Chapter one of the epic tale of Silent Sky, Lloyd will finally cherish his last moment with his mother's memento and Sheena will ask for a rather big favor...
Disclaimer:
I do not own, or intend to make profit off of, this fanfic. I do not own the original characters, if I create a character than I shall specify who it is and that I own him/her and permission to use him/her will only be granted by me; Runningidiot.
Silent Sky
Chapter One:Aftermath
As Lloyd tossed the last exsphere into the growing pile, he felt a great sweep of relief swell up inside of him. Breathing steadily he felt his gaze move to his right wrist. His mother's memento was next to be thrown in; the last victim to receive salvation. He felt his left hand move to it, plucking it out and ignoring the sweep of energy flowing out of him.
He gazed at it, fixing every marking and every dent into his mind, he closed his fingers around it; shutting his two brown eyes tightly.
"Let her go Lloyd." He heard his good friend say. "This is what she would want." Her voice brought a relative amount of comfort to the eighteen year old boy, but nonetheless he kept the exsphere of Anna in his left fist.
The only Irving alive turned around and faced the young girl from Mizuho. "Y… we have never met her… so all in all-"
"Lloyd," The black haired Mizuho girl interrupted, causing Lloyd to look back into her seemingly black eyes. "What would you want if you were… were…" she looked away, her usually gentle eyes turning quite blank. Lloyd felt his gaze move to the giant pile of exspheres.
"Damnit," Lloyd muttered under his breath, throwing his mom's exsphere into the pile where it made a slight dent, a couple of balls rolled down from the top of the pile, covering up the dent in which his exsphere just zoomed through. "DAMNIT!" The eighteen-year-old repeated with a cry; falling to the ground on his knees. He soon felt Sheena's comforting hand grip his shoulder, he felt the tears pouring from his eyes but made no effort to stop them, and he felt a slight drip of water on his shoulder and knew that his friend was crying as well.
Moments passed by in silence, the only sounds heard around the clearing were the sobs coming from the two people, their contempt clouding everything around them, making everything else seem irrelevant. How many human lives were lost to exspheres? How many individuals were sacrificed for the sole purpose of allowing other humans to live longer. Lloyd remembered that the Renegade Yuan said something about his exsphere evolving, but how was it evolving? Why was it?
Did it matter now? Lloyd watched the Mizuho representative light a fire with some handy flint, Lloyd watched the flame engulf the pile, he noticed his vision was quite blurry because of the endless streams of tears, but even those tears could not block out the bright flame. He stood up, turning away from the gaping flame; he heard the brush of grass that meant Sheena was nearby.
"L-Lloyd," she stuttered. "Don't… I mean yo.. you don't…"
"I'm okay Sheena." Lloyd supplied, trying to smile as he turned around to face her but couldn't push the curve of the lips that far.
She turned away from him, walking toward the flame. "I… I'm sorry." She said quietly. "I'm not very good at cheering you up eh?"
"N – no it's not tha-" Sheena snorted, reminding Lloyd of his own father, she rotated her head so a bit of her left eye faced Lloyd.
"Listen Lloyd, none of this is your fault." Lloyd's look of despair disappeared at this comment and any pessimistic thoughts were immediately pushed to the back of his mind.
"Wha…?" she laughed heartedly at this, a sound Lloyd had not heard for a long time indeed.
"Whatever happened to your optimisim!" She turned around fully, her entire body facing him. Lloyd noticed that she was gripping the piece of flint rather tightly. Though, through reading her expression, Lloyd guessed that she didn't even notice that seemingly sharp rock gripped in her hand. He saw her raise her eyebrows and he drew away from his thoughts quite suddenly. Uttering…
"Wha…?" Lloyd repeated. "Wait… wh-what does that have anything to do wi-"
"Lloyd!" She interrupted again. "You're acting all depressed, crying over this and that." She stepped forward just a bit, but it was enough to make every thought disappear from Lloyd's mind. "The Lloyd I cherished so much before wouldn't cry at all, he would have just kept going, thinking something would… would… I don't know." The boy in question found himself laughing at this, stepping backward; he rubbed his eyes with the back of his red sleeve.
"Lloyd I'm serious!" The boy just kept laughing, tears bleeding out of his eyes constantly. Lloyd noticed that a slight smile was curling on her expression and she herself started to laugh.
Then it stopped, and the reality of the rejoined world of Symphonia came flowing back into his mind. Lloyd felt the smile disappear instantly, he heard Sheena move a bit closer, a faint brush of grass was the only hint at that.
"I want the old Lloyd back." She stated with a whisper, yet Lloyd heard it quite clearly. He chuckled, turning away from his friend and crossing his arms.
