a thing; w/ ruinsprofessor & conductingresistance

[simulsimul]

universe list
canon
breached
confessed
dadly
future
grigori
mercenary
MEover
origin
reversal
titans


scenario list
canon: Kratos needs to stop running off
confessed: wing reflex
confessed: actual wingpull
confessed: turning Renegade
confessed: son meets father
dadliness: confrontation
dadliness: awakening
dadliness: illness
dadliness: a fundamental lack of understanding on the word 'abducted'
dadliness: updating parameters
dadliness: assassination assignation
mercenary: hiding in the library
mercenary: aftermath of librarian saviour
reversal: oracle destroyed
titans: storming the tower
titans: safety in the canyon
titans: night horrors


canon
- combo of Kratos and Zelos ending
- Zelos does the stupid thing, but not so far as his death, and is still the eighth member of the party to Derris-Kharlan.

scenarios
scenario one: Yuan tracks Kratos down at Dirk's.


breached
- canon right up until after Botta’s death
- no one uses Yuan’s name around Mithos so Mithos walks right into the Triet base with them
- cue an epic OH SHIT in which Yuan gets a lil bit beat up while covering the evacuation of the rest of the base
- until Kratos appears to intervene and have the Chosen group get Yuan out of there
- Mithos gets Kratos tho and he’s a bit mad cos, yanno, traitor and all
- time to be locked up and punished and need to be rescued
- kind of puts a crimp in the creation of the Eternal Ring plans
- mostly cos Mithos turns Kratos lifeless, with some armour to regulate his mana so he remains a seraph. can't have the seal becoming less powerful, yo
- it does mean he can only obey orders tho
- the first rescue fails miserably but at least no one dies and they know they need to reforge his key-crest
- the second rescue attempt (circumstances of canon-point under percolation) goes a little better, though Yuan almost gets killed by Kratos trying to attach the key-crest
- luckily that and the first telepathy in a while gets through and Kratos manages to break out a la Colette, and heal Yuan enough for Raine to get there
- after which, angreh father-son beatdown on Mithos.

scenarios
None yet.


confessed
- almost successful assassination lands Kratos as an injured stranger in Iselia (1-2 years pre-canon)
- recuperation leads to accidental-on-purpose 'holiday' in Iselia
- doubts result in a request for Dirk to make a key-crest like Kratos' own
- oracle room undergoes some stealth sabotage
- regeneration journey is slightly delayed, prompted by Genis and Lloyd being discovered at the ranch
- Triet is awkward. so very awkward. for the Renegades -- whose side is Kratos even on these days and why was he vanished for two years?
- initial overall journey similar to canon, save that Kratos is a bit less circumspect about advising Colette on how to cope with angel transformations
- there are more overt Dun Wanna Feelings
- then Luin, wherein things happen and the group is in town during the Desian attack. the others naturally want to fight but tis a mite difficult against an army and building-destroying magitech. luckily, angel on their side. unluckily, wingpulls in order to muster the power to cover the townspeoples' retreat
- questions and confessions ensue
- Colette rejects the key crest (for the moment) so there's still hopefully maybe ambiguity about Kratos's position re the last seal
- it wouldn't fit anyway, it's modelled for the hand like Kratos's is because he was a derp and did not specify otherwise, so Lloyd needs to make a thing to make it fit
- slow protective retreat toward Asgard.

scenarios
scenario one: Kratos confesses before Salvation; Raine wants to follow up.
scenario two: Raine's examination of an angel; and also Kratos realises how far he's put his foot in it.
scenario three: Kratos goes to taunt Yuan a little, and also ask for his help.
scenario four: in which Raine makes Kratos tell the children all the things, and Yuan takes too much amusement from it.


dadliness
- Kratos retires in Iselia under the name Irving to raise Lloyd after the death of his wife
- no exsphere. ageing occurs! so does a beard and a braid
- teaches Lloyd swordplay, but on the sly, to avoid the other villagers noticing. his daytime job is weaving
- Lloyd finds the box of their exspheres and wants details. after some prodding by Dirk, Kratos explains how exspheres are made and that one is Anna's life. Lloyd is too young yet, but when Lloyd comes of age (~15) Kratos lets him make his own decision re wearing it
- Lloyd chooses not to wear the exsphere
- Genis befriends Marble and Lloyd meets her, as in canon; this happens before the journey begins, with the fallout
- difference being that Colette is still in the village so they can't be too horrible, so they just demand Lloyd be turned over for a flogging
- Kratos stands in his stead because natch. luckily, they're only mooks and don't recognise the bearded weaver as anyone important
- gives Lloyd his guilt complex early tho
- the oracle happens much the same way except Botta doesn't quite recognise the weirdly familiar bearded swordsman
- he does when he's reporting to Yuan tho
      'there was an exceptionally skilled human'
      /brief physical description/
      /did x other faintly recognizable thing/
      and both he and Yuan are aware that Kratos has been awol for a while, so there's a moment of pure silence and dawning 'no, it couldn't be'
- but then obviously one of them has to go make sure
- cue an interruption just out of Triet.

scenarios
scenario one: Yuan feels the need to investigate; this results in Kratos injured and abducted.
scenario two: Yuan realises he can't kill Kratos with his own two hands; Kratos gets mothered.
scenario three: Kratos gets sick on the heels of his recovery. Yuan mothers him some more. Botta disapproves.
scenario four: Kratos recovers and makes an escape attempt. Sort-of.
scenario five: Kratos recovers more and talks to Botta, when not needling Yuan about his lack of preparedness.
scenario six: Sheena's contract takes a slight shift into undercover instead of assassination work.


future
- Aselia is Earth ~10,000 years in the past
- all is peachy-keen except the tree is now underground and the elvens/half-elves/some humans are in hiding in the centre of the planet, hidden thanks to the summon spirits
- Colette is working with humanitarian aid in various impoverished nations
- Zelos is a diplomat in West Asia / Middle East trying to keep the peace
- Yuan is a crotchety lecturer at Cambridge who's also HUGE into environmentalism
- Lloyd and Kratos are having family time in space
- occasionally the trio on Earth meet reincarnations of people they used to know
- but rarely at the same time and almost never in a position where they meet
- but then they start meeting them
- lots of them
- all in the same span of years
- they're starting to think something's hinky
- until the space-elves attack
- and then they know something is hinky.


scenarios
None yet.


grigori
- at some point significantly before canon, Kratos actually calls it quits
- the Church's institution calls him a fallen angel of vengeance
- really he's just going around trying to help people and avoiding being taken back to Cruxis
- assigns himself to the Chosen parties whenever he can, up to Colette
- ????? idk some kind of profit somewhere

scenarios
None yet.


mercenary
- when Yuan visits Kratos at the beach when Lloyd is 3 months old, he does not manage to escape before Anna and Lloyd return
- accidental attachment to this kidlet who likes pulling his hair
- three years later, Yuan can't stand to hold back while Kratos fights Kvar, so he throws caution to the wind to help
- Anna is still killed but they rescue Lloyd and Noishe and both are branded as traitors
- Lloyd is raised as a Renegade with Dad, Uncle Yuan and the extremely reticent Uncle Botta (how dare)
- meanwhile in Tethe'alla Yuan infiltrates the castle as the library archivist
- stays out of sight, mostly, but has a good ear around the politics thanks to recruiting Princess Hilda
- also happens to stumble on Zelos hiding in the library right after his mother's death
- look he's got a 'nephew' he can't just do nothing (even if all he meant was to recommend a book)
- unwittingly accidentally 'adopts' the Tethe'allan Chosen by virtue of being the only one who doesn't treat him like the Chosen
- sometimes Kratos brings Lloyd to visit and basically they're all separate pairs of exasperated bros
- by canon Lloyd and Kratos are wandering mercenaries, helping people on the sly while gathering intel to send back to the Renegades
- Yuan and Zelos are actively building resistance to the Church using inside knowledge
- the ninja are all Renegades
- Colette is escorted by Raine and by the priests
- yes the 'chain up the Chosen and drag her to every seal if necessary' priests
- she meets Lloyd randomly in Triet but Lloyd doesn't know her as the Chosen. they're a bit out of touch on the Journey of Regen timeline
- stuff happens and they keep missing each other up until Palmacosta, which is a warzone between the Desians (and Dorr as their figurehead) and the Renegades (with Neil as their leader)
- Colette wants to help; priests say no
- out come the chains
- Raine objects, but she has no exsphere so what can she do
- btw Genis got caught in the Iselian ranch and tossed in as a traitor to be made a host
- he gets sent to the Palmacosta ranch
- right after Neil manages to take the city, after Colette and Raine leave it, Botta takes the Palmacosta ranch and rescues Genis, among others
- Genis becomes his little shadow and is much preferable to Lloyd, in Botta's opinion
- Lloyd and Kratos are still trying to catch up to Colette to rescue her when they drop by
- Genis hears what they're trying to do and insists on coming along.


scenarios
scenario one: in which Yuan accidentally adopts a Chosen instead of a book from a library.
scenario two: in which Yuan is accidentally-deliberately adopted by the Meltokio Castle Knights.


