Disclaimer: Tales of Symphonia characters belong to Namco.
"Ah...Um...say, what are you planning to do after this?"
"After this?"
"Yeah, when the worlds are reunited, our journey will be over right? So, what then?"
"Well I think I want to go on a journey to collect all the Exspheres."
"Oh..." her throat tightened, her heart pumping like mad. "I..."
"Yes, Sheena?"
"...That's a good idea..." she said, looking away from him as she cursed herself for not being able to say the words she wanted to say. 'I want to be with you' she screamed in her mind, but she was unable to bring herself to voice it.
"Oh..."
She wasn't quite sure if it was her imagination but she could almost hear disappointment in his voice.
Nothing more was said as they both stared off into the distance.
---
Sheena awoke with a start, her body breaking out into a slight sweat. It was that dream again. Except it was more than a dream, it was a memory of the time when she had been too scared of rejection to say what she had wanted to say, a memory that was more distressing than any other nightmare she had.
She sighed as she slipped out of bed, pulling her sleeping robes around her. It had been 2 years since their journey had ended. Two years since she had last seen Lloyd as he had set off on his journey to collect all the exspheres in the world.
A lot had changed in those two years. She was now the acting Chief for the village of Mizuho. Her grandpa had been more than willing to step down but she had felt she wasn't fully ready for the job and so had convinced him to create the post of Acting Chief for her. Her job really consisted mostly of learning what she should do as a leader of her people, with lots of advice from the Vice-Chief and her grandfather.
The duties of her job had made it such that she hadn't been able to travel outside of Mizuho as much as she would have wanted, and thus she hadn't been in touch with any of the others for some time.
But that didn't mean she didn't know what was happening to them. The Mizuho intelligence network was the best in both worlds after all. The last she had heard, Zelos had been engaged to Princess Hilda of Meltokio. God knows she had managed to do that but she suspected it might have to do with the rumours that the Princess was currently pregnant and she had a very strong suspicion she knew who the father was.
Genis and Raine had spent much of the last two years travelling between Heimdall and Exire, trying to improve the relationships between half elves and pure elves. As far as she knew, it wasn't working very well. But then again, they had only been at it 2 years, which wasn't very long as far as elves and half-elves were concerned.
Colette had stayed with her family in Iselia and had become something of a celebrity. Visitors; mostly Sylvarant visitors, flocked to Iselia in hopes of seeing the chosen who had saved the world. Or at least so they thought. Lately, it seemed that Colette had even become something of a Priestess, giving sermons about Martel to the hundreds of visitors which flocked to see her.
As for Regal, he had taken back his position as head of the Lezareno company and along with Presea; who had taken on the job as his secretary, was helping the inhabitants of both worlds with rebuilding what they had lost. They often supplied materials at dirt cheap prices to those who needed it.
But strangely enough, the vaunted Mizuho network hadn't been enough to track down the person she wanted to know about the most. Sure, every now and then, a Mizuho agent would catch sight of him in some city or some ruin and report it back, but those sightings were rare.
She sighed as she poured herself a glass of milk. 'Lloyd...where are you?' she thought as she wished she could see him again, so that she could finally say what she wanted to.
"CHIEF!!" her train of thoughts were broken as someone barged into the house. She tensed and then relaxed when she saw it was Orochi. And then realised that he had stopped dead in his tracks and was staring at her. She looked down and remembered that the front of her robe was open, exposing the flimsy nighty she usually slept in.
"KYAA!" she screamed as she hurled the glass at Orochi and quickly closing her robe.
"I'MSORRYI'M SORRY!IDIDN'TSEEANYTHING!!' Orochi said as he dodged the glass and averted his eyes. Well, actually he had, and the only thing running through his mind now was 'WOW!'
"Oroooooochi" Sheena growled, as she cracked her knuckles in a way that screamed 'You had better have a good explanation for this or they WON'T ever find your body'.
Orochi shivered at the tone of her voice. Deciding he was safer the faster he talked, he launched into his explanation. "The guards found someone bleeding at the entrance to our village, he was badly wounded all over so we brought him in for treatment-"
She paused as she listened to him. True, it was rare that somebody actually managed to stumble onto the secret village of Mizuho, but it was hardly reason to charge her into her house, nor did it explain Orochi's agitation. Unless...
"-and we thought you might like to know since it was one of the people you travelled with previously. Lloyd Irving." Her eyes widened.
