Disclaimer: Don't own anything!

Author's Note: My English teacher held a workshop for college essays, so that was pretty helpful and I've been signing up for any scholarships I qualify for. Been trying to get Corel Painter 12 to work so that I can fiddle with it. It's only a demo, but I want to try it out. It would be my first real foray into digital art.

-/-/-

Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie - not perfect but who's complaining?
~Robert Brault

-/-/-

"What-what kind of sword is that?"

Zaren glanced up, surprised to see Yuan there and ashamed that he couldn't recognize him by voice alone. But Yuan had changed so much. He was tall now and while his hair was that same familiar shade of blue, it was longer than it used to be and he kept it tied back at the nape of his neck. His face was longer, the angles of his face sharper. Zaren wondered if Yuan had to shave. Not all half-elves did, after all.

Then he remembered that Yuan had asked him a question and he looked back down at the sword he'd been sharpening. They curved gracefully, ending at a sharp point. "They're called scimitars. Or, that's what Viren told me."

"Can I see one?"

Zaren instinctively wanted to say no, that Yuan was too young. But that wasn't the case anymore. "Sure."

Yuan handled the sword with a wary familiarity. He spun it easily, hefting it in his hand and swinging it a few times to get a feel for it. "The balance on this is strange. For a sword, at least. It leans forward and there's a bit more weight at the far end of the blade." It reminded Yuan more of the double-ended spear that he favored than a sword.

"Scimitars are meant for slicing than stabbing."

Yuan made a noise of interest in his throat, holding the sword in both hands and peering at the inscription on the blade, right above the hilt. "This isn't common. Or human."

"No, it isn't."

Yuan glanced up at him, blue eyes startlingly intelligent. Not that his little brother had ever been stupid, but never someone that anyone would consider learned. That was something else that was different. "It doesn't look like it would be elven."

"Have you ever seen elven?" Zaren wanted to know.

"Not that I'm aware of. Have you?"

"No. That's the language that Viren's tribe uses."

"Tribe?" Yuan repeated. "Are they—what's the word?—nomads?"

"I don't know what that means." It felt strange to say that to his younger brother.

"It's like…they travel a lot. Never in the same place for very long."

"No, they're not like that. Viren's told me about some tribes that are, though."

"What was it like? You lived there awhile, didn't you?"

Zaren stared at him. "How'd you figure that out?"

Yuan touched a hand to his bangs, mirroring where the beads had been braided into Zaren's hair. "He has the same things you do."

"Yes, it's a tribal tradition." How to begin to explain it? "They're a tribe of warriors, mostly, livin' out in the desert out west. The tradition is…well, when you kill an enemy, you take a portion of their bone and you make it into a bead."

"And you braid it into your hair?" Yuan assumed, setting the sword back down on the ground. Zaren had expected Yuan to recoil at the very thought, as Zaren once had, but he didn't. He just tilted his head curiously, as though taking in the changes in his brother, just as Zaren had done.

"Yes. A sign of respect to the enemy."

"Huh. Well, that's different."

Zaren laughed, unable to help it. It was the oddest reaction he'd ever gotten to that explanation. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"So what's the inscription mean?"

"It says shamshi. It means 'brave lion'."

"Shamshi." Yuan repeated. "Where did you get swords like that? They're good quality."

Zaren wanted to ask how Yuan knew that, but it wasn't such a strange thing for a half-elf to know. More often than not, they were the ones putting the work in. "It was a gift from their chief when Viren was given the title of General."

"And in turn, you as his second-in-command."

Yuan was far too sharp for his own good. "Yes." Zaren leaned back on one hand, feeling more at ease now that the initial awkwardness was gone, though the distance between them remained. "So tell me about you and Kratos."

Yuan chuckled a little and ran a hand through his hair. "Where do you want me to start?"

"At the beginning would be nice."

Yuan sat down on the stone wall beside his brother. "…I was his slave. Looking back, it's weird. I don't really know where, exactly, things changed. Next thing I really remember, Kratos is asking me if I wanna learn how to read. I thought he'd gone off the deep end at first."

"Why'd he offer you something like that?"

Yuan shrugged. "Kratos is one of those people who's too nice for his own good." Yuan saw the expression on his brother's face, saw the dim disbelief. "It's true."

"I can't be nearly as understanding as you are."

The instinctive anger flared. "Because he's a human?"

Zaren's eyes went hard in a way that Yuan hadn't known they could. "Yes. I can't forget what they've done to me."

"No one's asking you to." Yuan said hotly. "Just put it aside enough so that you can judge people for what they are instead of what you want to see in them!"

"You're being naïve. The humans don't want anything to do with us. I've seen what they've done to our villages. They dig up the graves of our dead, they destroy our temples, burn our homes—"

"You're letting the army represent a whole race!" Yuan bit back any more words he had to say on the subject—and people said he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He sighed. "I don't wanna fight with you. Especially not about this."

He believed it, Zaren thought. He really believed that humans and half-elves could find some middle ground. Zaren didn't believe that they were all bad (though most of them were), but he knew that there was no way that half-elves and humans could ever agree long enough to keep any measure of peace.

A bell rang out seven times, echoing slightly through the stone buildings. Yuan glanced up at the darkening sky. "…I hafta go. Promised Kratos I'd meet him after dinner."

"Sure." Zaren didn't really have words after that. What words could there be?

-/-

Kratos knew something was wrong immediately. "What happened?"

