Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: I went to New York City for the first time with my brother for four days. I can see why people like New York so much; it's very diverse and I very much like the idea of being able to walk everywhere. I saw my first Broadway plays—Mamma Mia! and Chicago. Beautiful shows, the both of them.
I was also invited to the christening of Disney's new cruise ship, the Fantasy. A lovely ship. They fed us, let us walk around and Neil Patrick Harris and Jerry Seinfeld helped introduce three shows that will be playing on the ship. It was pretty intimidating because there were a lot of famous people there. Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon christened the ship, breaking the champagne.
My Spring Break was spent on a road trip. We flew to Atlanta, Georgia and drove up to Memphis, Tennessee. We saw the tomb of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, went on a tour of Nashville and ate at the Wildhorse Saloon and we also saw the replica of the Parthenon that's in Nashville; we went to Graceland and walked down Beale Street. It was very interesting—surprisingly educational—and we just got back, a week and some change later.
I'm thinking of publishing a story that focuses on Zaren and Viren's experiences and relationship. Thoughts?
"Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it and it will never be used to hurt you."
-Tyrion Lannister (A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin)
She shouldn't feel any sympathy for them, she knew that. The soldiers in town had already gone by her little house and told her to keep a lookout, that the ranch on the far side of the forest had been broken out of by two men. She knew what they were the moment she looked at them, knew that they'd been in the ranch and, if they were in the ranch, than they'd been put in there for a reason.
But the boy—he was human, she could tell, all hard lines, broad-browed and broad shoulders—looked like he was slipping down the stairs to get to Hell's doorway, beaten and bloodied like he was. And the one carrying him—his ears were triangular and there's a number inked in black on his left arm—was too thin and his hands were mangled something awful.
That hadn't made her sympathetic. Those half-breeds got what was coming to 'em. But then she made the mistake of glancing back after going to hitch up her pony cart so she could get to town to tell the militia about the escapees and she saw both of them, broken and very small against the backdrop of the plains flanked by the woods where there was so much sky.
(She sees other boys. She sees her husband and her son, handsome and strong before the war. She hasn't heard from them since they were drafted two years ago.)
She sighed and said, "Git inside, the both of y'all."
The human boy glanced up through shaggy, dirty bangs. His eyes were the color of road-dust when the blood had already gotten real mixed into the ground. He coughed and cleared his throat before he spoke, voice quiet and scratchy, "You sure, ma'am?"
Damned polite, the boy was. Particularly to someone who'd been about to turn him into his captors.
"Kratos," The half-breed said quietly. A warning.
The human—Kratos? An odd name, to be sure—looked up at the half-breed. "We don't have much choice, Yuan."
"I don't go back on my word. Git inside."
Her husband's house was small, a little place outside of town where they grew their small amount of vegetables and, before he'd been drafted, her husband had made a decent living out of being a trapper. Two bedrooms, an iron stove with a table and some animal skin blankets with some square chairs her oldest son had built before he'd been drafted three years ago (Drafted and then killed in action. She gets the letter in town. These days, the townspeople pretend they never saw her break down)
She ran an eye down both of them. Filthy and bloody. "There's a pump 'round back. Git yourselves cleaned up while I put something together to eat."
The half-breed seemed about to speak, but Kratos overrode him. "Thank you."
-/-/-
"Kratos, we can't trust her," Yuan gently dabbed away at Kratos' wounds along his back with a rough towel they'd found hanging over the pump. "She knows who we are and she was about to get the soldiers."
"But she didn't." Kratos pointed out, wincing. He'd become numb to the pain from his back a while ago, but it had come back full force with the water.
Yuan made a sound in his throat to show what he thought of that. Sometimes, he swore Kratos was still far too naïve to have survived the things he had for as long as he had. (But that's why Kratos-and-Yuan work. It's a balancing effect. Naïveté to cynicism—though Yuan calls it pragmatism—thinking things through to impulsiveness, manners to blurting things out)
"Can you heal yourself?" He asked. He wasn't as terrible at healing spells as Kratos seemed to think he was, but Kratos was still better at them.
The fact that it took Kratos a minute to answer was a better analysis of how his best friend was doing. Not that it was surprising. They'd been on the run for two days straight, unable to get real sleep; they'd caught quick snatches of it here and there, one always on guard, but it hadn't been enough. They'd reinserted the Exspheres into their skin, hissing and groaning when they did; the action had a hurt that was unlike any other. It had been particularly painful for Yuan, with his broken and bleeding hands, but they'd tried to heal his hands first once they'd lost the soldiers. They'd managed to stop the bleeding, but Kratos was hesitant to try to fix the broken thumb. If he did it wrong, once they found their way back to Martel and Mithos (He doesn't think in ifs) that they'd have to rebreak the bones to heal it properly, so they used some of the little cloth they had and wrapped it so, at the very least, he wouldn't jar it while trying to do anything.
The mana inside him that Yuan had grown so accustomed to tapping into—Alstan grew angry with him more than once. Only amateurs used their own mana for spells, but this was an emergency and, out here, where the ground was scraggly and yellow and the trees felt so very empty (Not like the trees he remembers, heavy with pomegranates. Those had a feel to them, alive and ever-reaching higher, to the sun and stars) the land needed its own mana to keep itself going.
(Something in him knows then that something has gone wrong in the world. He, as many other half-elves, had grown up with stories of the elven-lands, of the Kharlan Tree that was as old as the earth, that released infinite mana. He doesn't know what it is at the time, but he knows that something isn't right, senses that the land is dying)
"First Aid," Yuan murmured. He had a very tight control over his mana; he should, logically, be a natural at healing. He wasn't; his control was too tight. Tight with fear and wariness of the things his magic had done and concern because he didn't want any of those things to happen to Kratos by accident. His magic, whatever Martel said, had been made for killing.
Kratos winced; Yuan was very literal with his magic and when he thought of knitting up wounds, that was what happened. His skin arched and stretched like an imaginary needle was guiding it.
