Vanille tilts her head at Ashley, turning over her words. Her parents died when she was really young, so she has no memory of them. The closest thing she had to real family for a long time was Fang. The rest of the village, too, of course, but she and Fang had a special bond.

"She sounds like a great person," Vanille says softly, almost wistfully. "You must really care about her." It makes her miss Fang even more and of course the rest of their new family. Funny... When she was living on Gran Pulse, before her Focus and her part in the war, she would never have wanted to befriend anyone from Cocoon. Now she knows... they're just like the people on Gran Pulse. They've just lived different lives.

"Sometimes," she says, latching onto the other side of the topic, "but you're better off working with other people. It's a lot less dangerous that way, if you fight with people who have different strengths than you."