Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: Just watched No Strings Attached. It was alright. Not great, but funny enough for a one-time watch.

Some of the events here are mentioned in Photographs of Freedom.

This is all waaaaay before Tales of Symphonia.

-/-/-/-

Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends. ~Shirley Maclaine

-/-/-/-

Kratos peers around the corner into his father's study. It always smelled of cigar smoke. "…You wanted to talk to me, sir?"

General Sandor Aurion looked at his son. "Yes, I did. I noticed you came home looking a little beat up yesterday."

Kratos ducked his head, hiding behind his bangs. His father had noticed him! "Yes, sir."

"Want to tell me why that is?"

It was phrased as a question, but there was no mistaking that it was an order. Kratos tried to remember the dramatic excuse he'd come up with. Something about mountain men? He couldn't remember and even if he could, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth and he wasn't sure he could even deliver the lie. "…I fell, sir."

"Again?"

Kratos repressed a flinch. "I-I'm a little clumsy."

"More than a little. You fall at least three times a week." Sandor studied his son. "Come with me. I think I have a solution."

Puzzled, Kratos follows his father out of the house and out towards the fields. It would be harvest-time in a few weeks and the stalks of corn and wheat grew tall, well over Kratos' head. In between the long rows, Kratos sometimes glimpsed a face or a hand, but nothing specific.

He had to jog a little to keep up with his father's long strides on their way to the ramshackle building that housed the field slaves. The walls were only wood, the door little more than a curtain. Inside, the building reeked of sweat and mold and it was cramped and dirty.

There was a table that leaned heavily on one of its legs that looked like it'd been put together out of spare wagon pieces. Several slaves were gathered around it, their hands on cups that clattered with dice. Some of the other slaves were in their cots, either sleeping or simply sitting and watching the game.

"Pick one." Sandor told his son.

"Sir?"

"Pick a slave that'll help you with these…falls…that you're having. They'll carry your schoolbooks and help you get ready in the morning."

Kratos glanced between his father and the slaves. They were all looking back at him, but there was nothing friendly in their faces. Most of them were large and rather scary-looking. His eyes landed on a slave closer to his own age, sitting on the floor beside one of the cots.

The slave stared back and there was wary curiosity on his dusty face. His hair was tangled and matted and he looked half-ready to bolt.

-/-/-/-

"It's not so bad here." One of the other half-elves says. "We're fed, at least."

"It ain't much," Another adds. "But it's food."

Yuan doesn't know these half-elves. He'd never ventured outside of Asgard, had never seen beyond the fields and forest treetops that he spied from the high cliffs and pomegranate branches.

He isn't sure exactly where he is, but there aren't mountains here and it makes Yuan feel very small. The flat lands seem to stretch on forever with big fields that Yuan was told that he was going to be working in pretty soon.

This place smells different. It smells of soil and sweat and freshly turned leaves. Not like Asgard with its lamb and pomegranate smell that Yuan would know anywhere. But that smell is gone now. Now, Asgard is full of ashes and ruins and bodies strewn in the streets.

It's been three months since Zaren was drafted. He was too young, only thirteen winters, but the general that came to the village for all able-bodied young men and Zaren qualified.

"Why don't you just say no?" Yuan asks as he watches Zaren pack his meager belongings.

"I can't, Yuan. The general himself asked me to join. I can't refuse that."

"You'll end up like Dehua and Kail." Yuan tells him quietly. "You won't come back and you'll make Mama sad."

"Don't do that, Yuan."

"What?"

"Guilt me into staying. I'm going. End of story."

"You shouldn't have to. There are tons of people to fight for Tethe'alla. Our family's already given them enough. You shouldn't have to give more."

Zaren chuckled—a bitter sound, one that Yuan had never heard before—and crouches to look him in the eye. "…You're a smart kid, Yuan. You'll go places that I can't even imagine. Promise me something."

"Anything." Yuan says without hesitation.

"…Promise me you won't give up. Not for anyone or anything. Promise me you'll keep fighting, even if it seems like there's no point. Promise me that you'll try hard to go somewhere in life."

"I promise, Zaren, but why would I want to go anywhere else when I have everything I've ever wanted right here?"

Because he didn't know the other options, Zaren thought. Because he'd never seen the way that the pastures stretched out to the horizon and he'd never wondered what was beyond that horizon.

The curtain that served as their door was pushed aside and two people entered. The man was tall and imposing, black hair slicked back from a sharp-featured face. Yuan recognizes the man from the articles that Mama had hung in the kitchen, though he doesn't know who he is.

The boy next to him was tiny in comparison. Not much older than Yuan, he had a bird's nest of reddish-brown hair and looked entirely too pale.

The man said something and while Yuan saw the boy's mouth move, he couldn't hear him at all, even though the building wasn't all that big and they weren't far from each other. The boy scanned the room, hands wringing the hem of his shirt. Finally, his eyes landed on Yuan.

They stared at each other for a few long moments before the boy pointed. Yuan tensed at the motion. He hadn't heard what the boy had said to the man—the kid's voice was way too quiet—but he knew that it couldn't be good news to have been singled out like this.

The man gestured for Yuan to come closer and Yuan knew he couldn't do more than obey, though he did so warily. The man turned and strode out of the building and the boy glanced nervously between the man and Yuan—now that they were closer, Yuan could see that the boy's eyes were a curious shade of brown that looked a little reddish—before following the man out and Yuan had no choice but to follow.