Yuan would have rubbed a soothing hand over Kratos' shoulder, but the sunburns had taken their toll; Kratos' tanned skin was glaringly red, peeling and hot to the touch. "Would you rather have the sores?"
Kratos huffed and didn't reply otherwise. Yuan's hands paused over Kratos' back. "…D'you think Mithos 'n Martel are still looking for us?"
"Of course they are."
"Any idea where we are?" Yuan knew that Kratos had been much more interested in maps than he had been. (It's the outside that has always interested Kratos, the world beyond what he can see. Yuan has always been content with being in one place, despite the occasional restlessness. He likes roots, likes the idea of having someplace to live out his life)
"We're pretty far west, I know that. I wanna say that we're over the mountains where Efreet's temple was built, but just how far away we are from them, I have no idea. If we can find the ocean, we can follow it to a harbor town."
Kratos watched the blood drain from Yuan's face beneath the dirt and blood. He held out a hand for the rag and gently took it from his friend's hand when he didn't pass it. He ran it under the pump before looking back at him, wiping at the stubborn grime that was several layers thick. "The boat'll be a last resort." He assured him. He wasn't entirely comfortable about the idea of going on a boat again either (Yuan is right next to him one moment, gone the next…waves crashing and he's clutching at the railing…Noishe diving in, sleek and powerful and scrambling to the surface, wings beating the water with a familiar person caught in his beak)
"Capital's a ways away from here." Yuan said.
Kratos hummed in agreement. Here, out behind this little shack of a house, sitting in the dirt with rust-tainted water to clean themselves with, there was a strange measure of peace, of rest. (It's just them against the world again, Yuan-and-Kratos and heaven help any who would stand in their way) "We can make it, I think."
He washed the dirt from the rag before starting again at his scrubbing. He paused as he looked at Yuan's left arm, the black ink like a dark bruise beneath the dirt. Yuan met his eyes. "We should keep it covered, while we're on the road at least."
"…Yeah."
"…What…happened? With your father?"
Yuan saw Kratos freeze in an old, instinctive movement. "…He tried to convince me that rebelling wouldn't work. Called you barbarians and abominations." His fist clenched of its own accord. "I wanted to hurt him. I never thought that about anyone before—not so specifically—but I did."
Yuan wasn't sure whether to be concerned or touched. "Did he hurt you?" Yuan asked, his voice the kind of quiet that was there before the storm broke.
(…A heavy hand cracking across his face…) "Not really." Kratos opened his mouth once, twice, before closing it in thought. He laughed a little, a sound like broken glass. "I was still afraid of him, Yuan. I saw him, standing in front of me, and I saw this old man and all I could think was that I shouldn't be afraid of him, but I was. And you know the worst part? I think I always will be."
Yuan didn't quite know what to say. "…I think that…it's easy to be brave when, when you're faced with people without faces or names," (They're not faceless or nameless. Yuan still sees Khuey, handsome and laughing moments before his death. He still sees the child-soldiers faces, lying charred and sparking on the ground or run through with his spear. He wonders, in a dim, detached sort of way if the soldiers who killed Dehua and Kail could still see their faces or if those people were even still alive. Had he exacted revenge on the brothers he can't remember by accident?) "…You stood up to him though, which I think means you're braver than you thought."
Kratos frowned at him. "How do you know I stood up to him?" Those words alone give him some kind of stability, like strapping steel to his spine.
"Because I know you," Yuan said simply and, perhaps, it really was that simple.
-/-/-/-
"Amaranda made stew."
Martel glanced towards the door. Tilwin—one of the fishermen in Izlion—was weather-beaten and rough, but he'd been the first to open his home to her and Mithos. "We might not be here for long," He'd said, arm around his wife's shoulders after Martel explained why she and her brother were here. "But you're welcome."
"I'm not very hungry." Martel hadn't had much of an appetite for months, not since Kratos and Yuan had disappeared (Were taken, her heart whispers, but she doesn't want to think about those consequences). Now, mere weeks after the successful defense of Izlion against the human troops—well, the mass of the human troops. Small battalions kept trying to break their defenses—at Mithos' bedside after he'd, yet again, exhausted himself to the point where he'd been coughing blood, she'd lost her appetite almost entirely.
"You should still eat something, Lady. Not a very good example to be settin' for Mithos otherwise."
He had a point and he knew it. Martel wondered why she had to be the woman to meet the men who were so very good at arguing. She massaged a temple, still not moving from her chair. "It feels endless. The fighting."
"Fightin' ain't good for a woman."
Martel felt a dim flash of temper, but her own tiredness was winning out. The humans had attacked again yesterday and, while she and Mithos had been working to teach the citizens of Izlion to use magic offensively rather than to direct favorable winds through their sails and to keep the typhoons away, but there were still not nearly enough of them to take on even the remnants of the human army.
(And still, Yuan and Kratos linger in the back of her mind. Let them be alright, she prays. Let them be alive and with each other. It's a strange prayer, she realizes later, but it's one that somehow makes perfect sense. Nothing could take down Yuan-and-Kratos, so therefore, if they were together, they'd be okay)
"It's not good for anyone." She said. Perhaps all this continuous fighting was mellowing her out.
"No, it isn't." Tilwin agreed. "Come eat with us and we'll save some for your brother since he'll wake up hungry."
"…Alright." She glanced back towards Mithos before she stood to leave the room. Usually, she wouldn't have had a problem leaving Mithos because Noishe was always around nearby, but lately, Noishe had been either circling the town, restless as could be (He's torn between duties. Protozoans, so the old legends say, are the natural protectors of the world and Noishe is naturally protective of women and children, but then there's the fact that it's Yuan-and-Kratos that's missing and he feels the need to find them) or he'd go flying. Every time he landed from a day of soaring and searching, Martel would wait for him on the ground, hoping that he had some kind of message, but there hadn't been one yet.
"Have you slept?" Tilwin asked as she took a seat at the table.
"Not since yesterday."
"Don't fratch at her." Tilwin's wife, Amaranda, might have been a beauty when she was young, but the years had matured that beauty and transformed it into something very different, but no less lovely. "She's a grown woman an' can make her own decisions."
