In regards to reviewer responses, until the ban is lifted from making them I will be e-mailing those all reply to my multi-chaptered stories, those who don't have an e-mail that I can access will receive there review responses in the normal manner of pre-chapter notes but I'll have to ask that you give me your e-mails if you want me to reply because I may have my work deleted if I continue this practice overlong.

InuKratosStan: Thanks for the praise, it's good to know I can tug readers heartstrings right along with my own. I'll freely admit I was in tears at the end of "DES" and "For love of..." stories, it makes it hard to write them that is for sure when the computer screen blurs and you have to fetch a tissue. I'll keep it up as long as I can.

View from the jagged edge,

Chapter 5

"Say it slower." Syt ordered his youngest, he was sitting, which was the best place to be with these types of surprises.

"Unca' Ruian went outside and his back was all sparkles and he swooped off into the stars."

Syt said a very colorful word and Issia lifted her hand and cuffed him for his language.

"It's best he's gone." She told him later that night, when Arst was fast asleep in the room he and his brothers shared. "He was, if nothing else driving off the customers." She yawned, her green eyes glittering like emeralds in the fading moonlight. Issia's arms enfolded him gently, he rested in her embrace staring out into the silver streaked night. "It's best he's gone."

She wanted him to agree, to say her words and make them true.

Syt said nothing, rested his head on her arm and wondered.

"It's for the best." She was insistent, wanting him to say he agreed. "He was draggin' us into his world Syt, by tellin' us all of those things he was draggin' us in, and now that he's gone... We're free now, of him, his ways. We can be normal, raise our children the way they were meant to be raised."

"His pain means nothin' to you?" Syt muttered, more to himself then her.

"Of course it does, Anna is a sister to me and don't you be thinkin' that there isn't a day I miss her, and a day I don't be cryin' for her." Issia sounded angry, but then she had good cause, his accusation was not a light one.

"I'm sorry m' love." Syt closed his eyes, not wanting to see what he was seeing, not wanting to hear those words from his love's lips. "Best be goin' to sleep we be havin' a long day tomorrow fixin' the repute of the inn." He tweaked her hair and she chuckled.

He had not agreed though he had soothed her. He had not made her words true, and those words and the implications hung between them. She did not see it however, with a muttered good night she smuggled against him and drifted off. He saw, would not close his eyes now that the man who had all but wrenched them open had just left. He opened his eyes, stared at the silver smeared dark. Syt recalled another night long ago, when he had seen the chaotic twisted wings of a seraphim send lines of silver through the shadows. Though warmed by his wife's embrace and a blanket wrapped around them both he stared into the dark and shivered.

Xxx xxx xxx

"Sir," Botta saluted sharply, he wore the badge of second in command and looked ill suited for it. He was young, to any who could see through the lines of worry that crossed that face he showed his hundred some years with few marks. Yuan though had more important things to do then look at his second in command, he shifted through data on the Angeles Project, read in Kvar's own hand the torments inflicted on Anna and there positive result in forming ex-sphere that could increase any beings power by the multiple of ten.

"What is it Botta?" Yuan did not look up, but then Botta was fast becoming accustomed to this. He didn't quite understand just how perspective his general was, did not know that Yuan could have easily followed Botta's words had he been in a battle, or perhaps shifting through ten times as much reading.

"My people in Tethe'alla have seen, or rather heard rumor of, the seraphim Kratos Aurion. Permission to elaborate sir?"

"Botta." Yuan sighed, looked up. "We are -for the hundredth time- in my personal office you have my blanket permission to elaborate to your hearts content. You do not need my permission to explain a plan that you see as vital until after, or if it is failing, you have my permission to have an opinion and to speak it to me bluntly. That's your job, start doing it."

"Yes sir, but if you recall sir you only granted me blanket permission in the Sylvarant base, not the Tethe'allan base."

"Was... that a joke Second Botta?"

"A bad one sir, but yes it was."

"We need to stop working together if my humor's rubbing off." Yuan sighed. "But then it's only nine hundred years of dealing with my own jabs and dry sarcasm... I'm sorry," Yuan smiled a thin curl of his lips that made Botta wince. "Well get on with it, I have work to do."

