Broken Wings
N.W. 2604
Lost Brother

Lloyd couldn't stay in Doromir all the time.

He just couldn't. And Corellia, bless her soul, understood that, and even before they'd married, had been holding his mail for him for when he returned from wherever he'd flown off to most recently.

This time, it was just a quick trip to the sanctuary, to clean up the gardens and tell Colette about his new wife and the little boy just starting to toddle around the house.

He'd taken his time flying back. Corellia hadn't been expecting him home that quickly, and he'd wanted to drop in on Martel... who still hadn't changed her hair away from the blue that he associated with Yuan.

So when he landed in the back yard, strolling toward the door at a relaxed pace only for Corellia to meet him at the porch, he knew something had happened.

"Cora?"

She held out an envelope that had been opened, pain in her expression. "Zelos finally sent a reply to the wedding invitation. Lloyd..."

Russet eyes scanned the paper, not comprehending what he was reading until he'd read it for the fourth time.

"No... no, I just came from the sanctuary, why..."

He stopped, looked at Corellia, and it took her only a single word for him to return to the air.

"Go."

He was back in the air in the next second, wide wings carrying him high above the city and far enough into the sky that none of them would have been able to see him.

Lloyd flew through the skies like something had possessed him, desperate to get back to the sanctuary before Zelos could follow through with the suicide he'd planned out in the letter. After everything they'd been through, together, didn't he realize how much Lloyd needed him?!

Falling snow over a sleepy white town, a locket heavy around his neck, a smile on his lips as he turned to look at the man lagging behind. "I trust you, Zelos."

Once again, russet eyes scanned a blanketed city, though this time he couldn't feel the cold. "Lloyd? What's really the matter?" A sigh, a quiet grumble, and then blue-green light filled the space around them.

Red hair spilled over his shoulder as Zelos held onto him like a lifeline. And Lloyd didn't say a word, because Zelos needed the shoulder to cry on.

Zelos apologizing, over and over, as the numbness finally left Lloyd and the tears began to fall, Colette's name forever engraved on his memorial. Lloyd finally shook his head. "Stop apologizing... It wasn't your fault. Her mind was made up."

Zelos sounded sheepish, and exactly like Colette always had. Lloyd groaned, fought down the heartache at her memory and the grimace at the mess they'd made. "We are not telling Dad we sank a whole damn city to get rid of a mana cannon."

So many years, so many centuries at each other's sides... And Zelos chose now of all times to give up?!

Lloyd landed at the sanctuary and raced inside, not even noticing the garden as he spotted the memorial stone, and the redhead in the pink and white coat that was just laying there...

He couldn't have, he couldn't be, not already, not...

The utter lack of a mana signature told Lloyd he was already too late, and he collapsed next to Zelos, pulling the man into his arms and brushing a stray lock of red hair out of his face.

It was no use. A red Cruxis Crystal glinted on the ground nearby, having fallen from Zelos' hand when Lloyd had shifted him, and Lloyd couldn't fight the tears this time anymore than he had been able to for Yuan or Colette.

Zelos was gone, and as tempted as Lloyd was to keep his Cruxis Crystal, keep all that was left of his best friend, his brother in all but blood...

He couldn't bring himself to be so cruel to Zelos. Still...

He reached out and touched the crystal, pouring just a little mana into it, and wasn't surprised when the apparition of his friend appeared, clearly unsurprised by Lloyd's presence.

"Why?! After everything we've been through..."

"We may as well be banging our heads off a wall for all the good we're doing. It doesn't matter how many times we stop them, they're still going to fight, and waste mana, and kill each other..." Zelos stopped and shook his head. "And I don't know how you keep doing it. You know it's just going to break you when she dies, if she hasn't already."

Lloyd realized, suddenly, just how long had passed since his marriage to Corellia.

And Zelos was right. If he'd married a human, she would have likely died by now. Except he hadn't... but that didn't mean...

Lloyd clenched his teeth and shook his head. "I can't give up! Zelos..."

The apparition sighed and shook his head. "If you're looking for an apology, you're not getting one here. Not for this. It was one thing to look after the world while the Yggdrasill was still growing... Now? Now it's just an exercise in futility, and you know it." He stopped and let his head hang. "Lloyd... Please, don't do this to yourself. We've done the best that we can."

Lloyd couldn't speak, the words lodged in his throat and tears in his eyes as he realized what the ghost of his friend was saying.

Zelos wanted him to...

He was tempted, he realized. So, so tempted. Determined not to simply abandon Corellia, but after...

If there was an afterlife, he'd see them all again. Colette, Genis, Dirk, Ratatosk—if 'dead' spirits even went to the same place dead mortals went—they'd all be there, and... So would his mom, and Corellia if he waited...

Except...

"Don't die, Lloyd."

He'd promised. And this... this wouldn't just be dying, this would be suicide.

He shook his head and shifted, drawing a knife gifted to him by Athame in the last years of his son's reign. Likely one of the last weapons forged by an actual dwarf before they'd died out, he knew.

"Lloyd..."

"Take care of Colette for me?" he whispered.

"...I don't think I'm going where she went, bud."

There was regret in Zelos' voice as Lloyd struck true, red crystal shattering in front of the memorial.

The apparition of his last friend faded, and Lloyd felt the weight of what he'd just done settle on his shoulders.

He'd have Corellia for a few centuries yet. She may have been well over two hundred already, but she was a true half-elf; the daughter of an elven man and a human woman. And even when she was gone...

There was still Kratos on Derris-Kharlan. If he could just establish contact, he could bring him back to Aselia... Or... maybe just have Origin send him to Derris-Kharlan. Either way...

But, no, he couldn't go. He'd made a vow to protect Aselia, after all, even if Ratatosk had used the last of his mana to create the pendant Lloyd had sworn that vow upon.

But that didn't mean he had to give up on Kratos. The next passing would be in two hundred years, at the twenty-eight hundred mark.

And so Lloyd steeled himself to bury Zelos' body and engrave the newest name on the memorial.

Two hundred years, and a wife and child to love and care for in the interim.

It had to work this time.