Martel smiled at the support, and yet she could still see Kratos' concerned look and the question he didn't voice, but that she heard anyway—Are you alright?—as though he were right in front of her. She could almost feel Yuan's warmth beside her—Is it the faces again?—and she didn't have to imagine Mithos' disapproving frown. He'd given her that look a few days ago.
Tilwin backed down at his wife's scolding and Martel managed to eat in peace. But as she helped Amaranda with the dishes, the other woman said quietly, "You're waiting for someone, aren't you?"
Martel stared at her. "…How did you know?"
"It ain't an uncommon thing in a fishing town. Boys go out even when their girls tell them it's a bad idea, say they're going to explore the world, and they never come back, leave the girls waitin' on the pier. You got that same look t'you."
"…I'm waiting for someones actually."
"Family?"
Martel hummed a yes before she thought about it. She'd never thought about it before, but somewhere, they became family. A family with ever-shifting roles that they had to play because none of them really had a chance to be children (Kratos-and-Yuan got closer than Mithos-and-Martel, but it still wasn't much).
"Were they taken? To the ranch?"
There was a sudden hard lump in her throat. "I think so."
"My next door neighbor growin' up got taken too. Ain't seen her since we were…well, we were younger than you."
Why was it that everyone had a ranch story? Everyone knew someone who knew someone that was taken. Martel hated it and she closed her eyes, the world suddenly reeling. How long could all of this go on? How long could hate spur people to continue with a war that was hurting everyone?
"It has to stop." She found herself saying, as though the weight of the spoken word would make it all come true. "All of it. It's gotta stop."
-/-/-
Mithos woke up with a shout, coiled in his blankets and mana sparking on his skin. Martel was beside him in an instant, smelling of sea salt and exhaustion with the smell of Heimdall clinging to her in fresh, moist soil and sweet herbs that never seemed to go away.
"You're alright," She said quietly, running a gentle hand through the tangles of his hair. She repeated it over and over like a litany. (It's like it's just them again, Before they'd ever met Kratos-and-Yuan on that boat)
Martel never asked about what he saw in his nightmares (Sometimes, it's the world breaking and falling apart, crumbling into the darkness of space. Sometimes it's the neon colors of mana dancing behind his eyelids so rapidly it makes him sick. Sometimes, it's those neon colors rotting and dying and he dreams of a skeleton of what must have been a grand tree once.
Most of the time, his nightmares involve Kratos facing down an army on the wrong side, the humans beside him, his too-old eyes empty. They involve Yuan shackled without a spark of fight left in him. They involve Martel lying dead at his feet)
He noticed Noishe curled in the corner, his eyes alight and on the window. "…No sign of them?"
Noishe glanced at him, green brown-speckled eyes so intelligent and so terrible sad.
"They're somewhere. They have to be."
Neither Martel nor Mithos said what they were thinking. That it was very possible for them to be somewhere that none of them could reach, a place beyond this terrible, war-torn world.
The nightmares were in front of him, ghostly and superimposed over the small room that he and Martel shared (Trees…colors…dead…dying…shackled…) and the words spill out of him like a cup overfull.
"We've gotta fix it."
Martel didn't look at him with confusion or with concern. He saw the same quiet determination in her eyes that he felt. (People have always told them that they don't look like brother and sister. Mithos has always agreed. Martel is earthy and warm where he's…not.)
She just nodded. "Yeah, we do."
Because who else would?
-/-/-/-
The temple in Izlion was old with sea-beaten walls that were riddled with holes from the salty air. There were eleven altars, one for each Summon Spirit. Origin's—the King—naturally had the center place and directly to his right was Ratatosk, the Spirit of the Giant Kharlan Tree that gave the world its mana to survive, but directly to Origin's left was Undine, who had many more offerings and candle stubs left. It made sense in a town whose main businesses were fishing and ocean trade.
Upon each of the altars was a likeness of the Spirits carved in driftwood, for, according to Amaranda, the Spirits work in mysterious ways and that, in all the stories, the Spirits come in unexpected ways and who expected a great gift from something like driftwood?
The temple in Heimdall had been much more elegant, even as it had been more natural, made out of smooth, sinuous wood and was always full of sunlight. Martel remembered going with her parents to listen to the teachings. Mama had taken her to the temple when she'd been pregnant with Mithos to make an offering to Luna, the benevolent Mother, for the safe birth of her child. Her father, despite being elven, had prayed to Origin, who was not only the King, but also the Warrior who had four lances—two made of newborn stars and the other two made of fallen ones—to protect soldiers and their families and to find a way to end the War. Martel doubted that Mithos remembered such things and found a small, selfish pleasure in having some memories that she didn't have to share with her brother.
After being ushered out of the house by Amaranda, saying that it would be good to get some time to herself and to enjoy it, Martel had found herself here, at the temple. She found herself feeling slightly awkward; she didn't know how to pray really. Sure, there had been desperate prayers on the battlefield, but here? In the calm before another storm, alone, without anyone dying beneath her hands? She wasn't sure she knew how. Surely her parents had taught her, once, but Martel couldn't remember it.
But she did remember that Origin was the King and any offerings were first offered to him, so she knelt before his altar, unsure of how to begin. Martel supposed she could mimic the other people she'd heard praying over bedsides, family members' hands in theirs. But hadn't the Summon Spirits been people at one point too? The stories said so. Martel knew that she would be tired of people treating her so differently after so long. Did anyone simply talk to them?
The sound of her voice surprised her because she hadn't made the decision to speak yet. "I'm sure it's not a new thing to ask of you. I'm sure you're asked this every day, but I don't think anyone's prayed for these boys before, so, uh, if you could, bring Kratos and Yuan back to us, because—I dunno—as warriors, aren't they supposed to be under your protection?" It was strange to articulate it to someone who wouldn't look at her with sadness or pity. Some things just needed to be said aloud, not responded to. "And my brother—let him stay safe and never change. He's known war too well for someone his age. I pray that…he'll get a childhood someday. A proper one."
