the best laid schemes of mice and men--

[fallacies]

Characters: Cid and Claire.
Location: Primarily in Trabia? Possibly in a few other locations.
Rating: PG-13?
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed.
Summary: It's not a difficult job, really, so what's the point of sending two Sanctum l'Cie off on such a mission?

To have two back-to-back missions was a bit odd. Difficult? Not really, no, but a surprise, yes. After having been assigned to so few operations since the beginning of his teaching tenure, it struck Cid as… strange, really. Admittedly, though, the weirdest part had to be whom the headmaster had decided to pair him off with for this particular job.

Faint prickles of irritation threatened to overtake his thoughts as he sat on the passenger car, his seat opposite of one Claire Farron. His eyes were trained outside the window, and he lightly drummed his fingers against the window sill as the scenery passed them by. Cid didn’t understand it; this was a ridiculously easy job. There was no need to send two l’Cie out to complete it, even if he did comprehend the reasoning behind the headmaster choosing them to go.

The Blobra infestation in one of Trabia’s chocobo forests had been plaguing their Garden for quite some time now, and in the end, they’d called upon the assistance of Balamb Garden, which in turn sent Cid and Claire along: two individuals who could easily create barriers with their unnatural magic. The idea, then, was to herd all of the Blobra and exterminate them before they could start dividing once more.

To him, though, this was a job that could have easily been done by one of them alone.

Nonetheless, that had been Headmaster Cid’s request, and so, here they were, en route to their snowy destination. Cid sighed quietly and turned toward Claire, doing his best to appear polite. They were to be a team here, even if he honestly didn’t think they’d need to be one; he could at least be civil for that reason.

“Should we review our plans again?” he asked, rather abruptly breaking the long silence that had settled between them. A faint but humorless smile pulled at his lips, here one second and gone the next. Cid would just treat this like any other military exercise; there’d be nothing to it.

Comments

[fallacies]

Should he be surprised that she by-passed the opportunity to tell him more about PSICOM? Probably not, and the slight feelings of disappointment were quick to dissipate, vanishing with the same ease with which he shrugged his shoulders at her comment. Considering the nature of their division, they'd never really bothered to make that sort of distinction: the Lindblum and her men were always on duty and always ready to assist any other GC group--or sweep into an area otherwise unattended to.

Certainly, sudden excursions to take care of a monster infestation meant that they might appear less prepared at the get-go than, say, what Claire was used to, but that style worked well for them. It kept his men on their toes and kept them sharp; after all, no one ever knew when the next call would come in.

"The lack of distinction is not something that has ever put us off," he finally answered with a passing smile. "Should you ever have the opportunity to ask, you'll likely find that many, if not all of us, have developed a fondness for travel."

--along with a propensity for being just out of the grasp of the Sanctum and its influences. Staying on the move meant staying one step ahead of anyone who might look into the more treasonous side of the Cavalry, and as some of the higher-ups (and the PSICOM directors) may have picked up on, they were a group much harder to force into doing anything as well. While these were characteristics already present prior to his joining the fleet, Cid's leadership only accentuated those elements as he continued to pursue his own goals--and then the wishes of his fal'Cie master.

"But I suppose we all have our reasons for joining the military and choosing the paths we did." Cid shallowly dipped his head in her direction, silently acknowledging that difference between them--between her and the Lightning Farron he knew. His words were, again, another invitation for her to speak more of herself, but his hopes were no higher this time than the last.

[subjection]

It must take an unusual person to like being away from home all the time, Claire thought to herself blandly... although, on the other hand, Balamb Garden was something a lot like that too, while at the same time completely opposite as well in some ways- more so because of her off-worlder status. It wasn't like she could say much once she'd thought of that, however, which caused a brief spark of annoyance as she considered it; the question of whether or not she'd truly chosen this life as a SeeD, however temporary or not, was one she continued to struggle with.

Initially, just as he'd thought, she simply ignored the comment, but as several seconds ticked by, she began to realize with far too much distraction-caused delay for her own tastes the slight opening that was just neatly set in front of her. She frowned as she continued to stare off and downward.

Her curiosity about 'Lightning' was immense - how could it not be? - but all this time she'd always done her best to apparently flip-flop without any predictability over whether she really wanted to hear any details about the other woman. It was only very rare chances that she ever felt like pursuing the opportunity to ask- never without provocation, always after second-guessing herself.

In some way, she knew that if she were to be exposed to more of what the people from that other version of her world had to say, the fragile structure of beliefs she held about her own would be compromised-- a point that was all but entirely moot by now, of course. The only reason her reluctant interest went unaddressed now was only because there were now fewer of those from Cocoon or Gran Pulse of any version left behind- less chances to ask even if she was bold enough to do so. She still wanted very little to do with any of them.

