Disclaimer:I don't own anything!

Author's Note: Tomorrow is the last day of summer—technically. There's still the weekend, but I don't really consider those summer since we get those off anyway. Been doing my AP work all day—Procrastination to the extreme, even though we were warned not to. Senior year starts next week—God help us.

-/-/-/-

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you."
~A.A. Milne

-/-/-/-

"Did you know that using magic hurts after a while?"

Kratos looked over at where Yuan had let himself fall onto his cot. "Really?"

Yuan groaned a yes. "According to the mages, the mana in our bodies will eventually stop coming when we try for magic because it needs to be used for other bodily functions. Like keeping us alive."

"They pushed you that far?" Kratos asked, frowning. He was stretched out on his stomach, letting his muscles rest. Training had made him ache in places he hadn't known could ache.

"Apparently, it's supposed to be like any other training. The more you do it, the more your body gets used to it and can do the action longer." Yuan sounded like he was reciting more or less word for word, which he probably was. The half-elf turned his head to look at Kratos. "How was your day?"

Kratos wrinkled his nose.

"That bad, huh?" Yuan said sympathetically.

"The training is fine, but…everyone keeps looking at me like they're waiting for me to go on a rampage and eat their children or something."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone."

"…I think that maybe they don't know what to say."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that they didn't know you when you were ten and tiny, Kratos. And while I don't think you're ever going to be very intimidating, to them, you are. I mean, you're taller than most of them—for once—and humans are naturally…thicker? I guess that's the word. Yeah, you guys are just built bigger than elves and half-elves." Yuan suddenly grinned at him. "Not to mention, with that hair of yours, you look like a madman."

Kratos threw a pillow at him, which Yuan caught and stuffed it under his head. "So you're saying that, what, I should make the first move?"

"I'm not sure you're aware of this, but you aren't exactly a people person."

"Then what's your plan, genius?"

"I'm going with you tomorrow."

"You'll miss your magic lesson."

Yuan waved a hand airily. "Details. Besides, you need more help than I do with that magic. It's easy now that I can actually do it. Most of what they teach is theory anyway and I know all that."

Kratos rested his head in his arms, smiling delightedly. It had been strange to not be invisible, even if he'd tried, and Yuan was good at making him relax. "Old man's gonna be pissed."

They still called Alstan the old man, even though they knew his name now. It felt strange otherwise. Some of the half-elves had heard them and they tried calling him that, but he'd given them a swift cuff to the head. Apparently, they were the only ones allowed to call him old man.

"I'll deal with that."

"I meant at both of us."

"You can deal with it too."

Kratos rolled over and laughed. "Thanks for the concern." And he means it, even though neither of them will ever discuss nor acknowledge it.

-/-/-

"Hellsfire, you weren't exaggerating." Yuan muttered.

"Told you so." Kratos muttered right back. "I think they'll believe you if you tell them that I don't like the taste of children though."

Yuan snickered. "Yeah, too chewy."

Kratos rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help smiling.

"If you two are done?" Myra said, throwing them two swords—unsharpened, but still steel—which they caught automatically because the old man used to do that. "There's work to be done."

"Y'know," Yuan said under his breath. "I get the feeling she doesn't like us."

"Maybe it's just you." Kratos suggested as they gave each other enough space to begin sparring. "She never seems to have much of a problem with me."

"I do tend to have that effect on people, don't I?" Yuan watched Kratos, looking for the familiar dropping of his left hand, which was Kratos' only signal before a fight. After all, Kratos was right handed and he only needed one hand to use a sword.

"Occasionally." Kratos saw Yuan watching, saw the subtle, constant shifting in weight and let his hand fall.

They sparred with ferocious ease, Myra noted, steel ringing and sweat rolling down their foreheads because it was horridly hot, even this early in the morning. They were so accustomed to fighting each other that it was automatic to block and counter and parry.

But it shouldn't have been that way, she thought, because their fighting styles were far too different, near opposites (She tries to forget that that's not the only difference between them). Yuan was quick, darting arcs of movement, never in the same place for more than a second. Kratos was control and precise footwork, with his free hand balancing out the sword and sweeping aside incoming blows—He'd be good with a shield, Myra thought distantly and Alstan had taught them well.

But Kratos was human and they grew too fast and awkward and his limbs were too long for his body and he still wasn't used to that, so he stumbled and Yuan seized that opportunity to slip beneath Kratos' guard and knock the sword from his hand.

Other half-elves, Myra knew, would have gone for the neck or, as she suspected because Kratos was still alive, wouldn't have been able to get through Kratos' guard fast enough because Kratos knew better than to let them too close with even a dulled blade.

But now, Yuan was smirking a little and Kratos was smiling through the sweat and picking up his sword. "Well, no one can ever say you're not an opportunist."

Yuan laughed, a sound that reverberated through the small field that they had to practice these sorts of things. "At least you know that if you're going to die, it's because of your own clumsy self."

But Yuan wouldn't let him die even if he did stumble because that was what best friends did for each other and Myra knew that she was spot on about her theories of them. Those two could be far too dangerous.

-/-/-

It started raining sometime during the training and, for a long while, Yuan and Kratos had simply continued sparring because, after nearly a year on the road, you learned to ignore things like weather. Or, weather that wasn't particularly dangerous.

It was when Yuan slipped and skidded in the mud and the wet grass that they noticed and Kratos helped him up before they ran to find a dry place. The closest dry place, coincidentally, was the mess room. Everyone looked up as they ran inside, dripping all over the floor.

Myra sighed—the boys, skilled as they were, were still boys and apparently still stubborn—and pointed to a stack of towels near the door. Kratos-and-Yuan smiled gratefully.