MEover
- Mass Effect crossover someplace in the realm of 15,000 years after TOS canon
- except started before then, cos elves are really from Feros, planet of the cranky telepathic plant
- got decimated by the protheans trying to assimilate them into their empire
- elves objected, got killed a lot, fled Feros and got stuck in Aselia's orbit
- kinda forgot a few things but planted a seed from the Ferosian mother plant on Aselia
- Origin hasn't forgotten tho, kinda has a grudge against grumblegrumbleprotheansgrumble
- the entirety of TOS happened, and then some
- Kratos, Yuan, Lloyd, Colette and Zelos are the only ones left, but tis okay, they have each other
- somethingsomething natural space disaster, Aselia is destroyed but they manage to move Yggdrasill onto Derris-Kharlan and do a quarian by becoming a roaming ship
- mana is a variant of eezo lbr
- Derris-Kharlan's too big to use the mass relays, but c'mon it generates its own mass effect field so they develop tech to do hops on their own
- they're in no hurry tho, i mean lbr primarily angelic, elf and half-elf population
- so they're just bumming around their local clusters doing thorough investigations on all the things
- so much eezo on their ship
- so much
- suddenly the Normandy running from a reapers comes along to hide behind them
- reapers start shooting
- everyone on Derris-Kharlan objects
- JUDGEMENT IN SPACE
- so much profit and judging of reapers.


scenarios
None yet.


origin
- Kratos tells Lloyd the dad thing in Triet
- dad and son feelings ensue
- they culminate at the Tower of Salvation in Kratos stabbing Yggdrasill in the back
- unfortunately he does not quite die but impales Kratos against a wall and goes berserk on the Chosen party to the point of Yuan stepping in to help
- that is, by threatening to stab Kratos in the back while he's vulnerable (with Kratos's permission)
- Yggdrasill calls his bluff and fails, and Yuan does the thing
- while Yggdrasill is distracted the Chosen's group nail him but good and he retreats
- luckily while heart-stabbing happened, Kratos's cruxis crystal is still intact, and between Raine's healing and Yuan's mana transfusion he survives long enough to be taken to the Triet base and a refresher
- stuff happens in some fashion or other up until opening Origin's seal
- as it turns out, the mana tranfusion has fused the lock, so to speak, and Kratos can't unlock the seal even voluntarily
- only way to get Origin out at this point is to let him fuse with Kratos, so Kratos becomes Origin
- stipulation of this: Kratos refuses to let go of his humanity
- luckily Yuan already has a literal bond with him thanks to the mana transfusion, so with him as his summoner Kratos can keep his humanity, and only use Origin's powers when Yuan summons them
- commitment like woah for a literal eternity
- but hey, they messed up but good and it's the only way they can reunite the worlds.

scenarios
none yet.


reversal
~ 2000 years in, Kratos and Yuan conspire to kill Mithos and succeed, sorta
- he's stuck inside his exsphere, possessing people
- but he manages to survive and while Kratos and Yuan claim Derris-Kharlan for their base, he takes most of the angels as 'fallen', as well as the Eternal Sword
- most of his bases are hidden behind dimensional slips created by the sword - Iselia included
- Origin refuses to trust either Kratos or Yuan with the job, anyhow, and they don't have a summoner
- instead they're forced to fight Cruxis, embroiling the worlds in an angelic war between Cruxis and the new organisation of Chayim
- the Chosen bloodlines are more important to Cruxis than Chayim, but Mithos seals the seals so only the Chosen bloodline can flip the mana switch. Kratos and Yuan need someone to do that until they can reunite them, so the Journey remains an institution, just without compulsory death at the end
- there is angelification tho, if only so Chayim gets more soldiers and so the Chosen can defend themselves against Cruxis
- Kratos sends Anna and Lloyd to Iselia, because even though enemy territory, it's the safest place there is for them
- Anna get word to Kratos that the Desians are using Iselia as a long-term cruxis crystal cultivation location, and that the sword is held there
- her spy succeeds but is intercepted, and Mithos locks down the dimensional slip to prevent exit and access by angels for ~15 years
- Lloyd grows up in a town with a heavy half-elf population and believing he's training to help the good guys
- he has his own cruxis crystal as a host, but doesn't tell his mother due to the faith-based propaganda encouraging hosts not to bring it up or risk the powers not taking
- he wants to help though, so he steals a key-crest to ensure he can fight
- Yuan and Kratos plan to assault the town and shrine but Mithos uses the sword to interrupt travel between worlds, keeping Yuan in Tethe'alla and forcing Kratos to attack Iselia alone.

scenarios
scenario one: Iselia is attacked by Chayim to claim the sword, with the sword already gone


titans
- Yggdrasill captures Kratos before Kvar finds Anna and Lloyd, but after Kratos makes an Eternal Ring
- Yuan figures hell no and raises the Renegades to try and take Derris-Kharlan, rescue Kratos and solve the split-world problem
- the attack fails. a lot.
- Renegades are wiped out, Kratos is still in Cruxis's hands, but Yuan manages to escape with the Eternal Ring
- Cruxis follows him to Triet base, which gets destroyed and the few remaining Renegades scatter
- Botta is still around tho, helping out how he can
- mostly Yuan just goes searching for Lloyd and Anna
- doesn't manage to find them before Kvar does tho, and Kratos hears from Yggdrasill that they're dead
- this is slightly inaccurate, cos Lloyd still winds up rescued by Dirk in Iselia
- where Yuan eventually finds him, not knowing that he's 'supposed' to be dead
- so Yuan settles in Iselia for a bit to watch Lloyd and the Chosen
- cuts and dyes his hair, the whole shebang
- learns how to carpentry, invents a new use of magic lightning and light can totally become a laserbeam amirite
- winds up being Genis's role model just because scholar and magic-user and half-elf who can pass but also takes no shit from people
- is one of Colette's companions on the Journey when it starts
- he's been challenging their understanding of the Church's institution this whole time lbr
- Sheena is still a thing because the ninja have taken over the Tethe'allan base, which has survived, somewhat
- a grilling ensues
- sometime just after the Asgard Ranch Yuan does have to drop the bombshell
- about how the Journey is just a front, he and his bestie are angels, btw his bestie is Lloyd's dad
- how they're out to topple the institution of religion
- forget sacrificing Colette for the Regeneration, when they get to the seal they can do that without anyone dying
- and then move straight on to rescuing Kratos in Derris-Kharlan
- then they get to the Tower and realise Yggdrasill has Kratos under a Prometheusesque punishment a la 'impaled on the Eternal Sword to suffer the Seed's pain and watch the Chosen get murdered'
- luckily this does not happen, as they manage to rescue him and escape Yggdrasill instead, barely
- retreat to Botta's hiding-place in Asgard so Kratos can recover
- and also find out that Lloyd is actually alive
- the Chosen group goes around to make as many pacts as they can while in Sylvarant
- they get up to Aska when Yggdrasill sends his angels to attack Asgard
- cue Yuan and Kratos being unstoppable battle gods together


scenarios
scenario one: in which Yuan leads the Chosen's party to the Tower of Salvation to dismantle all the traditions ever, and find Kratos waiting for them in serious need of a rescue.
scenario two: in which being in safety reveals that Kratos is not precisely unscathed, but he's doing his best.
scenario three: in which Kratos is emphatically not okay, but with Yuan's help, could be.

Comments

CONFESSED; wing reflex;

[simulsimul]

[Luin is not precisely destroyed; at least, the buildings are, but buildings are less important than people. What was that saying? People have shorter lifespans than towns, forests, mountains; that's what makes them precious.

[If it's true, Kratos must be worthless by now.

[He still waits for the other shoe to fall -- can't tell from where it will come. From one of these young people he's surrounded himself with, or someone else. The key crest feels like it burns a hole in his pocket, but Colette refuses to take it. She doesn't want to risk tipping his hand to Remiel before all the Seals are woken.

[(It hurts, how much like Martel she is, how giving, even to those undeserving.)

[The villagers of Luin sleep fitfully in the day, arranged in a valley with Asgard only days ahead. Kratos doesn't sleep at all, but sit up on the rocks, below the height of the ridge, to keep watch. For all that his eyes and mana-sense are turned outward, his thoughts are turned inward -- still. No answers are any more forthcoming than they have been for the last countless centuries, but the inner view is ... slightly less dim than it was.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Kratos is, ironically, almost more of an enigma now that Raine knows something more of the truth about him. There are questions burning, itching at the inside of her mind in a way only curiosity can and only answers will salve.]

[Luin... Luin is gone. But the people are here with them, and isn't that the better part of the fight?]

[Raine stretches herself, arms over her head as she works a kink out of her back, and reclaims her staff. She's been doing what she can for the people as they traveled, though it's naturally hampered by her relative inexperience and their lower regeneration rate. Still: it isn't nothing.]

[The silhouette of Kratos watching over them is stark against a pale sky. Raine watches him in turn, considering. Runs a quick check mentally of where her students are. Safe: surrounded by people and pillowed on Noishe, who will raise all kinds of alarms if something untoward begins to happen.]

[Decision made, she picks her way up toward him, bracing herself with her staff where the footing is uneven. She's not quite used to the weight of this one yet, but she likes it as a focus, finds herself absently fingering the engravings down the grip as she comes to a halt off to Kratos' side. Not behind him: that would be foolish. She hesitates a moment, then lifts her shoulders in a brief shrug and announces her presence without preamble.]

Why bother to hide it so long?

