First I really want to thank KorosuKa for Betareading this story!
This is my first story on FF, and I would like to continue it, so I hope you enjoy~
I do not own Tales of Symphonia.
Chapter 1: A fateful encounter
The sun shined gently on the earth; a nice breeze whooshed trough the field. The three creatures that sat in the field were listening to the sounds around them. They heard birds chirping, the flow of the river and the blowing of the wind.
"What a peaceful day," the green haired woman broke the silence.
"True," one of the men said.
The red haired man just nodded, "But it can't be like this forever."
They were silent for a moment, until the woman spoke again, "I'm sorry." Martel had suffered from the rare disease known as Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium, now she has been cured but she had weakened a lot since then.
"Martel, we're not blaming you," the man with blue hair said.
"Yuan," she mumbled.
"It's not your fault that your powers have weakened from creating this world," the other guy said.
"Guys, thank you," the woman whispered; they smiled at each other.
"But I believe that one day we can regain peace in the world," Yuan said.
"We'll need to find a way though," the other man said and his red eyes peered into the sky.
"I'm sure we can," she said merrily.
"But first, you have to stop the war between those incomplete beings," someone said behind them. The three turned around; Yuan and Kratos drew their swords. Before them stood a twelve-year old child, looking at them with her empty, mint green eyes. Her pale skin was coloured with dried blood and wet from the water of the river. The men withdrew their swords. "It's their entire fault that, this world, is dying", the girl uttered before she fell down on the ground and lost consciousness. Martel stood up and rushed to the girl; Kratos and Yuan were running after her. She briefly examined her and then gasped.
"We need to take her home! Quickly, while she's still with us!" she panicked.
"But maybe it's dangerous to-" Yuan couldn't finish his sentence.
"Dangerous?! Yuan, it's just a defenceless child!" she cried.
"What Yuan means, is that we don't know anything about her. What if it's a trap?" the red haired man said.
"It can't be a trap. It just can't," the woman insisted.
"Why are you so sure about that?" Yuan asked.
"Because, because, this is my sister!" she cried out while holding the child tightly, "That's why! That's why I can't let her die!" The two men just stared unbelievingly.
"Let's go home then. Quickly," Yuan decided, "But you'll have to explain this to us later."
Martel took the child in her hands and answered, "I will."
The three of them started to run to their house.
Martel took care of the girl's wounds, when she was done the woman put a wet cloth on her forehead. "She's sound asleep and won't wake up the next hour. In the meantime lets search for Mithos; he should be still playing in the forest," she said.
The three got outside and started to look around in the forest. It was getting dark outside, so Martel made a light source appear out of her hand for a clearer view.
"You do know that 3 siblings mean a bad omen, right?" Yuan noted, stepping on a branch.
"What are you talking about?" Martel asked, as if she forgot what had happened this day.
"You didn't tell us you had another sibling," Kratos said, and looked at the woman.
"You mean her, it's not like, I mean, I don't know," she replied.
"So you just said it without thinking?" Kratos questioned, while climbing a tree.
"Kind of, but this child, I feel some strong connection with her, that's why I though: maybe it's my sister." Martel confessed, while glancing at the man.
"A strong connection, is she also a goddess then?" Yuan wondered, while looking underneath a stone as if Mithos would be there.
"I don't know, but I'm sure she's also half elf," she acknowledged, and frowned slightly at the men.
"You know something else?" Kratos asked, trying to look as far as he could from the tree.
Her eyebrows knitted together in a frown, and she said: "No that's all. I bet there are a lot of other things we don't know about her. I also found two scars on her back."
"An angel?!" the two men gasped.
After taking a deep breath, she added: "No. Angels don't have scars on their back; you guys have too much imagination. She's different, that I can tell, but those two scars can mean anything."
"So there are even things you don't know," Kratos mumbled, and made his way back down.
"I created this world, but there are things I don't know. I'm not ruling it anymore," Martel said with a sigh, and looked at Yuan who was looking in bushes.
