Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: Been taking a look at dual enrollment opportunities at nearby tech schools. It was either going to be game design or architectural drafting. While I would love to design my own games—sometimes, the ideas for them never seem to stop—I feel more comfortable with the architecture.

It's been very slow going for writing the next chapter of Photographs of Freedom. I'm trying to figure out what I want to happen next and it's difficult to get from where the story is to where the storyline is in my mind, so I apologize for that.

-/-/-/-

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. ~Swedish Proverb

-/-/-/-

Yuan knew he had to sneak inside when he heard that General Aurion was on school grounds for the end of term awards. Alina had only had to see the look on his face before she sighed and said, "Just go. I'll cover for you." His responding flash of a grin had been heartstopping.

She didn't understand their strange friendship. It was impossible, by all logical reasoning. Even taking into account contradictory personalities—Yuan is bright and impulsive; hot-tempered and stubborn as a mule. Master Aurion (Kratos, he'd insisted. Said that he hated being called Master) was quiet and shy; intelligent and tentatively friendly, as though he wasn't sure just how to be friends with people—they don't fit together because they're human and half-elf. Master and slave and yet she's seen them laugh and sit together, trading quicksilver grins and jokes that no one else understood, could possibly understand because they had their own small world, one that interacted with the real one only sometimes.

The mess hall was doubling as an assembly hall and it's a simple matter for Yuan to sneak in. No one saw half-elves. Not unless they needed someone to blame, someone to hit. He found a spot near the door to the kitchen and he watched as Sandor Aurion talk to the students—troops, he calls them. Little soldiers and it makes Yuan's stomach twist and roil because he's seen what the soldiers do, knows their cruelty and he doesn't want to imagine Kratos ever being able to do things like that.

Even if Yuan hated the man, the general was impressive. Kratos' father spoke with authority, with subtle, powerful confidence and Yuan wondered if Kratos could ever become like that. If Kratos could ever stand tall like that and not be afraid of all the eyes upon him, of what could happen if something went wrong.

Yuan wondered if he could ever be that confident. That grown-up.

He hadn't heard more than a few snatches of what General Aurion was saying, having been focused more on the cadence, on his bearing, than his words, but when he hears, "…My son, Kratos…"and then Kratos is stepping up there, each step careful and Yuan knew that he was being very careful not to do something stupid like trip or stumble. (Yuan knows that they would have been able to laugh about it later, out in the fields or under the shared blanket, but Kratos doesn't think in future tenses, but in fathers and approval and mistakes)

Kratos ducked his head as his father read off that he was being given the awards for winning his class competition and for having the highest marks in his academic subjects. (The last one makes Yuan's mouth go sour because he knows that, if it hadn't been for the former, the general wouldn't have sounded quite so proud)

Yuan was waiting for Kratos when he comes into their room. The half-elf was lying back on the bed, hands beneath his head, eyes on the ceiling.

"Did you hear?" Kratos asked and he sounded excited like he hadn't ever since he'd come to Yuan, shaking his shoulders, because he could use a sword.

Yuan sat up, smiling even though he wishes that Kratos could enjoy this moment for him rather than for his father. "Yeah. I actually got to see the ceremony."

"Seriously? How'd you manage that?"

Later, the thought will strike Yuan that, if they were older, if they were not still children, Kratos would have been more concerned with his getting caught, with their secret being discovered, but they are children, and to them, they are invincible and secrets are safe.

"Alina covered for me. I wouldn't be a very good best friend if I missed this, now would I?"

Kratos grinned. It's wide and brilliant and untouched by Sandor Aurion. "No…I think you'd still qualify."

They spent the rest of the night talking and playing cards that Zaren had showed Yuan how to play in another life. It's nothing terribly important that they talk about—rumors and schoolwide gossip. Yuan could confirm that, yes, Daryl did sleep with a stuffed animal. It was a beaver and he'd tried to get some slaves to wash it discreetly last week—but they're things that seem as large as the sky.

"So what happens now?" Yuan asked. "The school year's over, right?"

"Yeah, it is. It's two weeks of summer break and then we're back here."

Yuan's eyes met Kratos' red-tinted ones over his hand of cards. "That means we have to go back to your house, right?"

"Yeah. They don't let students stay here for the summer."

Yuan knew that, if it hadn't been for his father's words, finally acknowledging his quiet, bookish offspring (…My son, Kratos…) then Kratos wouldn't be so happy about going back.