Botta fished out a piece of paper, and Yuan frowned as the young half elf cooly read off the various sightings of Kratos, or Derris Fa Sith by Renegade and human commoner alike. Kratos was being incredibly open and stupid, even Mithos would hear about this. Half the people in Ozette were saying the apocalypse was coming since death seemed to make permanent habitation in the mountain range behind there village. Cruxis would need to pump in a great deal of propaganda, stage a few miracles, in order to keep a hundred mini-death cults from sprouting in that region. He sighed, set aside his work to write a quick note to the pope of Tethe'alla telling him to send his most devote and heavy handed priests to that region, then he composed a letter to Yggdrasil informing the younger half elf some cults had appeared and he was sending the human's to kill each other over it.

That would amuse the bastard if nothing else.

"Has he made any moves towards my contacts?"

"He's been avoiding them like the plague sir."

"What has he been doing?" Yuan frowned.

"Talking to the dwarf in that region sir."

"Any news on what they're saying to each other?"

"We dare not get that close my lord, he's been going out every day and night killing monsters and one of our men who dared approach was discovered during one of his hunts..." Botta gritted his teeth. "The other men who were stationed outside on the very skirts of Ozette received a blood soaked helmet as a threat, I had them withdraw."

"That is strange, normally he's hesitant about killing sentient creatures." Yuan closed his eyes. "Desian's killed his family however, that would explain it, he must of thought our men were Desian's. Send compensation to the fallen man's family, I'll set his name in the rolls of the fallen in honorable service once I have it."

Botta flushed, saw what vital bit of information he had left out and corrected that mistake.

Yuan kept a pretense of being busy, of radiating a calm sympathy to the fallen and the soldiers, but the second Botta had left he dropped both. Worry, not for his men, but for the man he called soul brother, gnawed at him. The old Kratos would never kill a Desian without reason, and while he had good reason of late... Yuan bit his lip, a mortal habit, he had been picking up a lot of them lately.

It was ironic, Kratos was rushing into the abyss, gripping the cold lifeless aspect of his nature to drown his pain while the sight of Kratos doing so had finally wrenched Yuan out of making that same choice. They'd both been hovering over the edge, Anna had dragged Kratos out of it first, and seeing the love between that woman and a supposidly lifeless soulless being had been the first step in making Yuan remember himself. Where Anna's influence upon him had been a pail of cold water to the face, her influence on Kratos had been fire. A burning passion, an igniting of the soul, in that time they'd traveled and fought against Cruxis together the Aurion's had perhaps done the most damage to Mithos then any had done in the last four millennia. When the physical embodiment of that love had been slain, that drive, love itself, all good within Kratos had died right along with Anna. In Anna's death Yuan had seen one of the worlds most powerful men die right along with her, not willing to let go Kratos had become a ghost of himself, desperately trying to die so that he could have his family yet again. And Mi- no Yggdrasil, Mithos had died along with Martel all those years ago- Lord Yggdrasil was not letting go, was keeping Kratos tied to a life that was more pain then pleasure. Out of all of them only Yuan had let go, moved by the woman's example on how to live, moved by the positive influence she'd exerted over Kratos, and outraged by Yggdrasil's actions, he had allowed these things to fuel his weary soul and very hesitantly went to his duty without letting it consume him. He could never mend all the bridges he had burned, could not open all the channels of living, but a very few he could keep open, and in keeping them open he was once again becoming the man he had been before Martel's death.

He felt a strange clenching in the span between his chest and his privates, a slight twisting inside and a dull ache. He blinked, not understanding, and not understanding your body when you were attuned to it so keenly as a seraphim could only be was unsettling. There came a sound he'd never heard before, a muffled growling, and he frowned. Put a hand over his shriveled belly.

"Claron!" He called to his guard as a suspicion settled onto him, one that was as unsettling as the sensation. The man in tight black clothes sporting a silver helmet and sword tromped in.

"Sir?" Claron saluted, put his hand over his heart and bowed.

