsely-decorated home she shared with Lightning was certainly different from how things had been done back in Oerba. Everything had been fairly communal there – everyone lived everywhere, and everyone had been family. That was not the case with the people of Cocoon, what with their private houses and breaking-and-entering laws. Of course, there were some exceptions to the rule – Snow and Serah's house seemed fairly open to all of the extended Team NORA members in the settlement. Even so, after waking up it had been a struggle to adapt to a very different society than what she'd grown up with.
That had been when Lightning had decided to show a little mercy. She'd stepped in, offering Fang and Vanille a place to stay while they found their feet. In the small house, built some distance from the main NORA buildings and set against the beach side cliffs, it had been... easier. For a while, Fang hadn't needed to deal with the remnants of PSICOM and the Corps sticking their noses into her business. All she'd needed to do was hunt, relax, and just recover from her latest stint as a crystal.
Vanille had ended up recovering and moving out a lot faster than Fang had – though, she'd always been quicker to adapt. Sazh had offered her a place closer to the towns cropping up by the pillar, and she'd jumped at the chance to put her knowledge of Pulsian herbal lore to good use. Even a year after the Fall, the people of Cocoon still needed all the help they could get in simply surviving the daily challenges that Gran Pulse threw at them.
Fang, on the other hand, had opted to stay on with Lightning. Despite her housemate's somewhat prickly temperament, she was actually a lot of fun to live with, and it hadn't ended up being so difficult to give Vanille the space she'd needed. Things had gone from camaraderie through to genuine friendship, and from that...
Well, Fang certainly could say she enjoyed the way Lightning challenged her and pushed her to adapt. The fact that Lightning could also be drawn and baited had been a bonus. Before Fang had known what she was doing, a steady push and pull dynamic had developed between them, and surprising as it had been, she wouldn't have given it up for the world.
Most of the time, anyway, Fang amended silently, flopping down onto the worn out old couch that Lightning had salvaged from the original Bodhum. Sometimes, I don't want her to challenge me, I want her to-
She frowned, staring up at the ceiling a moment before slowly raising an eyebrow. That note had not been taped up there that morning, Fang was certain of it. That meant Lightning had come home at some point that day, probably between her scheduled patrols of New Bodhum and the surrounding areas. It didn't escape her notice that Lightning apparently knew enough about Fang's post-hunt habits to put the note just there, and she sat up on the couch.
Lightning's bold, somewhat messy handwriting stood out against the off-white paper, and Fang felt her mouth curl into a smirk as she read.
"Meet me at Brolga's gully, fourteen hundred sharp. You know why."
Oh, Fang definitely knew why, though she was a little surprised that Lightning had taken time off work just to challenge her yet again. Checking her watch, she bit out a curse. Ten minutes was not enough time to make it all the way out to the gully, no matter how she disregarded the speed limits the Corps had tried to impose on the airspace.
Lightning would just have to wait, then. Given the way the delay would get under her skin, Fang rather thought that was a good thing.
Her bad mood somewhat forgotten, she went to her room and hastily began to prepare.
###
The invention of pro hoverboarding was one of the few things – aside from a handful of select people – that Fang unreservedly loved about Cocoon. She'd always loved the thrill of a difficult battle, the way her stomach dropped when she looked out over the world from the top of a cliff or mountain, and more recently, the wind rushing in ears as she rode on Bahamut's back as a l'Cie. Before she discovered that hoverboarding was a real sport, she could have been fairly labelled an adrenaline junkie.
Hoverboarding was something that Cocoon folk had invented, probably to save themselves from growing too bored while the fal'Cie looked after their every whim. Whatever the reason was, it was definitely the most dangerous thing from Cocoon that Fang had come across to date – and that was probably why she loved it so much.
It had come to her attention one boring afternoon, maybe a month after she and Vanille had hauled their arses out of crystal stasis. She'd been lounging on the couch, flicking through stock reruns on the television and trying to entertain herself. Vanille was outside, tending to the white Oerban flowers she'd taken from their old town. In a rare afternoon of leave, Lightning was messing about on the kitchen table, her gunblade dissembled as she attempted to clean and maintain the delicate internal machinery.
