Disclaimer: Namco owns ToS and its content. I own nothing.
AN: Sort of a tribute to a certain Lloyd-loving webmistress since she suggested I write a fanfiction on him. Anyhow, you'll find that a majority of this fanfiction will be completely fictional (like how fanfics are meant to be) since there's practically no background information to this. So if you see things a bit off from the game, you'll know why, haha.
"There now, stop crying, young lad." Dirk sighed, attempting to approach the brown-haired toddler that scrambled away each time he took a step. His arms were open, trying to grab at the child and comfort him. Sadly, it hadn't been working for the last three days he had the child with him.
"Waaah!" And it still apparently was not going to work. The child only began to cry out louder, yelling out words of "momma" and "pappa" as best as he could with hope that his parents would come for him. Dirk, however, was only filled with sympathy everytime the toddler called out the two names; the child had lost both parents at the young age of three, with no idea of the terrible fate that had befallen them.
Taking one more step in attempt to have at the child, Dirk lowered his arms. From all the child's shrieking, it was obvious he was terrified. Not only was Dirk a complete stranger, but with his arms spread wide for hugging most likely made him look like a giant, after the toddler to eat or something of the sort. Nothing he did helped. Dirk had tried to catch him--the child had incredible speed for one of his age--but it had only ended with failure.. It was obvious from all the experiences of that that the child had still not warmed up to him... then again, most children tended to be surprised when they saw a dwarf for the first times in their lives, for although Dirk was not vertically gifted he was instead presented with a rather intimidating look. Dirk could easily frighten a child twice as big as him, sadly.
However, that one step he had taken was futile. The toddler only began to scream louder and run off while attemping to climb up the stairs... only to fail and bawl even louder. Dirk sighed once more, something he wasn't quite used to, and went over to pick up the child who was now too busy with wiping away the tears that streamed down his cheeks. This boy had pride and wanted to desperately keep it intact. And already only at the age of three he was determind to have a good look on the outside...
"Quiet now, lad." Dirk whispered in his usual rumbly voice, thinking of ways to call the child by his given name.
"What happened here?" Dirk muttered to himself, shocked by the bloody scene.
Before him was some sort of animal that strongly resembled a dog. The creature was lying on its side with a large gash on the left of his body, red liquid oozing itself out. Not too far off from the "dog" was a woman, covered in her own blood, lying face down on the solid ground. There was a wailing coming from her direction, but it sounded far too childish to be coming from the woman herself. Dirk quickly scrambled over to the woman in hopes that she was still alive. Thankfully, she was... but only by a bit.
"What happened?" The dwarf repeated as he flipped the woman over to find a large gash across her chest. That had horrified him although what shocked Dirk more was that a bundle was being tightly held by her... a child.
The woman coughed up some of the blood in her mouth, wheezing, "Please... my child... Lloyd... please, take care of him..." She managed, literally shoving the bundle forcefully at Dirk as he looked down at the woman who looked young. Far too young to the point it would've been a pity for her to die.
"Your name...?" He finally managed as he registered in his mind that she would not live. Not with such a wound.
She smiled weakly, happy to see that her child would live on with a father figure, "... Anna..." Then her eyes slowly closed, the lids over it lightly.
Anna had died right then and there. Lloyd had suddenly bawled louder at that moment.
As Dirk was lost in thought, he had not realized that Lloyd's crying had come to a halt. Taking advantage of Dirk's unawareness, Lloyd poked his nose, squealing with amusement as Dirk suddenly snapped back into reality. Eyebrow raised, the dwarf looked down at the child, slightly frowning when he heard a rumbling noise coming from Lloyd's stomach. He plopped Lloyd down onto a small chair and took out a piece of bread from a shelf that stored all of the food. Handing it to the toddler, he expected the child to simply take it and start chewing. To his surprise, however, Lloyd snatched the piece of bread with incredible speed and began to gobble down the bread. In a record time, the bread was no more of this world.
"Quite the eater, aren't you?" Dirk exclaimed with his heavy accent, looking down at the child who was now laughing happily for being fed a rather large piece of bread. He suddenly frowned after clearly observing Lloyd. Having avoiding the dwarf for three days in total, the child had had no food or bathes during that time span. No wonder the child was bawling so loudly; it was not quite afraid of him... he was just hungry but didn't want to go near Dirk.
After a moment of silence, Dirk spoke of his current thoughts, "Let's get you cleaned up and fed properly... Lloyd." Finally, he had said his name. After three days, he finally said the name he had wanted to from the beginning he had learned it, He was now the father of his child, and he would have to get used to it.
A father... the thought that Dirk smile, for he had never exactly had a family... no siblings, and both mother and father gone. He would make sure that he would be a good role-model for Lloyd. He would comfort him whenever he was troubled, and feed him whenever the child was hungry. Dirk would see to it that Lloyd grew up to be a successful and happy man.
There was a sudden whimper from outside. Ah, Dirk had forgotten all about it.
"And you'll be fed too, Noishe." He finished.
AN: Zomg, that was a short prologue. This'll most likely go up to Lloyd's 17th birthday, so there'll be a total of 17 chapters at the minimum. I might add in extra stuff in for the heck of it... next chapter will come out in two weeks: January 30. I'm doing this bi-weekly... so if you liked the beginning for some reason, leave a review. I'll try to make the future chapters longer and much better; I really had no idea how to start this off, so it's horrible. Bleh!
