Now, what happened on that day when Lloyd lost Colette may as well be a mystery to you as it is to him. He has nothing but fragments of memories, all under a veil of mystery as to how it happened. The Lloyd we all knew has become little more than a wanderer who seeks his lost self, only to lose himself more and more as time passes.
What isn't a mystery to you is his companion, Colette Brunel, is alive and well and is physically right next to him. How come Lloyd can't see it?
Clues are hard to find, but a hypothesis could help clear things up.
Many months ago, Palmacosta Inn …
Lloyd flopped sloppily down on the rebuilt inn's new cushy beds, groaning into the starched pillow, kicking off his boots and digging himself into the sheets. He had a headache, a big one, and the echoes of the same roundabout, repetitious voice played back over and over and over again in his head didn't help at all. He spun around and faced up, sputtering his pursed lips.
The room door clicked open and Colette sauntered inside. A tired look spread across her youthful face as she went over and sat on Lloyd's bed. "They said no again, didn't they?"
"Yeah. Even after we both went there yesterday and told them the whole story, the town guard's still as hard-headed as their helmets!" Lloyd muttered. He sat up and shrugged his tired shoulders.
Colette shifted over and rested her back against his chest, letting him wrap his arms around her as he rocked her from side to side. Both glad to be near each other. She sighed, he sighed and the two asked for nothing more. She grasped one of his hands and entwined her slender fingers into his, squeezing it gently. She raised her head ever so slightly just so he could hear her better and said, "Lloyd, we can't give up. Let's go back tomorrow and get those Exspheres!"
Lloyd chuckled, kissing her cheek lightly. "Giving up is the last thing I'll ever do. We're gonna keep going back until they beg us to stop!"
She craned her neck over and kissed him back, planting it firmly onto his unsuspecting lips, giggling innocently as she did. He blushed, she blushed but they didn't hide it. For these two, even if they'd have to spend a lifetime collecting the Exspheres, they'd do it until the end.
What just happened may or may not have happened at all, but the feelings and the emotions are as real as daylight itself in Lloyd's mind. He undoubtedly loved her, and she loved him and together they could have done almost anything. Built upon a foundation of years of childhood friendship, tempered through hardship and solidified with unspoken, but known feelings, such love is a rarity, but one that may as well have lasted longer than forever.
The hypothesis continues, several days later. This time, the haze of lost and broken shards bears its razor edges…
Just outside Palmacosta…
Lloyd limped, sloppily bringing his swords up in a vain attempt to show that he was still ready to fight. His clothes were torn, exposing frayed mesh armor underneath his heavy red coat. The armor dripped red in places where it was cut and smoldered on the cloth covering where magic had burned through. His blades were chipped, stripped of their usual sheen and blunted so much that it would have hardly sliced anything.
Colette dragged herself up next to him, slouching over from a deep gash in her abdomen. She held her chakrams at the ready, despite one broken in half and the other bent out of shape. Her armor was exposed as well, the frayed edges of the leather that bound the broken metal chains together showing a deep canyon filled with blood. She had been lucky from that sword swipe; had she been any slower the cut would gone much deeper than simply slicing her skin.
Their attackers stood erect in front of them, their weapons lowered in a display of mockery. Their faces were well hidden by heavy iron helmets and thick, but maneuverable body armor, even though one of them seemed much too small to even be wearing such a heavy load. It had been raining through their entire standoff; a sea storm had been brewing for quite some time, forcing the Palmacostan citizens to evacuate, for their city had not yet been up to the challenge of facing storms during the rebuilding process. During all the hurrying, these three unknown attackers stopped Lloyd and Colette, conveniently catching them off-guard.
The fighter one with the sword and shield spoke, "Give it up, Lloyd. You're already beaten. You can't even cut grass with those swords anymore." His voice sounded sophisticated, yet had an uncanny hint of being something that wasn't really there.
"Go back home and never come out. If you don't, we'll always find you because even the shadows are against you," the other armored fighter spoke. She was female and a powerful speaker, her voice evoking the storm's thunder to agree with her demands. She had two small, but wide-bladed daggers resting at both sides of her hips, one of which chopped Colette's chakram in half.
"Ngh… Why?! This doesn't make any sense!" Lloyd roared back, gritting his teeth. He tasted the salty blood in the back of his throat, but gulped it back down.
"Because, Lloyd, you're more a danger than any of us had ever realized."
Lloyd and Colette looked at the third, smaller armored fighter. Whoever it was held a mace, with a small curved blade on one of the edges for cutting instead of bashing. But it wasn't the third who spoke.
Suddenly, a sharp directed gust of wind whizzed past Lloyd, with a loud, dull thud of something soft being hit. Time stopped, as his vision tunneled in and focused on the frazzled locks of blonde hair and mud-stained white clothes being flung like a rag doll into the dirt.
"COLETTE!!" Lloyd dropped all sense of self, of the fighting and made for a mad rush toward her. He had only been a step away when something hit him, sending him crashing into the mud. It was as if a huge stone slab flew in and struck his face.
What happened next he couldn't tell: a tip of a blade at his throat, muffled calls for help, thunder crashing, rain falling, footsteps, dripping mud, but nothing came more clearly to his memory before he faded: a rippling wave of blue hair.
When Lloyd came to, he had been lying in a single bed at the inn he had been before the storm. This time it felt a bit different, the sheets somehow stiffer than the bed he had last time. He sat up, and felt pain, stiffness, soreness, everything that said 'You shouldn't have sat up.'
He felt his chest tightly bound with white bandages. He had trouble breathing, as his nose was bound as stiff as the bedpost. He heaved and panted against the wrappings until he felt weak enough to fall back into his pillow.
He heard someone else step into the room and his excited eyes shot towards there. A large-framed man entered, carrying a small satchel with him and Lloyd sank into his covers. He heard him pull up a stool and sit next to his bed.
"Ah, I see. Very good work. I don't know how you got those wounds, but you were lucky you only suffered a broken nose and some minor lacerations," the doctor stated, in a tone that could only be described as professionally soothing.
"T-thanks, doctor," Lloyd panted.
"What's your name?"
"Lloyd Irving."
"I see, all right."
The doctor stood up and put the stool aside. Lloyd suddenly said aloud, "Are there any other injured like me?"
"Just a few with a cut or two, but nothing serious like you. Luckily, no one's dead either," the doctor mentioned tersely. He shut the door and softly strolled down the hallway.
Lloyd sat there, in cold stillness, not at the doctor's words, but that he forgot why he asked.
This is but a hypothesis; there may have been a fight, there might not. There may have been a storm or none at all. It may have been outside Palmacosta, or it just as likely may have been outside Iselia.
What is true, what may be true, and what is a lie all lay dormant in Lloyd's mind. What you infer is all up to you, for this is one theory of the loss of Colette and the fall of Lloyd.
In all guesses, hypotheses and theories, however, there are elements of truth. And the truth behind his fall all lie in what can be deciphered in his memories.