Disclaimer: Star Ocean is not mine. Of course.

These next few chapters are kind of short-- so I'm posting more than one at a time. greyrondo

Chapter 11

The nightmare was different.

"Jason," Albel cried out with all of the ambivalence absent from the terrified shouts he had accepted waking up to. But with the echoes of his suppressed memories clamoring in his mind, his eyes darted open in beat with his heart's sounding thunder.

A memory treaded the surface of Albel's focus as he gazed around the slowly familiar room. "Jason," he said again, this time in waking.

Jason of the Vox family was a young boy of twelve, with cropped chestnut hair and three months of advantage in height and weight—which seemed to make all the difference.

"Don't worry, Albel, it's only a dulled blade. It won't hurt you, not really."

Easy for the boy to claim when he had Albel pinned on the dirt of a vacant sparring ring.

Albel scowled and kicked his fellow soldier-in-training off. Then he sheathed his sword and dusted himself off, before turning his back to the aggressive young noble.

"C'mon, Albie, aren't you gonna fight? You're such a wimp."

Albel stopped, and waited for Jason to catch up with him. Then he flew around, with his sheath as a dull club to at least strike at the boy who had tormented him incessantly from the instant he had appeared on the Dragon Brigade's training grounds.

If only Jason had not taken the blow and managed to strike him in return, just below the pectoral muscles in the center of his chest.

Albel sank to the scraggly mountain dirt, scrambling for his breath.

At that moment a cold mountain wind picked up and howled in the rocky crags at the silence between them.

"Got ya, Albie," Jason sneered as he playfully planted his foot on the nape of Albel's neck. "Think you're so tough just because your daddy's the Captain. Whatever. You know what my dad said? That the new king's got big plans. He's gonna choose his leaders based on ability, not on lineage. And that includes you."

Suddenly Jason laughed with sick inspiration. "Think of me as encouragement to succeed, Albel. I'll always be close behind you. Slip up, and you'll feel it. Can't have such a girly coward for Captain of the Dragon Brigade, now."

"What did you say to me?!" Albel snarled, forcing Jason off of him. He rolled to the side and crouched, catlike, as he returned to a defensive stance.

"What're you going to do, Albie, are you going to use that sword on me? I'm so afraid. I'm surprised you can even lift it, skinny as you are."

Albel was young, but old enough to know to curse his Aquarian blood for the thinness that weakened him so in comparison to Jason.

"All right, boys, no sense in tiring each other out before we've even left for Airyglyph," Glou Nox's voice called out over the dusty practice yard. There was the hiss of grain on the wind, and suddenly the world expanded again until it was no longer just the bare-dirt arena.

Autumn was coming to Kirlsa, still warm as it would be throughout most of what Airyglyph considered winter. The pleasing temptation of snow drifted down in the northern winds from the mountains, but it was not enough to fend off the sun for more than a moment.

"Aren't you lucky," Jason muttered triumphantly in Albel's ear as they got to their feet; their provoked brawl was now nothing more than a bored scuffle.

Albel saw Sieg and Helgrave, nine and already cutting up behind their father's back, and wordlessly brushed off Jason as he jumped the gate to leave the practice yard. No need to motivate Jason for round two later on.

And his mother was there too. Smiling crookedly in that strange and intelligent sense of humor that saw a wry comment in everything, her hair pulled back so as to feel Kirlsa's warmth on her face—she had never learned to take for granted the perennial warmth, and always spoke with mock envy when she heard of more seasonal weather from Aquaria.

The kiss that Glou and Ephemera exchanged was enough to elicit a typical reaction from Sieg and Helgrave, and then Albel knew it was time to go. His parents were required in the royal court.

"Be waiting for ya," Jason said in what was interpreted by Albel's parents as a farewell.

That was always how it was, Albel resented silently. But then, shortly after that, nothing mattered.

A sixteen year-old Albel cradled his head against the threadbare pillows dyed in humble and empty beige. He was in a room that had not changed for two years, his bedroom. He had experienced too much of change to want to bother with it for anything else.

The closest feeling to curiosity he could muster was spent on the unfamiliar white linens wrapped around his right wrist. The wrappings extended all the way up his arm.

It had not been easy to slit those veins, he thought as he stared at the bandages in disappointment. It had required him to hold the blade with his teeth as he pierced the lucid skin under his wrists. All that work, for nothing in return. And now he was exhausted. It was not quite fair.

Why did Helgrave have to be so inquisitive. Another five minutes, ten minutes perhaps. And Helgrave had been so angry. Sieg, quiet Sieg, had simply disappeared from the doorway only to materialize a moment later with bandages and healing runology.

And now his arms were sheathed in long sleeves, as Helgrave had ordered so that Count Woltar would never know. But Albel always wore long sleeves. It was the only way he could be warm; he would never go near fire.

A pair of knocks. Albel did not so much as look up—it would of course be Helgrave and Sieg. They entered uninvited, two mirror studies of the same features, growing stronger while Albel withered away.

They each took one of his hands in their own: Helgrave reviewing the wound on his right, Sieg meditating over his lifeless left. Trapping him like this was the only way they could be sure he was at least aware of their presence.

"Your hair's growing long again," Helgrave remarked. Although it was addressed to Albel, the comment was truly for Sieg. Albel never replied.

"I'm surprised it's grown back so fast," Sieg replied near inaudibly. But in the silence, his clipped voice was a shout.

For two months after Duke Vox returned Albel's shell to his remaining family, the boy had jumped at a breath of wind, shied from the blows of sunlight. Fire would render him wide-eyed and paralyzed. And he cried out against his own sleep.

After the funeral, after their mother's belly had swelled with an infantile ghost of Glou Nox. After Count Woltar had been given temporary leadership over the Dragon Brigade, and after the Count took into his own the Nox family lands and lordship over Kirlsa. After House Sylphide reclaimed its faraway daughter, suddenly and suspiciously requiring Ephemera's presence in the Circle of Voices.

After Arzei had schemed himself onto the throne, after the former King Airyglyph's death was allegedly brought about by Greetonese assassins. After relations with Aquaria cooled following Ephemera's return, following rumors that Crimson Blade's Zelpher had been killed by a Glyphian blade.

After everything, Albel simply stopped living.

"But you're still too thin," Helgrave commented.

"And the scars," Sieg said as his eyes morosely traced Albel's collarbone, "will never go away."

"Come on, Albel," Helgrave finally sighed. "What are we going to do. We're all that's left of our family—Rozalin probably doesn't even know that she's half Airyglyph. The war with Greeton is only getting worse. Albel, Jason is coming back from the front. Count Woltar can't head both the Dragon Brigade and the Storm Brigade any longer."

"Albel, listen to us," Sieg told him. "As much as we hate to admit it, we're only thirteen. We can't do anything. But you can…"

Albel did not even stir.