Martel wasn't sure how to close that, so she stood and lit three candles, one for each of her boys. Origin's wooden figure had a handsome face—he was always depicted as such. Martel even remembered hearing some of the girls coming out of the schoolhouse talking about the way that, one day, Origin would carry them away—and she wondered if his face reminded every person with men in the war of their men's faces.
She looked around the temple, not sure who else to go to that she could pray for. There was Undine, Celsius, the Sylph, Luna with Aska having his own altar right beside hers because everyone knew that, despite Luna and Aska being more or less one entity (Like Kratos-and-Yuan, like Mithos-and-Martel) and, across from them, Ratatosk, Volt, Efreet, Gnome and Shadow. The temple in Heimdall had an altar for Maxwell, but, for many half-elves, he'd always been a matter of debate on whether he was, in actuality, a Summon Spirit or simply a very powerful mage.
She supposed she could pray to the Sylph; they were the Spirits that watched over lost souls and called their names on the wind so that those souls could follow the sound home. It couldn't hurt, at the very least. She lit candles and murmured another wish for them to guide Kratos and Yuan here.
It felt a little silly, praying to carved wooden figures and lighting candles in their honor, even though she had seen proof that Efreet existed, had even spoken with him. She felt like a child again, like she could reach her hand out and take her mother's hand—dry and soft and slender—as they walked to the temple.
Silly as it felt, staring at the small flames, Martel felt the weight of the imagined horrors that Kratos and Yuan were experiencing at the ranch lift from her shoulders just a little.
-/-/-/-
It really was just like the old days. Sleeping in pig pens and chicken coops, never staying in one place, stealing and scrounging for food. Except now, there was a notable difference and that's that they can feel the absence in the air where Mithos' smart remarks were supposed to be, where Martel's exasperated chuckles would fill. It was an absence that bothered and stuck with them and Yuan wanted nothing more than to be with the Yggdrasills again.
Their feet were cracked and swollen from so much walking, dried blood and dirt caking them. Hunger and thirst made them dizzy and, once, hallucinate. They stay hidden for much of the time, particularly after reading a wanted poster in a town for the both of them. No doubt bounty hunters would be after them now.
The weather was becoming milder, the air at noon more humid and the wind carried the scent of sea salt. So close to the ocean and yet, the closer they got to going back, the more likely it was that Yuan would wake up, voice locked in his throat and hands clawing at the ground, desperate to feel earth and not water beneath his fingers.
"You're okay." Kratos said those times, always nearby. "I promise, you're not drowning."
It was a terrible kind of thing. Yuan liked the ocean, liked the smell, the weather, liked its honesty, how it didn't hide its dangers like the mountains or the forest did. But the sight of the deep water, with its too powerful currents and the roiling waves were enough to make bile rise in his throat, enough to make him want to sprout wings and get as far away from the ocean as he could.
The last real meal they'd had was the thin, watery soup that the woman had given them almost two weeks ago. Since then, it was all scraps and stolen bread or food gone half-bad sitting in the trash. Kratos would dig for newspapers and read for any news of the war. It was never good news, but neither was it bad. The war was, more or less, at the same place still. For every city the humans overtook, the half-elves would scramble around their forces and capture one of theirs.
"The humans must be having problems then." Yuan said as Kratos read aloud an article. "We saw the plans for that weapon of theirs. Something must've gone wrong or else they'd be at an advantage."
"…I thought of something." Yuan tilted his head in a way that told Kratos he was listening. "In the—in the ranch, the humans had us collecting metal and putting the pieces together."
"Yeah, but most of that was for weapons. I recognized some of the stuff we made."
"What if there's a ranch dedicated to making this big, new weapon of theirs?"
Yuan stared at him. The idea was…not impossible, but… "If they are, it could be any one of a number of ranches. And they can't have much left to build. We heard about that weapon almost a year and a half ago."
Kratos folded the newspaper too neatly, carefully making the creases. "…We need to get back to the others. If Viren hasn't figured this out yet, he needs to know."
Yuan agreed, but there was the issue of the fact that they were, more or less, still stranded in the middle of human territory. He looked out towards the horizon, which he fancied he could see as blue-tinged, framing the harsh brown and faintly green landscape. The last winter had been a hard one and the land hadn't quite recovered. The ocean could lead them back home (And when he thinks of home, he thinks of sun-bright smiles and rain-soft kisses) and Yuan had to work to steel himself against the sea, which called him still, a soft murmuring of longing, of a place well away from the hardships presented by the world.
-/-/-
They both woke to nightmares, hands clutching and scrabbling at the dirt beneath their fingernails and screams dying in the backs of their throats. They still saw the ranch, still felt shackles around their wrists and ankles, still felt needles in their skin and the weight of the utter hopelessness pressing down on them, crushing them beneath its horror.
When they woke and were still working on getting their breathing and heart rates back to normal, they'd stare at each other. (Neither of them admits that it's terrifying because they don't recognize the person across from them, though something tells them they should and, for a moment, their instincts bring the mana up and the magic words to their lips until the world clicks back into place and they feel like crying with relief because they recognized the other in time)
The nightmares were the kind that followed you during the waking hours, the kind that made you see things out of the corner of your eye and made you hate leaving your back exposed. There were multiple nights in a row where neither of them slept, sitting back to back beside their little fire and struggling to keep their eyes open for fear of what would be waiting for them behind their eyelids.
-/-/-
Mithos watched his sister place a candle on the windowsill of the small room they had shared for what had been nearly six months. "What's that for?" He asked quietly.
"Tilwin said it's a custom here, for people waiting for their sailors to come home. They leave candles and lanterns on the windowsill to help guide the sailors back home." It was something unrelated to Summon Spirits on the surface, but Martel couldn't help but feel like it was a silent prayer to Undine just the same.
"You really think they will? Come back, I mean. It's been a real long time."
"I know, but…" But you didn't give up on family and that was what those men had become.
Mithos' lips tilted in an understanding smile and he stood from his position on his bed. "I guess I have to find a candle for myself then, huh?"
