Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: My brother and I have finished writing and editing our original novel. It's off to a potential publisher, so…fingers crossed.

4/29—Update on the above comment: My brother and I have gotten our first rejection letter, probably the first of many to come.

God, I'm graduating in two weeks. After Spring Break, time just seems to flash forward. Took my AP Lit exam this week. Reults come in about the third week of June or July, so I'm putting it out of my mind for now.

I got see The Lion King on stage. It was one of the most beautiful shows I've ever seen. A fantastic job. If you have the chance to go, please do. Saw the Avengers twice last weekend. Great movie. If you're going to see it, stay for all of the credits. Gonna go see Dark Shadows tonight.

The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree.
~Thomas Campbell

The boys had changed. Or rather, had been changed, because changing for one's own self and having someone else force the mold to shift and become something else were two very different things and each left their own singular marks.

They'd most certainly been changed. Their eyes were a little more hollow, the set of their jaws a little harder, lips drawn a little thinner. Alstan looked for signs of worse things—and there were indeed worse things than beatings and whippings and starving—and was relieved to find no signs of breaking. It was a close thing though, and they were still patching themselves up, but all in all, there were worse things. They were quieter, smiles not as quick to appear on their lips. And when those smiles did appear, they had bitter undertones.

They'd come out alive, but not whole.

"I don't think they're fit for active duty yet," Myra said, leaning against Alstan's desk. Viren and Zaren were beside her, not saying anything.

Alstan folded his fingers in a steeple. "No, neither do I. But trying to keep them off the battlefield when they feel they can help…"

"It's impossible." Viren and Zaren chorused. Viren continued, "They'll listen to Martel though. If she tells them, as their Healer, that they can't go, they won't. They're not going to be happy about it, but they'll listen."

"You don't think she'd become too sentimental?" Alstan asked. He didn't think so, but he wanted to know Viren's opinion. After all, Viren was the one actually in charge of the army. He and Myra were more like advisors who went out into the field only if needed.

Viren shook his head, not even needing to think about it. As much as Martel loved Kratos and Yuan, she would never let their safety be compromised for their wishes if there was anything she could do to stop it. "She's very professional. Doesn't allow personal things to get in the way of patients. Should I tell her to tell them not to go out?"

Zaren pressed his lips together in a line. "I think they should still be able ta do something. Elsewise they're likely to raise a small hell while they're stuck here"

Myra snorted. "That's probably putting it lightly. Those two shouldn't ever be allowed to get bored."

"…We could put them on guard duty," Alstan suggested. "It's better than nothing."

"That slows down the plan that Mithos had—which works, by the way. Summon Spirits are very real and are a real threat on a battlefield—to make pacts with the Summon Spirits for more strength against the humans."

"How so?"

"You know as well as I do that Kratos and Yuan won't let Mithos go without them. He's their little brother." Viren said it like it was an accepted fact, Alstan noted. Most half-elves spoke that way when referring to family-that-wasn't-actually-family. They didn't even have to think about it. Half the time, he and Zaren referred to each other as brothers anyway and he'd heard Zaren relate stories of his son and how much he missed his Uncle Viren. Alstan personally found it a bit strange, but then, he was raised among elves. They weren't nearly as warm a people.

"He can get more instruction from me in swordsmanship then," Myra said. "He's got a lot of talent, but he's focused mostly on magework so far which would be fine if he didn't insist on being out on the front lines half the time."

Alstan hid a smile; Myra would never admit that she'd grown to care for the boy—and his family, self-adopted or not—though she would fight like a hellcat for them, Alstan knew. He'd seen her do it before, for him in fact.

"In that case," Viren said, studying the map spread out on Alstan's desk. "We should draw back some of our forces a little here. Make sure to keep the lines tight. We only pushed that far because we thought we'd have all of them fighting. We can't afford to overstretch ourselves."

"We could lose the advantage there if we fall back," Myra pointed out. "We've made a significant dent in their forces."