Still-

"Do you know why she joined the Guardian Corps?" she asked finally, voice and body tense with lingering reluctance, and though it hadn't been said, the 'she' she was talking about surely wasn't hard to guess at.

At least this time she wasn't pointing a gunblade at the person she was trying to get the information out of.

[fallacies]

Oh, so she was curious about Lightning Farron.

Claire's interest in the other woman was, admittedly, a bit of a surprise to Cid, even if the only sign of it was a slight raising of the eyebrows. After all, it seemed almost taboo to bring up the other Farron in her presence. No, they'd never really spoken about her to begin with, but her attitude when the sergeant had been around was more than enough for him to get the idea that this was thin ice they were treading on right now.

"We never spoke of the matter," he replied with a light shake of the head. That probably wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it was the truth. The most conversation the two of them shared had been aboard the Lindblum prior to the raid on the Palamecia, and even then, it had been strictly business--there was no time for personal matters for either of them.

This didn't mean that he hadn't looked into the backgrounds of the l'Cie he was charged with guiding though. With Lightning's ties to the military--the GC, no less--he had access to more of her information than any of the others: important people, dates, and locations; and from those files, Cid had been able to piece together some of the woman's history and what drove her.

"But I do have my assumptions." His continuation was a beat past what could be considered a comfortable silence, but he made no sign that there had been any break at all. "She did it for her sister--to allow her to continue living a normal life after the death of their parents.

"To join PSICOM would have meant splitting the family apart, but to join the GC... She could stay in Bodhum."

If he was wrong about Lightning's drive and reasoning (and he very well could be), Cid had no way of knowing. He could only guess based off of what he knew. Farron had thrown away the world to try and save her sister during the Purge, so something as minuscule as picking up a job and staying in her hometown seemed all too logical to pass that reasoning by.

[subjection]

....

Claire looked off as if disinterested, but to her chagrin even she knew it was a very thin veneer indeed. Her mind was quick to jump into overdrive at the information- information she hadn't expected the man to actually be able to give her. While at first it didn't seem to help her much towards trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that made them so different, after a moment the exact oddity in his guessed-at explanation was quick to stand out.

By the time Claire's mother had died, Serah was just about already old enough to take care of herself, several years past the point where Claire had secured a place in PSICOM's training program. While not everyone stayed with PSICOM, of course, even if she assumed something was flat-out wrong in Lightning's head... the account still seemed off in Claire's eyes.

That said, she'd already noticed that when Lightning had been at Balamb Garden that she and Serah seemed somehow even closer than what she'd experienced with her own sister... and not just because of the gaping rift that had been cast between them back in Claire's world, when it had turned out they'd both been marked by fal'Cie on opposing sides. Before that, too.

Realization flickered to life inside of her. Their parents' deaths... was that why?

Lightning clearly hadn't been commissioned; everyone who knew her always referred to her as a sergeant... and suddenly, Claire couldn't help but think of that last picture ever taken of her mother, before she became too gravely ill for photos to be 'allowed'- it also happened to be the first one featuring her oldest daughter with officer's wings pinned to the front of her dress uniform, near the end of the graduation ceremony for cadets coming out of the Academy.

Claire's head ducked slightly, frown tugging harder at the corners of her lips.

"I see," she said, as neutrally as she was capable of. However, the question lingered: if she'd been left without her parents at a much younger age, would things have turned out so radically divergent? Changed to the point where the Brand on her chest took on the appearance of what she'd been trained all her life to believe was the mark of evil?

[fallacies]

I see? And a frown?

Well, it wasn't exactly very much to receive in response, but that had always been the norm in their conversations, had it not? This time, though, there really wasn't incentive for him to continue rattling away (not that Cid Raines ever rattled, of course), but there was also the matter that he simply didn't have more to give her.

Even if he exaggerated, he couldn't claim to be a friend of Lightning Farron. To extrapolate the data he had gleaned from her files only went so far, and as good as he was at connecting the dots, Cid never was and never would be a mind reader--something that held a fair bit of weight here as well. Claire's thoughts may have been kicked into overdrive at his words, but to him, she only appeared more sullen and unfriendly at his answer.

Again, he wondered why she bothered to ask if all it did was upset her.

Whatever her reasoning may be (convoluted or otherwise), that was all she was going to get out of him unless she pressed further. Cid looked away, gaze trained on the scenery outside once more. His thoughts turned to the small collection of novels he had taken along for the journey; maybe this would not be such a bad time to get one of them out. Theirs was a long trip, and for the two of them to become easy conversationalists would take more than a handful of Q&A sessions from the both of them.