-/-/-
Mithos was helping rebuild the outer wall to the city that had gotten a tower blown away in an attack when he heard a familiar sharp whistle. Searching the skies, it wasn't difficult to find Noishe's silver feathers shimmering in the sky, circling above the town gate.
Mithos hopped down from the beam he'd made his perch before breaking into a run. Had Noishe found something? Were there more humans on the horizon?
Martel met him at the gate and Noishe was already tugging insistently at her sleeve. "Alright, alright. What is it?"
Noishe tossed his head insistently in a direction and took off at a run, his clawed feet gripping and ripping the earth as he ran. Mithos and Martel exchanged a look before chasing after him. Martel was grateful that she had stopped wearing dresses about a year ago; they were too impractical and made running a chore.
Noishe led them down the shore, past where the sand started becoming black stones and boulders and he hopped across the rocks before leaning down to nudge something with his beak. He stood straight again, head high like a beacon.
Mithos and Martel scrambled up the rocks, slipping slightly on their wet surface; the sun hadn't been in the sky long enough to dry them, even though high tide must have gone out hours ago. Martel's breath left her body in a rush at what she saw.
It was her men, her boys. They were thin (Horribly thin, hauntingly skeletal) and lying face-down on the rocks. They were sunburned and she felt something inside her break at the half-healed wounds on Kratos' back and the unnatural angle of Yuan's thumbs, visible even through the rough bandaging. Let them be alive, she prayed, falling to her knees beside them, ignoring the pain that shot up her legs from hitting the rocks.
Mithos was beside them, gently tilting Kratos' head to the side to check for the pulse in his neck. The relief that hit the air was palpable and it only doubled when Martel felt the slow, but steady beat in Yuan's wrist.
But they were too far from town to carry them. Noishe could probably carry one of them, but not both. Not when Martel didn't know how badly off they were. "Mithos, go back to town and get some help."
Mithos didn't question her, standing immediately and sprinting for the town visible on the shore.
-/-/-
The smell of salt. A light breeze. Sunlight warming his arm. Seagulls. Something soft beneath him.
Yuan slowly cracked his eyes open, feeling as though he'd been asleep for centuries. There was a wooden ceiling above him, with strong, exposed beams. His instincts rose up, eyes searching the room for an enemy.
The only other people in the room was Kratos lying face-down in the next bed—and a lead weight left him when Yuan saw Kratos' chest move up and down steadily. (The last thing he remembers is the both of them feeling so very tired and wouldn't it be nice to take a break from walking? There's a town right there—surely they could stand to wait a few minutes…)—and Martel sitting in a chair by the window, on whose sill sat two candles half-gone, her staff leaning against her thighs.
Yuan opened his mouth to try and say something, to call out to her because, heavens, she had never looked more beautiful despite the faint, tired lines that traced a face that was too young for them. No words came, but he must have made some kind of sound because Martel's head jerked up.
She went to sit on the small sliver of the bed by his hip. The moment she touched the bed, he managed to raise his arm and pull her down on top of him, wrapping his arms around her, laughing and crying. She was here, in his arms and he wasn't back in the ranch and she was safe.
She hugged him back tightly, tucking her nose into the hollow of his collarbone. He smelled of medicine and sea salt and himself, which smells a bit like how lightning tastes—but somewhere beneath it all, he still smelled a little of darkness, of terror and it wasn't a scent that belonged on him.
"I was starting to think you wouldn't come back," Martel murmured against his skin.
"How—" He coughed to clear his throat. "How long's it been?"
"Since you and Kratos were taken? Almost seven months. Since Noishe found you? Two weeks." Her skin was browner, but it looked dull and the long braid of spring green hair was messy and tangled. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. It had been a long seven months.
"I've been unconscious for two weeks?" His voice was hoarse and Martel must have heard it because she gently untangled herself from him and soaked a cloth in clean water that was soon lightly pressing against his lips before he opened his mouth and let it trickle down his throat. He smiled when the desert-dryness in his mouth left.
"No. You've been in a healing sleep for two weeks. You woke up a bit when we were bringing you here, but I had to put you to sleep to heal you properly." She paused. "There was a lot of damage."
Yuan turned his head sideways to look at Kratos, who, beyond breathing, showed no signs of life. Noishe was squished at the foot of the bed, head resting on Kratos' knees. The bird blinked at him slowly before trilling softly. There was raised half-healed scar tissue all along Kratos' back—some of that was Yuan's sloppy work, the rest Martel's. The burns on his shoulders were gone and the bruises were mostly gone, save for some yellow smears along his arm.
"Has Kratos woken?"
Martel shook her head as she carefully took one of Yuan's hands in hers. (He remembers tugging and pulling his hand desperately through the handcuffs, trying to get free. He remembers feeling his bones creak in warning and he remembers making a split second decision because they'll kill him if he stays here any longer and he can't leave Kratos on his own. He remembers it during the day as a distant thing. It's at night when everything returns in horrible, vivid color and sharpness.)
"No, but that's normal." She assured him. Her eyes were entirely focused on his hand, her fingers gently pressing in places, gingerly moving and rotating his thumb. "Because he has less elven blood, his body doesn't respond to healing mana nearly as well and he had more damage than you did." She glanced up at him, eyes serious. "Why is that?"
Yuan swallowed, trying to forget the face of Sandor Aurion. "If there's one thing humans hate as much as half-elves, it's blood traitors."
(He can't tell her this truth. Can't tell her just what Kratos' father had done to them, what he was going to do. He can't tell her how the general affected the both of them because, as much as he'll never admit it, the general's mere memory is enough to freeze the pit of his stomach. He's as afraid of him as Kratos is, but the difference is that he's always reacted to bad situations with bristling and snarling where Kratos retreats into himself, shielding himself from the world. And he can't tell her any of this because it is a Yuan-and-Kratos secret and he can't tell her without Kratos' okay.)