"Which means they won't be itching for a fight on that front," Viren told her. "They'll take the time to recover and try to find a way to gain back their ground. This isn't a permanent arrangement; just until Kratos and Yuan get back on their feet."

"Let's hope it's sooner rather than later," said Zaren. "I still think we should press this advantage for all we've got. Elsewise, the humans'll know that something's wrong and that we ain't as strong as we were."

"I'd rather not push our luck this time," Viren said.

Zaren put his hands up in innocence. "You're the boss. I was saying as a suggestion."

"How are the boys?" Alstan asked. "You saw them before coming here, didn't you?"

"Aye. They were…they're tired. And I don't think they quite believe they're out yet. Someone shut a door a little too hard yesterday and they jumped like they were waiting for…something." Viren could imagine what, exactly, they'd been waiting for, but those words didn't need to be said aloud.

"Think they'll get better?"

Viren didn't hesitate. "I have no doubt."

-/-/-

He hadn't gotten used to them yet. The numbers. Every time he saw them, he wondered what was on his arm, what it was doing there. And then he realized what it was and something inside him would shrivel and twist.

He welcomes the mid-November weather. The air had bypassed crisp and gone to chilly on a warm day and downright icy in the middle of the night, frost coating the rooftops and slicking the streets in the early morning. He was grateful for the excuse to wear long sleeves so that he didn't have to look at the tattoo, didn't have to think about it.

Kratos caught him looking at it more than once (They're fervently grateful for the shared room, grateful for the fact that they know the other is safe in this room and, should they need reassurance, they need only wake up and look at the other bed). He never commented—what could he say?—but he would pass Yuan a long sleeve shirt without comment and wonder how exactly his best friend would fare during summer.

-/-/-

"Guard duty?" Kratos-and-Yuan repeated.

If Alstan were a less observant man, he would say that the boys looked much more recovered. But the dark circles beneath their eyes hadn't faded and Yuan's hand was twitching almost constantly, as if needing to do something. Kratos wasn't standing as straight as he used to with the training of a childhood under the military always stiffening his spine despite his lack of courage. His back—the lacerations, the welts, the bruises, the deep, infected scrapes—wasn't fully healed yet. It was enough to go about his life, but not enough to be healthy.

(Alstan hears rumors of what happened at the ranch. He knows that General Aurion had been there; the general often went there. Had Kratos seen him?)

"Yes. You two aren't fit for active duty." Alstan told them, not that they didn't know. "Unless you'd rather go back to doing…whatever you've been doing since you arrived."

Yuan and Kratos glanced at each other. It would have been nice to be able to say that they slept their days away to catch up on all the rest they missed at the ranch, but that would've been a lie. The nightmares still came, although perhaps a little less violently now. Some nights, though, they still woke screaming, clawing at the sheets. That much time on their hands had led to wandering the streets of the capital or a lot of time helping Martel at her clinic—a small, square building that was squashed in between a stairwell and an aqueduct that had been abandoned before she'd decided it go to good use.

"What shift?" They asked.

"How's the dusk shift sound for you? It ends at full dark, starts at five in the afternoon."

They agreed almost immediately. Anything to get away from the terrible stillness that was life.

(Sometimes, Yuan feels the urge to be out on the battlefield. Not to protect. To fight, to not have to hold anything back. And—in a very distant part of his mind that he refuses to acknowledge—to know that he isn't the helpless kid, the powerless prisoner anymore. The magic sparks in his blood and sometimes, he just wants to watch something crumble, wants to make it crumble. He isn't programmed for inactivity anymore. It scares him because this isn't him. He doesn't want to be this person…)

"You start tonight." Alstan paused, looking at them. He couldn't seem to stop doing that these days. They were battered and busted, but not broken. It was a close thing and Alstan was afraid that they were on the verge of losing the boys he remembered, the bright, bonfires-in-the-dark boys who'd defied everything the world had thrown at them. "Are you going to be alright with that?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't we be?" Kratos was good at pretending. He might not like it, but he was good.

