"What was all that about being a swordsman – and not just one, but two blades?" scorned Osha as he lashed out a fast right aimed for Lloyd's shoulder. The Desian was perfectly groomed in two-toned uniform and tailored temperance. His dappled eyes, a tortoiseshell color, witnessed one Lloyd the Prisoner under visible duress. It was late into the night – the kitchens had cooled from their usual choke of boiling air – so there was no excuse for the heat that jumped noticeably to Lloyd's cheeks. By the legitimacy of his taunting, Osha hardly needed to make a move. He wasn't winning this game; he was letting Lloyd lose it.

Lloyd sighed out his disgruntlement – admittedly his pride had taken a huge hit – and failed to avoid the plastic sting against his flesh from Osha's stab. The expression in his eyes withered a little but then re-lit with the soulfire tendency to prevail. Lloyd exploded into action. In a sudden display of nerve, and a hard push ahead, he launched the tip of his scraper at Osha to prove himself once and for all.

Yet his opponent dodged effortlessly and delivered retribution via the blunt of his weapon.

The thread of conversation continued in the form of Lloyd's excuses. "They took my swords from me before I even woke up."

"You were that dangerous?"

"I am– was." Lloyd shook his head, more out of frustration at himself than at Osha. This was the first time he couldn't hold his own during a spar. He was incredulous at the discovery. He just couldn't believe it. His body didn't move the way he remembered it to, his weapon was a cheap piece of kitchenware, completely alien to a sword, and he couldn't for the life of him recall the way that Desians fought. He was, for some reason that was driving him mad, unfamiliar with Osha's combat style even though it should have been an easy memory to refresh, like riding a Rheiard. For crying out loud, he'd bested more than a handful of Desians in his time – and more than one at once! Brown eyes shook in blazing amber flecks of disbelief. His wayward locks of soft, dark caramel slipped back over his left eye. He automatically tossed them out of the way with a jerk of his head while desperately trying to avoid Osha's flawless executions.

Unfortunately for him, all in vain.

Fortunately for him, Osha had a heart that couldn't help but pang a little.

"I believe your story, Lloyd." Here came unbidden an almost apologetic, pitying sound in his voice, as if he didn't want to bring this up but knew that Lloyd had to face the very apparent truth about his skill level. "But it means you've gotten sloppy."

"I don't get to practice like you do," growled Lloyd as he rolled up the sleeves of his arms, presumably so that the loose length of tarlatan fabric stopped flouncing over his wrists and getting in his way. "This is the first time I've done something like... this... since I've lived here. Of course I'm sloppy."

"And slow."

"I'm not slow."

This he didn't want to own up to. But Osha pantomimed slitting Lloyd's throat with the cutlery weapon. He made sure to exaggerate the movement to show how very easily it could be accomplished.

"Quit it, Osha."

"Make me quit it."

"I might. I'm bigger than you. You shouldn't pick fights with someone bigger than you."

Osha exhaled something between a cackle and a snort, and nearly choked on his own spit in doing so. Then he came at Lloyd again, fearlessly, with nothing more than sly grin, rubber palette, and his unscrupulous methods of bullying.

"You may be bigger than me," and it was true, as Lloyd's height had overtaken Osha's and peaked Lloyd with a generous two or three -inch advantage – four, with his boots. And Lloyd always wore his boots. Osha wasn't very tall to begin with. "But I'm faster than you." Mercilessly, the older of the pair lanced out and overthrew Lloyd's hand for the third time in that bout.

"This is much smaller than what I'm used to," Lloyd complained of his fake weapon.

"For me, too."

Lloyd growled again, a rumbled warning in his throat, and Osha displayed another impish smile, the kind that painfully reminded Lloyd of Genis up until he mentally slammed the doors shut on the past. Genis would have swooned at the comparison.