On a whim, Fang had paused her relentless channel surfing. She'd watched for a bit, her eyebrows climbing steadily higher as the competitors pulled off a slew of complicated, gravity-defying moves that seemed very much at odds with her own assessment of 'soft-bellied Cocoon vipers'. A few times, she'd been sure one of the boarders would screw up and end as strawberry jam on the course, but somehow they always seemed to turn it around and do something amazing. She'd watched, completely transfixed, for around ten minutes.
When Fang had finally gathered her wits together enough to ask Lightning what the hell the sport was, the woman had frowned over at the television, waved a hand, and replied,
"Pro hoverboarding. Was popular before, but these days everyone has better things to do with their time." Lightning shrugged, turning her attention back to her weapon maintenance. "It's lost a lot of traction, and I'd say that the equipment is pretty hard to come by now. Expensive, too."
Given that Fang didn't even have two gil to rub together, that last part was a little disheartening, but she'd gone back to watching the competition with avid interest. In the week following, she'd made watching the reruns a regular part of her day, much to Vanille's despair and Lightning's obvious amusement.
In the end, the idea of getting her own hoverboard and attempting all of those complicated trick moves was what finally pushed Fang into attempting to reintegrate with the rest of the world. If she wanted the gear, then she needed gil, and if she wanted gil...
Well, she had to work for it.
It had taken Fang several months to gather up the gil Snow had estimated that she'd need, and another month of trawling scavenge and salvage markets for her to find anyone with functional boards. It had been something to shoot for. She'd have made a fairly lousy hunter if a bit of required patience was enough to throw her off her game.
Eventually, Fang had purchased a somewhat-scuffed up but functional board. It was the basic item, sure, but that was all she needed. Her first stop, down in New Bodhum proper, was to talk with the tech-obsessed kid on Team NORA. Maqui had given it a once over, decreed it 'mostly safe', agreed to teach her how to maintain it, and hell, he'd offered to show her how to upgrade it, too. Feeling better than she had in weeks and unable to quit grinning, Fang had arrived back at Lightning's place with her hoverboard under her arm.
Fang's enthusiasm hadn't died in the slightest in the hours it took for Lightning to return home, and she'd jumped to her feet as soon as she'd heard the jangle of keys at the door.
"So that's what prompted all the sudden interest in the markets. I shouldn't be so surprised," Lightning had commented, eying off the board, and Fang had offered her a smile.
"Of course, now we've got to get you one, too." Fang had waved a hand airily, not minding in the slightest that Lightning was rolling her eyes. "I mean, trick moves are one thing, but trick moves with a race..."
"Don't get ahead of yourself." Lightning smirked, resting a hand on her hip as she'd shot Fang a sideways look. "I might take you up on it, and I'd really hate to crush your confidence too badly on your first challenge."
That had been a clear line in the sand, so Fang wasn't all that shocked when Lightning showed up one afternoon with one of her own. Without so much as a word of greeting, she'd thrown some sort of synthetic jacket at Fang's face. By reflex alone, Fang had caught it, raising an eyebrow as she'd lifted it up to examine. An atrocious mix of black and yellow and clearly second-hand, it was very reminiscent of the protective gear that the pro hoverboarders wore in all of the competitions.
Fang looked back to Lightning, her question obvious.
"Figured you'd need it, if you're really serious about a race," Lightning said, her own jacket tossed over her shoulder. She crossed her arms, her face expressionless, but Fang was able to read the smile in her eyes. "Consider it a gesture of goodwill, for when I beat your ass so hard you go running back to Vanille."
Fang just grinned. "You're on, Farron. I'm going to enjoy the look on your face when I leave you in the dust."
As it turned out, Lightning had been completely full of shit. Fang had won the first of their impromptu races, and to the woman's obvious growing irritation, every challenge since.