She took his other hand, repeating the process. Yuan remembered, somewhat, the white scars that his and Kratos' healing magic left of their wounds and he remembered watching the firelight flicker on the white scars scraped on the backs of his hands. The scars were gone now.
"…There's something you need to hear." She said solemnly. Yuan's heart began pounding in his chest; what had gone wrong? Had someone died? "The injuries to your hands were severe. Had you managed to get them healed properly right away, they wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I've not finished with the healing, but what happens now depends very much on you. It'll take at least another month for your hands to heal completely." She bit the inside of her cheek lightly before continuing. "Because you kept using your hands, even bandaged, when they were still broken, the damage went deeper. There's very little room for error in this. If you reinjure anything on your hands, the damage could be permanent."
"Just my thumbs or the entire hands?"
"The entire hands. The broken bones had already begun setting, but they weren't in the right place. I had to rebreak your bones to set them right. You can do simple things, so long as you do them slowly. You already put a huge risk grabbing me like you did, but it doesn't look like you injured yourself much farther."
Without his hands, Yuan couldn't fight. He wouldn't be able to pick up a book or write; wouldn't be able to even do something as simple as farming or tending sheep. Without his hands, he'd be useless. A cripple. Everything Kratos had taught him, all that Kratos had risked everything for would have been for nothing.
"And if I do it your way?"
"Then, a month from now, you'll be writing again." There were no false promises in those hazel eyes. He took a deep breath—it would be frustrating, he knew, and he didn't deal very well with doing things slowly—before nodding and smiling at her.
She returned the smile, understanding, and helped him sit up to take a look at the remnants of lashes on his back. Her fingers traced the raw scars lightly, occasionally letting a trickle of mana heal something.
"Where's Mithos?"
"When he saw what the humans had done to you, he got angry. And anger has no place in a healing room." A Healer's sternness was in her voice and Yuan smiled faintly. He'd missed this so much.
"And now?"
"He still gets angry when he sees the damage. I told him if he can't calm down, he can wait outside or do something productive."
"And that counts as…"
Martel tilted a smile at him. "The people we've been staying with—Tilwin and his wife—are good people. Tilwin saw the kind of trouble Mithos was having with keeping a hold on his temper and gave him an ax and told him that there was wood to be chopped outside."
Yuan laughed at that, but regretted it. His ribs were apparently still a bit tender from the beatings. It was a distant memory, but he remembered some of the old men in his village telling Zaren the same thing when his tempers had run hot. "I think it's a half-elven remedy."
"It works."
Her hands probed his ribs, the soft warmth of mana seeping in and healing the damage. He eyed her as she did. "When was the last time you slept? Or ate?"
Her eyes flashed. "Don't start."
"You're no good to anyone else if you don't take care of yourself." He was employing a trick that Alstan and Myra used often with their particularly hardheaded students and, by the frustrated noise she made, she'd heard it before.
"I'll eat once I'm done with you." She promised, but she didn't sound happy about it.
"Agreed."
-/-/-
Kratos woke two days later and the first thing he saw was Yuan, whose eyes were on something happening outside the window.
"Where're we?" Kratos asked drowsily.
Yuan whipped around and a wide smile threatened to split his face. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to wake up. And we're in Izlion."
"City that Viren wanted us to go to?" His voice didn't sound nearly as bad as Yuan's had when he'd first woken, but Martel had taken to pressing a cloth damp with water to the seal of Kratos' lips and, if she could, tilting some water or broth into his mouth.
"Mm."
Kratos felt something nudging the side of his hip and he tilted his head to get a better look. "Noishe…"
The protozoan chirped and rubbed his feathery head against Kratos' hip again.
"How long's it been?"
"Seven months and some change. It's October."
"October…we missed our birthdays." Kratos was very careful not to think about why. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to lie here, enjoying the warmth that seeped in through the windows and walls, listening to familiar sounds.
"You would remember that. Martel went to find food, though I suppose you'll need food too."
Kratos' eyes, which had begun to drift shut, snapped open. "Martel's here? Her and Mithos're alright?"
"Yeah. They're fine."
Kratos let out a long breath of relief and felt no inclination to move at all. The door creaked open and Kratos couldn't get a good angle to see who it was.
"You're awake." Martel's voice was a wash of cool water after their trek through dry, war-torn country. "How do you feel?"
"All things considered, not terrible."
Martel chuckled and set down a bowl of what smelled like broth and a loaf of bread before sitting by Kratos side. He felt the bed shift in strange points as Noishe moved off the bed so that Martel could work, but the protozoan only moved over to Yuan's bed.
"Good. Though, you are slightly sedated. The injuries to your back were pretty bad."
"We tried to heal 'em." Kratos said in their defense.
"Yes, but Yuan's healing skills leave much to be desired. You didn't do too bad a job though. Yuan told me about his back." About the lashings, but not about why. He hadn't told her any specifics, not that she expected him to, but she couldn't stop her eyes from straying to the numbers on his forearm.
(Yuan sees her looking, and he has to work not to flinch. She's not doing it out of malice or mistrust, but he feels branded—is branded—although as what, he doesn't yet know)
Her hands lightly pressed and prodded his back and sometimes Kratos hissed at a wound that wasn't quite closed, but Martel seemed to be satisfied with the pace of his healing. Her hands were very warm.
"Don't fall asleep just yet." Martel's voice sounded amused and gently scolding. "Try and get some broth and bread to stay down first."
She helped him sit up—slowly, very slowly and Kratos dared not make very many big movements for fear of wrenching his back—and asked him if he thought he could feed himself. At first, he thought it a strange question, but then he remembered that the muscles in the back were connected to almost every other muscle in the body somehow.
"Do you think I can?" Kratos asked. She was the Healer, after all and she knew better than he did the condition of his back.
"The damage isn't so bad anymore that it should be giving you difficulties, but if you don't want to risk it…"
Yuan felt a thread of envy that Kratos could actually take risks with his injuries whereas he still couldn't do much with his hands. Kratos seemed to think about it before saying, "I'll try on my own first."
Martel nodded at the bowl of broth and bread that sat on the small table between the two beds. "Then you can take that one. I'll go get some more."