Teasing like Genis but reminiscent of Kratos in momentum, Osha was not any fun for Lloyd – especially not when Lloyd was having more difficulty than he should have with controlling his own body. Kratos had always been a crushing drive in their spars of yesteryear; his demands had been overbearing; his attitude, stiff; his reactions, unconditional and psychologically debilitating. Even Kratos used to imply that Lloyd's pace was glacial, but now Lloyd had to hear it all over again – and from somebody thousands of years younger.

"Don't be so touchy," joked Osha, yet he rested his arm at his side to give Lloyd a break. He only had to glance up into his partner's eyes to know that Lloyd was bothered by all this. Excited, but bothered. Of course, Lloyd didn't know how much intensity there was in his bearing right then, but it was enough for Osha to call a time-out.

Lloyd dropped his "weapon" into the sink with a clang. The two of them were alone in the back kitchen, sparring with the longest utensils they could find. Lloyd had used a metal spatula about a foot long. Osha, who had gotten more hits in, resorted to rubber or plastic serving spoons – otherwise Lloyd would be all welts tomorrow. He might still be, with how out of practice he was. This was practically a reliving of his piss-poor spars during the Journey with Kratos trying to teach him, and how mad he used to be at Kratos, and the foul reconstruction of Kratos' snooty, autocratic behavior from a child's viewpoint, and the way that Lloyd could never land a blow even when he did as he was told. Tonight was just as impossible as then. Lloyd was helpless in his strength.

Both he and Osha would be in a lot of trouble if they were caught, but tonight was a good night to take that chance.

Osha spoke up, flippant to the end. "But you're having a good time, right?"

"Yeah." For, indeed, it did feel good to be able to train again. "When I'm not tripping over my own legs."

That was all the affirmation that Osha needed. "Good."

Lloyd leaned his waist against the sink, suddenly more serious than he'd already been all night. The light of his eyes clouded over when he brooded. Osha hadn't seen him smile a single time that day. But, then again, Lloyd didn't seem to smile as much as he used to anyway.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're not okay?" Osha asked. And it was a dangerous question to ask without providing the means to an out for his younger friend. He wasn't supposed to ask that type of question. As close as the two of them were, they weren't involved. They were strictly not involved. Lloyd probably hadn't given away a single credible fact about himself to Osha in all the time that he'd known him. They only ever dwelt in the present. Lloyd had always kept it that way. Lloyd needed it to be that way. Even mentioning dual-sword combat was an earful to Osha.

That wasn't to say that they their friendship was superficial. His connection to Osha was real. Lloyd genuinely preserved every shared deed and conversation, laying down a foundation for them to mark a starting point. The weird thing about it was that the starting point was marked somewhere higher than at ground floor – so to speak. Their friendship was poised somewhere beyond truths and secrets, somewhere out there where lies were necessity and that was okay, and where Lloyd didn't have to explain the stepping stones of his personality. Lloyd was just Lloyd. His personality was just there, and nevermind how it got there or who his parents were or why he used to be good at swords or how long he was going to live in Centrum. Osha and Lloyd started in the present and would end in the present. There was no history behind them to spell out what was between them. They were brothers.

"I'm fine." Lloyd tossed another spatula into the sink before finally admitting to the reason behind his distraction. "Just I'm really going to miss you, ya know?"

It was brotherly sympathy that made Osha understand. And also brotherly sympathy that made him act like it wasn't important. "I'll just be a bridge away. And maybe a few forests and a boat ride away, too. But one– two continents tops."

Lloyd still didn't smile.

Osha nudged him with his spatula. "C'mon, it's not that boring here. Maybe I'll bring you back a souvenir. I should be home for Holiday."

"That would more than make up for it," ceded Lloyd.

The reality was this would be Osha's last night in Centrum for a long time to come. They had taken over the kitchen to throw a going-away party, which was really only comprised of goofing off while being as quiet as they could, and if Cook knew anything about it he hadn't spoiled the celebration. At dawn, Osha was going to be shipped out on assignment, the type of assignment that involved a lot of Desians in a little time – that's all he could tell Lloyd about it – and it would involve crossing the strait and not re-crossing it for months.