"I have a question, one that might be... uncomfortable." Again went that alien noise, and Claron blinked, perhaps hearing it. "You know what I am correct?"

"A seraphim sir?" Claron was too well trained to let his expression show his true emotions, so Yuan was left to imagine that the man was feeling confused shock at being asked such a strange question.

"Yes, but do you know what that entails?"

"No sir."

"Nevermind..." Yuan sighed, waved the man off. "It's about time for your leave for lunch anyways, go early if you wish."

"Thank you sir." Claron bowed, and paused as the sound went off again. He turned, looked horribly uncomfortable. "Permission to..."

"Oh for the love of Luna, permission to speak freely granted... and you can tell anyone else who come in here they have it as well the second they step into this room!"

"I'll do so my lord... That noise... If you want to do something about it you might want to nip on by the cafeteria or something when you have a free moment."

"The cafeteria?" Yuan repeated dumbly.

"Well sir I know that sound and my belly's been making it for an hour now, but then I skipped breakfast you see, can't abide the damn eggs they make every second's dawn and..."

Yuan scowled, or was going to, but he had given the man permission to speak his mind freely. And listening to the mortal talk... perhaps that would help him remember what it was to be mortal again. He needed those reminders, so not to forget and find himself again on the edge. He listened to the man prattle about how they should have ketchup for the eggs and how it'd damn well improve the flavor, and nodded. Claron left in a better mood, but on his way offered to bring his lord some food.

A seraphim could not bleed, so Yggdrasil had told him. A seraphim could not be mortal, to become as Kratos was he would give up all those things, give up his mortality and a portion of his sanity.

Yet he had bleed, he had bleed and wept seeing Kratos try to kill himself.

And now... now he hungered.

Would he taste now that he hungered? the fine wine he occasionally sipped had been little more then heavy slickness on his tongue and throat. The soft foods he nibbled for the sake of recalling how to eat were a dry dust to him. Well if he did best to take advantage of it.

"No, that wont be needful." Yuan set aside the last of his paper work, scanned it, and put his signature on a document that he felt needed to be handled now. The rest, it could wait an hour or so, after all it wasn't as if he needed to sleep ten hours like most mortals. He stood, much to Claron's shock. "I understand there have been a few... modifications to the base, they have moved the cafeteria twice since it's construction two thousand some odd years ago." Yuan paused, uncomfortable in asking this, uncomfortable in asking anything of anyone. "Could you give me directions to the dinning halls current location?"

"What! Umm I mean yes sir! Perhaps... You could drop off that letter before you come down to the hall sir?"

The last was said so meekly that Yuan fought to keep his lips from curling into a rare smile.

"That was my plan initially." Yuan told the man, he allowed his eyes to narrow and he leaned forward ever so slightly, forcing his voice to dip into a lethal whisper.. "Claron, is there something going on in the mess hall that I shouldn't see?"

"No sir!" It was a squeak, and Yuan bit his tongue to keep from laughing. He waved at the man to dismiss him after getting those directions, and noticed just how fast the soldier was running. He muttered the words of a spell, teleported the document from his hands onto his aids desk some two floors down, and silent as a shadow, sticking to the shadows, followed the panicked guard.

Yuan paused a goodly distance from the common mess hall, in the darkest part of the hall, pressed against the wall he muttered a spell so that others would overlook him and pursued one of his favorite hobbies of eavesdropping..

"He's coming!"

Yuan bit down hard on his lower lip, Claron might well be announcing that death was coming for them all so raw was terror in his tone.

"Who is?" Botta asked, there was the sound of a projector unit being turned down.

"He, Lord Yuan, he's coming to.. Join us for lunch!"

"Now!" Botta squeaked, Yuan wouldn't have thought the man capable of that. Amazing what you learned of your Seconds during there time off. He fast showed his spurs though, taking command before panic could. "Hide those disks, in the dirty dish cupboards, warn the chiefs so they don't clean the videos, take those posters down, hide the dart board, the rest of you pick up the mess in here and scrub the tables."

"The entertainment center?" Someone squeaked.

An entertainment center, what did they do throw parties during their breaks?