Kratos moved gingerly, inch by inch, waiting for his back to twist in a sudden sharp pain because he made a wrong move. He imagined that this must be what being an old man felt like. Kratos glanced up at Yuan after he'd managed to make it to sit by the edge of the bed.
"You're not hungry?" He asked, surprised. Yuan could ignore hunger as well as any of them could, but, when given the option of food, he never turned it down. (He can't not notice the hollows still in Yuan's cheeks, the slightly sunken eyes, the lean feel of him. Right now, he reminds Kratos very much of the first time they met, when he was still so small and skinny.)
Yuan held up his bandaged hands in demonstration. "'M not supposed to really be using them, Martel says. The damage was pretty bad."
Kratos remembered the glint of moonlight on the blood, the sickening angle his thumbs had been at and bile rose in his throat. He pushed those thoughts forcefully out of his mind. "Do you want some?" It had become a habit for him now whenever he had food; he wouldn't eat all of it, either saving or sharing half.
Yuan's stomach answered for him with a grumbling growl and Kratos managed a smile. "Can you stand?"
Yuan had very few difficulties moving; his back had not been so badly hurt as Kratos' had. His issue was that, once he was up, there were very few things he could do without his hands. He maneuvered himself up and out of the bed to sit down beside Kratos.
Kratos' face flinched involuntarily as he lifted his arms, but Yuan trusted him to be smart enough to know his limits. He had to force himself not make big movements to rip the bread into even portions, dipping one end in the broth and holding it up for Yuan to take a bite.
"Can't wait 'til we're well enough for real food." Yuan said after swallowing. "I want meat or something…substantial. Eating this day after day makes it feel about as eatable as a table leg."
Kratos chuckled as he took a bite of his own half. The food felt like a gift from heaven. There was a thumping of feet in the hall before someone ran into the room, nearly slipping on the wood.
"You woke up." Mithos stared at Kratos like he was waiting for him to keen over. He'd looked at Yuan much the same way when he'd found out that he'd regained consciousness.
(For a moment, Kratos doesn't see Mithos; he sees the hard, starved children of the ranch, little more than skeletons sheathed in skin. He doesn't see the healthy glow of the blonde hair, the sun-browned skin, only the pale, bruised and bleeding skin of the prisoners and the dark, haunted looks in their eyes)
Mithos saw that momentary lack of recognition and his eyes narrowed at Kratos. There was something new in Mithos, something harder that hadn't been there when they'd seen each other last and some cavity deep in Kratos echoed and panged with a terrible sadness because the more Mithos hardened, the more the war took away from his childhood, his brightness, the way he could really change things because it was impossible not to see Mithos Yggdrassill and the more he changed because of the same rage that Kratos had felt in the pit of his stomach (It scares him, it really does because it isn't an emotion he's good with. He's not really good with emotions at all. He's good with people—or so Yuan says. Kratos doesn't really believe him because he isn't really comfortable with anyone outside of their patchwork family. He prefers words on the page, familiar and easy—not emotions) the rage would burn eventually burn up everything in Mithos and he would fade into the hatred, the dreams would become nightmares and nothing could ever become right.
"They hurt you," Mithos said flatly and Kratos knew he wasn't speaking of physically.
He'd never lied to Mithos though and he thought that it would be rather pointless to try now. "….Yes."
Kratos-and-Yuan watched the rage—one that ran bone-deep and was as much of this generation as war-eyes and sorrowful smiles—flash across Mithos' eyes, like thunder across a cloudy sky, and they watched him fight it down because Martel had told him what anger did in a healing room.
"…Did you get them?" Mithos asked. "The bastards who did that to you."
Kratos and Yuan exchanged a look. Technically, they had. They must have killed several dozens of soldiers sent after them. Whether they'd been the specific guards that had tortured and starved them was another matter.
They replied simultaneously. "Sort of."
Distantly, Yuan remembered the teachings at the temple. Not very well, but one seemed to swim up out of his memories: Revenge belongs to the Spirits. Yuan found himself disagreeing; Revenge belonged to whoever had the strength to take it. It wasn't a good thing—Yuan could picture the resulting cycle of revenge and anger—but it was realistic.
Mithos' lips quirked a little in a suggestion of a grin. "Well, that's good enough, I suppose."
They all laughed and perhaps it was a bit desperate, a bit on the hysterical side because the relief was too much just then, the thought of the world outside this little second-story room more than a little daunting.
-/-/-
It had been a week and Yuan was now allowed to at least hold things. He had to carefully flex and stretch his hands to avoid any stiffening of joints. His other injuries were very nearly healed, though sometimes, he would take a wrong step and pain would flare from someplace that he'd forgotten wasn't entirely healed.
Kratos was in somewhat worse shape. He was constantly careful of every movement and, after making it down the stairs for the first time two days ago, hadn't wanted to try the experience of going up them any time soon, so he'd been sleeping on blankets and a pillow in the living room. His back was half-healed, but the sunburns—beginning to turn violently rusty red before they'd passed out—were gone and there were odd, still reddish, pebbled scars along the backs of his legs and shoulders from the tree.
Tilwin and his wife Amaranda were good people and had accepted Kratos into their home without so much as a suspicious look. Yuan questioned them about that once.
"He was in the ranch with you, wasn't he?" Tilwin asked.
"Yeah…"
"No human that's not on our side is gonna get taken to a ranch."
"And the Lady vouched for 'im." Amaranda added. "And we trust her word."
They were having a breakfast of oatmeal when a knock banged on the front door. In an instinctive flinch, Yuan and Kratos went for the weapons they kept on their persons now. Both instantly regretted it as their respective injuries roared in agony. Martel was by their side in an instant and Mithos was tensed, watching the door, a hand on a knife he'd taken to carrying.
Tilwin opened the door warily and cursed as two people pushed past him the next instant.