CONFESSED; *now* wingpull;

[simulsimul]

[They reach Asgard three days later. Not much else is said in that time, and the people of Asgard are not precisely happy to have Desian-caused refugees in their lap -- but Asgard hasn't been much bothered by the Desians save as an outside fear. There's a reason for that, but it's one of the things Kratos isn't mentioning, because it actually isn't relevant.

[In any case, grumbles or not, the people of Asgard make room for the townsfolk of Luin.

[Other things Kratos does not say: that Kvar may well target Asgard anyway, regardless of ... Reasons ... to leave the city alone. Kvar is single-minded like that.

[Regardless, it gives the Chosen's group a day to rest, after five being constantly on watch. Most of that watch, to be fair, was taken by Kratos or Colette; but the strain of guarding others has worn on them all. Even once they've had some time to rest, Kratos doesn't volunteer himself to Raine. Maybe she'll have forgotten, between having to tend the Luin townsfolk and combat some grudging minds.

[(He knows that she hasn't forgotten.)]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Of course Raine hasn't forgotten. How could she? She takes the day to rest, though, and doesn't go to bother Kratos yet -- after all, they've been relying on him and Colette much of the way. He's entitled to some rest.]

[The next day, Raine makes a level attempt at cornering Kratos just outside the inn they're staying at.]

You said when we got to Asgard you would allow me to examine you.

[Who needs lead-ins.]

DADLINESS; confrontation

[simulsimul]

[Kratos had forgotten how hot the desert could be. It was usually one of those climates where he deliberately cheated just to avoid the discomfort, and now that he couldn't do that, he swore to Martel, if they had to go one more day he'd wind up a puddle in the sand.

[They were all of them snappish when they reached Triet, even the ones more even-tempered; and though the heat never really subsided, except late at night, at least it gave them a few days of rest before they had to move on.

[Kratos can't quite rest as well as he needs -- or Raine thinks he needs, judging by the way she eyes him at the inn. There isn't anything in particular he can pinpoint as a cause, but he knows better than to ignore the uneasiness. He may not have the whole of his mana-sense since taking off the exsphere, but it's more than most humans ever get.

[Someone's watching them.

[So while they leave Triet undeterred and head toward the temple, Kratos is on alert. Lloyd moans about the desert and the heat some more, and Genis snaps back, and Kratos lets Raine handle the potential brewing argument in favour of examining the desert, flat and empty and not quite hot enough in the early morning for mirages just yet.

[He can't see anything, but something's there.]

[conductingresistance]

[By contrast, Yuan has absolutely no perception of the heat, having turned it off the moment he left the base. The desert, with its proximity to Efreet, is far too hot to bear unaided in armor. And he is in armor, after his customary style, and a cloak over to hide the glint of sun on metal.]

[He isn't sure. He isn't even sure if he wants to be sure, which is a new low. (Only Kratos could cause this level of irritation nearly two decades after vanishing.)]

[But the longer he watches the more it seems... likely. Aged; changed; but there's Aurion in the set of his jaw and the lightning-flavored sense of him.]

[Yuan had really meant just to make sure.]

[Instead he finds he's furious, and goes with it, because it's familiar and so very easy to fall into. Yuan puts himself in the group's path, not bothering to try to hide any longer, making himself abruptly present in a way Kratos shouldn't be able to miss even if it's a little distant yet. Shouldn't.]

[That can't be him. It can't not be him.]

So we meet again.

[This when they're in earshot. There's an edge to his dry tone, a challenge; it isn't a friendly greeting.]

DADLINESS; awakening

[conductingresistance]

[After Kratos passes back out, Yuan doesn't bother leaving. The refresher still has work to do on him, and he's loath to let Kratos out of his sight-- more, it must be said, for the solid knowledge that Kratos would find a way to slip him, and less because of genuine worry. He'd already established that Kratos would be fine, after all.]

[He handles moving Kratos out of the refresher himself, to a more private room where there are less chances of someone wandering in. And promptly handcuffs him to the bed. That should keep him from running off.]

[Then again, Kratos shouldn't have been able to disappear for twenty years, either. Yuan doesn't go far.]

[There's time to think, though mostly plans turn in circles. He has so many people in place, the pieces of a hundred possibilities that he might be able to pull together. Might. Kratos could change a lot of that. Ostensibly he's sympathetic. Kratos also chose to vanish. The boy can't be discounted, but...]

[Too many questions for Yuan's taste. He waits.]

[simulsimul]

[It takes some time before Kratos wakes back up, groggy and weak but no longer in pain. Refreshers can heal nearly anything, given the time and numerous sessions; but they rely on the body's own healing capabilities, and that always means a period of recuperation later. So waking up isn't precisely fun, what with aching and his head stuffed, but he can breathe and when he opens his eyes his vision aligns itself easily enough.

[The mattress at his back is much softer than the refresher, and the lights are dim; so he knows he's in a separate room. His body is heavy, a healing sort of heavy, but nevertheless he tests his limbs, his legs and arms and -- his wrist pulls tight against the barred bedside.]

Really?

[The whispered word is part laugh, part resigned sigh, part exasperation. With his other elbow Kratos pushes himself somewhat upright so he can see the handcuff linking him to the bed, and that doesn't hurt, at least; that's already a step up from the first time he tried to get out of bed after the Desians came into Iselia.]

DADLINESS; illness

[simulsimul]

[The day after Kratos and Yuan talked, properly talked for the first time in what must have been decades, Kratos wakes up coughing violently. Even if he hadn't been awoken so rudely, he would have known the signs: the clogged sensation in his head, the watering eyes, the low burn in his throat. The awful lack of energy.

[He's sick. Again.

[Kratos groans and turns his face into the pillow, which doesn't particularly help his throat or his eyes, but at least does lend some gravity to the stuffiness in his nose. Wonderful; because coming down with a cold, or worse the flu, while in Yuan's care is exactly what he needs.

[It'd help if he weren't handcuffed to the bed again. This is getting ridiculous, given he apparently can't go two days in Yuan's base without being too weak to walk. He's not even sure whether Yuan's left any attendants around, so he rolls over again and tries to push himself upright, coughing, to see if anyone's in the room or there's a button to push.]

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan isn't in evidence and there's no evident 'call' button; but nevertheless, barely a few minutes later, Yuan arrives, already shaking his head at Kratos.]

[The surveillance really doesn't do justice to how pitiful he looks.]

What have you done to yourself now?

DADLINESS; a fundamental lack of understanding on the word 'abducted';

[simulsimul]

[Kratos, as expected -- by him -- gets worse the second day. In fact, he's not cognizent of when the day begins ... or ends. This is not helped by the lack of windows, not that Kratos can enjoy them.

[He remains curled up on the bed, half-dozing but not really; coughing sporadically even half-unconscious. The coughs sound alarmingly wet, though if Raine or Lloyd were there they would be able to assure Yuan that this sounded worse than it was -- that mortal mucus thing. It has a habit of getting into Kratos's lungs, and it often means he's coughing for far longer than the actual cold is in effect, but ultimately it's harmless.

[But it doesn't sound like it, especially when Kratos barely reacts to anything around him. He just stays under the covers, his eyes puffy and bloodshot on the rare occasions that they open, his hair even more unmanageable than usual, his cheeks flushed.

[The second day is always the worst.]

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan is -- slightly -- alarmed when he checks in on Kratos next. Almost motionless, and with what sounds like a terrible cough. Yuan doesn't remember, precisely, what coughs usually sound like; but this one tweaks some deep-seated sense of concern in him. That isn't a noise anyone's lungs should be making, human or no.]

[Kratos had seemed sure he would be fine. Yuan finds himself slightly more dubious.]

[Before all that long he's sitting on the edge of the bed next to Kratos, reaching down to alternately feel his forehead -- something about checking for fever, he recalls distantly -- and to check his pulse.]

[Kratos is not allowed to die of sickness here and now.]

CANONISH; Kratos needs to stop running off

[conductingresistance]

[After saving Kratos' life -- and that in itself had been ridiculous, and they were lucky to have survived -- Yuan had had things that needed doing. The Renegades needed to be prepared for what was coming, and with Botta gone, he was what they had to look to.]

[Kratos, though... he'd still been favoring something, Yuan thought. He'd gone off with Lloyd's group -- they had a healer with them -- but he wondered if he trusted Kratos not to be foolish about that, too.]

[So when he can, Yuan takes off, tracking down the dwarf the group of them had been planning to visit. If Kratos isn't still there, the dwarf will be able to say where Kratos got off to; but Yuan would know Kratos' mana anywhere.]

[He does at least bother to knock before barging in.]

[simulsimul]

[Lloyd and his friends had left some time ago, and Dirk is drifting around preparing for new projects rather than actually starting any. It's a productive use of his time when his mind buzzed too much to focus.

[Kratos is upstairs, borrowing Lloyd's bed; the man had seemed ready to fall down at any moment, despite the stoic face he put on. Dirk had seen the edges of that wound slowly closing when he insisted on having a look at it, but it was too slow for any man to be standing up and walking around, as Kratos had apparently been doing for hours.

[Take care of him for me? Lloyd had whispered before he went out the door, so that's just what Dirk was going to do.

[He's sharpening some of his tools when there was a bang on the door and he turned; but before he can wonder whether it's Lloyd again, the door bursts open and man strides in. He's a half-elf -- he has to be, with that colour hair -- and he moves like a warrior, threatening and intent. Dirk reaches for his sledgehammer and puts himself between the stranger and the rest of the room.]