###
When Fang finally made it Brolga's gully, Lightning was waiting for her, leaning against the Corps issued velocycle she used for her patrols. To anyone who didn't know Lightning as well as Fang did, she might have looked completely relaxed, almost like she was parked up top of the steep gully for the breathtaking view alone. To Fang's eyes, the set of Lightning's shoulders looked a little stiff, and there was a neutrality to her expression that seemed forced.
Being kept waiting was not something Lightning appreciated, but Fang doubted that was what was the only thing bothering her.
Lightning didn't really care about pro hoverboarding, not the way Fang did. She was, however, an incredibly sore loser about it, and that had resulted in challenge after fruitless challenge as she tried to put a victory to her name. Anyone else would have told the woman "enough is enough" three races ago, but...
Lightning was different.
As Fang neared Lightning's position, her hoverboard slung on straps over her shoulder, she allowed herself to flick a quick gaze up and down the woman's body. The protective jacket and reinforced trousers Lightning wore were sleek, black and form-fitting, and it all rather neatly accentuated her every physical asset. In all honesty, it was a big reason as why Fang had come to love Lightning's repeated challenges – in addition to royally walloping her arse, Fang got to see her all decked out in that.
Fang couldn't be blamed for the sudden prickle of heat in her stomach as Lightning looked up at her – she was only human.
No, her feelings toward her housemate had ceased being platonic at around the same point the hoverboard challenges had started, and that outfit was half the reason why.
"You finally made it," Lightning called out with a scoff, unfolding her arms and pushing herself up from the velocycle. She continued to feign languidness, as if she didn't know that Fang could read her like an open book. "Thought you'd chickened out."
"And lose another chance to throw you over my knee and give you the right spanking you seem to crave?" Fang tilted her head, flashing the woman a knowing smirk as she began to undo the straps securing her hoverboard. Needling Lightning over her stunning streak of losses was all a part of the game, and something Fang particularly excelled at.
Lightning didn't look amused at the comment, but then again, she never did lately. With a quiet huff, the woman turned to her velocycle's storage compartment, drawing out her own hoverboard and helmet.
The headgear wasn't something Fang had gotten around to purchasing, not on her meagre income. The only protective gear she had was the over-sized, black and yellow jacket Lightning had given to her at the start, and frankly, that was all she'd needed to put Lightning to shame. She did trade her sari and sandals for jeans and boots, mostly at Lightning's continuing insistence that she dress appropriately.
"We'll see," Lightning said, nodding to the steep and quickly-darkening gully stretching out before them. Brolga's gully was one of the gnarliest 'tracks' Fang and Lightning had found on Gran Pulse. Deep, branching and packed with jagged rocks and sharp turns, it was an effort just to make it out the other end in one piece. Trick moves were essentially a no-go, not unless either of them wanted to splatter on a particularly unforgiving rock wall.
"Usual rules," Lightning continued after a moment, firing up the crystal engine that powered the board's antigravity function. She tossed it down, where it rested, a good hand-span and a half above the ground. "Keep the comm I gave you in your ear, just in case you bite off more than you can chew."
Fang tapped the side of her head, indicating that she was already wearing it. "Same goes for you. Let me know if I need to come save your arse. It's okay to be a damsel sometimes, Light."
Those blue eyes narrowed just a fraction as they flickered towards Fang, the only visible sign of Lightning's skyrocketing irritation.
"I'm just saying," Fang protested, giving in to her urge to grin like a maniac. She looked back down to Brolga's gully, her excitement growing exponentially. This was the part she loved the most – the trash-talk with Lightning and the feeling of balancing on the precipice of an adrenaline rush like no other.
"Look." Fang looked back to Lightning and hit the switch on her own board. "Since this will be – what – the sixth time in a row that I trounce you, how about we make it interesting?"
She wondered briefly if Lightning would let her get away with asking for a date. She doubted it.
"Don't assume you're going to win," Lightning scoffed, though her jaw had jutted stubbornly at the barb. Fang cuffed her on the shoulder affectionately – the woman's insistence on believing they were equals in this was cute, if incredibly misguided.
