Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: I want to put this on the record that I am not a believer of love at first sight. Like, at all. But Yuan and Martel are, for me, the one pairing where it's allowed.

-/-/-/-

"Do you notice, love, that I'm not crying
in your arms by shouting for gladness?
I bless the day I was born,
that has drowned me now in so much beauty."
-Albino Pierro (I Love You)

-/-/-/-

It didn't take Yuan long to get accustomed to the rocking of the ship that they'd hopped on after the incident with the soldiers. The captain had given the boymen one look, nodded, and said, "'S a good thing, what you did. Not many folks're willing to stand up to them soldiers. Yer welcome on my ship so long as you can work."

They scrubbed the deck and helped in the kitchen, though the captain had insisted they wash up at his house first.

He'd knocked on the bathroom door, waiting for Kratos to give his okay before entering. He found the boyman staring at himself in the mirror like he didn't know the reflection.

"Yer first beard, boy?" Kratos nodded. "…Didn't yer pop ever teach you to shave?"

Kratos shook his head. "…No. He-" He wondered what lie to use. Then he decided on the most truthful one. "He's dead." Or, he was to Kratos-and-Yuan.

The captain's face softened for a moment. Such things weren't strange in this age of war, but there was something wrong if a boy didn't learn to shave from his own father. "Do you want me to teach you?"

Kratos nodded again. The stubble didn't look right on his face, especially since he could still see some faint traces of baby fat on his cheeks. And he could remember his father with stubble occasionally. It had always appeared blue on his skin because he never allowed the stubble to stay for more than a day.

When Kratos had come out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, his cheeks feeling a bit raw and a thin cut along the underside of his chin, Yuan had tilted his head and said, "You're yourself again."

Yuan had always been the first one awake, but not now. Now, the constant tossing and turning of the ship kept Kratos awake. And Yuan didn't get very much sleep either. He kept seeing the burnt bodies and hearing everyone congratulate him on what he did. It didn't feel right, killing people.

"…Hey, Kratos?" Yuan called softly to the bunk beneath his.

"Mm?"

"D'you…I mean, would you ever kill anyone?"

"…Not for just anything or anyone, no."

Yuan didn't need to ask to know that he was one of the qualified few, perhaps even the only person, that Kratos would be willing to kill for. And again, he wondered where his friend had gone.

(At first, Yuan wants to say that he would never be willing to kill someone, but then he thinks of Kratos, of his first real friend and new brother. Of secrets shared and stories told; of races under dappled sunlight and climbing trees just to ride out a storm. For that, Yuan thinks…for that, he might be willing to kill someone if it meant Kratos would still be breathing and laughing right next to him)

-/-/-/-

"Boys, is that your bird?"

Yuan and Kratos immediately looked up from where they were mopping the deck. The captain had reluctantly allowed Noishe to come on his ship, but only so long as the bird stayed in the hold. They'd argued that he couldn't expect a bird to stay constantly locked away, that Noishe needed room to spread his wings. The captain had grudgingly said that the bird could come out at night for a bit.

And it was indeed Noishe who was balanced on the bow of the ship, staring out at the water, wings folded tightly against his body and his long neck arched like a swan's.

"I'll get him." Yuan said, handing Kratos his mop. Kratos apparently wasn't meant for the sea because this entire trip, he'd had a vague greenish tint to his skin. Yuan carefully balanced himself on the railing (It was like standing on a tree branch and breathing the scent of pomegranates in the wind) and crept up so he could reach Noishe.

"Hey, Noishe, c'mon down." Yuan coaxed. "It's less wet over there." By quite a bit as the ocean's spray was strong out on the bow.

The bird turned to look at him and the greenbrowngray eyes were ancient and full of a very different kind of intelligence. It didn't frighten Yuan (This is Noishe and Noishe has never hurt us and won't hurt us) but he saw something there that made him get down.

"He isn't coming down." Yuan told the captain. "But…he isn't in the way there either, so…"

The captain looked down at the boyand sighed. (His mother had always told him that half-elves were dirty, filthy liars, but this boy—clearly a half-elf because he's a mesh of smooth elven angles and human squareness and teenage awkwardness—is polite and quiet and a hard worker. The other boy is much the same, but he was all human, short with wide eyes that he'd seen a protective glint in.) "He can stay there. I don't like it, but there ain't much we can do 'bout it."

-/-/-/-

Yuan's fingers hurt from gripping the rail so tightly and he could see Noishe, a vague, gray silhouette in the sheets of pelting rain, and Kratos was right beside him, one hand on his arm, refusing to let go and the other on the rail.

"…Uan…Yuan!" Kratos' voice broke through the fog of sleep and Yuan registered being shaken urgently awake.

He sat up, nearly crashing into Kratos in his haste. "What? What's going on?"

Kratos looked worried and nervous and when lightning flashed outside, Yuan saw that the green tinge had spread a bit more. "We're caught in a storm, captain says."

Sails rigged against the whirling winds tore apart, ropes snapped and, try as he might, the captain couldn't lead them out to safer waters. Thunder grumbled and roared, lightning—violently violet and fierce—splitting the sky and illuminating the churning waves.

Both he and Kratos felt the way the ship was suddenly balanced on the edge of a knife, tipping and Time extended and stretched beyond the here and now. For an instant, Yuan felt himself suspended in midair as the bottom of his world suddenly vanished and where was Kratos? Had he not been warm on his arm and right beside him?

