Work Text:
i.
The vision claws at her mind like the monsters claw at those around her. The very first is the first to seal her fate. She sees a world of ruin and her own eyes flash gold before she collides with the arms of the boy in her dream, cold and unmoving.
But it’s not a dream, she thinks, and the world jumpstarts. She can barely scream her sister’s name as everything closes in.
ii.
The second shows her Ragnarok, years past. Come, day of wrath. Embrace thy fate, thine home to burn.
The fire feels as if it’s bubbling up from underneath her fingers, followed by crystals biting into her skin. She remembers the feeling of being encased in it, buried alive by stalactites. Her dreams ebbing and flowing through the coolness as she watched her miracle change the world.
But change, she thinks, isn’t always a good thing.
iii.
The third is of Snow as a monster looms over him. But for a moment, there’s something else; shadowy tendrils curling around her wrists, another person’s presence.
Yeul, the name echoes in her mind, but later, she pretends she’s never heard it before. Noel’s eyes look like something has shattered behind them as he talks about the girl doomed to die young. She can’t bring herself to mention the shadows.
iv.
The fourth is of the future, chaotic as Valhalla bleeds into their world. Serah wants to scream that she doesn’t know how to fix it, that she just wants to be a hero like her sister.
But then she comes to, and Noel’s shattered eyes stare worriedly, searching for a way to make the truth less ugly than what’s in front of him. Serah wants to tell him that, somehow, she’ll find the right future. For him, Lightning, Snow, Hope—for Sazh and Fang and Vanille.
Her legs are shaky as Mog flies around her, but she puts one foot forward, and then another.
v.
Serah hears her own voice, pleading, as she asks her sister if they’ll be together again.
One thing at a time, Serah.
The phrase is one that Lightning used liberally back when things were simple. When Serah used to fret over her exams and which to study for first and if she'd fail them all. The corners of Lightning’s mouth would tilt up, and she’d roll her eyes and say one thing at a time.
Serah’s nerves would calm. They’d eat dinner; Light in companionable silence and her chattering away about all the inane details of her day.
Yes, she thinks, her heart warming. I’ll make you proud first, sis.
vi.
The new world stretches out below them. Serah wishes she could spend more time here. She wishes it would last.
A miracle for a miracle, she thinks.
The vision comes sooner than she expects. It shudders through her body like an internal hurricane, a slideshow of where her and Noel’s work has brought them.
She feels like she’s being pulled in different directions, broken apart into tiny pieces, clawed at by invisible shadows that laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then it stops, sharp and sudden.