A/N: 10/09/06: A little editing on this chapter.
No, I am NOT trying to develop Colette/Kratos relationship. Colette just feels close to him. :P My excuse of why Kratos is so amazing when he's on his own -Cough spoiler- is near the end of this chapter. I've also taken some ideas about Tales of Symphonia from Lady Nephenee Ranulf's story Thoughts on a Forbidden Romance.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Once again, I'd like to remind everyone that I don't own anything in this story. Namco does. ;) Some ideas from Tales of Symphonia that are included in this ongoing story are the ideas of Lady Nephenee Ranulf. Not my ideas. :)
To Become an Angel
Chapter one: To Protect
There was a knock upon the wooden door. "Chosen. Are you ready?" The deep, relaxed voice of Kratos sang through the door. I am sprawled on my bed at the inn at Hima, alone, Diary and pen to the side of me. Everyone else is eating breakfast. I feel so guilty...but I shouldn't. I'm saving the world. Saving everyone. And destroying another, destroying millions more...
I'd reply, but I have no voice.
So I get up, tucking Diary and pen into a drawer next to the bed that I am on. I don't need them anymore. I am about to leave this world.
I open the door, but I don't even bother trying to shape my face into a smile that used to be so natural for me at the stone-faced mercenary. I think, for some reason, out of everyone here with me today, Genis, Raine, Noishe, Sheena, and even Lloyd, that Kratos understands what I'm going through the most. I don't know why. I've known everyone else much longer, but it's just this strange feeling.
I want to thank him for being so patient with me, for waiting outside the door for so long for me, and doing me all sorts of little favors that no one else caught on to. I can't, but I know he can see it in my eyes. How desperately I want to thank him, thank everyone...
"Chosen."
I feel like he struck me across the face. His expression doesn't change, but his dead eyes soften just the tiniest bit. But it was probably just the poor lighting.
I should explain. Kratos... Kratos is the mercenary that my grandmother hired to protect me. At a very high cost, too. He has this aura of cool around him, and I admire him so much.
Raine is my teacher, my schoolteacher from Iselia, the village where I was born and raised. She's very strict, and sometimes... I don't think I matter that much to her. Like I'm just some specimen she has under a microscope, like she's only here because she wants to be able to document the Angel transformation and see it herself. But I know she cares for me... right? She was the only teacher in the school that would stick up for me and punish the kids that did mean things to me just because I was different. But it never made a difference in the end. They all still think I'm stupid, just a big klutz, even though I'm the Chosen of Regeneration. But that was probably what started all the teasing anyway... the fact that I didn't know anything that they knew, the fact that I only knew things relating to the journey of Regeneration that I am almost at an end to. It makes sense, I guess, seeing that I would have been dying in just sixteen years.
Lloyd and Genis are tag-alongs, as I heard Kratos say, but Lloyd and I have been friends ever since he saw me getting shoved to the dirt during recess and saved me from everyone. He was my security blanket, but today I have to let him go, let him do what he wants to do. I know that I'm just being a burden to him. He doesn't have to tell me, even though he insists otherwise. I'm just a burden that he can move over and just keep going on in his road of life.
Suddenly, I feel like I'm overcome by sadness, so much that it feels like my heart is going to give itself out. I lurch forward, my hands reaching up to rest on the Cruxis crystal bound to my neck that marks me for who I am. It's usually so comforting, something to remind me of all the people that I'll be saving, but today, it just makes me feel worse. It makes me remember all of the people in Tethe'alla that I will be harming by completing the Ritual of the Chosen if my heart isn't pure enough. It makes me remember that this is the last day for me. It forces me to remember all of the things I still want to do that I'll never be able to manage to finish. It reminds me that I'm about to die. It hurts even more...
Through my hazed-over eyes, I see him rushing forward, cushioning what would have been a flat-out fall into a hard wooden floor (I probably would have made a hole) into a light embrace. At least, I'd think the floor was hard. It looks wooden enough, but since I can't feel anything anymore... I don't know.
"What's wrong, Chosen?" I hear a concerned voice say.
Of course. Kratos. It's his duty as a mercenary to see to my safety, that I'm okay. He's being paid to do it. He's not acting on instinct. He's acting upon order. The sadness builds. I'd throw up, but I haven't eaten food in months. I haven't needed to. I can survive on nothing. I am already so much Angel, but if this is what becoming an Angel means, I- no. No. I will not let myself start down that dangerous path...
I try to force a smile upon my lips to signify that I'm fine, but I fail miserably by a long shot. It's nice to be embraced, even if it's by someone who doesn't even really know you. It's comforting to know that, once upon a time, a hug was something that signified that someone cared about you. But I have not actually felt one in so, so long... and now I never will.
I ease myself out of his arms and stand upon my own two legs, back against a nearby wall. My heart's still trying to wrench itself out of life's fragile grasp, but I won't allow that. I still have a task to complete, and I will not allow myself to fail in this crucial time.
This heavy sadness... I think Kratos knows what I am going through. But then again... I'm probably just imagining it. Who am I trying to fool? But I still want to believe... so I take his gloved right hand. I see his arm muscles tighten, as if I were hurting him, and I see pain flash through his eyes in the merest of flickers with my sharp Angel eyes, but I won't stop this time. Call me weak, call me clingy, call me a failure... just call me something human.
"...may I talk to you?" he repeats softly after I finish tracing the letters out on his gloved palm. He knows that the slightest sounds grate my ears, so he tries to be quieter. "If that is your wish."
Kratos, I trace upon his palm, may I ask something personal?
He lets a slightly gusty sigh. "If that is what you desire, Chosen."
I wince again. Kratos always refers to me as "the Chosen." My name is Colette! I want to scream, but I know that he can't become attached to me. I'm just his charge, his job. So to him, I am the Chosen. Not Colette.
I have so many questions that I'd like to ask him, but I know that time is short and that writing takes such a painfully long time. Have you ever been sad, so sad beyond reason? I spell out as quickly as I can on his hand without making it illegible.
He rakes his free hand through his mess of dark red hair, his dark brown eyes looking to something that I can't see behind me. He's sifting through his memories. "...yes," he finally answers, his facial features softening as he relives his memories.
I don't know how to reply. Why did I want to know in the first place? But somehow, knowing that Kratos understands how I feel... that is enough for me. I hold his hand in two of mine and bring it close to my still beating heart. I close my eyes, but I can still pick up with my Angel hearing him shifting his feet as he was pulled probably too-close-for-comfort towards me, his teeth gritting together in that subtle I-don't-want-you-to-know-that-I'm-in-pain-but-I-know-you-know-anyway. He probably thinks I'm weird, that I'm getting overly attached to him. And I think that I'm guilty for all of them.
Strange. I never noticed before, but whenever anything touches Kratos, even if it's a gentle brush, he always flinches away. I don't know why. It's odd to me, the fact that a living being wouldn't want to touched at all. Even dogs love to be petted and hugged.
I think of a short protection prayer, and I run over its familiar edges in my mind with only a few slight variations.
O Holy one... take this man whose hand I hold into thy gentle wings' care. Please, I beg of you... protect him!
I feel a strange wash of warm, comforting energy rushing out from somewhere inside of me, leaving me to run through his hand that I hold. I hear him blink with my over sensitive Angel hearing and I open my eyes. Kratos's face is one of slight confusion, and I smile at him, a kind, gentle smile that I don't even have to force myself to remember what it looks like. In my vision, I see the last traces of the mana of enormous pink feathered wings fade away, wrapped protectively around him. I drop his hand, still smiling from the warm feeling of being able to help someone I admire and walk towards where I know everyone else is waiting.Top of Form
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