Two minutes later, she was fully dressed and running towards the hospital.
---
The first thing she noticed was his face. During those past two years, it had changed subtly, becoming more mature, leaner. She could see more and more of Kratos in his features now, with one major difference. Kratos always had a slight pensive and brooding set to his face; even when he was sleeping, which was missing from Lloyd. Lloyd had a blissfully content expression on his face as he lay unconscious, one that made him look more angelic than his parent ever had. He had also grown his hair out into a short, spiked ponytail that started from the nape of his neck. The second thing she noticed was that his exsphere was gone, leaving nothing but a scar where it had been attached to the back of his hand.
He was also covered in wounds. Scars littered his body where cuts had been recently healed and a few of the deeper ones had been stitched shut.
She stood there for a while, staring at him as a tumult of emotions raged through her. Happiness at seeing him again, guilt for feeling so happy when he was so wounded and grief at the extent of his injuries. 'Lloyd, oh Lloyd...' she thought as her heart tightened.
"How is he?" she asked, turning to the medical director of the hospital.
He was a lanky man, well into his thirties and already starting to go bald. But there was intelligence that shone fiercely in his eyes. "Well, we're no half-elves but we managed to heal most of his wounds. Those we couldn't, we stitched shut. The only worrying thing was that he lost a lot of blood but we've transfused some to him and put him on the drip so he should be fine in time since he managed to avoid taking any critical injuries. He may even wake up as early as tomorrow, thought it will be some time before he can do anything strenuous since his body still needs to replace the blood that it lost," he said in a clinically detached manner.
"I see," she said as she picked up Lloyds hand, holding it gently in both hands as if that might cause him to break. He was so warm, which made it strange that he should be lying unconscious. What could have hurt him like this, she wondered. But before she could think more about the subject, she became aware of two presences coming up behind her.
"Sheena-dono," a pair of voices intoned respectfully.
"What is it?" she sighed, and tenderly put Lloyds hand down beside him before turning around to see who it was.
The pair of ninjas standing in front of her were identical in almost every way. The only difference was their choice of weapons. One carried two kodachis strapped to his side while the other carried the more traditional choice of weapon, a katana, on his back.
She recognised the two of them as Garou and Shirou, fraternal twins, and two of the guards on duty tonight.
"There is something you might want to see."
---
'My god, what happened here?' Sheena thought with no slight measure of trepidation and disbelief. The two guards had followed Lloyd's trail back to determine where he had come from and perhaps come up with some slight idea of what had happened that led his current state. It had been easy enough tracking the trail of blood, even by moonlight.
That was when it had led them to the Gaoracchia Forest, otherwise known as the Forest of Death. They had walked in cautiously, their weapons drawn but it seemed like the forest was being unnaturally quiet, even more than usual. And what they had found had led them to inform her as quickly as possible.
Not that she could blame them. The Forest of Death looked like a slaughter house. Monsters lay dead everywhere, their bodies strewn all over the place. There was even several dragons among the mix, which surprised her. As far as she knew, there had never been any dragons in Gaoracchia forest. Judging from the cuts on their body, it was easy to guess that Lloyd had been the cause of death.
She walked gingerly among the carcasses as she examined the scene in front of her. Strangely, all the dead monsters appeared within the last few stretches of the forest. Before that stretch, it was as if all the carnage had never happened.
She paced about as an idea of what must have happened came to her mind. Lloyd had probably been walking through the forest and had been close to the exit of the forest when suddenly he had been attacked. He managed to kill all his attackers but had been injured severely in the process so he had dragged himself to the nearest safe place that he knew of, Mizuho, before he had passed out from blood loss.
But a few things about that theory didn't sit well with her. Why had the monsters waited till the last stretch to attack him? As far as she could tell, there hadn't been any signs of any other battles in the other parts of the forest. It was almost like they had ambushed him. And why had they attacked him en masse? She had never heard of such a huge number of monsters ever working together, especially to attack someone. Monsters usually stayed away from you for a while if they saw that you had defeated their brethren, except for the more aggressive ones.
It was then she spotted it, lying there in the midst of the carnage, partially hidden from view by the thick foliage. Squatting down, she retrieved it and recognised it immediately. It was a feather with iridescent highlights running up and down it.
It was an angel feather.
Authors Notes: This chapter pretty much just wrote itself. -- This is an AU (alternate Universe) with slight changes from the game. For one Kratos is DEAD in this fic.