"…Talked with my brother." Yuan stuffed his hands in his pockets, staring out at the small courtyard that Kratos had found. It was a good place to practice magic; secluded and with a decent amount of space with very few things that could catch on fire.

"Didn't go so well, I take it?"

"It was a start, I guess. We said more than ten words to each other." Yuan paused, not really wanting to talk about it, but the idea was there, in the back of his mind, poisoning all thoughts of the cool spring night that was balanced on the edge of day's warm knife. "Kratos…do you ever think that maybe it's not possible?"

Kratos tilted his head in an unspoken question.

"This, what we're fighting for. I mean, do you really think that humans and half-elves can do it? Can find some kind of middle ground?"

"Sometimes." Kratos admitted quietly. "Sometimes, it feels like we're not getting anywhere at all, fighting like we are."

"And the rest of the time?"

Kratos' shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. He wasn't as bony as he used to be. He'd been filling out, though it had been more or less a consensus between the four of them that he would never be very tall. "I remember us."

Us. It's a simple word. Two letters. Rolled off the tongue quite easily. One of the first that Yuan remembered learning. But it seemed heavy now, like it might sink or fly with but a twist of the lips. "We are the odd ones out, aren't we?"

"Their loss." Martel's calm confidence had infected him. Not that that was very surprising. They had had a kinship from the word go. It suited him, Yuan thought, though he still found confidence of any shade an odd feature on his blood brother.

Yuan chuckled. "Guess so. C'mon, you won't learn this by standing around talking."

Kratos had a talent for earth magic, they'd discovered—if it was indeed possible to have a talent for something that you weren't, by birth, supposed to be able to do. Yuan had laughed the first time they came to that conclusion—he wasn't, after all, the only one helping Kratos learn—and said that that wasn't surprising at all considering Kratos' dislike of heights.

But lightning magic was Yuan's specialty.

"I want to learn why you like it so much." Kratos had said while the two of them were more or less still confined to bed on strict orders from the Healers.

"I'd explain it to you if I could." Yuan had turned his head on the pillow, feeling lethargic in the warmth of the Healers' tents. He knew from the pink that was always on Martel's cheeks and nose when she came in along with her constantly wearing long sleeves—something she wasn't fond of—how cold it must be outside.

"You could teach it to me instead."

Yuan smiled. The idea, the possibility, of using magic was both exhilarating and exciting to Kratos. There was no sign of fear in him at all. Yuan liked the idea of being able to teach Kratos something like this, something so close to him. Their roles would be reversed now, Yuan teaching him something important, nearly vital. "Yeah, I could."

It takes some explaining and some fiddling for Kratos to even feel the electricity in his fingertips. Every time he saw the magic form in his hands and felt the rush of mana—a feeling he never ever wants to forget—it's thrilling. Eventually, after hours of practice, he can generate enough lightning to make it dance between two fingers.

It was nothing compared to what he'd seen Yuan do. (But nothing was and, at the same time, he never wants to be able to do something like that. Kratos had seen what it did to Yuan, the nightmares of burned and blackened bodies, of families broken because of him.) It's a start, though. There had been a lot of those today, apparently.

They lay on the ground after they were finished, arms and legs spread out and staring up at the pieces of sky they could see between the buildings. It was nothing like the sky they remembered sitting on the roof of Kratos' house or on the road, where it seemed like it would never ever end. But sometimes, Kratos thought that he could see a familiar constellation again.

"Your brother doesn't like me, does he?" Kratos asked after a while. His heart was still beating too fast—magic did that to him and Martel told him not to worry too much about it, that his body just wasn't accustomed to using magic yet—and the silence was a warm shadow draped across them.

"I don't think he likes any humans."

"He was in a ranch." Kratos pointed out.

"And I was a slave."

"Not the same thing." The human turned over on his stomach, regarding Yuan easily through red-brown eyes. "I mean, think about it."

"I have. I don't think he's right, though. Half-elves haven't been any better to you than you have been to us, and you're still here."

"You make it sound like it's a chore."

"Don't pretend it didn't bother you, the way they treated you." Yuan told him. "I know you too well to not know better."

Kratos made a sound in his throat. "It did. But they warmed up to me."

Yuan sat up, resting his elbows on raised knees as he looked back down at his best friend. "…You know that it's partially—hell, I might even go for mostly—because of what happened, right?"

Both of them try to avoid mentioning the fact that Kratos had very nearly died that day. Sometimes, Yuan still saw Kratos in his dreams—too pale skin washed with stark red (So much red…wouldn't stop…)—and sometimes, Yuan caught Kratos with a hand to his stomach, eyes far away. (Yuan had nearly drowned once and Kratos has nearly died. Yuan wonders if they feel the same. Had Death been terribly seductive and pulled and lured Kratos closer? Had Kratos wanted to go?)

"I know. I'm not completely human anymore."

"If his case is just against humans, then you don't go in that category."

"His case wasn't against me." Kratos reminded him. "He doesn't like all humans."

"Not the point."

"Then what is?"

"Being enslaved doesn't give him that excuse! There're good and bad humans just like there're good and bad half-elves."

"I know." Yuan stopped and stared at Kratos, who had turned back over onto his back, his hands folded on his stomach. "And you know it too."

"So why'd you argue for his side?"

"I think it's because you needed to hear yourself say it."

Yuan stared at him for long minutes before barking out a laugh. "You're crazy, y'know that?"

Kratos grinned up at him. "But you love me anyway."

"Of course I do." Because really, Yuan couldn't imagine life without him now.