Water was suddenly over his head, in his lungs and everywhere and Yuan didn't know which way was up. He couldn't breathe and he tried swimming, but he didn't know where anyone was or which way was up and all he wanted was to be back in a tree, listening to the wind and feeling the rain. He searched the gloom, searched for familiar redbrown or flashes of silver wings. But they aren't there and no one's there and wouldn't it be easier to just not try…?

-/-/-/-

There were voices, vague voices, and a warm weight on him before the black comes back. The black stayed for a while before he heard the voices again and there was something soft beneath his fingers.

One of the voices was familiar and the one he'd so wanted to hear. "'tos?"

"Yuan." The relief was evident in his voice. "You're awake."

"Where'd I go?" Yuan asked groggily and he tried to blink open his eyes, but even that was an effort because they felt so heavy and crusted with salt.

"You almost drowned." There was fear in Kratos' voice and Yuan was ashamed to be glad of it because it meant that it wasn't this new boyman that was still somehow his best friend. His Kratos—cowardly and kind and strangely stubborn—was still here. "Noishe saved you."

"Noishe?" Yuan's vision was still a little blurry, but he could see Kratos—damp and not so green, but his face was pinched with worry and Noishe was right behind him, wide, intelligent eyes watching him. His feathers were still dripping a little and droplets plopped from his beak. Yuan had never been happier to see the protozoan. "You're amazing, I ever tell you that?"

Noishe nudged his head with his beak and Yuan had the feeling that Noishe understood him.

"You're very lucky."

Yuan hadn't noticed the other person and he turned his head to look towards them. His breath vanished when he did and he felt like he was drowning all over again, but at the same time, he was flying and he was very okay with that.

"Yuan, this is Martel. She knows some Healing craft and she brought you back." Kratos introduced.

Martel had pale green hair—like pomegranate leaves in the spring— that might have been in a braid before it came undone and her eyes were a bit like Noishe's, brown-green (Hazel, Yuan remembers distantly that it's called) and they shifted colors depending on how the light hit them. Freckles were scattered across her nose and her dress was still damp from the rain. Her eyes were vaguely slanted and her hair shifted forward, revealing triangular ears.

She smiled at him and his mind went blank for a minute before he remembered that she was speaking. "…meet you. Your friend here's been alternating between fussing and cursing at you."

Yuan blinked at her in confusion. "Cursing? Kratos?"

"Mmhm."

Yuan turned back to the human, who was very determinedly not looking at him. "…Are you sure you're not sick? And seasick doesn't count."

He saw the smile before Kratos looked back to him. "I don't think so. And you would be the only one in the world to nearly drown when you were holding onto the rail."

Yuan smiled a little, his body still too heavy to even consider moving. "It's one of my many talents."

"You call that a talent?" It was a different voice, younger and when Yuan looked down his body, he saw a child standing there.

To be perfectly honest, the child was lovely. Sunshine hair that was long enough to reach his chin and summer sky eyes that were the same kind of slanted as Martel's and his own. He was paler than Martel and he looked almost entirely elven, all smooth angles and high cheekbones.

"This is Mithos, my little brother." Martel introduced.

Yuan tried to find a resemblance. The shape of the mouth, perhaps, and the very human forehead, which was broader than that of elves. Beyond that though, there was nothing.

"Nice to meet you." Yuan decided that he really should be sitting up because the wood beneath him was damp and what felt like a splinter was digging into the small of his back at an uncomfortable angle. Kratos understood what he was trying to do and helped him up. "…Where have you been? On this ship. We haven't seen you."

Martel ducked her head, abashed. "We're stowaways."

"Huh. Where're you running from?" The question should be strange and awkward. It wasn't.

"Heimdall."

"That's across the continent!" Yuan exclaimed. He'd seen the maps in Kratos' textbooks, had traced a finger over the uneven borders and had tried to imagine the great elven cities.

"We've been running for a while." There was a sudden hint of hardness in her eyes and her hands fisted. Yuan had no doubt that Martel was stronger than she appeared.

"So've we." Yuan hesitated, glancing at Kratos, who read the look in his eyes and just smiled. "Want to run with us?"

"Where you running to?"

"So far, nowhere in particular. There was a vague plan to go to the capital, learn magic."

Martel's forehead creased with confusion and Yuan saw her look at Kratos. But Mithos spoke up, excitement coloring his voice and expression. "Can we, Martel? It's magic. You and I could both learn!"

Martel looked at her little brother (He's still the same little boy who'd clutched at her skirt the day their parents were sent to Undine, still the same smile and same bright, eager eyes. She never wants him to change) and sighed. "Alright. But I don't want to trouble you all."

Kratos smiled encouragingly. "I could use the change in company. Yuan'll drive anyone crazy if you stay with him long enough."

Yuan playfully pushed him, even as he laughed along with Martel and Mithos. Yuan-and-Kratos were a strange thing, Martel thought, watching them. So close, and yet they were so very different. At first, when Kratos had knelt by Yuan as she was trying to get air back in his lungs and his heart beating again and told her that please, could she save his best friend, she'd thought he was being absurd. A human, friends with a half-elf? Impossible.

(It doesn't take her long to learn that Yuan-and-Kratos, whether separate or together, are good at defying the impossible)

-/-/-/-

After Martel and Mithos were taken aside to talk to the captain, Yuan beckoned Kratos closer. "I'm gonna marry her one day, Kratos. I can feel it."