"Ah...Um...say, what are you planning to do after this?"
"After this?"
"Yeah, when the worlds are reunited, our journey will be over right? So, what then?"
"Well I think I want to go on a journey to collect all the Exspheres."
"Oh..." her throat tightened, her heart pumping like mad. "I..."
"Yes, Sheena?"
"...That's a good idea..." she said, looking away from him as she cursed herself for not being able to say the words she wanted to say. 'I want to be with you' she screamed in her mind, but she was unable to bring herself to voice it.
"Oh..."
She wasn't quite sure if it was her imagination but she could almost hear disappointment in his voice.
Nothing more was said as they both stared off into the distance.
---
Sheena awoke with a start, her body breaking out into a slight sweat. It was that dream again. Except it was more than a dream, it was a memory of the time when she had been too scared of rejection to say what she had wanted to say, a memory that was more distressing than any other nightmare she had.
She sighed as she slipped out of bed, pulling her sleeping robes around her. It had been 2 years since their journey had ended. Two years since she had last seen Lloyd as he had set off on his journey to collect all the exspheres in the world.
A lot had changed in those two years. She was now the acting Chief for the village of Mizuho. Her grandpa had been more than willing to step down but she had felt she wasn't fully ready for the job and so had convinced him to create the post of Acting Chief for her. Her job really consisted mostly of learning what she should do as a leader of her people, with lots of advice from the Vice-Chief and her grandfather.
The duties of her job had made it such that she hadn't been able to travel outside of Mizuho as much as she would have wanted, and thus she hadn't been in touch with any of the others for some time.
But that didn't mean she didn't know what was happening to them. The Mizuho intelligence network was the best in both worlds after all. The last she had heard, Zelos had been engaged to Princess Hilda of Meltokio. God knows she had managed to do that but she suspected it might have to do with the rumours that the Princess was currently pregnant and she had a very strong suspicion she knew who the father was.
Genis and Raine had spent much of the last two years travelling between Heimdall and Exire, trying to improve the relationships between half elves and pure elves. As far as she knew, it wasn't working very well. But then again, they had only been at it 2 years, which wasn't very long as far as elves and half-elves were concerned.
Colette had stayed with her family in Iselia and had become something of a celebrity. Visitors; mostly Sylvarant visitors, flocked to Iselia in hopes of seeing the chosen who had saved the world. Or at least so they thought. Lately, it seemed that Colette had even become something of a Priestess, giving sermons about Martel to the hundreds of visitors which flocked to see her.
As for Regal, he had taken back his position as head of the Lezareno company and along with Presea; who had taken on the job as his secretary, was helping the inhabitants of both worlds with rebuilding what they had lost. They often supplied materials at dirt cheap prices to those who needed it.
But strangely enough, the vaunted Mizuho network hadn't been enough to track down the person she wanted to know about the most. Sure, every now and then, a Mizuho agent would catch sight of him in some city or some ruin and report it back, but those sightings were rare.
She sighed as she poured herself a glass of milk. 'Lloyd...where are you?' she thought as she wished she could see him again, so that she could finally say what she wanted to.
"CHIEF!!" her train of thoughts were broken as someone barged into the house. She tensed and then relaxed when she saw it was Orochi. And then realised that he had stopped dead in his tracks and was staring at her. She looked down and remembered that the front of her robe was open, exposing the flimsy nighty she usually slept in.
"KYAA!" she screamed as she hurled the glass at Orochi and quickly closing her robe.
"I'MSORRYI'M SORRY!IDIDN'TSEEANYTHING!!' Orochi said as he dodged the glass and averted his eyes. Well, actually he had, and the only thing running through his mind now was 'WOW!'
"Oroooooochi" Sheena growled, as she cracked her knuckles in a way that screamed 'You had better have a good explanation for this or they WON'T ever find your body'.
Orochi shivered at the tone of her voice. Deciding he was safer the faster he talked, he launched into his explanation. "The guards found someone bleeding at the entrance to our village, he was badly wounded all over so we brought him in for treatment-"
She paused as she listened to him. True, it was rare that somebody actually managed to stumble onto the secret village of Mizuho, but it was hardly reason to charge her into her house, nor did it explain Orochi's agitation. Unless...
"-and we thought you might like to know since it was one of the people you travelled with previously. Lloyd Irving." Her eyes widened.