Even though Martel was a goddess, she was also a half elf and that's why she was banished from her home, Ozette, together with her brother. A short time after that, the Kharlan war broke out. The conflict between elves and humans are too great to stop, and there's discrimination for half-elves, who live in fear. That's why Martel and her brother, Mithos, once were one the verge of death. Thanks to Kratos, a human that thinks there's no need to kill half-elves, they could escape. After travelling a few days in the mountains, they wandered into a forest. There they met Yuan, a half-elf, who joined them on their journey, and since then two years had past.
"Big sister!" someone shouted; the three turned around.
"Mithos," Martel rejoiced. The blonde boy jumped in his sister's arms.
"Where were you?" the woman asked, looking at her brother.
"I was looking for the parents of a small fox that got lost," Mithos explained.
"You caring little brat, you made us worry for nothing," Martel said with a relieved smile; the two men smiled as well.
"Are you going to tell him about her?" Yuan asked.
"Tell me about what?" the boy wondered, and looked curious at his sister.
"Well, eh," Martel didn't know what to say at first. Yuan saw that she was troubled and he wanted to say something, but Kratos held him back. "Mithos, I found our sister," she finally said.
"Sister?" he looked confused, "I didn't know we had another sister."
"Neither did I," Martel mumbled. The two men just looked wide-eyed at her. Mithos didn't know what to say or how to react. But having another sister didn't sound so bad.
"Well, I will be happy to meet her," he smiled; Martel felt herself getting emotional.
"Let's go then," Martel said, and the four went back to the house.
"Martel, I thought you weren't sure about her." Yuan whispered in Martel's ear.
She stopped walking, and almost begged him: "But, we can change it, please, Yuan, let her stay, do it for me."
Yuan sighed, "You know even if I didn't want her to stay, I couldn't refuse in the first place. Or else you would be angry at me, and I don't want that."
The woman's eyes sparkled. "Thank you", she said with a soft voice, her grateful smile made him blush.
When they arrived at the open field, they saw there was a blizzard. "Something's not right," Kratos said.
"Sis, how can there be a snow storm in the summer?" asked Mithos, who stood behind his sister.
"I don't know," she answered him, and then she gasped. "The child!" she screamed while running towards the house with the three after her.
Martel carefully opened the door. The small wooden house was dark, and they only heard the noise of the blizzard and the mumbling of a child's voice, "It hurts."
Martel walked over to her, "Are you alright?" The young woman looked worried as the girl turned around. She was sweating a lot, trembling and breathing heavily.
"L-leave me alone!" she raised her trembling voice, and eyed Martel with fear.
"It's okay, we want to help you," the woman said, and reached out her hand to the girl.
"No! You'll just use me! Like the others did!" she screamed and jumped up from the bed. She backed away; the men wanted to stop her from running away and came closer. Suddenly the girl ran towards them and jumped over them before they could stop her. Mithos looked surprised when he saw a girl of around the same age as him doing that. The girl ran somewhere, north, in the direction of the mountains. The blizzard started calming down a bit.
"We have to find her," Martel said with a worried face, as she started walking to the door opening.
Yuan grabbed her hand, "But we don't know anything about her, think about it Martel."
"Yuan we talked about this, do you really want to leave her like that?" she insisted, and Kratos was just quiet like always.
"But-"
"Yuan! You promised!" Martel shouted indignantly.
"Err," began Kratos, drawing their attention.
"What?" they both asked, and faced the man who was leaning against the wall.
"Where's Mithos?"
Martel and Yuan gasped, and looked at each other.
"Stop fighting you two, let's better find them." They nodded and went out of the house to find the two children. While the three of them were searching for these kids, Mithos wandered through the forest that surrounded the closest mountain.
'Maybe I'll try this hill; it's snowing there more than at other places,' Mithos thought. He didn't know why he was trying so hard to find her. 'I want to help her', was the main thought that was going through his mind right now. He wanted to know why she was so afraid. When the boy was on top of the hill, his eyes saw a beautiful flower field. For a moment he gazed at the flower field, and suddenly he heard someone's voice.
"In the loophole in the faint sky, a flower petal drips down. Standing in the gold wind, it slowly sways. What direction is it headed?" His legs were already moving to the direction of the voice. "The turning gears of time. I chase after our entwined feelings and reach out my hand. Oh, interweaved future, and ungranted wish from the past."