(Sometimes, Kratos will look at his hands and see redredblodred on them and he has to scrub at his hands. But the redredbloodred never goes away and it makes him afraid. Afraid that it'll never fade and he'll never have any kind of peace of mind)

Alstan knew that to push any farther would be a breach of…something. Kratos-and-Yuan had a mercurial personal bubble. So he nodded and let them leave his office.

-/-/-

The guard duty helped. The sword on his hip was a familiar weight, one that he appreciated. Sometimes, the backs of his legs would twinge if he twisted wrong. Still, they were much less sensitive than his back.

Yuan liked the air on the walls around the city, liked how it was cleaner, how it was harder for him to smell the blood and rotting corpses from the battlefield up here. He had his own sword, though he didn't prefer it. The humans had taken his spear and he missed the heft of it, the way that moonlight would gleam on the blade.

It was as the sun was setting below the horizon that Yuan paused and looked at Kratos. They hadn't spoken much today, preferring the comfort of their own thoughts.

"I think that we're worrying Martel."

"We probably are." Kratos sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He'd cut it a bit after they'd returned, as well as shaved. Sandor Aurion might not have managed to get his beliefs instilled in his son, but he'd gotten military habits stuck rather well. Kratos hated the way that he couldn't seem to keep his facial hair neat. He'd tried it once, but it hadn't turned out well and since then, he'd stayed clean-shaven. "…Any ideas for making her feel better?"

Yuan shook his head, bracing his hands on the wall. His own hair might need a trim, he thought, as his bangs swayed in his face. "…You ever think it'll all go away?"

He didn't need to elaborate on what the 'it' was. Kratos knew. He always knew. "Dunno." He made a sound that might have been an attempt at a chuckle. "Every time we find an answer to a question, there's more questions. It's insane."

"Yeah, it is." Yuan looked over at his best friend; some of the hollows in his face were filling up, the skin a decently healthy color again. Sometimes, Yuan was afraid he would look and see the starved, tortured apparition of Kratos in front of him instead. "Know what I want, after all this is over?"

"What?"

"A rocking chair—"

The sound of Kratos laughter—not unkind—was a surprise because it was a surprise. "A rocking chair? Why, of all things?"

"You didn't let me finish. A rocking chair on a nice porch that belongs to a house I live in out in the country. Where I can look out and see…forever." The image was calming and, if Yuan tried, he could imagine Martel sitting beside him, or coming up the path. And, just maybe, there was a small kid there, with her sweetheart face and lovely eyes.

Kratos smiled. "I like that image."

"What about you? You got your own rocking chair?"

"Yeah…a room full of books." Yuan's lips quirked in a smile, the first he'd had in a while. "One with huge windows and comfortable couches with warm blankets and an iron stove for when winter comes."

"One day." Yuan told him. "We'll get that. You can get your iron stove and I'll get my rocking chair and we'll visit each other every day."

"Mm." The idea had warmth and it spread along Kratos' arms and seeped into somewhere in his torso, where it refused to leave. Or that might have been the setting sun, but the idea was still a good one.

-/-/-

"You know that we don't care, right?" Yuan looked from where he was sitting cross-legged at Martel, who winced. "That didn't come out right."

Yuan arched an eyebrow. "I hope not. I'd been under the impression you cared very much."

"I was talking about your arm. The number." Martel usually had a fairly good grasp of subtlety. Other times, she had the subtlety of a battering ram. Yuan would bet money that she got the latter from Kratos. "We don't care about it or what it means. We love you."

Yuan wanted to believe her—indeed, he almost did—but while she healed his hands, and by extension the bones of his wrists, she'd seen how uncomfortable the number had made her. "Nice a thought as that is…I don't know why you're telling me so."

"I thought you needed to know. I know it bothers you and I don't want you to think that it changes our opinion of you. Because it doesn't."

