Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: More than a little annoyed with myself because I'd already written this chapter and was ready to upload it when our power went out. And, naturally, I forgot to save. Therefore, I had to write this whole thing over again.
Is it weird that whenever someone asks me what I want to do for college, I tell them "I don't know." But when I'm looking at colleges, all I look at is their art programs?
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"In dreams, we enter a world that is entirely our own. Let him swim in the deepest ocean or glide over the highest cloud."
-Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
-/-/-/-
"You know magic, don't you?"
The boy—no, Kratos wasn't really a boy anymore. Then again, he wasn't much of a man yet either. He was in that strange in-between place where his limbs were a little too long and he was tripping over his own feet.
"That's one thing you can't learn, boy. Only those with elven blood can do it."
"I know that. But you can teach Yuan, can't you?"
This kind of daring, of courage that took away the slouch in his shoulders and made him tilt his chin defiantly was something that only Yuan seemed to be able to coax out of whatever corner inside him it was hiding in.
"Why?" He had asked Yuan much the same question once.
"Because, this place," Kratos swept his arm in an arc to indicate the school. "It—it's suffocating him. He needs this. I can tell."
They were good for each other, the old man thought.
"…I'll teach him."
Kratos beamed.
-/-/-/-
"I went to talk to the old man today." Kratos said conversationally. They were lying in bed, watching the shadows of the room play along the walls and ceiling. Kratos was lying on his back with his arms crossed behind his head while Yuan was on his stomach, arms folded beneath the pillow.
"Really?"
"Yup. And guess what he told me."
"'S too late for guessing games."
Kratos shrugged. "If you say so."
He counted silently in his head to five and grinned when Yuan sat up, legs crossed. "You can't just leave me hanging like that, Kratos! What'd he say?"
"He said he can teach you magic."
Yuan stared at him for long heartbeats with the same expression he'd had when Kratos had first offered to teach him to read; with disbelief and wonder. "…Are you serious?"
Kratos rolled his eyes. "No, Yuan. I said it to mess with you."
Yuan laughed and lay back down. They talked late into the night, watching their dreams form in the darkness hovering above them. Kratos was the first to doze off to sleep, but even as he did, he knew that Yuan was unlikely to sleep tonight with excitement.