"Teleport it to my quarters, it's not like I have anything else in there anyways."

"The kariokee machine wont come out of the floor sir, we fused it down so it could tap into the electronic mana residue that runs across the floors of the base and if we take it out we'll break it!"

"Could it be repaired?"

"No sir."

"Claron how much time do we have?"

"He's dropping a letter off first to his aid on second floor sir."

"Ten minuets then... Just unplug as much as you can from it and throw a cloth over it. We'll just have to pray he doesn't ask."

As chaos, controlled chaos, ensued Yuan looked at his watch, and decided to give them fifteen minuets, just to be nice.

Xxx xxx xxx

Altessa stroked his silver beard, stared long and hard at the plans that the man had laid out before him. Some existed only in his mind, memories of words and arguments, others existed as paper charts with measurements, and it was both he looked at. He did not know of the when, the how, but then neither did the man who he had spoken to. Neither would know the when, but Kratos had promised him that he would tell him when the time came.

'Be ready' The man had said, wings spread about him, his eyes chillingly like the empty pit gaze of a balisk. 'It will occur before your time on this mortal coil ends'

A vague stab at clarifying since Altessa was in his late middle age, for a dwarf that time was from seven hundred to nine hundred, and if he was lucky to see nine hundred he had at most another two hundred years of life for him to live if Gnome be willing. It was a long time, and not long at all when you were setting the bare lay work for the destruction of the Gods and old order. He'd agreed, let his clans ties to an Efreet touched nature allow him to open his mouth and respond to the injustice before his brain could even realize the enormous risk he was running. He was playing high dice with his soul, not just his life but his immortal soul. If Yggdrasil ever figured he was a part of this madness...

Yet, as he closed his eyes, he recalled the girl child who had lain before him. A bird nosed man hovering over them both, asking prying questions even as his knife nipped at the girls flesh. Shrill laughter a tormented scream hat caught in the eyes even as he set the cruxis crystal down on that mere baby's chest... He already was playing dice with his soul, perhaps had already lost a large sum of it.

"MASTER, DO YOU WISH FOOD FOR THE NIGHT?"

"It's called dinner Tabatha." Altessa whispered the correction absently, not opening his eyes.

"DO YOU WISH FOR DINNER MASTER?"

"No thank you Tabatha." He said in his gravely voice. "You should just run along and get some rest if that's what you want."

"YES MASTER."

He wondered with a bitter wrench in his heart if the doll knew what rest was. She while looking adult had the mentality of a young child, had not known how to speak, to even walk. Kratos had taught her for a span and after Yggdrasil's failed experiments on her had brought her to Altessa.

'I don't know if she could be useful to you, or if you would rather have me end her life, but she is one of your creations so I saw it fit that you decide.'

Guilt could not kill a man, regret could not kill a man, you shouldered both with a sigh and it piled higher and higher, a grave rock pile for the heart. It was a horrible weight, that forced tears from the eyes and caused pain but never ended pain, only added to it. He sighed into his hands, his wrinkled spot worn hands that would not fail him until much later in life. Though they looked old there was the mark of youth still about them, the strength of youth given to him and all his folk by the blessings of Gnome. He opened his eyes, stared at his hands and imagined that caught in the veins, between the crimson hue, lay a multitude of possibilities, a thousand births of creation that would pound against his mind and make him take up hammer and stoke flame and set earth to flame and hammer to both. In his youth that would have excited him, pleased him...

Slender fingers drifted over him, slid a blanket over his frame and he turned and said thanks to Tabatha. She smiled, not with her lips, she was incapable of that being a mere robot, but in his mind, in the corner that prayed and hoped for the best in all, he could have sworn he saw a smile in her eyes.

"GOOD NIGHT MASTER" She said, her voice as always was a breathless monotonous sigh.

He had not ordered her to see to his comforts, had ordered her to see to her own. He stared at her a long time, and those emerald eyes stared back, waited. She wanted something.

"Good night Tabatha."