What Osha didn't know was that Lloyd had been waiting for this day to come with bittersweet ambition. This would be the last time that he ever saw Osha, if he had his way. When Osha finally returned to Centrum, Lloyd would be long gone. Truthfully, Lloyd didn't think he would ever see the Desian again. Brothers though they be, they fought for different sides. How little Osha actually knew on his last night with Lloyd.

Lloyd liked Osha. He did from the very first moment of cocksure boldness and finger-pointing antagonism, way back when in the kitchens. Osha's proclivity for competition was not unlike Lloyd's own – which is why tonight's particular whipping stung Lloyd something bitter. Osha wasn't Genis. Osha could be boyishly hectic for his age, whereas Genis always tried to act older than he was. Osha had a lead foot when it came to treading over delicate speculation and ice-thin politics (maybe that's how Lloyd got info out of him) though he'd survived, many a-time, the perils of both. It almost seemed like destruction had no belly for him and would spit him out alive, in a fluke streak of luck, for his entire military life. Lloyd wouldn't call him happy-go-lucky – Osha had his grit – but, rather, well-tested and sound of mind, as only someone homegrown in hardship could be. Osha, like Yuan, had always been a constant in Lloyd's Centrum life – moreso than Kratos had ever been. It didn't matter that Osha got shipped out more than both Seraphim combined. It wasn't his presence but his personality that was a constant. And he wasn't all action, either. Despite joviality, he was adult in both discipline and work, and had a sense of heart-to-heart devotion to Lloyd even though Lloyd couldn't – wouldn't – open up to him. He looked out for Lloyd. Which was probably why Lloyd knew that he would remember Osha for the rest of his life.

The boy Aurion had always been relentless when it came to his friends. Friends came first. Osha was an experiment in exception, to a degree. Lloyd could thank whatever coldness in his heart responsible for detaching Osha from his life story because this would bite a whole lot more if he had treated Osha the same way he had treated any of his other friends. Oh, that sensitivity would always be a part of him, chafed heart and comradely regard and all, but he knew from the beginning that he had made the right choice in walking away from anything closer. He had stuck his friends from home on a pedestal and made damn sure that Osha could never climb as high or jump so far as to mix himself up in this mess. Lloyd would not lose someone to be used against him, whether psychologically or physically. It wasn't too late to get out of here.

Truthfully, it was nearly the right time. When the future delivered Osha back to Centrum, Lloyd would be a thing of the past. And, reluctantly, Lloyd came to accept that he would never see him again. It was hard to believe that this was where their friendship came to a close – harder still because Osha hadn't a clue. The morning would come, tide and shine, and carry Osha away from Centrum, and then all manner of plans would be propelled into forward motion. Lloyd wouldn't be able to stop what was to come. No, once the plan was in full swing, it was jump or drown with the ship; sink or swim. It gave him a rather chilling feeling, as it would for any man when he knew that he was a mere inch off from being swept up into the arms of Destiny and there was nothing he could do to slow Her down. It was also invigorating, all-encompassing, like the urge to leap forward when one was forced to tiptoe. It was like a tickle in his brain. He wanted it to be gotten over with even before it began, just because it was this big, scary, frightening, wonderful thing. Lloyd couldn't, in his wildest dreams, imagine being out of Centrum anymore. He lacked the imagination, he supposed. He'd forgotten what real wind felt like and how bright the sun was at high noon and what grass smelled like and how a woodchuck sounded in the middle of Iselia's woods–

"That's about time. You're overdue for that."

Lloyd blinked, snapped back from his reverie. "What?"

"You're smiling," Osha pointed out. "Like a big, dumb, happy idiot. What're you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe that. But suit yourself."

Lloyd ran a hand through his stubborn, mussy hair as his smile slowly lost its innocence. Yes, how very little Osha actually knew during his last night with Lloyd. And how sick Lloyd felt, even while he knowingly struggled to lock himself behind his papery smile and the greatest wall of apathy that he had ever before created between a friend and himself.

