This is the Renault fic I owed to someone. It was pretty open ended, and didn't turn out the way I wanted, but here we go, a Renault one-shot!

Burdens

The sun was shining in the clear blue sky above the island of Valor. A shadow had been lifted, the forests bright and alive with color again. Birds were chirping freely once again. Besides the birds, the only thing you could hear were the soft footsteps of one man, his clothes lightly brushing on the ground wherever he treaded. He walked alone, head down as he thought amidst the peace.

"It still isn't over, is it?" Renault asked himself. As soon as the dragons were driven back and Athos collapsed to the ground, Renault retreated into the shadows, fleeing from the Dragon's Gate to escape into the forests of the Dread Isle. "I thought…all my sins, I can feel them weighing me down still. But it's not over, even though Nergal's life is…"

Bending down, Renault stopped at a pond to wash his face. As he splashed water all over him, he looked at his reflection. Many would recognize it as the same face of Renault the Steel Blade, the famed mercenary that fought for Caelin. It was different to himself, though. His face seemed to have aged greatly, and in his eyes, it seemed like he was looking into two dark voids.

"Wallace seems to recognize it," Renault muttered, thinking about the general, who had been a fresh recruit years ago. He had given much advice to the man, who had shaped himself into a powerful, dutiful soldier with decisions firm. "You are a greater man than me, Wallace…and a luckier one. You have no regrets…and know what lengths to go to, yet which ones to avoid."

Continuing his walk, Renault found himself on a mountain, slowly making his way upward. "It was this day, many years ago, friend…that I lost you. What would you have done if it was the other way around? How much do you despise me now? I'm afraid I'll never find out…you and I will be separate in the afterlife, after all." Looking at an arrow below him, unsure which side had shot it, it reminded him of the past.

Flashback

"What are you doing, Feyalt?" Renault asked as he cut down a bandit, addressing his friend. Feyalt's back was turned to him, but Renault knew something was wrong. His long time companion's blade was held limply to his side. What was that protruding from him?

"Feyalt!" Renault cried as he ran to his friend's side, just in time to catch him. Someone had show an arrow through his heart. "Feyalt…Feyalt, answer me…it's not the right time to pull the fake death tactic…stop acting…" Instead of crying, Renault's eyes seemed to darken as he looked upward, seeing the archer who had shot his friend down. Before the next arrow hit him, Renault took his friend's blade and blocked the shot.

Charging at the archer, Renault knocked aside the bow. "Please, I surrender!" the archer pleaded, dropping to his knees. Renault said nothing as he brought his blades up. Knocking the archer onto the ground, he placed his friend's sword in the archer's stomach. As the bandit shrieked in pain, Renault walked away, out of the battlefield unharmed. The archer cut his fingertips when trying to grab the blade, and there was no way to merely pull himself out. There he lied in agony before dying.

Flashfoward (back to Renault)

Turning around, Renault looked back at the Dragon's Gate. After his friend fell, he had met Nergal. "And for your sake, Feyalt, I listened to him, falling into his lies…it was wrong. What I wanted to do, and what he wanted were different things. Even if I did succeed…would it have been right? Right to tamper with life…especially when I had to sacrifice everyone else?"

Renault reflected on what he had done for his goals. "So many lives…lost...so many sacrifices I committed…" Looking at one of the dead morphs below him, he saw one that held a knife. "No right in that, at all."

For his friend's sake, he had spilled blood, stolen quintessence. All for Feyalt…he even killed the father of Lucius, hadn't he? That night, Renault had broken in, slitting the man's throat before gathering his quintessence. Then he had left the mother and son alone. That son's mother died, leaving him to grow as an orphan. It was even possible that he was the one to inflict onto him the sickness of the soul Lucius had.

"But you forgave me," Renault sighed. "I still don't understand how…how you can easily forgive someone for killing a person like that. Feyalt, Lucius…I wish I could learn from you two, your ideals. Forgiveness…it's a lesson I have yet to learn." As he walked along, Renault saw a wyvern rider, a dead morph, up ahead. Opening the visor of the helmet, the bishop stared for a moment before continuing his walk. Feyalt's morph.

Flashback

"Marvelous, isn't it, Renault?" Nergal laughed as the morph's creation was over. "A masterpiece…we have discovered the secrets to making morphs now." Renault slowly walked over, gazing in wonder at his friend's face.

"I never thought I'd see you again, Feyalt," Renault whispered. "I can't believe you're here again…Feyalt?" Feyalt's eyes, gold and the only thing not matching his actual friend, just stared blankly into Renault's. Two endless abysses staring deep into each other. "Feyalt?"

"It appears I have not yet made emotions for them," Nergal commented. "No matter. It was just the first attempt."

"This is a mockery, a sin…" Renault muttered, fists clenched. "What have you done?!" Nergal merely laughed.

"What have I done? If not for my faithful servant, you, desperate to bring back his friend, I would have never accomplished this," Nergal mocked. "You've brought back his face, haven't you? You didn't ask for the rest of him." Renault left the room.

Flashfoward

Then he had joined the clergy, become a follower of Elimine. From there, he had risen through the ranks as a bishop, and came back to Valor. "I should have never come back," Renault muttered. "But I had to see…see what I had done to the island by showing Nergal how to create morphs…"

"Why can't I find the answers?" he wondered. "Isadora…you seem to know all you need to. You feel regret, yet you know what you do is right. I have mistakes that I can not move past and can not find the right path…" At the top of the mountain, Renault looked back down into the forest below him. It was a fatal height.

Closing his eyes, Renault began praying, ending with, "Let my blood atone for all that I have spilled…" As he readied to fall, something held him back. He was unwilling to tip down to the forest of Valor, killing himself. Sitting down, he mumbled, "Something's not right…"

I've killed, haven't I? Renault thought. For the wrong cause, as well…to make amends, I must rid Elibe of the curse and burden of me…to rid myself of my own burdens, too…

"But it doesn't feel right…" There's something missing. Killing myself…it's not the proper atonement, is it? It's not an atonement…it's another sin…would it be cowardly to do so? There was still things he needed to.

Before he could rest, Renault needed to fix what he had done. Make sure all traces of terrible arts such as creating morphs were in safe hands, fix the lives he had shattered…

"Lucius…Feyalt…Isadora…Wallace…I'm sure all of you would have forgiven me for what I have done," Renault assumed, "but I still have to learn how to. Not today. I can't rest today. I want to sleep without nightmares, without burdens." Hiking back down the mountain, he headed to where he was told Fargus and the pirate crew were.

"Ye're not with Eliwood!" one of the pirates protested.

"I joined on the island," Renault answered. "Now, as I asked, a rowboat…"

"Ye'll be in the hands o' Davy Jones in a day!" another argued. Renault bent over.

"I've been through more storms than you have. Bigger, longer ones, where I've been lost at sea for years. I just got out of one, and I need a rowboat to swim back onto land," Renault insisted.

"Ye're really brave…or really stupid…"

"Don't mention this to the others," Renault requested as he took the oars and began rowing. It would be a long way before his feet were firm on land, but he had been lost longer.