Yuan set down the paperwork that Alstan had given him to do since Martel had given him leave to use his hands in small ways, like writing. He'd taken to doing them outside of Martel's clinic, in the sunshine. Every so often, Martel would come out of the open back door to collect herbs from her tough, scraggly garden or to get water from the pump.

"Where is this coming from?" He asked.

"I'm not blind. Even when we're inside, you cover up the tattoo."

"'S still cold inside." He argued.

The look on her face told him she wasn't buying it.

Yuan leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "…I hate it. The tattoo. It-It doesn't belong there." Martel sat beside him, a silent, listening presence. "…Makes me feel dirty. I let them get to me."

"Dirty?"

Yuan shrugged, unable to explain it. "You know it's like that too. You've been acting different since…" Since they came back.

Martel reached out slowly to take his left arm (He hasn't flinched from her yet, but she's seen him do it to other people. Even from Kratos, once or twice. But between them, those moments are easy fixes. Not so with other people) and pushed up his sleeve.

"It is different." She said, beginning to trace the numbers with barely-there fingers. "You can't say you haven't changed." She wasn't accusing, wasn't judgmental. Simply stating facts and Yuan appreciated it.

"…I have."

"Mm. I was trying to get used to you again. It isn't the tattoo that bothers me. It's what they did to you and what it represents. It's not 'dirty' and it's nothing you should be ashamed about."

"What, you think it's like some kinda…badge of honor or something?"

"That's romanticizing it." And, of the two of them, Yuan was the romantic. Martel was the dreamer and they're both practical enough to know that there was no place for either of those things in the world as it was. "It's…another scar, really."

"Something I have to live with?"

"Not the words I was looking for, but yes. I…get that it'll take some time, but I wanted to let you know that we don't think differently of you because of it or because of all that's happened. You've been pulling away from us, little bit by little bit."

"You gonna give this speech to Kratos too?"

"I figure you can pass it along. And besides, he's at least trying to be with us. He's just…not very good with people in the first place," Yuan snorted at that. She wasn't overstating it. "So it'll take a little longer for him."

Yuan wrapped an arm around her so that he could tug her gently closer. He brushed a kiss along the corner of her mouth. "Thank you." He murmured against her lips.

-/-/-

Kratos went to the smithy two weeks after they returned to the capital. It had taken another month in Izlion before Martel had dubbed them fit for travel and even then, it had taken nearly two months to get back to the capital undetected, hindered as they were by Kratos and Yuan's wounds.

The blacksmith looked up as he entered, dark eyes widening at the sight of him. "Thought you wouldn't be comin' back."

"So did I." Kratos said honestly. "…We did it. We made a pact with Efreet."

The blacksmith looked automatically to the small bronze emblem. "And? The war ain't changed none, has it?"

"It's great to see you too." Kratos walked somewhat gingerly through the smithy. His back was nearly healed, according to Martel, though he still had to be careful as the muscles were still reknitting themselves.

"Hellsfire! How did a monster get so deep into the city?"

Kratos turned his head so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. Noishe was standing outside the door to the smithy, large eyes blinking at the both of them. "He isn't a monster. His name's Noishe."

At his name, the protozoan pattered inside to stand beside Kratos, nipping gently at his neck.

"You know this beast?"

Kratos blinked at him. He still didn't quite understand what, exactly, everyone found so terrifying in Noishe. "Yeah. He's been with me since I was a kid."

The blacksmith flicked his eyes back and forth between them and Noishe just shifted, feathers fluffing a little. Kratos smoothed a hand down his neck (Sometimes, in the ranch, he used to pretend he could feel these soft, downy feathers. It's like nothing else he's ever felt before and he can never mistake it for anything else.)

When the blacksmith didn't say anything more—he'd already broken the record for the number of words spoken in Kratos' presence—Kratos returned to wandering through the smithy, pleased to find that it hadn't changed very much.

There was a sword in progress on one of his worktables. It was a hand-and-a-half sword from the length of it. One side of the blade arched and curved twice—near the base of the sword and just before the tip—and the other side was perfectly straight.