Two minutes later, she was fully dressed and running towards the hospital.
---
The first thing she noticed was his face. During those past two years, it had changed subtly, becoming more mature, leaner. She could see more and more of Kratos in his features now, with one major difference. Kratos always had a slight pensive and brooding set to his face; even when he was sleeping, which was missing from Lloyd. Lloyd had a blissfully content expression on his face as he lay unconscious, one that made him look more angelic than his parent ever had. He had also grown his hair out into a short, spiked ponytail that started from the nape of his neck. The second thing she noticed was that his exsphere was gone, leaving nothing but a scar where it had been attached to the back of his hand.
He was also covered in wounds. Scars littered his body where cuts had been recently healed and a few of the deeper ones had been stitched shut.
She stood there for a while, staring at him as a tumult of emotions raged through her. Happiness at seeing him again, guilt for feeling so happy when he was so wounded and grief at the extent of his injuries. 'Lloyd, oh Lloyd...' she thought as her heart tightened.
"How is he?" she asked, turning to the medical director of the hospital.
He was a lanky man, well into his thirties and already starting to go bald. But there was intelligence that shone fiercely in his eyes. "Well, we're no half-elves but we managed to heal most of his wounds. Those we couldn't, we stitched shut. The only worrying thing was that he lost a lot of blood but we've transfused some to him and put him on the drip so he should be fine in time since he managed to avoid taking any critical injuries. He may even wake up as early as tomorrow, thought it will be some time before he can do anything strenuous since his body still needs to replace the blood that it lost," he said in a clinically detached manner.
"I see," she said as she picked up Lloyds hand, holding it gently in both hands as if that might cause him to break. He was so warm, which made it strange that he should be lying unconscious. What could have hurt him like this, she wondered. But before she could think more about the subject, she became aware of two presences coming up behind her.
"Sheena-dono," a pair of voices intoned respectfully.
"What is it?" she sighed, and tenderly put Lloyds hand down beside him before turning around to see who it was.
The pair of ninjas standing in front of her were identical in almost every way. The only difference was their choice of weapons. One carried two kodachis strapped to his side while the other carried the more traditional choice of weapon, a katana, on his back.
She recognised the two of them as Garou and Shirou, fraternal twins, and two of the guards on duty tonight.
"There is something you might want to see."
---
'My god, what happened here?' Sheena thought with no slight measure of trepidation and disbelief. The two guards had followed Lloyd's trail back to determine where he had come from and perhaps come up with some slight idea of what had happened that led his current state. It had been easy enough tracking the trail of blood, even by moonlight.
That was when it had led them to the Gaoracchia Forest, otherwise known as the Forest of Death. They had walked in cautiously, their weapons drawn but it seemed like the forest was being unnaturally quiet, even more than usual. And what they had found had led them to inform her as quickly as possible.
Not that she could blame them. The Forest of Death looked like a slaughter house. Monsters lay dead everywhere, their bodies strewn all over the place. There was even several dragons among the mix, which surprised her. As far as she knew, there had never been any dragons in Gaoracchia forest. Judging from the cuts on their body, it was easy to guess that Lloyd had been the cause of death.
She walked gingerly among the carcasses as she examined the scene in front of her. Strangely, all the dead monsters appeared within the last few stretches of the forest. Before that stretch, it was as if all the carnage had never happened.
She paced about as an idea of what must have happened came to her mind. Lloyd had probably been walking through the forest and had been close to the exit of the forest when suddenly he had been attacked. He managed to kill all his attackers but had been injured severely in the process so he had dragged himself to the nearest safe place that he knew of, Mizuho, before he had passed out from blood loss.
But a few things about that theory didn't sit well with her. Why had the monsters waited till the last stretch to attack him? As far as she could tell, there hadn't been any signs of any other battles in the other parts of the forest. It was almost like they had ambushed him. And why had they attacked him en masse? She had never heard of such a huge number of monsters ever working together, especially to attack someone. Monsters usually stayed away from you for a while if they saw that you had defeated their brethren, except for the more aggressive ones.
It was then she spotted it, lying there in the midst of the carnage, partially hidden from view by the thick foliage. Squatting down, she retrieved it and recognised it immediately. It was a feather with iridescent highlights running up and down it.
It was an angel feather.
Authors Notes: This chapter pretty much just wrote itself. -- This is an AU (alternate Universe) with slight changes from the game. For one Kratos is DEAD in this fic.