Arms were around Yuan and the mana rose automatically in response (They'd come from behind, a small army and everyone else's gone. He calls for Kratos, but he's already returned to the village and all he can do now is fight back) before he realized that Noishe, curled up in the sunlight slanting through a window, hadn't reacted and Noishe would never let them get hurt.
After Yuan relaxed, he recognized the strong arms around him, the click of white beads and the voice asking him if he was alright.
"Zaren?" He didn't quite believe the person in front of him, around him, but if he tilted his head a little more, he could see their left forearm and, yes, it was Zaren. To the humans, prisoner C-2654884.
Zaren pulled back and studied him, eyes narrow and jaw tight with residual anger. "Martel wrote us, said you'd disappeared." His eyes flicked down to Yuan's arm and Yuan self-consciously shifted so that the numbers weren't visible. (Zaren catches the motion and wants to tell his little brother that he shouldn't be ashamed of it, shouldn't feel like he's any less because monsters had inked numbers on his arm, but he doesn't know how to tell him that, is still having trouble communicating with his brother) "When she sent a message with Noishe the other day…"
"We couldn't stay back near the capital." Viren finished. He looked older, stressed and life-tired with dark smudges beneath his eyes and there were a few new lines on his face that shouldn't have been there.
"The warfront—" Kratos-and-Yuan began, but they were cut off by Viren.
"Alstan and Myra were ready to come themselves, but we managed to convince them not to. They can lead while we're gone." Viren looked between them in concern. "How are the two of you?"
Viren knew better than to ask if they were alright. The answer was no, but they wouldn't tell him that. They were too thin and their experiences were written in their eyes, if not on their faces.
They exchanged glances before looking back at the others. "We're fine," They said together.
Viren wanted to call them on it; he still had his own nightmarish memories of the ranch that haunted his sleeping hours (He still sees the small, dank cells, the press of wounded, unwashed bodies because there wasn't enough room for them all. Can still feel Zaren beside him, feeling too small and too terrified. He can feel the individual bones of his arm, his hand, his ribs. And the kids…Spirits, those small kids who looked more like little scarecrows, most with pieces missing…) but he knew better than that. To make them remember those sorts of things by reminding them of what had happened would only hurt them.
He could see that Zaren didn't believe them any more than he did, but Zaren had never been as diplomatic as he was. Viren gave him a sharp look; the boys—they were men, Viren knew. Age-wise and experience-wise. But he still felt so very old compared to them—wouldn't appreciate any pity.
-/-/-
Kratos looked up when he heard someone coming down the stairs. Somehow, it didn't surprise him that Zaren was the one to come downstairs.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Kratos asked in a loud whisper. In a building full of sleeping half-elves, he had to be careful to keep his voice at a good volume so as not to wake them since their hearing was much keener than his.
Zaren jumped a little, apparently not having expected someone to be down here. "No." He didn't elaborate on the why, but Kratos hadn't expected him to. He and Zaren weren't exactly on good terms, but neither were they on bad ones. "I thought you would be sleeping upstairs with the others."
Kratos shook his head. "I don't wanna risk it. My back," he added when Zaren frowned a little at him.
Zaren sat across from him on the floor. "…Your people…did they know who and what you were?"
Kratos nodded. "Yes." He paused a moment before adding, "…My father did most of this to me."
Zaren's hand clenched and unclenched in a sudden spasm of anger. Viren had shared with him Kratos' father's position in the human army. "…Why?"
Kratos didn't look at Zaren then. He didn't know why he suddenly felt like talking about this, but he knew he couldn't talk to Yuan, not when the nightmares still had him screaming himself awake at night. "…I taught your brother to read and write, I helped him escape. I went with him and I'm fighting on the 'wrong side'. To my father, I'm nothing more than a blood traitor and therefore, not any better than a half-elf in his eyes."
"You dishonored your family," Zaren said slowly.
"Yes."
Zaren studied him. "You don't regret it, do ya?"
"No. The people I used to call my family…I've seen what they do to people. It's…terrible. I-I can't call them family when I know they do that and I can't just sit back and do nothing."
Zaren nodded in understanding, rotating his left arm slightly so that he could better see the numbers inked there. "The humans think us no better than animals and don't treat us any different. When our village was attacked," Zaren went quiet for a moment and Kratos waited patiently for him to continue. He knew how difficult it could be to sort through painful memories. "…I saw people who I'd known my entire life change in a second. People who had been so kind and quiet became…angry and vicious. I saw mothers who, who killed their own children rather than have them taken to be slaves or to work at the ranches."
Kratos closed his eyes, swallowing hard. Yuan had never spoken to him about the day he was snatched from his village. Perhaps he really didn't remember, but Kratos had never imagined, or wanted to imagine, how terrible it had been.
"They ripped our lives from us. I can't ever forgive them for that." He reminded Kratos of Yuan then because Yuan had told him much the same thing once. Zaren hesitated. "Do you ever feel afraid? Of your people, I mean."
Kratos blinked at him. "Of course I do." Somewhere along the line, admitting fear had become something effortless. Dealing with the fear, however, was an entirely different issue. "It's not something to be ashamed of," He told him.
"I'm not afraid for me." Zaren said sharply. "I-I'm afraid for my wife. And my son."
Kratos tilted his head curiously. "You have a family?" Was that why he couldn't sleep tonight? Because thoughts of his family wouldn't leave?
"Yes."
"How old is your son?"
Zaren smiled fondly. "Three summers now. I haven't seen him for many months though."
"Where do they live?"
"There's a small village near Gnome's Temple in the north. They live there to stay away from the war."
Kratos smiled at him. "I'm sure that when the war's over, your family'll be happy to see you."
Zaren considered the human in front of him. It was strange; he wasn't very familiar with him and their relationship had been tenuous at best. But he'd risked his life more than once for his brother and for hundreds of half-elves he hadn't even known. "You may just be the most honorable human I've ever met."
Kratos snorted a laugh. "From you, that means almost nothing."
Zaren inclined his head in agreement. "One of the most honorable people I've ever met then."
And, coming from him, that meant a lot.
"Good things don't happen when people put aside their differences, but when they embrace them."
-Anonymous