Who are yeh? I warn yeh, if you're here for what's left of them bastard Desians --

REVERSAL; oracle destroyed

[simulsimul]

[The town's alight, and raging; the fire is very nearly spreading in the trees, or should be, except that the flames slip in the air and never quite reach the southern canopy past the first fifty feet. The dimensional guard is still active, and will be, as long as Chayim fails to take the shrine.

[That's going to be difficult, without Yuan's forces; but Kratos's push on nevertheless. Their attack wasn't the surprise it should be, and Cruxis is pushing back with every step, in Iselia and beyond it -- all the way to the shrine.

[But first they have to take the town. Take the town, cut off Cruxis's source of potential cruxis crystals -- stop them from murdering the townsfolk and starting anew elsewhere.

[So the town is burning, despite Kratos's orders to throw water on the flames; he has everyone with a water or earth affinity controlling the fire, and every healer working on the people, and anyone without clear affinities trying to escort them out. The townsfolk don't trust them; of course they don't. Kratos is in the middle, the only one with mana-wings, shouting, cajoling -- throwing earth on fires when he can.

[He turns and there's a blast of pure mana from the shrine, and a building explodes by him, sending him off his feet; he catches himself, flips himself with a twitch of his wings, and lands on his feet. In the distance he can see the glow of a second cannon charging.]

Damn it!

[They weren't meant to have their mana cannons operational yet. Miniatures, compared to Thor's Hammer; but dangerous nevertheless.

[The second cannon fires and its mana reaches out; Kratos surges toward its blockaded target, his shout lost in the roar, the green glow of his Guardian bathing the building and turning the mana's blue light sickly. The shot sends him flying through the wall in an explosion of splintering timber -- but it's blocked, the shot, the building and anyone still inside still standing.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Raine hasn't seen pure mana weaponized that way before, and on some level it sickens her, all that life taken out of the veins of the world and turned to wanton destruction.]

[On another level entirely, less existential and more the present moment, she is terrified. Iselia was supposed to be safe. And it is, mostly, though there is something wrong she cannot quite track, and honestly dares not look too closely at. Keeping her brother safe is paramount.]

[So she tries not to show her fear when she has a room full of students looking to her, including Genis and Colette. Encourages them to be quiet, and calm, and not to look out the windows though Raine herself is doing so.]

[The second shot would have hit them, but then an angel is blown through the wall instead.]

[On instinct Raine puts herself between the new entrance to the building and her students, as though she will be much obstacle to an angel. She can't tell this one's allegiance, although-- he did protect them.]

[All the same, Raine isn't moving, her staff in hand and her posture defensive. Behind her, one of the youngest students is crying, too overwhelmed with everything that's happening.]

Why are you here?

[Her voice doesn't shake, which feels like a minor miracle right now.]

DADLINESS; updating parameters

[simulsimul]

[The day after Kratos wakes up extra-handcuffed to his bed, he feels much better. It will still be another day before he's entirely recovered, but he knows from experience there won't be any drawbacks today except tiring a little more easily.

[He does seriously consider the handcuffs, and whether he can reach the picks in his pocket, and whether it's even worth making the attempt so soon after the first given it would alert Yuan to the fact that he has the means to get out of his restraints. Probably not; the guards are currently on high alert, and while he's gone over the room, he hasn't done so in enough detail to take advantage of its attributes.

[Kratos does this visually, picking out the panels in the walls and anything he might be able to use to get around the guards with a minimum of violence, while waiting for someone to come along and uncuff him from the bed.]

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan is told when Kratos wakes up, one of the newer Renegades showing up in his office to deliver the notification. Yuan nods, waves her off with a dismissive "I'll get to him," and goes back to what he was doing.]

[It's at least half an hour, if not more, before he rouses himself with deliberate intent, and doesn't hurry himself about wandering over to Kratos' room. He pauses on the way to talk to the guards, checking in that there have been no suspicious sounds from inside, and finally Yuan heads into the room.]

You look better.

[It's a brisk, offhand comment, lacking in much audible concern as Yuan crosses the room and... stands there.]

TITANS; storming the tower

[simulsimul]

[The worlds tremble under their leashes, mana straining. The Seed's life beats erratic, pained; the sound of it fills Kratos's head, fills his body, until it's all he can feel. It's the only way he can feel anything, these days.

[Spirits turn in their slumber; mana links shift their course to account for the movement between worlds; the burden on the Seed eases and its pulse smooths, releasing Kratos from that dizzying pain. Kratos gasps for breath out of instinct and even that slight movement makes the blade grind past his ribs, after having tensed to bear the pain of the worlds moving. The blade doesn't hurt. It hasn't hurt for a long time. He's had his physical pain turned off for a long time.

[But the movement tears open the half-knitted flesh sealed around the tip of the Eternal Sword. Kratos watches his blood drip, falling dizzyingly long to the Tower's floor and fading into the glowing lines of the seal. Drops of his life feeding Origin's latent power, hungry for freedom; never quite reaching release.

[The Healing Circle carved into the dais activates with a hum, closing the wound, stopping the bleeding -- until the next time. Kratos closes his eyes and exhales slowly, shaky, and doesn't inhale again. Even if he can't feel it, there's no point in feeding the seal. The Sword pulses in his body, humming in counterpoint to the seal below -- vying to meet, never reaching.

[From the outside, it looks like a still scene; the platform thirty feet over the seal, the man chained unmoving, head hanging, from its underside; the Eternal Sword, humming, impaled through them both.

[Kratos is aware of the angels watching, very dimly. He's long since stopped trying to reach out to them. To them, his presence is the living fulcrum set between the two worlds, a knot of pain made hard by pressure -- a traitor to heaven. And the worlds are still turning. He braces himself for the shift in balance between them, as he's done a thousand thousand times for the last ... he doesn't know how long. He just has to hold on.

[It's all he's been able to do.

[Just hold on.]

[conductingresistance]

[They take dragons from Hima to the Tower of Salvation. Yuan was up all the night with planning, kept company only by Colette and her quiet determination. Even Lloyd had to sleep eventually, no matter how keyed up he was. Yuan couldn't have.]

[Something starts feeling wrong by the time they're halfway to the Tower. It takes Yuan till they've landed, till the feeling's stronger, to place what it is. He's been fifteen years or so without a mind accustomed to telepathy, and this feeling isn't a specific thought, no intentional message to be passed. It finds him as a reaching, something desperate and unmoored and searching for something to cling to, and it shakes Yuan to his core.]

[That faint mental touch has something terribly familiar about it.]

Uncle Yuan?

[With a sharp jerk Yuan comes back to the moment, though the mental tug persists. He couldn't turn around now if he tried.]

[He has the concerned focus of all the rest of the group, from Genis' worried intent to Raine's more reserved, narrow-eyed noticing. As much as he'd like to pass it off as nothing, he can't; but neither does he know how to explain this, either.]

Something's wrong. Things may not be what we've expected, inside, but I can't ascertain enough to say anything more from here.

[This is met with varying degrees of dismay. Raine is the calmest about it, as expected.]

Understood. Until then, we can only operate on the same assumptions, correct?

[Yuan nods to her. The pull is stronger now, and it's taking all his effort just to remain in one place. And why should he? The Tower is traditionally the Chosen's fate to confront, but those are traditions Yuan himself helped set into place, and he plans to pull them down one by one.]

Let's go.

[Lloyd is saying something, but Yuan can't quite hear it as he turns toward the entrance of the Tower, the inexorable thought of holding on pulling at him all the while.]

[He's crossed the path to the warp up, is through it almost too fast for the others to keep up with him, and Yuan knows rushing ahead is a bad idea but he can't quite stop himself. And then--]

[The seal. The Sword. Kratos.]

[Yuan's mind refuses to make sense of the picture presented for too long, long enough he can hear the sharp chorus of gasps behind him when the others arrive. He had not even begun to picture this. Kratos is still alive, or the Sword wouldn't be here, but--]

[Has he been here like this all along? Yuan is sick and numb all at once. Oh, Martel, what your brother has come to.]

Kratos--!

CONFESSED; turned Renegade

[simulsimul]

[The number of conversations looming in Kratos's future almost makes him wish he's back defending Luin -- almost. At least the one he's dreading most has been put off until he gets back from Triet; as it is, all he could convince Raine to do was tell the children they were waiting in Asgard for him to get back.

[He can't even say for sure whether Yuan would be with him -- or that he would come back. He also isn't sure whether Raine's firm 'I'll see you later' was a matter of faith or lack of knowledge as to what role Yuan had played in Kratos's recent history.

[Still. After a manner of speaking, walking up to the Renegades' base in Triet is very nearly the most palatable part of this venture. Especially the part where the door-guards falter halfway through their challenge.]

Halt there! Who --

[Kratos halts, spreading his empty hands, and watching with some distant amusement the way the Renegades recoil from the sight of him.]

Tell Yuan I need to see him. I'll hand over my weapon, if you wish.

[So saying, he unbuckles Flamberge and sets it, sheathed, in the sand, and steps back about ten feet. There's a bit of hastily whispered debate as to who, exactly, has to stay here and who gets to flee into the base; but after a moment one of them comes cautiously forward to collect his sword, and backs away into the cover of the building. The other, huddled behind her shield, hovers very close to the door.]