Having what she sought the woman, robot, doll, he wasn't sure what the truth was any longer... She defied Cruxis than, in all there might, in all there judgement, this soul less being defied them all. Her lips curled for all of a heartbeat into a smile, and she turned walked away to do whatever she did when he did not supervise her.

Xxx xxx xxx

Lunch was entertaining. Ghost tastes caressed his tongue. It wasn't strong, a phantom taste that lingered for only a moment, but by the Gods it was taste and he'd be damned if he'd quibble over how strong or weak it was. He ate only half a plate full, and was aware of the still militant manner of the men about him as they fought to remain disciplined in his presence. Manners were used -in many cases- for the first time, people tried to actually eat with the utensils instead of there fingers, what little conversation that buzzed about him was subdued. He heard it all of course, his hearing was as keen as ever, and he kept his peace about what he'd over heard, at least until he was leaving.

"Botta," Yuan said calmly, staring his second straight in the eyes. "It must be absolute hell for you to be sitting on that projector disk, Shadow only knows you'd never see me risking my male hood over that. Oh and you probably want to pull those disks out form the cleaning unit before some jumpy cook forgets about them being there and turns on the washer." Yuan finished his glassful of tea in one swallow, aware that all the men, even Botta, were favoring him with a wide eyed look of complete shock. He set aside his plate and glass, nodded to them, and stood. "And for the sake of my peace, next time you actually use that thing." He waved a hand at the machine under the table cloth. "Don't turn it all the way up, I can hear it from my office."

And with that he left them to gap and gossip. He considered teleporting, but decided to use his feet for the hell of it. A sense of fullness, but not so much fullness that he'd be slow if he needed to fight, left his belly and him strangely content. It had been good for an hour to act normal, though his men's stiffness while entertaining had made him comfortable. He did not need to think upon how to respond to questions and chatter when someone was uncomfortable around you, he'd get to that point again sometime later when he was ready for it, until then stilted formality was a good thing for his purposes.

He retreated to his office, the paperwork seemed to fly under his hands, not plod as it had before. He blazed through the reading, mulled over the implications, and wrote out his orders. He spent a goodly three hours on it, and was surprised when he heard the heartbeat of someone besides his guards. Lifting his head the seraphim called for them to enter before his guards could go through all the annoying ceremonies a guest could entail.

"Second Botta, what brings you here?" Yuan glanced at the man, then went back to his paper work.

"May I ask you something of a delicate nature, sir?"

Yuan looked up, considered the man's discomforted expression then gestured for the man to take a seat. Years of experience had taught him that touchy subjects were best handled sitting. He leaned back into his padded chair, annoyed he could not feel the comfort if offered, but then that might of been asking too much.

"Speak Botta, it takes a great deal to insult me."

"You are a seraphim sir?"

"Yes." Yuan frowned, not liking the man's hesitance. Perhaps Botta's promotion would be a temporary thing until another promising youngster caught Yuan's attention. "I've mentioned this before, several times."

Botta frowned, another man would let the matter sit, all the other second's -save Rene- had as a matter of fact. Even as Botta stumbled through his query on Yuan's health and strange behavior the seraphim mulled over the implications between the questions. The fact that something of his superior's condition enticed interest and perhaps even concern in Botta was a strange thing for Yuan to swallow. It was harder to take then the food he had downed for sustience a little while back.

"Second, are you asking these questions to cover your fear that the Renegades will fall apart for my absence or just out of your own sick curiosity?"

Botta glared at him, then suddenly broke the glare and of all things laughed and smiled.

"I should not inquire of your health then, it seems as if you possess it in full if that is your response to me sir."

Yuan blinked, considered the man's words as he obviously was meant to considered them. Genuine concern, compassion, such strange and utterly mortal things, they were alien in him, or almost alien. Forsaken more likely, tossed to the winds for the pain they inflicted on the near immortal heart that he harbored.

"Botta..." Yuan stared at the man, baffled, not knowing what to feel or think. "Perhaps I am not as well as you and I both believe."

The seraphim cursed there was nothing on his desk save paperwork. He should perhaps get some type of paper weight or something for awkward moments like this so he could roll the object over his hands and bury emotion in sensation. He settled for staring at the desk, and putting his strange thoughts together. When at last he had some idea of what to say he lifted his gaze, locked those black eyes with his sapphire orbs.