"Well, whatever you reckon, Light." Fang zipped up her synthetic jacket – it'd do her no good if she let it hang open during the ride. "I'll just let history speak for itself."
Lightning shot her a dark look as she pulled her black, sleek helmet over her head. Fang just rolled her eyes – she could hardly be blamed for being honest about the state of affairs. As Lightning moved into position at the gully's lip, Fang took a moment to admire the curve of her behind. Again, she wondered what fal'Cie she had to thank for the creation of those incredibly flattering pants.
Hooking her own foot into the hold, Fang floated her way over to the edge. The steep incline wasn't quite a vertical drop, but when you were rushing down it at breakneck speed, it was just semantics. A thrill ran down her spine, and she switched her comm link on.
"You ready?" Fang asked. She tapped the comm link to check it, and was satisfied when the feedback made Lightning twitch.
"Born that way." Lightning's voice came from within Fang's own earpiece, her tone cool and clipped. She wished she could see the woman's expression, but the smooth, tinted synthetic material of her helmet betrayed nothing.
But damn, Fang loved it when Lightning got smart with her. She snapped on the goggles she'd borrowed from Maqui, giving the other woman a quick thumbs up to show she was ready.
"On three." The woman held up three gloved fingers, just in case Fang had spontaneously gone deaf and missed what she'd said. "One... Two... Three!"
Fang pushed off just as Lightning finished, her blood pounding in her ears as she crested the edge of the gully. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lightning streaking for the narrow gully, boosters already firing and taking her out over the edge. She'd opted for a more sedate start herself, too aware that time in the air was the same as time lost. She quickly began to pick up speed as she began the gut-dropping decent to the stark, rocky valley floor, and she let out a whoop as she began the race in earnest.
Lightning immediately took the lead, boosters still activated as she tried to make the most of her momentum. Fang allowed it to happen, her plan of attack already mapped out in her head. She was more than happy to allow Lightning a little false confidence – it'd make Fang's own victory all the sweeter.
Narrowing her eyes, Fang dropped back even further, ensuring that for now, she travelled through the shadowy valley alone. She threaded a careful path through a cluster of sharp rocks that she knew like the back of her hand, steadily gaining momentum. Up ahead, she spied one of her usual shortcuts, and she let herself smile. Firing up her own boosters, she crested up the steep incline of the gully's wall and into one of the diverging paths the valley was so full of.
With another loud whoop, Fang burst back into the main valley in a showy trick move that was sure to impress her rival. She flipped over into Lightning's line of vision, several yards ahead, and she grinned as she heard the woman bite out an expletive at her sudden reappearance. Fang looked over her shoulder at Lightning for half a moment, already feeling confident that the race was in the bag.
"Fang-" Lightning started, suddenly sounding alarmed.
"Shit," Fang hissed under her breath as she turned, a dark outcropping of rock looming dangerously in the shadows and right in her path. Without stopping to think, Fang stretched out her hand and let off a burst of weak aero magic, just enough to help shove her out of the collision path with the rocks.
She missed catching herself on the jagged edges by less than a hand span. Her knees felt like they were shaking from the closeness of that call, and she could feel the wind rushing over her skin and chilling the prickle of sweat she'd broken into. Etro, while Fang loved a bit of risk, that was shaving it too close for comfort.
"Fang." Lightning drew level with her then, a streamlined, black shadow against the red and brown rock of the valley. Her tone was deceptively mild as she sharply weaved through a series of boulders. "How often have you been using magic?"
Fang shot her a sidelong look, noting Lightning's barely concealed anger. It'd be no good to lie to her though.
"Sometimes," Fang ground out, banking sharply and only barely avoiding a dense patch of scrub that loomed out from the darkness. They were going Etro only knows how fast down a valley filled with sharp rocks and narrow gaps - it was not the time to be having an in-depth discussion.
"'Sometimes'?" Lightning repeated, her voice dropping several degrees and growing chilly. "What about the rules?"
"What about them, Light?" Fang asked, genuinely perplexed and growing more irritated with the distraction by the second.
"Fang."
