Lightning Farron - Blog Posts

Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to be Hope in Chapter 4? He’s following this chick because he rightfully acknowledges that she is a badass and can probably help him get stronger, but this chick also resents his presence the whole way. She almost abandons him completely.  

He was almost abandoned for real. 

In the most dangerous place still in Cocoon. 

He isn’t yet the Hope he is at the end of the game and nowhere close to the Hope of FFXIII-2 that could convince an entire Academy to follow his lead.  

His story almost ended there in the Hanging Edge.

It hurts my feelings that he begs Lightning to take him with her, that he says “I’ll try harder, I’ll get stronger…” Just don’t leave me. is the silent plea at the end. After all, what reason does he have to believe that she wouldn’t when he has already watched her walk away from Snow, who she is connected with through her sister, without even looking back and then left him once already? 

He knows that this time there is no Sazh and Vanille following after them. They parted ways. Hope knows that no one will find him if she does actually leave him behind. The stakes are so much higher.

So, when Lightning decides to allow him to keep following her, Hope’s relief is so potent and painful. “Oh, thank god, she likes me after all,” is the joke I made at seeing it this go-round but, in reality, he was likely thinking of how he could stay useful to her, how he could prove to her that he could toughen up. 

I don’t believe Lightning would have actually left him considering that Odin came because she was growing desperate. Lightning has already been established as a protector with Serah. She entered herself into the Purge and took on a Pulse fal’cie all for the sake of her sister. Odin targeted Hope the moment he appeared. The Datapad says that she moves without thinking to protect him. There are multiple times when Odin attacks Hope and you, as Lightning, have to heal him; in those moments, Odin’s bar goes up faster. (It takes a significant jump when you use magic. Just attacking him as Commando will not impress him.) 

They've been put in situations, your honour.

FINAL FANTASY XIII (2009)

“Why did you keep looking for me?” Lightning demanded, the harsh confusion in her tone would've come off as anger to anyone else, he knew her well enough to see the true emotions behind it. “There was a chance at a normal life here, Hope. A fresh start like you should've had before the purge. Why didn't you take it?”

The young director breathed a slow sigh, such a tired sound, and it filled her with regret. He deserved better, she'd never been able to give him that.

If only she knew that all it would take is her presence. He had no desire for a normal life if that meant she wasn’t in it.

“I made a promise once that l'd watch out for you too.” Hope reminded her of the heartfelt exchange from long ago. “There's no God or Goddess, no barrier of another realm that could stop me from keeping it. We're partners, Light, that'll never change.”

// Cr to Strifegirl for the manip

Hope Estheim stood at the edge of Bodhum's sea, the salty air breezing across his face and sleepy twilight waves lapping at his feet doing less to relax him than he remembered it able. While disappointed, this was not a recent or unexpected development.

The latest attempt sat alarmingly low on the list of things he's made to help calm his thoughts, consumed by a certain ex-soldier, and he was running out of known comforts. That looming blankness making up the rest of the page evoked a barely restrained panic that only one solution may truly put his stress to an end.

All Hope wanted to do was pull Lightning Farron close and confess his long-harbored feelings for her. Feelings that had taken too many sleepless nights to come to terms with. Adoration turned crush, and evolved into something which confined him in misery.

Now that he wasn't a puny, stuttering, short-stack and possessed the ability to tell her without making a fool of himself, it's the one thing he's thought about most for the last two years. Despite the impulse nearly driving him out of his mind, he always cowered from the opportunity to reach out and try.

Understandably so. First off: this was Lightning. The chances of him ending up with a bloodied nose if she didn't reciprocate these feelings were high. Secondly, and the more paralyzing, making the first move might cause irreparable damage to what they have at present.

The bond with Lightning that he's managed to achieve wasn't grown in a day. It was slow going and they'd had to overcome many adversities before getting to where they are. Laughing together, confiding in each other, supporting each other and trusting one another wholeheartedly, that was a blessing he'd climbed mountains for.

He cherished being with her and the others more than anything else in the world, their shared trials at the start of their journey as l'Cie formed an unshakable fellowship between a group who otherwise would've parted ways with a sneer, and that bond only strengthened as time went on.

What if this is what strains it? Breaks it, even. Especially with the rosen-haired warrior.

The threat of destroying his current relationship with her just to quell this longing has trapped the young Director in a petrified stalemate. No matter what; he cannot lose her. He knows he could never recover if he did. In honest, while he loved everyone in their found-family, Hope considered Lightning his best friend, and she the same. He should be happy with that, shouldn't he? That should be enough for him, right?

His sea-green eyes closed tightly in despair, chin tucking toward his collar in a bid to protect himself from the brunt of the truth as he realized... it wasn't. It never would be. Not with the incessant pressure in his chest when he's next to her, or the burning desire to get closer. Not while his hands itched to hold her, to touch her and thread through her delicate pink hair. When the struggle to hide how much he cares for her, how much he always has, was so near to ruining him; what they have now was already over.

The sickness of it all was beginning break the cement hardened onto his lips. For his own sake, his suffering would be bitten behind them no longer. Lightning would know by next they met, she had to, before it killed him.

The darkening tides were up past his ankles now, the surface of the water at his skin trembling to show his failure in keeping that panic at bay. Another affliction his throat had become too tight to swallow down.

Suddenly he felt fourteen all over again, small, weak and breakable, watching and waiting for the impact of his fragile world crashing onto him. And just like back then, Hope Estheim was so deathly afraid.