[conductingresistance]

[One of Yuan's Renegades brings him a sword.]

[It is not, to date, the strangest thing Yuan has ever been brought, and is therefore at first unremarkable. He's in the middle of a conversation with Botta regarding the Chosen's group when the guard approaches, and both of them turn to fix the young man with alternately inquisitive and stern gazes.]

Lord Yuan. There's-- a man at the door. He said he needed to see you?

[He realizes he did not actually get the stranger's name, and, hoping it will explain something, offers the sword.]

[Yuan takes it with a frown, which transfigures to something more like shock as soon as he touches the sword. It sings in his hand: he doesn't need to draw it to know what it is, though he slides it a few inches out of the sheath anyway just to see. Flame shifts in metal so fine it's translucent.]

[Flamberge.]

Hello, Kratos.

[Yuan murmurs this to the sword, absent and puzzled. Botta catches it, of course, and startles visibly. Kratos is on the doorstep of a Renegade base, politely. Kratos knows exactly where it is, and knows enough to ask for Yuan.]

[And no divine wrath is incoming. Yuan slides Flamberge back into the sheath and loops the belt around his wrist a few times.]

Botta. Scan the area, make sure Kratos is alone.

You.

[The Renegade twitches. Yuan softens his tone. Not an apology, but a backstep.]

Bring Kratos to my office.

[And they split, to do just that.]

TITANS; safety in the canyon

[simulsimul]

[After so long being chained to the Sword, being able to be unconscious is very close to heaven. Kratos expended enough mana that most of his usual angelic advantages have given way to human needs; save for the breathing, which is, by now, a matter of habit not to do.

[But eventually even his weary body has to give up on sleep. It just takes a bit of time, and a few false starts; he stirs a few times, never quite waking. For him it's a warm and painless respite, needed as much for his mana and mind as his body. His mind has to get accustomed to the lack of pain. His mana has to grow accustomed to the change in his surroundings.

[No worlds grinding him between them. They're a distant thunder, something he feels only because of long intimacy, but for all that a background noise which fades behind other, newer mana signatures.

[And one very, very old one. Unknowingly in sleep, Kratos has stirred only to gravitate toward Yuan, as if Yuan is the bedrock of his current existence. When he finally stirs again, fighting the warmth of sleep for the novel new state of painlessness and a soft bed, Yuan is the first thing he sees.

[Which produces a fine crinkle in his brow, and a few extra blinks. Is he ... is he even awake?

[What happened to your HAIR? This as a fuzzy, bewildered not-quite-thought, existing more in shades of bemusement than as an actual question.]

[conductingresistance]

[Every time Kratos stirs he has Yuan's attention, but little comes of it save for Kratos shifting slightly toward Yuan. A good sign, maybe. If nothing else, Yuan is the most familiar thing here. When Kratos stirs this time Yuan almost thinks he's going to go back to sleep again, but then--]

[The bleary not-quite thought. Of all the things. Fifteen years of torture, his son practically right beside him, and what Kratos chooses to focus on is Yuan's hair.]

[Yuan laughs all unconsciously, and then finds he can't stop, relief paving the way for something closer to hysteria than genuine laughter. It isn't even that funny, not really. And yet.]

[It takes some moments to get himself under control, till finally he can even out his breath, take one long deep one, and settle. He thinks his answer rather than chance speaking yet, though.]

[It was distinctive, and I was on the run. I cut it.]

[And dyed, but that should go without saying, since the faintly-singed braid is black. It wouldn't fool anyone who knew him, really, but for people only looking for a half-elf with long blue hair... After a few years it had stopped seeming strange, but Yuan does miss it.]

CONFESSED; son meets father

[simulsimul]

[It isn't a long trip from Triet, for angels; but it's a silent one. Silent and burdened by everything they aren't saying -- by everything they used to be. They come in from the back, as only angels can, in Sylvarant, without rheairds.

[They wind up walking to the inn from the same path Kratos and Raine had so recently used to hide Kratos's wings from the city. It's a walk as awkward and silent as the flight. Part of Kratos wants to break the silence; but he doesn't know how. Even before he agreed to let Yuan kill him for the Eternal Sword, Kratos hadn't known how to talk to Yuan in a very long time.

[It's a relief when they reach the inn, and even as they enter Kratos can hear Lloyd's pounding footsteps on the stairs, and Lloyd yelling up:]

I swear I'll finish it, Professor Sage, but I need to get in some training before Kratos -- oh! Kratos!

[Lloyd stops short a few steps above ground, teetering before catching his balance.]

Damn! I was hoping I'd get a chance to practice some stuff before you came back. Hey, is that the friend Professor Sage mentioned?

[Kratos doesn't look over his shoulder. He doesn't know what Yuan thinks of the word 'friend', these days.]

This is Yuan.

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan has enough practice now not to let it show on his face, but he and Kratos haven't been friends in a long time.]

[Maybe...]

[No. Yuan looks over the youth in front of them and nods.]

And this is Lloyd.

[He sees the resemblance, though he doesn't mention it aloud. Yet. The boy has Kratos's eyes.]

I take it the rest of your group is upstairs.

[Above, a woman Yuan can tell with barely a glance is half-elven has come onto the landing, looking down the stairs after Lloyd. She raises an eyebrow at the collection of them; it seems directed more at Kratos than anyone else.]

MERCENARY; hiding in the library;

[choiced]

[Some of his instructors Zelos likes, and some he doesn't. Some are patient with him and don't punish him for his mistakes -- even the ones he makes on purpose. Some don't forgive him anything. Today, he has one who won't forgive him anything, and that's why he makes a beeline for the castle's library the moment the coast is clear. He doesn't want to go outside to train. The snow is the first of the season and he thought he'd be fine, he really did, because it's been a year now and he's the Chosen One and the Chosen doesn't let things get to him ever.

But he's not fine. And he's getting sick of people telling him he should be.

The library's big and quiet when Zelos sneaks in and, near as he can tell, empty. He lets himself grin, then wanders into a corner hidden from the door, just in case anyone comes looking for him. It should give him enough time to hide. He hopes.

Unless he falls asleep, he thinks, staring up at the shelves with wide eyes. He's a good reader, but he's not this good, not yet. One of the books is thicker than his arm. Great. What's he supposed to do now?]

[conductingresistance]

[So Yuan is handling Tethe'alla because he still has some semblance of a network of contacts there, and because he can make contact with the ninja, who've been willing to work with him before. It is, however, riskier now to travel openly. Especially with the current Pope's decrees. Strangers may be meant to be welcomed by the Church, but when those strangers are wandering half-elves, especially in and near the capital city?]

[Less so.]

[So he makes himself at home in the vast library, overseeing things, with an eye to eventually moving into a more trusted position as he "proves himself," and people get used to the comings and goings of the blue-haired half-elf, which is what he was aiming for in the first place.]

[Today's a cold day, which Yuan lets bite at him on those few occasions he's outside. Inside is for books, and warmth, and there's a sort of meditativeness in the work he's using as a cover, and-- there's a small, red-haired child making a good attempt not to be seen as he slips into one of the far corners.]

[Yuan may be some years removed from Cruxis, but he does know who the Tethe'allan Chosen currently is.]

[He gives it a little while before he heads the same way, a few books in the crook of one arm as an excuse. If nothing else Yuan is curious, and there is some vague sense of responsibility for having helped arrange the situation that has led to the boy's existence and current position.]

[He reaches past the boy for one of the larger books, drawing it back to examine what he's looking at. Just as promptly Yuan shoves it back in, grimacing. The less about the mana lineage he reads, the better.]

You're mostly going to find religious texts in this corner. I'd have thought you'd want something different.

[It's dry, quiet as befitting their locale, but not hostile.]

TITANS; night horrors

[simulsimul]

[After the lesson, Kratos needs some space, and for the most part the others are willing to give it to him. He's aware of Lloyd hovering without hovering, but for the most part having Yuan nearby is enough.

[As night approaches, the subject of sleep arises, primarily as a medical concern in the fact that he doesn't remember how to turn it on. It's Botta who suggests the use of sleep-inducing teas to allow Kratos to track the flow of mana leading him toward sleep. Given that and a few days, the theory goes, he ought to remember how to shift his mana toward more human concerns.

[The first night, he doesn't sleep. Yuan takes him out of the house to sit under the stars and the great expanse of the heavens above them, and the black depth of the gorge below them, and fulfills that promise to tell him something about Lloyd's childhood. This is derailed somewhat; Kratos asks questions about Iselia, about the Sages, about Dirk, about Yuan's life on the run -- one or two questions about their journey.

[The second, third and fourth nights are similar. There are stories about Lloyd, but perhaps fewer than intended, accounting for Kratos's desire to learn the context of his son's life as much as the life itself. During the day, it's easier to avoid thinking too much, with lessons, and with the children ready to spring to distraction. He ventures toward Asgard, once or twice, only in the company of someone else. He never goes far enough to meet the other city residents.

[The fourth night he's yawning, but does not sleep. The fifth night, he actually feels his thoughts scattering, and his mana clicking into that sensation of requiring basic human needs. It's an alien feeling, like a muscle he hasn't used in far too long, but his ability to sleep is finally on and he knows how to turn it off, if necessary.

[That night, he trudges up to the room in which he'd first awoken. That night, he sleeps.

[That night, he dreams.