"I don't think you've ever bothered to specify what your precious 'rules' are, so kindly go and get stuffed, Farron." Of course, Fang hadn't exactly gone out of her way to get them clarified, but then again she'd figured using magic to save her neck wouldn't have been a bloody cardinal sin.
"You mean you've been using magic this entire lot of challenges?" Lightning finally demanded over the comm in Fang's ear.
Fang's own anger flared. She couldn’t believe it. She could have smashed her head open or broken every bone in her body, and Lightning more worried about the fact she'd used a little magic to save her skin?
There was a long, tense silence as both Fang and Lightning banked up on either side of the steep gully walls, the only way to negotiate that particularly nasty section of the valley's floor. They both swung back down to continue their race on comparatively flatter ground, and Fang already knew that her friend wasn't done with the topic.
It was no good talking reason to Lightning when she was like this though – she'd already made up her mind.
"If you're going to use magic, then I am too. Fair and fair about." Immediately, red magic flared in Lightning's palms, and Fang had just enough time to register that it was a spell before the woman exploded into the distance at an incredible speed.
A Haste? You have got to be kidding me, Fang snarled silently, staring after her. "Lightning! Lightning, come on, do you have to be such a bloody jerk about this?"
Lightning didn't answer, apparently too pissed with Fang to listen – or to consider playing fair. The feeling was definitely mutual.
"Fine. Just remember, I'm still going to kick your arse."
Fang wasn't sure how she was actually going to pull off that miracle, only that she had to. A haste spell was a declaration of war. No matter how unfair it was, Fang wasn't about to lose out to Lightning, not over something so stupid.
Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way to even the odds, ducking as she zoomed under a section of low-hanging rock. She'd never bothered to learn Haste – back during the Focus, enhancements had never really been her role to play. That said, she had more than a few tricks of her own.
Ahead of her, Fang knew that the gully diverged into a series of narrow pathways. They were all around the same length, and in Fang's opinion, were the slowest-going part of the whole area. Slowing down was a necessity and a Haste spell would only lose Lightning more time than it saved. It was a bottleneck, simple as that, and if she was able to bypass that section entirely, it would be Fang's last chance to catch up before they converged a bit before the finish line.
To her left, another outcropping loomed in the shadows, but her keen eyes picked out a trail leading up the side of the gully wall. It was probably a chocobo migration trail – the details didn't matter, but if she could get up the top of the valley, she'd have a flat, direct path to the finish line.
She made her choice in an instant, and she pivoted sharply to use the chocobo trail as a ramp up. The pathway petered out not far from the lip of the gully, and not to be deterred, Fang quickly summoned a burst of Aerora magic beneath her hoverboard. Propelled up by the powerful gust of air, she cleared the top and immediately activated the boosters fixed to the back of the board. She streaked across the open, dusty plains above the valley, the wind whipping her hair back from her face and howling in her ears as her whole body centred in on her goal.
At breakneck speed, Fang headed for the edge of the cliff where she estimated all the narrow pathways converged once more. Adrenaline rushing in her veins and her stomach plummeting, Fang didn't hesitate as she launched herself out over the edge of the cliff and down into the gully once more. Below her, she could see the dark shadow that was Lightning, and it seemed as though she hadn't reapplied her Haste spell. Good.
Fang landed several yards ahead of her, and while it was a little rough, she was happy.
"Thought you could get away with that?" Fang asked with a forced grin, glancing to the side as Lightning drew level with her again. The other woman didn't answer, simply throwing a tiny Ruin spell at the next patch of jagged rocks. The spell exploded in silver light, clearing Lightning's own path and forcing Fang to turn sharply to avoid the flying bits of rock.
"We're going to have a serious talk about this," Lightning finally bit out, as Fang hit the accelerator and deliberately cut her off.
"No bloody kidding." Fang looked over her shoulder for just a moment, her eyes narrowed as her anger rose up. Yeah, she'd be more than happy to give the woman a few choice words about sportsmanship -
"Fang," Lightning said, her voice suddenly a little breathless over the comm. "Fang, watch where you -"
###
Fang had woken up in the hospital at the pillar's base, her vision fuzzy, her head wrapped in bandages, her ribs busted, and covered in more scuffs and scratches than she could count. Her stitches pulled every time she took a breath, and she was certain that if she wasn't doped up on pain medication, her whole body would be on fire.