It showed a little. Upon entering Yuan's quarters the next morning, Lloyd leaned his back heavily against the door and just settled there for a few moments in a lousy, sagging posture of self-inflicted embitterment. Today was the day of Osha's farewell. Sleeplessness had followed Lloyd like a bad dream, untuning stamina and the fine tethers of control – because, despite all his efforts to keep Osha as an arm's length friend, this misery still wasn't prevented in the end. It was inevitable. But it was morning now and time to cover his tracks. Irises of dark butterscotch followed the Seraph of Cruxis as Lloyd traded black, tumultuous emotion for the sight of everyday Yuan.

"You're here early," remarked Yuan, breviloquent as usual. With his normal placidity of ease, he shifted across the room and lifted a vellum-bound document from his oversized desk. His topcoat of brown wool construction, impeccably buttoned all the way up its high neck, gave Lloyd the impression that Yuan was going outside Centrum today. He wouldn't have been able to explain how he knew, but he knew. Yuan always looked well-presented – it was his modus operandi. But Lloyd could spot the red edging of a uniform sleeve as Yuan moved his arm, and that made him fairly certain that his first impression was the right one. Yuan lived his life in patterns that most people couldn't get close enough to read, but Lloyd had memorized a few.

"You're not going with them..." speculated Lloyd in slow wonder, keen eyes making a note of that flash of red – because, if Yuan were leaving Centrum, Lloyd would be more than just a little extremely interested.

"I didn't say I was."

"I meant it as a question."

"Then say what you mean to say, Lloyd," resolved Yuan, with starched attitude and inflectionless timbre.

"Sorry." But Lloyd sounded unremorseful. Yuan's snippety forthcoming had told him most of what he wanted to know. Perhaps it was one of those mornings where a certain thread of a pattern had already been plucked out of sequence and Yuan was in one of his precipitous moods because of it.

He might have not even heard Lloyd's apology.

"Got any breakfast?" It was simple, predictable, and unusually lackluster, and there was really no point in asking because Lloyd knew better than Yuan what food was there.

So Yuan didn't bother answering that either as Lloyd started to dig through the store.

A minute passed by with either of them in total silence.

Then Lloyd opened his mouth to ask a question. "You're not going with them, are you?" Rephrased. Because Yuan always got his way.

"No. I'm sending a Cardinal."

"Which one?"

"Magnius."

"Oh," Lloyd replied, while dexterously stacking various food goods into his arms. Then he muttered under his breath, rhyming loosely, something like, "Magnius the Inebrious."

Yuan's attention transferred to Lloyd. Unfortunately, with it came his directness. "What did you say?"

"Nothing."

Yuan watched the boy closely as he stole his plunder over to the table and spread it out in front of him. Lloyd had an erratic style of energy today in the darkness of his eyes. No, not an energy – quite the opposite, really. More like a restlessness, an itch. He began to prepare a pickle sandwich for himself. Dark circles of exhaustion could be traced against a complexion that looked just a little bloodless this morning; collaborated with that indefinable jittery charge in his eyes. Yuan read Lloyd oftentimes in the same way that he would follow a script. The boy made it very obvious when something was amiss in his strange little world, but the question was always whether or not it was up for discussion.

In silence, and completely unaware that he was being analyzed, Lloyd bit into his double-decker sandwich. The pickles wedged between each of the three slices of bread made a crunching sound as he chewed, even with his mouth closed. The timing of his visit rang another false note in Yuan's ears. Lloyd didn't usually visit until after his first summons of the day, and he normally breakfasted in the main kitchens.

"Where did you hear that?" persisted Yuan.

"Where do you think? The dining hall."

"From whom?"

"It'd be impossible to pick just one name, Yuan." And he made it out to be a vapid observation at even the most moronic level of comprehension, as if some things were just too obvious to point out. Ironically enough, he sounded a lot like Yuan.