"Hey, Kratos, y'know what?"

"What?" Kratos asked as he ran the towel over himself.

"I think it's raining." Yuan grinned cheekily as Kratos chuckled.

"You should be a detective with those observational skills."

"I told you that the military wasn't my calling."

"You've never said that."

"I thought you could read my mind."

"Sorry, I'm not a telepath." Kratos beckoned Yuan closer and carefully cleaned the mud off of Yuan's forehead and eyebrows and from that tiny space in between his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

"You aren't a telepath? You've lied to me all these years?"

Kratos laughed, even as Yuan play-roughly toweled his hair dry since, according to the half-elf, Kratos can't do it properly. "I mean, look at it. Looks like there should be some baby birds in there or something." Yuan was saying.

"And you're any better?" Kratos asked, amused.

"I think we can both agree that my hair is better than yours."

"If you say so."

-/-/-/-

"Yuan."

The half-elf turned at his name automatically. He didn't recognize the man who'd called him beyond the vagueness of seeing him in the crowds. "Yeah?"

"This is going to sound a little weird." He began.

"I've probably heard weirder. Go ahead."

"That human…everyone's been talkin' 'bout him. They say he ain't good for us."

"Isn't." Yuan corrected automatically. "Not ain't."

The man looked at him weirdly, but repeated it. "That he isn't good for us. Now, you seem like an honest guy and I've seen you an' that human together."

"What's your point?"

"Is he good for us?"

Yuan smiled. "Absolutely."

"He's a human though."

"I've known him for almost seven years now. Trust me, Kratos is a good guy."

"He doesn't talk to any of us. A lot of the guys are thinkin' that he hates us."

Yuan chuckled. "Trust me when I say that he doesn't. Hard as it may be to believe, Kratos isn't really a brave guy when it comes to new people."

"So…what you're saying is that he's alright?"

"Yes, he's alright. He's not going to kill you guys, he's not a spy. He's a refugee, just like most of us."

The man nodded. "We'll trust your opinion."

-/-/-/-

The half-elves were still hesitant around him, still weren't quite sure where they stood in terms of the human in their midst, but slowly, they started becoming acclimated to him. Particularly when they saw other half-elves so comfortable around him.

It had originally been just Yuan. But then there was that woman, Martel, who would sometimes come out to have lunch with him. Or the sunbright boy, Mithos, who the human would adjust his grip on the sword and his footing and steadily coach him.

More of the half-elves were willing to spar with Kratos, who, beyond the ducked heads and the strangely proper and polite speech, turned out to be rather good at fighting. And they proved good opponents, or so he told them with tired smiles.

"Not so impossible, is it?" Martel said as Kratos accompanied her to the market. Yuan and Mithos were both studying with the mages today. "For them to trust you, I mean."

"You were right, Martel."

"You are so good at telling a girl what she wants to hear." She laughed then, at the expression on his face before he joined in. Kratos still wasn't very good at the girl thing, but he was more comfortable with her now and didn't stutter or duck his head. Most of the time anyway.

"How are the lessons with Myra?"

"Rather good, actually. I…I didn't know how much reading went into Healing."

Kratos frowned at her. He knew Martel could read, but… "Are you having trouble?"

"Some. It's a lot of material and once I'm finished, I can't remember the first things I read."

"Yuan or me—I," Kratos corrected himself without thinking. He did that a lot, Martel noticed. "Can help you if you need it."

"…Mithos wants to learn to fight like you do, Kratos."

He studied her. "Do you not want him to?"

"I think he's too young to be learning to fight. He's only six. Well, seven soon. But the point is still there." Martel absentmindedly brushed a hand against fabrics as they passed a tailor's shop. "None of us should have had to learn."

Kratos agreed, but, privately, he couldn't imagine his father as anything else but a military man and he knew that he would not have grown up learning anything else. "We can't change what's already happened."

"No, we can't. Kratos…if you can, could you not teach Mithos? At least until—"

"Until your say-so. Got it."

Martel blinked at him. She hadn't thought it would be so easy, considering how strongly Kratos was about being able to fight to protect himself when he actually wanted to learn it to protect others. Surely he saw how similar he and Mithos were?

"He won't like it." Kratos told her. "He's stubborn, your brother."

"What do you want me to do? I'm supposed to protect him and letting him learn to fight so they'll send him out to go fight is not protecting him."

Kratos didn't back away at the slight flare of her temper. That was something that Martel appreciated. However unsure Kratos was around her, he took her anger—however mild it was—in stride. "I know. I'm just telling you that you won't be able to protect him forever. And Mithos is too smart for his own good. He'll want independence before he's ready for it."

"And you know this from experience?"

"There were kids like that at the military school."

"Mm." Martel hesitated. "I-I'm not very good at this. At being a mother instead of a sister. I don't know how to do it since our mother died when we were so young."

"My opinion might not count since I never knew my mom, but I think you do a pretty good job. Besides…I think that Mithos prefers you as a sister rather than a mom."

"I hope so. I'm not ready to be a mother."

"If you were, you'd be some kind of saint or something." Kratos stopped at a fruit stall, drawn by the sight of oranges and pomegranates. They hadn't had fresh fruit for a long time.

"I'm no saint. Not anymore than you are, anyway." Martel picked up an apple, turning it this way and that to inspect it. "…Can we afford these?"

They were paid by the military—it was a pittance, but it was money. "If not, then we'll just have to skimp a bit 'til next month." Kratos smiled at her and bought some of each fruit. Yuan, he thought, would like to eat pomegranates again.