"I'll try," he said faintly. "I-I just…"
"Don't know how long it'll take?" Lloyd nodded, sitting down on the ground. He could still hear the flames eating away at the exspheres, he found his head turning to watch the burning haze and found himself hearing whispers of screams.
Lloyd rose from the ground, squinting at the pile, he could still hear them. Screams of agony, both male and female, both accented and not accented, though they all sounded the same, he walked toward it, holding out his hand.
"Mom…" he whispered when he was right in front of the flame. He could help his mother, he could save her from this pain, he reached for the flame when…
"SNAP OUT OF IT!" Lloyd shook his hand away from the flame when it was slapped by his friend, he stepped back from the fire, his head bouncing between the fire and Sheena's unreadable expression.
"Why'd you butt in!" Lloyd asked angrily, fury no doubt imbedded on his face. "Can't you hear them!"
Sheena crossed her arms, speaking in a calm tone. "Yes I can, but that is merely a lure meant to lead us to our death. It is nothing but a magitechnology program Lloyd," Sheena uncrossed her arms, stepping forward, the gentleness look in her eyes returning. "They are now free Lloyd, just like Mithos… just like Alicia… just like…"
"Yeah… yeah I know." Lloyd turned away, his posture relaxing. "I – I'm sorry about that…"
"No need to be, you just regret what you've done." She yawned quite loudly, Lloyd watched her stretch her long arms around. "You wanna set up camp?"
"Yeah… yeah sure," he said distantly, walking toward their nearby campsite while Sheena dashed to catch up with him.
Soon night had fallen, and Lloyd watched the blinking skyline as he stirred a mixture of potatoes, meat, and several other vegetables that made up this stew around in the pot as Sheena lay back on the grass with her eyes closed.
"What're we going to do now?" She asked suddenly and Lloyd looked up to meet her dark eyes. He looked away from them the next second; afraid he would fumble over words because of the eye contact.
"I… I dunno." He stuttered, cursing under his breath. "Maybe go back to…"
"To…?" Sheena repeated after a few seconds of silence.
"Mizuho?" Lloyd put forward, watching Sheena shrug slightly.
"Gran… the Chief will probably make me stay if we go back and…" Sheena paused, looking down at her chest and away from Lloyd. "And… well I don't want to go back just yet."
Lloyd cocked his head in confusion at this. "Why not? We're done with collecting the exspheres… isn't that all that we set out for?" The Summoner shrugged again.
"I suppose so… but it just… y-you kn…know…" Sheena stuttered, Lloyd continued to mix the stew while she tried to sort out her thoughts. "It just doesn't feel over does it?" She said after a couple of stirs around the pot. Lloyd switched to a counter-clockwise stir now; looking up to find dark eyes staring back at his own.
"Yeah… yeah I suppose so, but what else can we do?" The Mizuho girl laughed at this, the not familiar smile making her expression brighten considerably. Lloyd looked around their surroundings, soaking in the comfortable atmosphere of the forest edge.
"Say Lloyd," Sheena said suddenly, drawing Lloyd's head over back to her. "Do… do you th… think that you could teach me…"
"Teach you…?" Lloyd heard her take a deep breath and wondered why she was doing that.
"Do you think you can teach me how to use a sword?" She said very fast, stumbling slightly over the words and pronunciations. Lloyd felt taken aback by this, the spoon he was stirring the stew with falling out of his grip and plummeting into the stew, Lloyd cursed, reaching in the hot liquid and retrieving the heated spoon.
"Uh…" he said dropping the spoon onto the grass; he thought about the question that Sheena was asking him.
"Can I really teach her though…?" Lloyd thought in his mind's eye. Looking at the excited expression of Sheena Fujibayashi made him want to teach her… but could Lloyd actually teach someone just as Kratos once did to him?
"C… can I think about it?" Lloyd said nervously.
"Oh sure! Take as much time as you want, seriously!" Sheena said speedily as if as nervous as Lloyd himself.
"Thanks," though Lloyd couldn't help but start to think of detailed lesson plans in order to teach her, a smile appeared on his face as he poured some stew into two separate bowls and handed one to Sheena.
"What're you smiling at?" She asked curiously, accepting the bowl with a mumble of thanks. Lloyd's smile broadened at this comment.
"Just thinking of how much fun this journey's going to be." He said calmly.
Sheena looked slightly taken aback at this. "But we've been together for… for what? A year?" Lloyd chuckled, shutting his two eyes.
"That was merely the first chapter." He said epically, leaving the rest for Sheena to decipher.
A/N Yep, it's short. Like I said eariler, the length will come!