Disclaimer: Don't own anything!
Author's Note: Clearly, I've been watching too many musicals lately and this idea refused to leave. Not everything in here is a romantic pairing or even a pairing at all. I didn't intend them all as pairings, but if you want to see it that way, you're more than welcome. Happy holidays.
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~ Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be. ~
-Marsha Petrie Sue
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We were strangers,
starting out on a journey
Zelos is the one who started this whole thing, as Sheena is more than happy to remind him when it suits her. He bumped into her, but he was rather in a rush and jogging down the stairs, so that bump sent her sprawling back, her groceries spilling across the floor. He immediately goes to help—his mama raised him better than to not help a lady—and is startled by her words.
"Hey, Red, you ever watch where you're goin'?" No one had ever spoken to him like that.
Zelos looks at her, wanting to see what kind of girl this was. She wasn't very tall and she wasn't terribly short; wasn't fat nor was she skinny. Her clothes were worn loosely, but in the way of comfort. She blows a strand of ebony hair out of her eyes as she bends to pick up the tomatoes that went rolling. She doesn't look much younger than him, maybe thirteen or fourteen.
"Something worth staring at there, Red?" She asks, one hand propped on her hip.
She's fire and passion and steel and Zelos swears he's never been so entranced by anything in his fifteen years of life. "Absolutely."
Never dreaming
what we'd have to go through
It isn't that he hasn't tried to apologize. He has. She snaps and snarls at him every time. Zelos isn't surprised. Sheena was a fiercely loyal person in her own right. Having grown up in Mizuhoan culture where betrayal was one of the highest dishonors, Zelos knows that she'd yell at him.
Zelos has always liked arguing with Sheena. He enjoys hearing her unique point of view, her independent opinions. She challenges him like no one ever has before. It's exhilarating.
But this, this wasn't their arguing. This was a fight. A beatdown, drag on fight and Zelos wants to go back and fix it and tell her why he did what he did, why he betrayed them all for a sister that didn't care about him.
Zelos has faced down angels and monsters, demons and dragons and Summon Spirits and he's still more afraid of facing Sheena, whether it be with the truth or an apology, than he's ever been during any of the other battles.
Now here we are,
and I'm suddenly standing,
at the beginning with you
It's been three months since the restoration of the world and Zelos is enjoying his trip down to the market. Usually, Sebastian would do it, but he wanted to get out of the house today, wanted to wander a bit and stretch his legs.
The market is crowded today and Zelos has to squeeze through crowds to get to the stalls sometimes. During one of those crowd-squeezings, he feels his elbow knock into something.
"Oh, sorry." He says, turning towards the victim. "My bad."
He freezes when he sees that face, the one he's learned to know so well after months of travelling and years of interaction. She looks just as surprised as he is.
Zelos tries for a smile. "Hey, darling."
Sheena seems to give up on some internal battle she'd been having with herself. "Hey, Red."
No one told me
I was going to find you,
Unexpected
what you did to my heart,
She is something different, this Anna of Luin. She's feminism and snarliness in the morning; she's eye rolling and bandage snatching-before-applying. She's spitfire and sarcasm and sass and Kratos isn't entirely sure how to deal with that sometimes.
But one thing she isn't is afraid of him. She saw his wings and while her eyes widened a little, she quickly shrugged and asked, "Am I supposed to be in awe? You want me to faint like the girls in storybooks, 'cause that's not happening."
Anna's intelligent and quick learning, even though she'd spent much of her life trapped in a cell. She sees a chess board in an inn and asks him what it is. When he replies that it's a strategy game, she makes a direct beeline for the table. "Teach me." She says simply.
Kratos still doesn't quite know how it all snowballed into this, into her lying beside him in bed at night, into her making enough coffee for the both of them in the morning. Into teasing kisses and arms resting on shoulders.
When I lost hope And life is a road
you were there to remind me
this is the start
and I wanna to keep going
When he hesitates to hold his son, Anna rolls her eyes. "Would you take him already? You won't drop him."
Kratos eyes the bundle of blankets in her arms. "You don't know that."
Anna grins at him. "Don't you know? Mothers know everything."
Love is a river
I wanna keep flowing
Yuan never removes his ring. Sometimes, logic tells him he should. After all, the woman who had the matching one was dead and was trying to be brought back by her psychotic brother who'd managed to make it so he controlled the world.
Then Yuan wonders when life was ever logical and he loses the original point of his internal argument. The ring stays on.
Life is a road
Now and forever
A wonderful journey
I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
He lingers, something wanting to keep him rooted to the spot as he sees the small seedling that would one day become the magnificent tree that Martel had shown them. Colette takes his hand.
"Come on, Lloyd." She says quietly. To speak loud in a place like this seemed wrong somehow. "Everyone's waiting for us."
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you
She was the first thing Lloyd noticed when he walked into the classroom. Her desk had been by the window, he remembers, and the sun had glinted off her blonde hair. With all the confidence a kid could muster, he'd gone up to her desk.
"Hey." Lloyd began. "What're you starin' at?"
She'd looked away from the window then and her eyes had looked very big and blue, like the cornflowers in the field Lloyd saw on the way to Iselia, or the summer sky. She smiled a little sheepishly. "I like watching the clouds."