[It's as though the last few days are the dream, and he's back in the reality of fifteen years with that respite an already distant memory. He can feel the Seed's thud in his soul, the grinding agony of the two worlds in a never-ending attempt to tear each other to ruins. He can hear Mithos's voice.

["Mithos -- please -- help me --"

["Shut up, Kratos. Shut up -- traitor! Human. Now you know what it feels like for every half-elf, ground beneath the heels of two worlds!"

["Stop!"

[Those on the outskirts of Asgard waken with their hearts pounding and shivering with the pain of an unheard scream, and chalk it up to nightmares. But in Botta's house, the scream is that much closer, pain mingled with fear and a hopelessness deep enough to drown in.]

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan matches Kratos's sleep, or lack thereof. Staying up together is easy, and there's so much to catch up on that Yuan just... doesn't sleep, even if he has gotten into the habit while he's been in Iselia. It's a little odd, having so much time again now that he's re-attached his cruxis crystal, but he uses it to sharpen his skills again and to plan, where he can. And to talk to Kratos.]

[And he stays awake when Kratos starts drifting finally to sleep, too. Yuan isn't so optimistic as to think Kratos will escape with dreams unscathed, not by a long shot. He occupies himself meditating in the same room, focusing on mana and the mental link that points in Kratos's direction, listening for the inevitable and hoping he won't hear it.]

[Then there's Kratos, screaming in his mind, and Yuan flinches sharply for all that he was expecting it. He's on his feet in a moment, crossing the little distance between the windowsill and Kratos's bed.]

[Across the hall he can hear the Sages waking, Genis's panicked exclamation and Raine's cooler murmuring to him. Farther into the house, someone has fallen out of bed with a curse. It's probably Sheena, but there isn't time for examination; Yuan's attention is all on Kratos. He's getting fringes of the dream, Yggdrasill's voice seeping cruelly through the link, and it's making him... closer to panic than he's been in some time. That voice is never going to herald anything other than bad things again, if it ever meant good, and the thought of Kratos back there, trapped as he was at the Tower, is unconscionable.]

[Yuan really should be careful about waking Kratos, but his sword isn't to hand and Yuan can take anything Kratos hits him with. Instead of caution, Yuan shakes him briskly, urgently.]

Kratos. Kratos.

[He hopes Botta's awake. If the others crowd in here things won't go well. As a distracted afterthought Yuan points a thought on that topic in Botta's direction.]

MERCENARY; aftermath of librarian saviour

[choiced]

[It's been a couple of days since Zelos was attacked. Within that time, two guards -- Nethan and Elmir, the same guard who saw Yuan in the hall during the attack -- go to talk to Yuan in the library. It goes exactly as Yuan expects, right down to the suspicion and body search, except for one thing. On his way out after the interrogation's over, Nethan stops and looks back.]

He's going to be fine.

[And with that single unprompted reassurance, they both leave.

It's another day before Zelos himself visits the library with Nethan in tow. Nethan's in tow partly because everyone's now hyper-aware of whenever Zelos is alone, and partly because Zelos ordered him to come. Funny, how it takes a serious injury for Zelos to see how useful ordering people around can be.

This time, instead of entering the library unannounced, Zelos knocks.]

Hellooooo? Anyone in there?

[conductingresistance]

[Two sets of footsteps and two distinct mana signatures tell Yuan that Zelos is not unaccompanied today. The knock tells him something more: that Zelos is being at least a little cautious of how he approaches the new arrangement, and that he is thinking ahead, warning Yuan that something is different in his way.]

[It's thoughtful.]

[When Yuan pulls the main door open his posture is straight and his expression markedly neutral.]

Chosen.

[He inclines his head gravely a little ways, the furthest concession to a respectful bow he is currently willing to make, and steps clear of the door to allow Zelos and his guard to enter.]

[He thinks he recognizes this one, as one of the ones who came earlier to interrogate him. Considerate enough to inform Yuan of Zelos's well-being. It is not at all enough to allay the usual assumptions Yuan would make of an adult Tethe'allan human; but it is something. Yuan waits expectantly for some kind of explanation.]

CANONISH; Zelos is blind and mute and throwing things

[choiced]

[Zelos knew what he was in for when he put on the cruxis crystal. He just didn't think he'd need to worry about it. He had a plan, and that plan did not include living long enough for the crystal to start taking away everything that made him human.

But here he is. The worlds are united, he's still alive, and he's turning into an angel.

Colette's transformation was controlled by Cruxis, and she didn't have a key crest. Thanks to her, Zelos knows what to expect, but not necessarily when to expect it. Appetite and sleepiness he loses all at once. Then he goes blind, which wasn't in any of the stories about Colette's transformation, but which doesn't surprise Yuan in the slightest. They've beaten the bad guys, and the angels still won't share everything they know. Idiots.

Then he loses all feeling, which, combined with the blindness, makes him feel like he's adrift in an ocean in danger of drowning. And after all of that, he goes mute.

It's around about this point Zelos begins throwing things at the wall to get people's attention, because it's around about this point that people start ignoring him. Which is really not helping the whole lack-of-self-worth problem.

Lloyd means well, but doesn't have the first clue how to help, and he has the annoying habit of asking over and over again what he can do despite Zelos's inability to answer. Eventually, Zelos scribbles a reply into his hand with all the care and patience of someone who doesn't have much care and patience at all, then stretches out backwards and stares up at a ceiling he can't see.]

You know what? Get Yuan. If he can sit around a tiny sapling for hours, he can sit in here and answer our questions.

[conductingresistance]

[When Yuan returns, it's without Lloyd.]

[He'd listened through Lloyd's explanation of why he was needed, and had taken into account the conversation he'd had with Kratos, and eventually come down on the side of telling Lloyd not to come back with him. Lloyd hadn't been entirely happy with this idea; Yuan had given him a brief overview of the problem -- namely, at the moment, that Zelos did have a communicative outlet -- and, when that didn't entirely work, borrowed a flat, forbidding expression from Kratos.]

[So Yuan comes to find Zelos on the floor, and his boots tap an even rhythm against the floor before he stops, and looks down at Zelos.]

[Eventually he sighs.]

It's a different case, for humans who have had aionis. Not only is the crystal trying to give you a new way to communicate, but it's trying to activate a sense you don't have, as well.

[Yuan considers a little longer, and settles to the ground to put them on somewhat more of an even level.]

I'm starting to think talking to Lloyd so regularly is hindering your development.

DADLINESS; assassination assignation

[simulsimul]

[As expected, it doesn't take much time to find the ninja. Tracking the Chosen group's expected route, and scouting the surrounding areas, yields results -- particularly since many of the tracks and traps are places the Renegades are familiar with, and which they had recommended to Sheena as potential ambush locations.

[By the time Sheena arrives at the base, the Chosen's group has made it back to Triet, and are preparing for the trek across the other side of the desert and up into the mountains. There are a few nomadic villages between Triet and the Trail, and at least one small mining town in the Trail itself, and a few other scattered farms and homesteads between them and the coast; but Triet is the largest town they'll see for a while.

[Even still it seems to Botta that they're moving slowly, but perhaps they're trying to seek some evidence of Kratos. His scouts' reports indicate the group is still withdrawn from the loss. It's a bit alarming; some indication of his well-being may help them continue on with some degree of resolve.

[This is but one of the reports Botta has in hand as he leads Sheena through the base, having come to see her in personally as soon as their agents see her in the door. He's silent as he does so, absently considering, as if this occasion represents just one in many administrational challenges and not a major shift on their plans.]

[conductingresistance]

[It was kind of a bait and switch, if they asked Sheena. Which they hadn't. First they send her out to assassinate the Chosen, and now they're calling her back just as she approaches one of the apparently best ambush sites?]

[She's met Botta once before. He is just as much a wall of muscle as Sheena remembers, and just as stoic.]

What's this about?

[She isn't really expecting an answer before they meet up with the illustrious leader, but it's worth trying.]

[Yuan has acquired Kratos -- without handcuffs -- and is waiting in the shared office, not quite scowling at Kratos.]

DADLINESS; a question of shaveability

[simulsimul]

[After Sheena is sent off with instructions and Kratos's locket, life at the base becomes unexpectedly and interminably difficult. Although one could argue that Kratos's time spent in Iselia was, essentially, a holding pattern, the idea of events occurring beyond these walls and Kratos even can't get in on them is almost more than he can bear.

[He takes a long time to act, it's true. But once he does, he finds it hard to stop moving until all is complete. Always, always, moving forward. And now he can't do that. Now, he's confined to this ridiculously convoluted and electrical base.

[Once his work on the mana data is done, Kratos occupies his time with reading through Yuan's library and sneaking out of his room without his guards. This mostly occurs by using the ventilation shafts he's noted, and mapping the system, followed by dutiful reports on the ventilation's state of cleanliness whenever he's inevitably found and returned.

[This, naturally, inevitably results in handcuffs. Which results in Kratos using those implements to pick the lock. Which leads to curries in the kitchen. Which leads to an inspection of his room and possessions. Which leads to more handcuffing.

[It's something to do. Even Kratos can only take so much waiting, with so much at stake; somehow, waiting was much easier when he was wearing his cruxis crystal. Waiting is also easier when he can keep his skills up to level, even if those skills involve evading his guards in increasingly creative ways.