Lightning had been out a lot longer than Fang had, and seemed to have been hurt a lot worse, which had been a worry. That had been before Fang had remembered that she had a very good reason to remain angry with the woman, and had quietly started to stew on it.
Fang's memory of the accident was jumbled and only barely there – a lovely side effect of having slammed head-first into the side of the gully. She wasn't actually sure how Lightning had gotten hurt, but if that woman hadn't been taking the competition like a petulant little brat, it would never have happened at all.
What else can you expect of a viper? Fang asked herself as she stared at her bandaged forearms, doing everything in her power not to just snap and start giving Lightning a real piece of her mind.
Fortunately for the tattered and abused remains of their friendship, Fang was given a much-needed distraction as visiting hours rolled around. Right on cue, a soft knock came on their door, and both she and Lightning looked up as Vanille, Snow and Serah filed in. Of course, Serah made a beeline for Lightning's bed, and was already exclaiming over all the injuries before the door clicked shut. Fang had rolled her eyes at Vanille, half tempted to tell Serah exactly what had happened that had put them in such a dangerous position in the first place.
She kept her silence, eyeing Lightning's side of the room angrily.
Vanille took the seat at Fang's bedside, patting her bruised shoulder diplomatically for a moment before offering the bouquet of white Oerban flowers she'd bought.
"How are you feeling?" Vanille asked quietly, as Fang accepted the flowers.
"Sore. Etro only knows how long I'm going to be out of action for, but I'm more angry at her than anything else." Fang's voice was taut, and she shot another dark look over Vanille's shoulder. After a few moments, she looked back down at the flowers, not really sure what she was meant to do with them. She'd never really been in this sort of position before – the medic bays in Oerba had been very different from a Cocoon-style hospital.
Vanille took her meaning, and smoothly rose to her feet to grab the empty vase sitting on Fang's beside table and fill it with water.
"What are you so angry about?" Vanille ventured when she returned from the room's sink, gently prying the delicate stems from Fang's too-tight hold on them and carefully propping them up in the vase. "What happened?"
"She threw a fit over losing, took it far too seriously, and we wound up crashing." Fang's jaw set stubbornly. "I can't believe her! It's been pissing her off that I'm just better than her at hoverboarding, and now she's done this. Just tell me that someone grabbed my board from the gully."
Vanille's expression flickered, becoming a little worried – and more than a little guilty looking. Fang swallowed, suddenly tense. That expression never boded well.
"Fang, the thing is -" Vanille started, but Fang cut her off with a sharp wave of her hand.
"Please. Vanille. Just tell me you got it." She tried not to let her desperation leak into her voice, and she was only partially successful. That board was her pride and joy. It was the first thing - other than her lance - that had really been hers. Was it still down there, rusting in the wild? From Vanille's ill expression, it was a lot worse than that.
"Fang, the board was wrecked. Maqui took a look at it and-"
"You've gotta be kidding me." Fang felt as though she'd been sucker punched. Wrecked? She stared at her hands, still reeling from Vanille's words, almost unable to believe it. She'd put so much time and effort into that board, and it was gone just like that?
That was the final straw.
Slowly and painfully, Fang pushed herself up from her hospital bed, gritting her teeth and fighting through the fresh wave of agony from her ribs and head. Staring around the room desperately, Fang finally came to rest on the fresh vase of flowers. She grabbed hold of it without further thought, carefully removing the contents, before slowly and painstakingly staggering over to Lightning's side of the room.
"Fang?" Vanille asked, her voice small. Fang ignored her, completely focused on where Lightning silently watched her approach with flat, dispassionate eyes.
Nobody moved a muscle to help, but none of them seemed to have the courage to try to stop her, either. Fang met Lightning's blue eyes very deliberately, and she slowly tipped the vase's water over her fair hair.