"That's a handsome sword." Kratos said. "Custom order?"

The blacksmith rose to his feet and covered the blade, as yet unsharpened, with a sheet. "Of a sort."

He wouldn't say more after that, working on armor for the soldiers. It was too much work for one of the few blacksmiths in town. There were too many soldiers, too many things that needed to be done, but couldn't because war drained people.

"Why don't you get an apprentice? It would make the workload easier."

"All the suitable ones've been sent to th' warfront." He grunted.

"There are still plenty of people in the city that could help you."

"Women 'n children who clutch to their skirts."

"The women could help you." The blacksmith arched a brow at the very idea, which made Kratos bristle a little. The women in the world had long since proven that they were just as strong, if not stronger than, the men participating in this war. "They're stronger than you seem to think they are."

The blacksmith narrowed his eyes at him. "…It's because you're young."

Kratos found his lips quirking into a smile despite himself. "Not because I'm human at all?"

"You don't act like any race I ever met before at all."

"Maybe that's proof that race doesn't matter." Kratos suggested.

"Prove that to th' world, boy, and you might have a chance o' being right. An' if you're just here t' talk, get out. I got a lot o' work ter do."

-/-/-

Kratos frowned when he got back to the shared room that evening. Yuan hadn't come to supper with them so they'd assumed he was sleeping, but the half-elf didn't look rested and he certainly wasn't still sleeping.

"What happened?" The look on Yuan's face told him something was wrong, but he couldn't imagine what. From what he'd heard this morning, Yuan had been planning to spend the day at Martel's clinic. It was a plan that was touched with bitterness, Kratos knew. As much as Yuan loved Martel—and that was quite a lot—he hated being stuck in one place because of inability and not because of choice. His hands weren't yet healed completely, so dealing with the world was still difficult at best.

"…I talked with Martel today. Or, the other way around, really."

"Uh-huh…" Kratos didn't understand why that was such a problem.

"She said she wanted to let me know that you guys don't care." Before Kratos could ask about what, Yuan tilted his left arm so that the numbers were visible.

"She's right. We don't."

"I know that. Or, I did, but I didn't know I knew it, if that makes any sense. But then I got to thinking—"

"Never a good thing."

A smile flashed across Yuan's face before it faded. He continued like the interruption hadn't happened. "And I noticed…you never cared."

Kratos blinked at him. "About the tattoo? Is there some reason I should?"

"See, that's it right there. I don't get it."

Kratos sat on his cot, crossing his legs. His legs protested a little, the scars stretching in ways they hadn't had to—the scars were faint things, but Martel told him that the damage had gone unchecked long enough that they had to stay.

"Get…what?"

"Why. You never even cared when you first saw them." Yuan remembered seeing Kratos across the hall, in between the bars. It had been dark, but enough of the abilities of his Exsphere had still been there that he'd been able to make out Kratos' face.

"I dunno why I never did. Makes sense that I should. I just…it's just another part of you now." Another part that had shifted everything in Yuan two inches to the left, so it would take a little getting used to, but it didn't seem strange at all to him. Yuan had his permanent slot in Kratos' life, firmly entrenched by his side, and Kratos could think of very, very little that could change that.

Yuan smiled at him; it was different from the one Kratos remembered. This one was sadder, a little more bitter around the edges, but still warm. He didn't say 'thank you' because they didn't do that. Thanks implied owing someone and they'd done too much for each other to every pay it back.

-/-/-

Kratos couldn't train just yet. Not with his back in this state. Sometimes, in the mornings, he would wake up and automatically go to stretch and his back would seize up on him. When he told Martel of this, she'd sat him down and gently rubbed a warm salve across his back, 'to relax his muscles' Martel said.