[So waking up properly handcuffed to his bed, and having to wait to be released, is not precisely an oddity after a while. Waking up needing to shave, however, is.]

[conductingresistance]

[The reports about the cleanliness of the ductwork are really just insulting. On the upside, Yuan is patching all kinds of holes in his security. Kratos has only himself to thank for the increased difficulty of his escapes as time goes on.]

[Yuan does occasionally still find the need to shave Kratos in his sleep. It's ridiculous. But he ascribes it to the not-quite-hostile exchange of inconveniences between them, and keeps doing it. It hasn't gotten any more strange or correct to see Kratos with a beard or even significant amounts of stubble.]

[Today, when he heads into Kratos's room to uncuff him -- having desired not to wake up to a concerned junior officer telling him that Aurion is in the ventilation again and they don't really know which way he went -- Yuan pauses at the door to fold his arms and stare disapprovingly at Kratos and the unacceptable levels of scruff.]

[He has personal grooming items available to him. This is clearly just spite.]

[...Probably.]

I see you're awake. Good morning.

TITANS; restoration

[simulsimul]

[By the time morning arrives, Kratos has some understanding of the shape of the scars in his mana, if not any idea what to do about it. He has some healing artes, but as neither a half-elf or elf, he's never really studied the nature of mana in that fashion; and his own artes, in this instance, are throttled in their tracks by those scars.

[Botta, those few times Kratos pays him any mind, does not seem to have moved at all, though he's developing an impressive stack of correspondence.

[Not longer after Kratos feels the mana of sunlight striking the stone walls of Asgard, Raine stirs. Kratos turns his head just enough to see whether the stir heralds an awakening. The scratch of Botta's quill stops, and he looks up, and rises.]

Tea.

[Did you--? It's a query sent Yuan's way, a tad bemused, with an undercurrent of wondering whether Botta may actually be able to read minds in some fashion.]

[conductingresistance]

[Yuan shakes his head. I have long since given up wondering what I did to deserve his service. Botta is simply Botta.]

[He almost expects to feel weariness in his bones, these days, when it comes clear they've been awake all night. Those years in Iselia were an adjustment, and Yuan remembers what it is to be mortal again. But today there is no tiredness: only being.]

[Raine is awake, as it transpires, slitting her eyes open to decide how alert she needs to be and finally sitting up to stretch her arms over her head. With the care of long practice she works her way free of the knot of children without waking anyone, and she drops her blankets in such a way that they'll keep the sun from Genis's eyes for a little while longer.]

[She stands, and feels the angels' eyes upon her. There is only a brief pause for bemusement when she sees how Kratos and Yuan have settled; Raine assumes anyone would need comfort, after nightmares that bad.]

Is everything all right?

[This she says barely louder than a breath, trusting their advanced hearing to catch what won't wake the children.]

[We'd like your assistance, Yuan passes her. Raine does not look surprised at all.]

MERCENARY; a change of heart

[choiced]

[Zelos is right. It's over a week before he manages to get to the library again. When he finally gets the go-ahead, it takes him hours to convince his escort that it's totally okay to wait at the end of the hall, because Nethan did it before and Zelos was fine.

All in all, Zelos's good mood is a little dampened by the time he walks inside. Not too far dampened, though.]

Yuan?

[He's not wearing the sling anymore. His shoulder's still tender, but at least he can move it, and he's even been fighting again. His hair looks like he tried to braid it back, but since his hair isn't long enough for that, it's more of a short twirl than a braid.]

You didn't leave, did you? I've got good news. Yuan?

[conductingresistance]

[In the interim, Yuan has done no small amount of work.]

[Including purloining an unused set of robes from the Church and warping into the Pope's rooms in the middle of the night in a display of divine light.]

[He is going to talk about neither of these. There's a shelving cart absolutely full of old, old volumes in near view, and it takes a moment or two before Yuan appears from deeper into the archive in response to Zelos's call.]

[Today, his hair is braided, but it's a simple, unornamented queue.]

There you are. Good news?

MERCENARY; young Lloyd and a telling fight

[choiced]

[Yuan's an angel.

That's a fact Zelos discovered when he was twelve, and talked Yuan into taking him along on what he thought would be a short trip to visit Yuan's friend and turned out instead to be a foray into a whole other world called Sylvarant.

Now he's fourteen, and the fact is part of his everyday life. Apart from conversations in the library being a lot more interesting, not much has changed. Yuan still barely leaves the library, and one of the few times he does is for the weekly spar with Nethan and the rest of the Imperial Guard. It was weird at first, watching the matches knowing Yuan's an angel and not being able to say anything; now it's just cool.

And now, Zelos joins in. He's old enough for Nethan to insist on it.]

You can even spar Yuan if the mood takes you.

[Zelos laughs. Shakes his head.] I'll start with you. [A little louder so Yuan can definitely hear:] He needs a break to rest, anyway. He's getting old.

[conductingresistance]

[So Yuan's gotten used to the regular sparring. It's odd, having this level of acceptance; but it's an odd he's gotten used to, after a while.]

[He still prefers Zelos to Nethan, and Nethan to most of the other guards, but no one seems to begrudge him that. And anyone with things to say about him being a half-elf has often been on the receiving end of meaningful stares, or teenaged Chosen scathing rebuke.]

[There are worse places and ways to live.]

[Today, however, Yuan is scowling at Zelos. He's old, but he's hardly aged.]

You're welcome to try telling me that while we're sparring.

[Said with a very carefully obvious tone of jest: as much as he has grown more assured of his place here, it is still not something a half-elf can entirely afford to joke with.]

BONDVERSE; not exactly first impressions

[simulsimul]

[Days have been bleeding into each other for what seems like an eternity now. Most of Kratos's recent memories are hazy, right up until that vividly cutting memory of Nike's death and despair on the wings of pain from his leg. He knows they must have healed him, because he's alive; but he can barely hobble. Not that he gets much opportunity.

[He isn't the only one.

[Being processed is one dank, crowded cell after another, until they arrive in Nidavellir. They're not treated badly, exactly; not individually badly. They're fed, they're watered, they're given blankets. There's no point in selling POWs if they can't do their jobs, whatever that might be. The guards talk about it like it's a common-sense way of the war making returns to the people, and the people funding the war.

[Kratos isn't sure what kind of war is going on now. He's barely seen sunlight for days.

[They're split at the auction house -- Kratos is in the group not fit for much other than minor tasks. He's the highest rank there; most of the others try not to look at him. He doesn't know if that's pity or anger. It says something, a commander being relegated to this position -- let alone someone of his name. Within that group, he's one of the few marked for private sale. Someone's got an interest. A few someones. He's been listening to the guards.

[There's only one 'someone' they bother to talk about with any regularity, and not with respect. They never use his name, but there's only one half-elf of any rank in the Sylvaranti military. So Kratos is not precisely surprised when the guards come for him to tell him he's been bought by that someone. He just puts his hands through the bars so they can chain him, and waits for the door to be opened, and tries to ignore the innuendo.]

He wants you bad, Aurion. Thought I'd seen a half-elf throw themselves on someone before, but this is just pitiful.

[The walk past the other cells and into the lobby is slow, owing to Kratos's leg. No one's bothered to shackle his feet; he's not going anywhere fast. He wishes it doesn't take so long, doesn't give the guards so much time to gossip. He's never spoken to Yuan before -- but it's hard not to doubt a man he assumed might have integrity, after living like this, after hearing everything the guards have to say.

[When the door into the lobby opens, the light seems blinding.]

[conductingresistance]

[Here is the thing: when Yuan had first heard that Kratos was captured, he had assumed that was it. Aurion, enemy officer, there was very little chance of him not being executed.]

[When he hears that Kratos has been spared on his sister's request, he can't begin to guess if it was love or hatred. What he can do is guess where Kratos will wind up -- among the prisoners of war slated for slavery as some measure of "repayment" for the costs of the war -- and set things into motion to attempt to acquire him before someone else does. Yuan cannot imagine anyone on this side having good intentions for an Aurion.]

[It costs more than he would like, and Yuan is under no illusions about why. He has to call in more favors than is ideal, too. He saved the life of a spouse of someone in the business of brokerage; it is something he reminds her of with little regret.]

[He knows what people must be saying. Yuan has not been subtle about this quest, too impatient and too driven to bother. But he's no stranger to those sorts of rumors, either, and so he pretends he does not hear, and he carries himself tall and rigid, and waits for Kratos to be brought out to him.]

[Theoretically, Yuan understands that capable warriors are often carefully lamed when they are taken into this kind of service. He knows the conditions prisoners are kept in; he has no illusions that Kratos will be treated kindly. All the same some part of him expects to see Kratos as he always had, broad-shouldered and straight-backed and impossibly fluid in motion with a sword.]

[What he sees when Kratos is brought out seems more like the ghost of his erstwhile rival. Yuan entertains this flight of fancy for about two seconds before dismissing it. What else had he expected? He watches Kratos's pace, his bearing, and aches for the strangest of losses.]

[But life isn't nothing, after all.]

[Yuan's mouth is a flat line by the time he takes the lead-chain from one of the guards. The look on the man's face makes it quite plain what he thinks. Yuan is -- mostly -- inured to this by now, and favors him with a narrow-eyed glance in turn.]

I have it from here.