"His defiance was absolute, Kratos' I mean. His defiance of Mithos was not of the ideals but the very existence that monster put upon us." Seeing the look of surprise Yuan smiled. "Yes, Mithos the hero and Lord Yggdrasil of Cruxis are the same man. The great Hero and Tormentor are the same. I was one of his companions and when Martel, my love, died... The Hero fell and the Tormentor took his place. We lured a human man, the man whom we teasingly called "Master Death" because his skill with the blade was so masterful he dealt death as one would a craft, we made him the first seraphim of Cruxis. Oh he agreed, but his sanity was in serious question at that time, I wasn't in much better shape myself." Yuan scowled, recalling all the promises the assurances, the lies, that had fallen from Yggdrasil stained by the heart's blood. "When he changed us he said that we would no longer bleed, no longer feel pain of the heart or flesh, all but the most powerful emotions would fall away like fouled clothing, we would sacrifice all pleasures of the flesh and for that we would gain enhanced hearing and sight. We would endure the ages, and having forsaken these burdens of weakness that so haunt all races we would rise above them all and with this power save the world."

Botta's mouth was hanging open, as was Yuan's, at least in his mind. He could not believe how open he was being. Yet this man was his Second, of all the Renegades Botta had the right to know his lord's mind. The seraphim sighed.

"Yet I bleed Botta, my soul bleeds when I hear the screams of those in a Ranch, my hands bled when I..." Yuan closed his eyes and shivered. "For four millennia I have lived, for two of those I was content, believed what we were doing was right and when I saw what we of Cruxis were doing, really saw... Well this is the result." Yuan swept a black gloved hand across the room.

"The Renegades." Botta leaned back into his chair, his mind reeling from the expression on his face. Of course he knew most of this already, but to be in the presence of someone who'd lived it brought the disturbing truths that you forever closed your eyes to no matter how many times the hearing... "Were founded two thousand years ago."

"I'm surprised you know your history so well." Yuan snapped. A long moment passed, and the tension drained out of him, made his shoulders normally straight with pride slump in defeat. He sighed, shook his head and finished obscuring his face with a mask of dark blue hair and a hand that covered his eyes. "I am sorry Botta, as my Second you deserve better then my sarcasm, as well as having to endure my long and pointless rambling. You may take leave for the rest of the day if you wish."

Botta did not get up, and when Yuan looked up was surprised to see a thoughtful look on his second's face.

"Sir, if you bleed, feel pain, then it seems logical that Yggdrasil lied to you."

"For the bulk of four thousand years I did not though." Yuan muttered, more to himself then to his Second.

"Then sir, perhaps it was the lie that became truth for you..."

"Self deception?" Yuan snorted. "That's a bit of a stretch."

"In part, I would not argue that some kind of change did not came upon you." Botta paused, could not read his General's still face and after a moment gathered his courage and pressed on. "No half elf I know of could for example summon wings, and no magi that I know of could manipulate mana the way you do to cast some of your spells. But perhaps that is all that has occurred, some change in your metabolism, some change in your ability to manipulate mana, and that is all."

Yuan frowned, stared at nothing for a long moment. The change was more significant then what Botta said. For what of his mind, the never resting all observant mind that he was shackled with? There was no easy explanation for that. But the degree of change that had been inflicted upon him, he realized, as Kratos must of before him, that the degree had been exaggerated. Whether that exaggeration was Yggdrasil's lack of understanding, his insane hopes, or something else, Yuan would never know. Ironic how it was the one man who might actually hold the answers of that was on the edge of becoming almost as insane as Yggdrasil. To get those answers he'd have to drag Kratos back to some sem-balance of sanity before even edging around those questions. Not that he hadn't meant to do so anyways, but the hidden information would add even more incentive to his cause.

Xxx xxx xxx

"Every time I dream it's of them, I close my eyes and they are all I see, it is both the ultimate torment and blessing."

