Broken Wings
N.W. 2802
Melodies of Memories

A part of him wondered, as he headed up the steps with a fresh cup of broth, if Zelos had been right.

He was going to break again, just as he'd broken when Colette had rejected him, when Lilia had died, when Colette had died...

And yet, he refused to leave.

Corellia would die whether he was here, or away, and so Lloyd chose to stay, to try to nurse her back to health even though he knew there was nothing to be done.

Silver eyes shifted toward him unseeing, but a twitch of the mana bond between them told her exactly who had just walked into her room. "Lloyd... You should be at the tree... The passing..."

"I'm not leaving you, Corellia. Not when I can't find our sons to tend to you in my stead," he insisted.

She sighed, but didn't continue to argue, allowing him to help her with the broth so it wouldn't spill. They both knew she would be lost to the world soon, and though Derris-Kharlan had come into range over two years ago, Lloyd had yet to even attempt to make contact. His family was his greatest concern right now. His dying wife, his missing sons...

He left the empty cup on the tray at her bedside and picked up a piece of wood. Whittling had never been his greatest skill, but it kept his hands occupied, and kept him close enough to Corellia to hear her heartbeat.

"You'll give me a dwarven burial, won't you?" His wife's quiet question hung in the air for a long few moments as Lloyd fought down the heartbreak and told himself that he would not cry.

Not yet, at least.

"Of course, love." He'd already etched the stones that would generate a stasis field, keeping her body from decaying as he worked to forge her armor, build her casket, and carve her headstone. The work the whole family should have been doing together, but the boys were missing, very possibly dead, and Lloyd would not leave Corellia's side to try to track them down right now.

A long few moments passed before she spoke up again.

"Play for me?"

Lloyd paused in his whittling, then sat the half-finished figurine to the side and stood, walking over to the windowsill where an odd little pronged flute of sorts hung. He'd made the instrument for Corellia when Zelda had been a toddler, and she'd then taught him and their children to play it.

It reminded him of Mithos and Genis, and days spent at Altessa's house when they didn't realize the little half-elf boy among them was really the angel that wanted them all dead. And the memories hurt... but it was a good kind of hurt. A nostalgia, not... not the desperation of trying to hold onto someone who was fading far too quickly.

Memories of better times brought to mind the tunes that Mithos had tried so hard to teach Genis, only one of which the silver-haired half-elf had managed to learn.

But Lloyd remembered the tunes, and Corellia had told him time and time again that he had a gift for the instrument. So he settled back into his chair with the flute, ran through a basic set of scales the same way he always did, and brought one of the melodies to mind.

It wasn't a perfect rendition of the somewhat haunting lullaby Mithos had played for them, but it became better as he played, and he knew it would take little practice for him to find the correct notes. The lullaby faded into a soft folk song, and then a spirited little tune that had brought Zelos to his feet, dragging Sheena and Presea along with him as he decided a dance was in order.

Lloyd had danced that night, too, both to simply enjoy himself, and to stay close to Colette for when she inevitably tripped.

Another softer song, and then one that Mithos had said his sister had created for him, specifically, a strong song that Lloyd had heard both compassion and outrage within... a song fit for the angel who had been willing to tear the world in two to try to save it, before its creator had been murdered.

"...I don't think I've ever heard those before..." Corellia said as Mithos' song came to an end. Lloyd lowered the flute and took a shaky breath.

"Mithos' sister, Martel Yggdrasill, for whom the spirit of the mana tree was named, had a set of panpipes she loved to play for her little brother, and she loved to create her own melodies that meant something to her and her friends. Mithos tried to teach Genis, in the days when we didn't know who he was. I still remember the melodies," he told her. Another deep breath. "Mithos tried to teach Genis six."

"That was only five."

Lloyd chuckled a bit, and raised the flute to his lips once more, playing the last song, though he didn't wish to.

Mithos had admitted that Martel had only ever played it when one of their friends died, as her own sort of send-off.

And, as surely as if there were magic in the very song, Lloyd felt that weak, atrophied tether to his wife snap as the song came to an end.

The tears fell freely from his eyes as the last notes faded from the air.

He moved automatically, laying the flute on the table beside the bed and going downstairs to retrieve the stones, which were placed around the bed, Lloyd whispering in dwarven as he activated the runes.

Then, still unthinking, he left, taking to the sky and shooting straight to the sanctuary, touching down in the garden gently just an hour after leaving Corellia's side.

He had a new name to add to the memorial, though his eyes caught on the last few he'd added as he knelt.

COLETTE BRUNEL AURION
ATHAME HONDURIN-AURION
ZELOS WILDER
ZELDA KRITYA AURION

Fingertips brushed against the last, and Lloyd took a deep breath. "Your mother will be joining you soon, sweetheart... Please... watch over your brothers while I send your mother off."

Another deep breath, and he bowed his head. "I'll find them. Even if all I find are bones, I will find them. I swear it."

There is a link to a playlist for this chapter in the notes of the AO3 chapter. FFnet hates links, so... -shrug-