Mithos stopped a few feet away from the girl. He had found her. He gasped when he saw the blood dripping over her body; her wounds had probably opened when she ran away. It snowed just a bit; a cold breeze whooshed through the field, and her hair waved in harmony with it. She turned around and froze at first, but then started to back away.
"Go away," she said with a trembling voice.
"I just want to help you," he said, while walking in her direction.
"No! You're lying!" she shouted at him.
"Why should I lie?" she stopped and looked at him. "Are you alright?" asked Mithos. She wanted to reply but before the girl could say a thing she collapsed.
"H-hey!" Mithos ran over to the girl, took off his coat and put it around her. He took care of her open wounds, healing them with his magic and bandaging them with the little rest of bandage he always had with him. When he finished he placed her head on his lap, and looked up at the sky, "At least it's not snowing anymore."
They sat there for a while. "Sis, where are you?" he sighed.
The girl was slowly regaining consciousness. "Uhm," The boy startled when he heard her. Then she roughly pushed herself a few feet away from him. "Who are you?" she asked warily.
"I'm Mithos," for a moment he doubted, but finally said, "Your brother."
The girl's expression changed to surprise, "But how? I don't have siblings, nor parents."
"But now you have!" he said bluntly, and the girl stared at him unbelievingly.
The boy quickly looked away and said, "I mean, you're in pretty bad shape so you could at least stay with us till your wounds have healed."
A silence fell over them, and he felt her cold stare at him. Mithos looked in her eyes, which locked with his for a moment, and something in her wide pupils changed. They both turned their faces away, blushing.
"Just be aware of the fact that I can kill you any moment," her voice trembled a little as she spoke.
"I promise we won't hurt you", he chuckled and it made the girl shyly smile back. The tension in her body started to slowly lessen. A silence fell over them as they gazed at the flower field. "How are your wounds?" he asked, breaking the comfortable silence, and he looked at her.
The girl looked at her bandaged wounds, "Did you do this?"
"Yeah, sorry, I'm not as good as my sister," Mithos said, and she merely nodded.
"It's not that bad," she reasoned. Then he realized something, he couldn't call her forever 'you' or 'girl'.
"What's your name?" the boy asked. She looked at him for a moment than at the sky.
"They called me the unconquerable," Her eyes met his, and she said, "I'm Nikita."
"Mithos!" The two children looked up.
"Can you walk?" he asked. The girl nodded with confidence in her eyes, but she doubted she could actually manage it. He helped her to get up and supported her when walking. When they were almost off the mountain, Yuan saw the two and shouted. Martel started to run in their direction. When she arrived, she embraced the two and almost started sobbing.
"Geez, don't worry me that much."
"Sorry" Mithos apologized, and Martel looked at Nikita.
"W-will you come with us?" her voice trembled.
"Guess I have no choice", Nikita's voice trembled too. A silence fell over them.
"Let's go then," Mithos said, breaking the silence.
"Can you walk?" Martel asked when looking at Nikita.
"I- I can walk", she said when she freed herself from Mithos and wanted to walk, but she had not regained enough strength and she almost fell. Kratos caught her just in time.
"Guess not," he chuckled and took her in his arms. Nikita was too embarrassed to meet his eyes and she looked away. The three companions stared at them. Yuan looking at him with a face like; dude, you bloody pervert. Martel just hadn't expected that from him, so she stared for a while at them. Mithos was kind of confused; he didn't really know what kind of expression he should have right now.
"What?" Kratos asked. Yuan turned around whistling, Martel said that they had to go so she could treat her wounds, and Mithos still just stood there stiffly.
"Mithos!" Martel shouted, waking him up from his gaze. He followed them in silence till they were home. When they entered the house Kratos laid Nikita on Mithos' bed.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"No problem," he smiled and went to the couch to take a nap. Yuan was reading a book upstairs. Martel was looking at Nikita's wounds.
"Is it bad?" Nikita asked.
"Nah, it doesn't look that bad. My magic seems to work, within two days you'll be able to get out of bed, but you have to promise you'll rest properly", she insisted, and Nikita nodded convincing. "I'm going to make the food now, so if you want to sleep; I'll wake you up when we're going to eat."
"Okay."
Mithos had gone up to the attic to study his magic. A half hour later, Martel called everyone to dinner.
Please tell me what you think about it :3