[He does outrank them, after all; and he is still in uniform, with the braid in his hair a form-perfect indication of his rank additional. Yuan does not get the argument he might have gotten, and when the guards have gone he looks back to Kratos with no idea what to expect. This was as far as he'd planned. After acquiring Kratos had seemed somehow less important.]

...how well can you walk?

[Yuan assumes they'd both like to be spared the indignity of needing to carry Kratos. It means reassessing his initial plans, but better done now than later.]

BONDVERSE; acclimatisation

[simulsimul]

[Life is awkward, at first, which is not unexpected; but it's less awkward than it could be, which is an odd occurrence. It's ... simple. Discomfortingly simple. Kratos keeps waking up expecting there to be something else to do, and every time, he's thrown by the idea that he has nothing more responsible than housework. Which, to be fair, is responsible enough. Maintaining a home is a foundational sort of task; it holds up everything else. Still, it's ... not what Kratos is used to.

[The house and surrounds are, also, something to which to become accustomed. The wind he isn't sure he'll ever start accepting; but the windowless rooms and the stone walls start becoming unexpectedly comforting after a while.

[True to estimate, Yuan returns to duty only a couple of days after he brought Kratos home. It leaves the house a little emptier, makes it ... lonely isn't the word Kratos would use. But it makes the work seem less like it's of benefit, without someone around to do it for. It's an odd feeling which Kratos ignores, since Yuan certainly benefits from it when he arrives home.

[The chores are not as easy as Kratos anticipated, not because they're difficult in themselves, but because they're difficult for him in his current state. Everything takes much longer than he estimates, unless he can sit down; he learns to overestimate, to account for walking time. The markets for this area aren't far, but they're far enough that it makes his leg ache by the time he gets home, and it usually takes him hours. Then he needs to attend to his leg as per the healer's recommendations. (He ignores the looks he gets. People seem more likely to walk away in a hurry than look at him. He can live with that.)

[The house takes a while to get clean, but ironically, once that's done it's easy enough for Kratos to maintain to the point where on non-market days he finds himself at a loss for things to do unless he wants to take the risk of being caught loitering.

[Once that occurs Kratos occupies himself with cooking, at first. It seems safe enough, and the extra food can't go amiss, especially if Yuan takes it to headquarters. (The tomato plant in the corner of the living-room gets a sternly baleful look every time he passes it. He really needs to ask Yuan about getting rid of it, but it seems a little too presumptuous at this early stage.)

[It's a routine. It's easy to get into, after a fashion. Not unlike a sword pattern, except that it isn't nearly as challenging. Even when Kratos puts the whole of his mind to each task, in order to overcome the ache in his leg, soon enough the task is over. And there's only so much he can do that with dusting.

[He's getting bored. He can't remember the last time he got bored, and yet here he is, a technical slave to a Sylvaranti half-elven commander, reaching for something extra to do. He's taken to pulling out Yuan's armour just to polish it, despite the fact he has no orders for deployment. The armour leads to doing the same with Yuan's boots. And the books are taunting him. Kratos has nothing against reading. He would be perfectly happy to spend an hour or two reading. But he can't read them; they're mostly in elven or a dialect of Sylvarant which he doesn't understand. The few he does understand can only take him so far.

[So, six weeks into being owned, Kratos is leaning on his cane in the living-room entrance and eyeing the tomato plant speculatively, and wondering if Yuan would truly miss it all that much.]

[conductingresistance]

[Before Yuan realizes it they've settled into a routine.]

[At first it's odd, having a housemate, having a human in a space that's always been his. He is observed, and he is not alone. But Yuan did the inviting, after all, and before three weeks are out he's come to expect the solid shadow of Kratos's presence, and the lighter whisper of his mana. He isn't a threat. He's simply there.]

[And as it goes, the sense of another person eases into something he doesn't want to avoid. ...So long as it's this person; the population at large are just as irritating and judgmental as they've ever been.]

[The kitchen gets re-arranged. At first it's only a little; but even so Yuan has to stop himself bristling every time Kratos mentions a change to him. He did give permission, and somehow the kitchen has become Kratos's domain, and he refuses to be that kind of a master.]

[Inasmuch as he is a master at all; both of them are aware, though they do not speak of it, that this is a fair distance from any typical arrangement. Yuan has his doubts about friendship, given their origins, given that by all the standards of his country he owns Kratos and it's an imbalance not easily corrected, when he holds Kratos's fate; but sometimes it feels like there could be.]

[So: it's odd still, only in different ways.]

[With the housework and the cooking done, it leaves Yuan actual free time in the evenings, when he returns home-- though he's often still exhausted. It's pleasant. Suddenly he has time to read, or experiment gently with new arrangements and patterns of mana, things too fragile and unusable yet to be worth dedicating time to on the training grounds.]

[Although suddenly, this evening, he's having occasion to wonder what in the world Kratos is thinking. It isn't the first time he's given Yuan's plants odd looks. Yuan makes his way past Kratos into the room, attempts to track his eyeline, and gives up on guessing what the problem there might be. Tomatoes should be inoffensive.]

Do you have something against all my plants, or this one in specific?

[The question is dry, and has the rasp to its edge that Yuan's voice often does, but there's no especial accusation in it.]

BONDVERSE; respective duties

[simulsimul]

[The conversation after the naturalisation of Tethe'allan POWs changed the tenor of the household. It had rarely been awkward, but afterward it was definitely more comfortable, to a degree that when Kratos realises how much more settled he felt, he finds himself fighting off a wave of homesickness -- as if his emotions are trying to remind him where he was really from.

[Kratos makes himself quietly known at the military headquarters, travelling in with Yuan twice a week to perform some chores and run some messages to ease the burden of work on Yuan's shoulders. He recommends some people who can benefit from the quiet aid of a high-ranking officer, ensuring those people always know it's Yuan to thank. So far, no one's actually thanked him in person, that Kratos can tell -- but the greetings seem warmer, and opinions softened, where gossip is concerned. It's a start.

[He sees some evidence of the naturalisation around, as well. Before, the Tethe'allan slaves had nodded to one another but otherwise left each other alone. Now, those who choose citizenship receive anything from flat glares to stony cold shoulders from the ones who don't. Kratos sees someone from his old regiment serving people at a stall at the market; the man's sales pitch cuts off with a strangle when he realises who Kratos is, and he's unable to look Kratos in the face thereafter. Kratos tries not to judge, and fails -- but he manages to keep it off his face. The man's guilt does enough, without Kratos's feelings adding to it. The slave-braid, on a Tethe'allan, represents loyalty these days.

[That isn't a good thing, in some respects. People aren't happy about Tethe'allans receiving citizenship, but the law now protects the ones that do. They're also not happy by the stirrings of defiance owned by the Tethe'allans who choose to keep their slave-braids. Tethe'allan slaves are the logical targets of this kind of grudge.

[At first Kratos manages to escape this. Only at first. Then his market trips become an exercise in stubbornness seeing him through. It's mostly youths -- people young enough to claim age as a defence, but still know precisely what they're doing; possibly even endorsed by someone older. He can't tell.

[But his market trips start taking longer, so he starts them early -- to avoid the risk of Yuan coming home before he's back. He can't afford not to take his cane; but he starts regretting that Yuan had bought him such a sturdy one. He covers his basket, and starts buying some cheap items appealing to children, in the hope they'll settle for stealing those and leave the rest alone. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it results in his groceries strewn across a footpath.

[It's wearing, but Kratos continues grimly on. He can handle bruises, and the youths are careful not to hurt his face, those times they're moved to violence. The time he spent trying to bring his bad leg up to a satisfactory standard is valuable, but stops mattering after a while. Every step is pain. Still, he perseveres.

[... Right up until his leg collapses on him in a stairwell at the military facility, and he winds up tumbling down the steps with a Tethe'allan curse. At the bottom he lays for a moment, winded, before pulling himself up on the wall, hoping no one saw. He'd been alone in the stairwell -- surely no one had seen.

[It might be best if he rests for a minute, here against the wall.]

[conductingresistance]

[How much simpler things become with Kratos after that conversation are a minor miracle; and Yuan can't help but think, every once in a while, that it's a good thing he didn't just turn and walk out of the kitchen then and there.]

[He isn't entirely expecting the shift in attitudes toward those who look obviously Tethe'allan and still wear the slave-braid, but it follows. He isn't precisely surprised at it happening, either, and Yuan resolves to keep something of a closer eye on Kratos, in case he encounters a difficulty at the markets or elsewhere.]

[He doubts anything would happen where he can see it and do something about it, and he also doubts that Kratos would actually tell him if something did happen, preferring instead to handle things on his own, and so Yuan is casting even a sharper eye than before over Kratos these days. Some people might mistake it for suspicion; he doesn't particularly care if they do. Kratos will understand, he hopes. Or speak up to clarify.]

[This particular day Kratos isn't back from carrying a message when Yuan expects him. It might be nothing. It might not be. Still, it's wise to be sure the message actually did get delivered.]

[Or at least, that will be the justification Yuan gives if anyone questions him when he goes looking for Kratos, tracing the route he would most likely have taken. And Kratos is...]

[Kratos is on the ground, actually, which is some measure of concerning given his cane is some distance away. At least he's sitting up against the wall, not sprawled, but it's enough to make Yuan take the rest of the stairs down to him at a good clip, and his first stop is to collect the cane before he crouches next to Kratos.]

What happened?