Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note:

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

This is all waaaaay before Tales of Symphonia.

-/-/-/-

"Friendship is born at that one moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!" –C.S. Lewis

-/-/-/-

Kratos has learned precious little about the new slave. Those things include his name and a rough estimate of his age. Other than that, most of their time has been spent in an awkward, elephant in the room kind of silence.

In the few weeks since Kratos and his father—a general of the human army, Yuan soon learns—Yuan has been able to find out, more or less, Kratos' life story thanks to the other house slaves. He'd hidden a smile at their collective dinner in the kitchen, which was much later after the Aurions'. It seemed that, no matter where they might be from or the situation, half-elves could be trusted to look after their own.

Zaren would have laughed, Yuan thinks. "Put two half-elves who have never met in a room together for twenty minutes and they'll be able to tell you how they're related." He'd said once after a traveling caravan of half-elves had come through the village.

His duties are straightforward. Make sure Kratos is up on time—not that Yuan has any idea how to read a clock, but he's been told that it's when the cook begins getting breakfast ready—run his bath and gather up the papers and materials from the homework that Kratos had the night before. Sometimes, Yuan will stare at the papers with their diagrams and strange scribblings and thinks that they look similar to the scribblings on the articles back home.

When Yuan had seen the building that he walked with Kratos to most days, he'd stared uncomprehendingly the first time. "What is this?" He'd asked.

Kratos had stared at him as if he didn't know why he was asking. "It's a school."

Yuan blinks at him. "What's that?"

Kratos feels something in him go a little cold at that moment. "You honestly don't know?"

"Would I be asking if I did?"

"School is a place where you go to learn things like math and history and how to read."

There was a strange light in Yuan's eyes. "They teach to read?"

"Yeah, of course they do." Kratos hesitated a little. "Don't you know how? To read I mean."

Yuan shook his head, making his bangs fall into his face. His hair is an unusual color, Kratos thinks. It's blue like the water in the lake. Kratos doesn't quite know what to say to that. He hasn't ever met anyone who couldn't read. Maybe it was a half-elf thing.

Yuan stays outside while Kratos is in…school. Despite Kratos trying to explain, Yuan still doesn't quite understand what it is, but he does know one thing about it. There are no half-elves allowed. Yuan climbs up one of the trees (These trees don't smell like pomegranates or sour oranges. They smell like pine and sap and bark and it's unusual) and watches the other slaves.

Most of them are a lot like him; kids and small and their eyes never dart across the yard to look at the school. Yuan isn't sure why they wouldn't want to look at it. His entire house could have fit inside just a piece of it! And so could the market stalls and the blacksmith's forge. The walls are stark white, which Yuan doesn't quite know why. Back home, the walls are red clay and rough cliff walls and the kids would sometimes be allowed to mush berries up to make paint and to paint all along the walls. Their designs would be washed away with the next rain, but it was fun.

Once, he and Zaren had painted a picture of themselves onto their wall, with crowns on their head. "We'll be kings of the world one day." Zaren had said.

"Yeah, and we'll stop the war." Yuan continued.

"And everyone will have food."

"And toys!"

Zaren had laughed and smiled fondly at his little brother. "Yeah. And toys."

When a loud bell rings, the human kids are let outside. Where the other kids go and play, kicking a ball between them and wrestling playfully, Kratos has a book clutched protectively in front of his chest and he'll curl up behind a tree, where it's harder to see him from the field, and read.

After a week of seeing Kratos do this and not understanding why he wouldn't want to go out and play with the others—there weren't many kids in his village and Yuan was the odd one out with his strange hair color and crazy dreams—Yuan climbs up Kratos' usual tree and waits for the bell to ring.

"Why are you here?"

Kratos jumps, and stares up at where Yuan is sitting with wide eyes. "W-what?"

"Why're you here?" Yuan repeats.

"I told you. To learn."

Yuan shakes his head and pushes his bangs out of his face. "No, not here. Here. Like right here. Why are you sitting here instead of playing with the others?"

Kratos shifts uncomfortably. "…They don't like me very much."

"How come?" Yuan thinks Kratos is weird and too jumpy, but he was an okay person. For a human, at least.

Kratos shrugs. "They think I'm weird 'cause I read so much."

"Huh."

Kratos glances up at him. "What?"

Yuan's blue eyes look down at him. "The kids in my village used to think I was weird too."