Noel Kreiss x Reader | Final Fantasy XIII-2
✓ COMPLETED + UNEDITED | 2018
After the fall of Cocoon had rendered much of the land infertile and uninhabitable, the existing civilisations were forced to resort to hunting and foraging for natural resour...
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Chapter VI | Anchored to the Past
Noel was sitting alone on the embankment outside the Academy building, his body hunched forward against the dark sky, looking despondent with his legs drawn right up to his chin. He seemed lost in thought, lost in that troubled mind of his.
You approached slowly when you saw him, walking as if too scared to leave behind footprints, as if too scared to make an imprint on somewhere you knew you didn't belong. "Something on your mind, Noel?"
The boy looked up at you through glazed blue eyes, a giveaway of his interior conflict. He managed a smile, but it was weak, humourless, a smile like paint that had been mixed with too much water so that it was just a faint smudge on his face. "Should've known that you'd pick up on that."
You came to sit next to him, flattening the grass with your hands and resting your head against his shoulder. "Is it about Yeul?"
"Not... necessarily. It's just... this place. First we end up in an old Farseer village and then you turn up, out of the blue, nobody knows how or why you're here. I just... it doesn't make sense."
"That I'm here? No, it doesn't make sense. I belong seven hundred years into the future. So do you, Noel. But maybe there doesn't have to be sense or clarity. It's just the will of the fates."
"It's the will of the Goddess Etro," he corrected. "The Goddess of Valhalla. The Goddess of Death. Nothing good comes from death."
"Peace," you said quickly. "Peace comes from death, surely."
Noel sighed, shifting beneath you. You lifted your head. "Hope's looking for us," you said, recognising the sudden solemn turn of the conversation. "We should go and find him." You were already pulling yourself to your feet, brushing down the grass from your legs. Noel mirrored your actions.
"I'm not saying I don't want you here," he said suddenly, his fingers pinching the sleeve of your shirt to stop you from leaving. "I'm glad. I really am. But I'm worried about what it means," he clarified, then rolled his shoulders into a shrug, hopeless.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough," you said gently, then led him back inside.
"You know, I'm still struggling to understand these paradoxes," you said as you walked, tapping your fingers against your folded arm. "So they're basically... tears in the timeline? Some kind of mistake - a discord that creates anomalies, things that shouldn't be there?"
Noel scratched the back of his head with a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, I guess that's exactly what they are. Though when you put it like that, it sounds pretty serious."