Yuan watched as Lloyd began slicing into a fresh, whole wheel of cheese, still working on devouring his sandwich in record time. That was another crazy thing about the boy. Yuan had never met a human being that could pack away as much food as Lloyd Irving could. Granted, he didn't have much experience with teenagers, but it was almost with a sick fascination that he wondered where all of it went because Lloyd never grew sideways. He only grew up. His shoulders had been the only exception to this phenomenon since very early on. They were the only part of his body that ever grew horizontally, as if all extraneous protein went straight to the bulk of his shoulders. But, that aside, his appetite only made him grow taller instead of wider. How would forever be a metabolic mystery.

"You don't have a choice, so quit thinking about it," Lloyd piped up quite out of the blue.

Orbs of celadon, glossy like minerals in springwater, blinked surprise in the pretext to amusement. "Pray tell, what am I thinking about?" This would be good. Lloyd had his attention, at least – and only the residual aloofness of his mood, now.

"You're thinking that it's a bad idea to send out a Cardinal with Desians that don't respect him, even though it's alright if you don't."

The Seraph gave considerate pause, locking in his silence with his scrutiny.

"But you can't go, and you know you can't send Pronyma. So, like I said, you don't have a choice. So quit thinking about it."

Goodness, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong with the boy today – and why it had suddenly made him perceptive. For truth, that dilemma exactly was one that had been on Yuan's mind when Lloyd so adorably – and so coincidentally – parodied Magnius' name into the fridge. All told, it didn't seat well with diplomacy, and it certainly threw a wrench in patching together a patrol unit under the half-elf. What Lloyd was insinuating, after all, is that this little joke was being dauntlessly thrown around Centrum among the Desians and that Magnius commanded virtually no respect.

With his sandwich polished off, and a section of cheese still in his mouth, Lloyd headed straight to the cooler unit again to rummage some more. "I want meat," he declared, so casually withdrawing from the "Inebrious Magnius" topic as if he hadn't just effortlessly trespassed into Yuan's state of affairs and summarized it perfectly.

Yuan was still curiously taken aback by Lloyd's tactfulness, unpolished though it was. "Go to the kitchens," he managed. Dead animal, Lloyd's usual craving, would be cooking there in bulk this morning. The place was guaranteed to be in full swing.

"Not now. You know it's packed there already." The excuse was delivered quickly, for he refused to run the risk of seeing Osha. "It's been wall-to-wall with Desians since dawn." Lloyd returned to the table and started spreading peanut butter on apple slices, popping them into his mouth one at a time as they were fixed. "Since before dawn," he corrected himself. "And I didn't sleep a wink last night, so I had time to check."

Ah. There it was. The missing link to Lloyd's frantic agitation and what could only be the real story behind his eccentricity of the day: He was running on no sleep, and tensed – and the reason for both, Yuan deduced, was because his mole-friend must be one of the Desians that was being shipped out this morning. He'd bet his own Crystal that was it. Yuan still didn't have a name, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that one Desian among the masses departing was "the friend," and Lloyd was avoiding it. Yuan could sympathize that Lloyd wouldn't want to say goodbye to another friend, for the bad memories that would stir up, yet it still wasn't like him to shirk courtesy and give up so completely on a person.

Unless, of course, he didn't plan on seeing the Desian ever again.

He was avoiding the kitchens altogether, hiding out in Yuan's quarters with a half-wandered mind and a scrabbled sense of acceptance. But Osha's leave denoted so much more than the mere loss of friendship. It meant one down, two to go. All that was left for Lloyd to kickstart his plan of escape was for Kratos and Yuan to leave Centrum next. Kratos was easy. He wanted to leave Centrum, and was about to. Yuan was the one that Lloyd couldn't always be sure about.

And what should've been obvious to Yuan before but was only coming to him now, he realized – as he watched Lloyd swallow down another apple slice – was that Lloyd always ate more when he was grumpy. He required the excess fuel to make up for lack of sleep and to wake his body to the simplest of low-energy, commonplace tasks. Especially when he was torn two ways like this.

As if on cue, Lloyd droned in confirmation, "I'm so tired," and Yuan could see the way his eyelids were at half mast while he cleaned up after himself. Another remarkable thing: Lloyd never left a mess when he ate. Probably because there wasn't anything left by the time he was finished.

