Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: I can feel the days slipping by until school starts again. I'm excited for only one reason and that is my 3D Composition 2 class, where we have the most incredible art teacher I have ever had the honor of knowing, Mr. Marin.

I keep forgetting to put this on here, but if anyone wants to see anything in these chapters, just let me know and I'll find a way to work it in.

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Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.
~Robert Fulghum

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They walked until they couldn't anymore. Literally.

Yuan stared out. "Is that the ocean, Kratos?"

"I think so." It looked like the illustrations of the ocean in the old storybooks that Kratos used to have, at the very least.

Yuan set down his pack and stepped cautiously closer to the water that was lapping at the sandy shore, though he refused to step down off the rocky shelf that he and Kratos were standing on. The water really was the color of Mama's eyes, he thought and he crouched to sweep a hand through the water caught in some rocks.

"Hellsfire, but that's cold." Yuan hissed, drawing his hand back.

"It was winter less than a month ago, Yuan. What did you expect?" Yuan could hear Kratos smiling without looking at him. Kratos had taken off his boots and his socks and he shivered as the waves caught up to his feet.

"This should all be ice right now." Yuan said, keeping a safe distance from the darker waters that he knew were deeper. He'd never learned to swim, not in waters like this. Waters that were certainly over his head and that were churning and powerful. "I wonder what those waves would look like."

"If they were frozen?" Kratos had rolled up his pants to about his knees and was standing shin-deep in the freezing water. It didn't really fell all that cold to him, but perhaps that was because it snowed every winter back home and he rather liked the cold.

"Mm."

"…I think they'd look pretty cool, actually." Kratos could see it in his mind, the pale ice against this gray and gold world. He could see the way it would look at sunset, gleaming and glowing and how it would look at night, hauntingly beautiful.

Yuan laughed softly. He liked this place. It was…different here. Like this place had never heard of the war. Like the world had never been separated into races. It painted an interesting picture; nothing like the green fields and red pomegranates of his childhood, of course. This place was yellow sand and blue waves with grey stones and pale sunshine, but he liked it for the raw honesty of the place

"…How deep do you suppose it is?"

"Deeper than we can hold our breaths." Kratos told him, smiling.

"Obviously. But, haven't you ever thought about what's at the bottom? If there is a bottom? Do animals live there? Or-or people, maybe? I've heard stories of sea elves."

"Sea elves?" The human frowned. He'd never heard of any such thing.

"Yeah. The travelling players that came to my village used to tell me stories about the Summon Spirits. 'Parently, Undine was a seal elf once. Humans call 'em mermaids or they disguise themselves as— what're they called, dolphins? Yeah, dolphins—and she had the most powerful magic of all the sea elves. She was lonely, but she cared about everyone, so Origin took pity on her and made her into a Summon Spirit, where she wouldn't be lonely because she had all the other Spirits and she could watch over the world and the people she loves so much."

"…How do you remember all these?"

"All what?" Yuan asked, tugging his boots and socks off before carefully hopping down from the rocks. The sand squished beneath his feet and there was the curious sensation of the waves pulling the sand away even as he was standing on it.

"All these stories you tell me."

Yuan shrugged. "I can remember everything anyone's ever told me."

"That's amazing. I wish I could do that."

"Maybe you can write it all down one day." Yuan said, sitting back on the rocks, his feet the only things feeling the iciness of the water. "No one's ever done that, I don't think."

"And you can teach other half-elves to read."

Yuan smiled, leaning back on his hands. "I think I'd like that. And so would they."

The thought entered Yuan's mind that, perhaps one day, if it was still standing, he'd find his little village in the mountains and find his house and perhaps he would finally read all of those newspaper articles that Mama plastered on their wall. He would finally have names and stories to go along with the pictures he'd looked at for nine years.

And maybe he'd find Zaren again, and he would show his brother just how much he'd grown up and learned and he'd introduce him to Kratos, his newest brother, his other half, and maybe things would be different then.

"…Let's stay here for the night." Kratos suggested. "It's safe and I like it here."

"It's…" Yuan searched for a word. "Peaceful."

"Yeah. Peaceful." The word sounded strange in their mouths because they were children of war, were children of homes and families torn apart and of battle. Peace had never had anything to do with it.

But things could change.