Kratos stared at the grey sky, the seas were the same hue toped with restless froth, the island was of some grey rock sheathed in ice. It fit, for he wore his formal white uniform, the glossy white with only touches of brown that ran across the purer hue like earthen scars. The only color lay in his hands, a brittle length of red that he had spotted on his flight here. He was alone, staring at the flecks of white on the horizon that alluded to the massive snowy back of the unnamed snow covered waste land. He spoke to no one he knew. His sole friend in this world, Altessa a dwarf, lay in his earthen den a few hundred leagues south from this point, his other friends were in Sylvarant, standing in perhaps in the noon sun. For him in this grey world, had he a care for time, it would have been midnight, but so far north, in the season of summer the son never set, so he was favored with enough light to stare at the bleak lifeless world about him. There were no cities that could dot the jagged mountains that surrounded Falnoir, no adventurers dared these slopes, no rheiard would fly this close to the coldest point in all the worlds unless the piolet sought to fly on wings of ice. No one was here to speak to him, and loathing the silence, he had broken it, first with his howls of grief and now with his words.

There was an end to his grief it seemed, an end to the suicidal urges, the mad howling fits and painful tears. It was much like a barrel of icy water, he slid his hands in and emptied it bit by bit until hands numb, soul numb, he realized there was nothing left when all he grasped was air. That realization had come to him slowly, having nothing within, having only but a shell without that would not break no matter how he strived. He was held together by only a few words, words whispered into his soul by his deceased beloved. Had he spoke those words to anyone else they would be ridiculed, called delusion. They were not delusion, they were truth, perhaps the only truth he had to call his own.

"Daddy you think Efreet made Celsius happy this year?"

Kratos rolled the stem of the leaf between his fingers, it caught the dull light and seemed to smolder like embers of a dying fire. He spread his fingers, let the plant glide away on an errant wind. He watched it go on the bitter northern winds, numb, not caring, just noting and never forgetting. Mithos would have been proud of him, would have been thrilled at his apparent success in making his most rebellious of seraphim into a lifeless being at long last.

And how his hopes would have been dashed had he seen and heard Kratos' next words.

"I don't know Lloyd."

"Do you think Efreet would mind me holding onto a leaf Daddy?"

"I will tell you what Son." Kratos' eyes gleamed with a light similar yet different from that which caught on the waves below. "Hold onto as many leaves as you can for me and when I come home we shall try to tell how happy Celsius is."

"Mommy, Daddy's being silly again!"

"Hush dear, Daddy's just being Daddy."

Fingers caressed his wings, wings he could not recall drawing

"Are you leaving?"

"There... is something I must do."

"Then get it done as quickly as you can my love."

"Keep him safe for me beloved, until I can come home."

"Of course," The wind, her hands, gently tweaked his hair. "You probably shouldn't dawdle if you want to be back in time for dinner."

"Yes... I'll be back though, as soon as I am allowed."

"Don't let that pointy eared twerp get his knives in you, just keep a clear head, take a deep breath when he ticks you off, and be careful."

"Aren't I always?" His lips curled into a small smile, not having taken in a drop of water for months they felt as if the should crack and leave trails of red down his chin due to the gesture.

"No you're arrogant, condescending, tactless, and hot headed." She laughed softly, embraced him and he allowed his fingers to gently caress the cruxis crystal, her cruxis crystal. "I think he has something planned, please my love promise me you'll stay safe."

"So long as it is in my power. Wait for me my love, I am coming."

Spreading wide his wings there came a rain of shattered glass, it fell from it's perch of moon touched sapphire onto the cold snow. He did not feel the cold of ice, did not sense the heaviness fall away from him. He leapt, left only one mark upon the earth to show the hours he had spent upon that perch. One lone feather, frayed and tattered, tipped in dull red brown hue, fell to the earth behind him. It did not move to the winds, drifted down and caught in a pile of snow, then with a sigh from the ever moving gods it stirred, shivered, alone in it's throne of cold it lingered for a moment. Then loosed from it's prison of earth it went north. North to the heart of ice, trailing after the thin spark of summers flame caught in the brittle flesh of fading mortality.