"I believe it's called a food coma, Lloyd."

Lloyd waved his hand dismissively at Yuan's gibe while he took up his favorite spot on the settee, at first curling his knees and resting his feet on the armrest but soon stretching out in typical fashion. His legs wrapped over the armrest, hanging low and dangling above the floor. He relaxed his head atop the opposite armrest that always served as his pillow.

He was finished going round-robin like a loon over the concept of Osha. In one night of weakness – or the search for absolute, inhuman control – Lloyd had pleaded apostasy. Grief, with its incapacitating, heart-sinking loss of self direction, had heaved its weight against him all night long, sparing him no peace during the hours preceding daybreak... because he considered friendship an eternal pact, and he begged himself not to, please, just this once, just long enough to forget about Osha until a time when detachment would no longer be a thing of feeling. A Lifeless Being, although not a popular idea, would be the right brand of emptiness for him to go through with losing Osha. Something enraged and alive inside Lloyd blamed Yggdrasill for all this because – why not? – that monster could take the hit for everything. Yet Lloyd knew that was too easy to do. The one crucial, human element that made this anything but Yggdrasill's fault was guilt. Lloyd had built this scenario on purpose. Although in its infancy it could be accredited to it, this wasn't the same thing as Yggdrasill robbing him of the opportunity to say goodbye to his friends on Sylvarant. This was Lloyd choosing to rob himself, to desensitize himself to a porcelain heart, to sacrifice a friendship that he had starved from the beginning, one that he had denied life. He wished that he could tell Osha everything about him, really, and trust him with all of it. But he knew that he had to go and that Osha couldn't come with him, and that was precisely the bottom line reason why Lloyd couldn't open up his life to him. He knew how it felt to be time and distance apart from his friends, and he would have to be mad to invite more of the same pain by attaching himself to someone on this world. He'd gone out of his way not to.

In another life, in another situation, they could've been great friends. But not now. He just couldn't. In the long run, doing it this way would hurt him a lot less and give Osha some semblance of protection. Sometimes there just isn't a better way. Sometimes there is no such thing as a happy ending. He couldn't believe that, for the first time ever, he was trying to convince himself of that, but he had tried to convince himself of a lot of insane things last night to anesthetize conscience. An irrational, sleep-deprived part of him had even been angry at Osha for not realizing that it was over.

Yuan cleared his throat, well and truly believing that Lloyd had forgotten he was still there.

"Good luck," bid Lloyd, eyes fast closed, intent to sleep away this important morning – right up until the procedural nightmare of Yggdrasill, that is. For the rest of the day, until well after Osha left Centrum, he would be a closed book.

There was nothing any more transcendental about this morning than any of the other previous mornings, nothing to explain the sudden call to arms and their fortressed emotions or their wickerwork campsite littered with the implications of their preparation. The sky was the white of a sun that couldn't break through the barrier of clouds, try as it might to spigot down and convince them that they were not alone. There was nothing to say about the weather but that it was the boring kind of mild. The only thing that made today any different was that it was a collective calling, a truncheon awakening, and it stretched beyond the limits of Sylvarant.

Genis Sage sat with criss-crossed legs as he dotingly handled his kendama. There was nothing but garden-variety supplies spread around him; a length of string which he would use for the new cord, a jar of linseed oil to reduce wood chipping, a mill knife to re-fashion the spike, a few red sun balls of slightly differing sizes. His weapon required nothing more than this straightforward allowance of tinker's toys and household stock. Don't aim too high to miss, he always said. It was the mana, after all, that did all the work. The kendama was used to focus a bigger weapon, and he didn't need a fancy sword to direct the mana that was already there for the taking. If ever he was elaborate, he would use Gels to dye the wood different colors. But that was for fun, and for this goal he didn't need anything beyond conventional replenishment.