He had thought of finding an empty room to set up a classroom, to find a quiet space where he could teach the children of the capital their letters and numbers, like he'd taught Yuan once. He even walked through the capital with Noishe early one morning, long before the dawn's light touched the sky, searching for an appropriate room. He found one in a half-collapsed building, the actual room musty and damp, but there was enough room there and, since the building was closer to the outskirts of the city, there was room for an actual yard outside. The grass there now was yellowing and dying, the trees mostly bare, but Kratos could imagine it in the full wellness of summer.

Noishe padded across the dry grass, his steps making few sounds and leapt up into one of the trees, balanced easily on its branches. Kratos went into the building, stepping carefully around debris. He could see the classroom laid out before him, with slates and chalk at stools and chairs for the students to sit on—desks would be hard to come by for a while wood would be needed for the rebuilding efforts—and there would be books—of that, Kratos would make sure of—and the students would learn to interact with other students that they might not have known all their lives, with other kids who weren't of the same race or same beliefs and they wouldn't care because kids shouldn't have to care about such things. (In truth, neither should adults, Kratos thinks, but he knows better than to ask that the adults of his generation and of those before to let go of their prejudices and their hatred so easily)

But the more he thought about it, the more something that tasted distinctly of bile and cowardice uncurled in his stomach. How could he ever get any parents to trust him with their children? How could he ever get the children to understand that he wasn't there to hurt them? What if he failed them? Did he even know how to teach anymore, after so long spent in blood and battle and warlands? How had he and Yuan done it, so long ago? Kratos wasn't even sure how they'd gotten to this point sometimes; everything had snowballed, pushed off a cliff from some higher power. Things had been simpler then.

(Looking at this place, at the ghosts of his dreams, Kratos decides that one day, when the war is over, he'll come and teach here. To anyone who wanted to learn. He would hang up his sword and hope that the memories of the battles fade away)

-/-/-

Mithos was helping Martel with the room especially set aside for females when the woman was brought in. Another woman had her arms around thin, starved shoulders with a body to match. Those thin shoulders were hunched and her eyes—slanted, but not quite almond-shaped, damning her as a half-blood—were wild and wouldn't focus on any one thing.

"Lady," The other woman said. "The Theyurns found this one wanderin' abouts their farm. Thought you could help 'er."

Martel rushed forward to help carry the thin woman. Mithos caught sight of the numbers on her arm and rage—a familiar taste now, of rust and embers—roiled through him before he caught himself. Martel said that anger had no place in a healing room and he believed her. He saw what anger did to healing mana. The pale green and gold of it would twist and roil with redredred like blood and make it more difficult for the body to accept it.

The woman was rambling, couldn't answer any questions. Her eyes settled on Mithos and she nearly jumped off the stool that Martel had sat her down on. Mithos backed up, empty hands raised. He'd been around enough skittish and paranoid patients to know the procedure, but the woman wasn't calming down at all.

Martel flicked a glance back at him. "Mithos, out."

He didn't question her, slipping out the back door, nearly running into Kratos. The human blinked at him. "Everything alright?"

"Patient panicked when she saw me, so I had to leave. Best you not go in there either."

Kratos set the box of bandages that he'd collected and set them just outside the door. One of the few things that he and Yuan could do for long periods of time without overextending themselves was to make herbal bandages, something that Martel had come up with. It was easier and saved more supplies than constantly changing bandages simply to reapply herbs. Kratos and Yuan boiled the herbs and soaked the bandages in them, making sure they were well-saturated before taking them out to stiffen and dry. The herbs stayed within the cloth, which made it easier for healings.

"That bad?"

"Mm."

Neither had to say what they knew. Wartime brought out the very worst in people, particularly people who saw women as little more than objects.

"Nothing to do but wait, I suppose."

Kratos moved to sit down beside Mithos on the steps leading up to the hut. "Not really."

"…I've been thinking, when you and Yuan get better, we can make more pacts with Summon Spirits, right?"

"You really want to end this, don't you?" Kratos leaned his forearms on his thighs, pleased to find that it didn't hurt his back. He'd seen people who, when they moved wrong after a back full of lashings, they'd seize up and flail around like a demon had possessed them.

