FINAL FANTASY XIII: Reminiscence Tracer Of The Memories

C7: Oerba Yun Fang & Oerba Dia Vanille

Aoede:
“But at that time the both of you were the pillar holding up Cocoon, and there was nothing you could do… After that, how did the two of you escape when the world was taken over by the Chaos?”

Vanille:
“Hope saved us. Right before Cocoon fell apart, they cut us out of the pillar and sheltered us. You know, that organization Hope created – um, what’s it called again?”

Aoede:
“Conseil de Renaissance. And after that the two of you continued to sleep.”

Vanille:
“That’s right, we slept for 500 years. We woke up 13 years before the end of the world. I wanted very much to thank Hope for saving us, but…”

Fang:
“By that time 150 years had already passed since Hope was kidnapped by God. The Conseil de Renaissance had been defunct for years, and the Order of Salvation were the ones running things. Can you imagine what a shock that was? We finally woke up, and what did we find? The world in shambles, people throwing themselves at the feet of a strange god. I thought, what the hell is going on here?”

Vanille:
“But it had to happen, sooner or later. We were fine because we were asleep, but everyone else had already lived through 500 years of a dying world… you can’t fault them for wanting to depend on something, they were so tired, inside. And that got me thinking. If the teachings of the Order are a lifeline for the people, well, maybe I should help them out, too.”

Aoede:
“I heard that during those years, you, Vanille, were “the Saint of the Order of Salvation”. I suppose that, like a saint, you wanted to help as many people as possible when you cooperated with them.”

Vanille:
“…Yes, but as it turned out I wasn’t working with them at all. I was being used.”

Aoede:
“Used?”

Fang:
“The Order exploited Vanille’s feelings. They welcomed Vanille into the Cathedral, fed her pretty lies, things she wanted to hear. She’s the type to take everything seriously, and she believed everything they told her, never suspecting anything. She took it into her head that she could help everyone so long as she did whatever the Order wanted.”

Vanille:
“…That’s always been one of my faults. You know how it is, you keep thinking you have to fix your weaknesses, but in the end you can’t ever change. My feelings were caught in a dead end, so before I knew what I was doing, I’d bought into the Order’s – no, God’s plans.”

Aoede:
“God… you’re talking about the Glorious God, Bhunivelze. Snow said that Bhunivelze was also the one behind your awakenings from the crystal. Is that true?”

Fang:
“Who knows? Seems the most plausible explanation, but for all we know Lumina could have been the one behind it.”

Aoede:
“Lumina… the girl who appeared when the two of you woke up. The first child to appear in 500 years, in a world where children are no longer born – put this way, you can’t help thinking of her as some kind of Holy Child of God.”

Fang:
“Holy my ass, she was a s***ty little brat, like Chaos personified. But for whatever reason she was really attached to Vanille.”

Vanille:
“Lumina may have acted like a spiteful prankster, but really, she was a lonely girl who wanted attention. Maybe she woke us up because she wanted someone to indulge her.”

Fang:
“All the same, Lumina could have been working under Bhunivelze’s orders, too. In any case, when Light and I were looking for the “Holy Clavis”, Lumina sabotaged the search.”

Aoede:
“You took off for the desert right after waking up from the crystal?”

Fang:
“No, I spent a few years with Vanille, under the Order’s care. We lived in Luxerion, where the Cathedral was. In a way, those were the easiest days of our lives, after all we’d been through. Our lives in Oerba, on Gran Pulse where we were born and raised, those days were just one hardship after another, and when we became l’Cie, charged with taking down Cocoon, well, “a hard life” doesn’t even begin to cover it. So you see why I thought taking it nice and easy in Luxerion wasn’t such a bad idea. And there were a number of decent men and women among the followers of the Order.”