His sister sat not far off to his right, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose which was stuck in a book. She had no need for weapon implementation. In fact, her weapon outdated any of theirs; an old six-foot quarterstaff made from the hardwood ash tree, bound with iron set with silver rivets. It was a little stouter than most quarterstaffs but was magnificent in its age, never tampered with, for, as Genis knew, it was not the weapon itself but what the weapon channeled.

Add Colette to the list, with her flying chakram rings, and they made a fairly competent, magical team.

Except they were missing Lloyd, the brawn to their brains, with his gung ho, rush-in-hack-and-slash element of fighting that kept their enemies occupied at a distance long enough for them to cast their spells.

But it was okay because they were going to get him back.

Colette appeared from their makeshift ridge tent, delivering two mugs of tea to the siblings.

Genis jumped up quick as lightning to retrieve the drinks from her, not out of chivalry – he was no Lloyd Irving – but because he knew full well what a klutz she could be and how the disaster of spilled tea would be nothing compared to Colette's distress over it.

"Thanks, Colette. You always make it the best."

"Oh, you're welcome!" Colette beamed over the compliment, clueless that it had snubbed Raine's cooking talents to the bottom rung. Really, who could burn tea–

"A geyser is a geyser is a geyser," interjected Raine, never passing her eyes from the book. "There is nothing particularly insightful about its history, so–"

"So, unless we're wrong, we're completely right," Genis finished, contented with their conclusion. There was nothing as satisfying as a good story except for when he could finally close the book on it. He went back to preparing to wage war, and Raine merely sipped from her tea, scouring the history book for any other leads. Colette sat down upon her hands, playing I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye quietly by herself as she listened to the siblings talking. They had been discussing this on and off and on again since talking to Neil. None of it was news to her.

"There is no other reason for the soldiers," Raine agreed. "Tourists don't bring that kind of trouble with them." She squinted at a particular sentence. "It says here that valuables have been lost from time to time, but–"

"–But that shouldn't warrant a military camp," Sheena stated matter-of-factly.

"Nope. Especially since it was Mizuho that suffered, not the rest of us."

Sheena peered over at Zelos to see if he was deliberately being insulting or if he was doing so accidentally.

He was bent over the slab of table, using oil and whetstone and a little bit of elbow grease to sharpen his broadsword. Long locks of hair, the same shade of red as the painted lips of a Meltokio noblewoman, fell in snaking lengths over his shoulder.

Sheena sighed and, in a fondly attending manner, pulled Zelos' hair back away from his face.

The man didn't even notice. The way he worked on his blade was with obsessive intent. He was singlemindedly absorbed in the task and about as picky as Sheena had ever seen him with anything. It was surprising; the things that Zelos could be religious about. Zelos never heat treated his swords because he didn't want to lose the original geometry or temper. Instead he chose to do everything by hand, and by himself, and he was a stickler to his rules. When he did maintenance on his rapier, he was even worse.

"Maybe they really are there because of Volt."

Zelos didn't even bat an eye – well, except to stare at the length of blade downward from its basket-hilt. "Sheena, they have nothing to do with Volt."

"How do–"

"How do I know," intoned Zelos, completely blasé about the whole thing as illustrated by his tone of disinterest, his eyes on his work, and the way that he had expected her to pitch the question. "Because they haven't set foot inside, that's how I know. Stop trying to back down from the fact that you were right and I was wrong."

Sheena quietened down in a self-conscious turn, training her almond-shaped eyes to the faded violet of her arm gloves and the extension of padded fabric demi-gauntlets.

"A few days ago, hundreds of Desians marched out of that damn castle of Yggdrasill's. Hundreds, Sheena. That's like a small army."

"Are you scared?"

Zelos paused. Eyes flourishing with cyan ambiguity rose to meet hers. "Not scared of them, no. But some things never change." He finally rested his finished broadsword next to his small buckler. "Two things don't, at least; I still don't trust Yuan, and we still need Lloyd back."

Sheena accepted Zelos' certainty with a nod of her head. "My cards are ready."

Zelos lifted his rapier, breathed a hot breath on the forte of the metal, and polished a glamorous shine. "Then it's time to deal."