"I'm tired of seeing all this." Mithos said, waving an arm to indicate the area around them. "I'm tired of seeing Martel work herself to exhaustion, I'm tired of seeing friends of ours dying in those battlefields, I'm tired of being looked down upon and punished just because of my race. I'm just…I'm tired of it all. And I know that the more we fight with the humans, the less they'll listen to us. And vice-versa. There has to be another way."

Kratos reached out to ruffle Mithos' hair, but thought better of it halfway through the motion and just placed his hand on the top of the blonde head. "I believe you're right."

Mithos stared at him. "What?"

"That there's another way to end this war than just in violence. I believe you."

A smile beamed across Mithos' face, beautiful to behold. (Martel says she believes him when he talks to her about it, but she's family. She's supposed to believe in him. Kratos is different and it matters, well, not more, but in a different way) "That means a lot, comin' from you."

"Nice to know I'm not wasting words."

Mithos chuckled a little. They sat there for long hours, long after the sun went down and the patients were once again asleep.

-/-/-

The woman called herself Elia, Martel learned. There was no last name.

"'S what m' husband called me." She said. The woman was bones sheathed in too loose skin. Her skin was nut brown like some of the elves Martel remembered that liked to visit Heimdall.

"You were married?" Martel asked as she prepared food for her. Something filling, but thin and with enough nutrients. Healers fixed more than physical wounds.

"Of a sort, yes." Elia had very grey eyes, like river stones. "He got sold though. And my girls…they took m' girls…"

Martel listened as Elia continued to mutter to herself, gently spooning her the thin soup. The things she said were horrible, would give Martel trouble sleeping for weeks. Stories of how two humans, brothers, had kept her locked away in the ground until they needed her. Stories of how her children, hardly a few weeks old, two were crawling already, one was old enough to recognize her as Mam, were ripped from her arms and stuffed in chains, forced to march to their new homes. Some had simply disappeared while she worked in the fields. The master's sons had beat her. Had broken her hip once. It had never been right again.

(Martel sees the damage. The hip had healed badly long ago. There was no fixing it now, even with magic. It makes Elia limp badly and Martel makes a mental note to find a walking stick for her)

Elia peers up at her with river stone eyes. "You married, girl?"

Martel shook her head. "No." (She doesn't think about the first thing to come into her head at those words. Doesn't think about how it would be like to be married to Yuan. Never boring, she would imagine, with sweet and spicy places with bitterness scattered here and there in between)

"There's a boy though, ain't there?"

"Isn't." Martel found herself correcting automatically. When she heard herself, she smiled. Kratos-and-Yuan had rubbed off on her. "And yes, there is."

"They ain't good for nothing. They get sold and leave you pregnant and alone."

"Elia…we're free. We're not slaves here. No one's getting sold." The words felt powerful in her mouth, like she should be declaring them from a mountaintop and Martel felt the sudden urge to do just that.

(That night, curled beside Yuan, she'll say it over and over. Yuan will smile and repeat it before kissing her because sometimes, people just need reassurance)

-/-/-

Yuan woke to hands shaking him. They were too slender to be Kratos' and too big to be Mithos'. "Martel, what-?"

She looked pale in the darkness, her staff in hand. The expression on her face was enough to make him fully alert. "It's Mithos. He said he was going for a walk this afternoon. And no one's seen him."

(The images flash in her head of her little brother's arm inked with those numbers, those horrible numbers. Of her little brother being starved and beaten and dehumanized and it makes rage mix with the fear in her stomach, a combination that's unfamiliar and uncomfortable.)

Yuan sat up. "Kratos, wake up." He called, trying to keep his voice steady. Martel was worried enough without his own concern stacking on hers. The human was up instantly, hand going for the knife he'd taken to keeping beneath his pillow, looking around for a threat. Findind none, he looekd at Yuan curiously. "Mithos is missing."

He saw the set of Kratos' jaw and the way his eyes steeled as he got stood, going for the sword he kept at his bedside. "Then let's find him."