Lloyd dragged a seat and sat on it backwards so his arms were resting on the back. "Yeah? That's pretty cool."
"Most people think it's a little strange."
"Let me tell you a secret." Lloyd leaned in. "I like to look at the stars. I like counting them and sometimes I imagine what else could be out there."
Her eyes go wide. "Really?" Lloyd hums an affirmative, smiling. "I've never met someone else that did things like that." She smiles and lit up the world. "My name's Colette."
He holds out a hand. "Lloyd Irving."
When Colette shakes his hand in a slightly awkward way—shaking hands seemed very grown up then, but Lloyd knew no other way—it's the first time he holds hands with her.
We were strangers
on a crazy adventure
Never dreaming
how our dreams would come true
"…Hey, Zelos?"
The redhead looked over at Lloyd. It wasn't often that the younger man—Zelos had debated to himself about using that term for a while before deciding that yes, Lloyd was most certainly a man, not a boy—spoke to him, let alone sought his advice.
"What's up, bud?"
Lloyd's been standing at the wheel of the Elemental Cargo for the past hour or so. He's not a terrible driver, but he's not a great one either. It's understandable, Zelos supposes. Sylvarant didn't have such technologies, even though Lloyd seemed to pick it up fairly well. Zelos had gone back inside after staying a little too long out on deck and got a little burned. He'd decided that perhaps it was better to stay out of the sun for a bit and they'd been sitting in a comfortable silence for a while.
"Do you really think we can do this?"
"What?"
Lloyd gestures vaguely with one hand. "This."
"What, try and get all the Summon Spirits together? Save Colette?"
"All of it."
"I don't know. I never really thought about it, but I guess. Sure, why wouldn't we be able to do it?" It isn't like Zelos to be even that optimistic, but then, no one had ever put a question like this to him before, not even Sheena.
"'Cause the odds are against us?"
Zelos shrugged. "Didn't think that kind of thing would stop you."
Lloyd doesn't say anything for long moments before smiling wide. "Yeah, you're right. It's stupid to worry about that anyway. Thanks, Zelos."
It's the first time Zelos really begins to admire him. Lloyd had been unsure, hadn't known whether they were capable of doing this, and yet had plunged on anyway. Zelos isn't sure whether to call it optimism, bravery or foolishness. Perhaps a mix of all three, he muses.
Now here we stand unafraid of the future
At the beginning with you
"You're really going to go through with this?" Zelos asks him. "It's sick."
Lloyd looks at him and he looks older. Logically, Zelos knows he is, obviously, but he shouldn't look this much older after just a few months. It's unsettling and it's one of the few times that Zelos can really see the resemblance between Lloyd and Kratos. Both of their eyes were much too old for their faces.
"I have to." Lloyd says. "We need the Eternal Sword."
"It's your own father." Zelos had never had the best relationship with his own father, but even he knew that things like this just shouldn't happen.
"You don't think I know that? I'm going through with this."
"Oh, I know. There's no talking you out of anything once you've got your mind set on it." Zelos settles back against the worn wooden bench and looks around. It should feel wondrous here. Few humans had ever been in the elven lands and never with such freedom, but right now, the whole place feels like a lovely cage.
Not that it mattered. They'd all break out anyway. None of their group was very good with being stuck in cages, no matter how lovely they were.
"So, tomorrow, huh?"
"Yup. Tomorrow."
I knew there was somebody somewhere Life is a road and I wanna keep going
that made love in the dark
Now I know my dream will live on
I've been waiting so long
Nothings gonna tear us apart
They're all there at Genis' graduation from the Palmacosta Academy. He hasn't grown much taller, but there's something in his face that makes him look ages older. No one's sure whether it's his elven blood showing or if it's his hardships.
"But," he tells them over the celebratory dinner that night. "I'm not gonna stop here. I wanna learn at the Tethe'allan universities, see what they have to teach me."
Love is a river I wanna keep going on
Starting out on a journey
"You can't think that we'll just let you two keep travelling on your own, do you?"
The woman turns, her hazel eyes cool. "We've been doing just fine without you."
Yuan smiles. "So it won't be a bother to have some extra tagging along. Safety in numbers and all."
He likes this woman, this Martel. She's got spirit. It's something that a person didn't see very often these days. She's feminine with touches of feminism and she doesn't mind hard work, if the state of her calloused hands are anything to go by.
The first few days of travelling are a little strange and sometimes awkward. Kratos certainly wasn't going to start up any conversations—that worries Yuan a little and he wonders where his best friend's gone—and the kid eyed both he and Kratos with wary eyes. So Yuan matches step with Martel and tries for conversation.
They learn to stay away from the touchy subjects for both of them; where they're from, how they got here, why they're here and why they're going where they're going. The safe subjects range from the weather to the state of her dress—Yuan offers to mend it. He's a decent hand with a needle (She nearly asks him why, but that's a Before question and it's off-limits)—and she accepts.
When Martel takes a look at the stitching once he's done, she arches her eyebrows at him. "You made it in the shape of a lightning bolt?"
Yuan grins charmingly. "Variety's the spice."
Life is a road and I wanna keep going
Love is a river I wanna keep flowing
In the end I wanna be standing
at the beginning with you