A/N: I just felt like some angsty Lloyd/Colette goodness, so I wrote this up just a second ago. Unbetaed, so feel free to lynch me for errors I didn't catch. Also, gave present-tense a try. I quite like it! It feels much more engaging, now that I think about it.
She's already forgotten what it's like to dream. To close her eyes and let reality melt into something special and magical that words or logic can never capture. Full of colors, full of hope, full of the only world that would let her pretend to be free of the burden she'll carry. Everything's trickled away like water through her fingers, leaving numbness in its wake.
She used to tell her Father about the journeys she'd take in her sleep, to magical places and even to heaven, where a white-winged Martel would kindly smile and kiss her forehead like a mother. And he'd always told her it was a sign of good fortune; she would succeed where others had failed. Martel had given her a blessing. What a lucky Chosen she was.
Is this really Martel's blessing? Now all she has are long nights of thinking, thinking of what will happen when the journey ends. Only Kratos keeps her company when everyone else falls asleep, tending the fire while watching her with eyes oddly sympathetic, but even he can't dispel the creeping loneliness that depicts her fate. Cold, still silence that blankets the night, followed by the guilt she feels for not wanting it at all.
She wonders… will being an angel be like this? Endless stretches of wakefulness? Never to dream again? If she could remember how to cry, she might've. The thoughts never stops coming, try as she might to direct her mind elsewhere. She'll be alone, away from her friends, away from this world, away from her dreams. Her last world of freedom has been cut off forever.
Some days are harder than others to keep smiling like everything's going to be okay.
But then she starts to notice how Lloyd always mutters in his sleep, or snores so loudly that Genis not-so-subtly kicks him in the ribs. He'll mumble a threat and turn on his side, face as peaceful and smooth as a child's. He'll smile at something in his dreams, and she'll smile, too, as if she's sharing the dream with him. Then Lloyd breathes out a soft word that almost sounds like her name, and she won't realize she's starting to cry.
In the morning he'll ask how she slept, and she makes sure to give him the brightest smile possible. Great! she'll say, with enough enthusiasm that she almost believes herself. He's dreaming for her now, so it's almost the same thing, right?
Even if it's not, that's okay. As long as Lloyd can dream, that's all that matters.