Chapter Text
"I'd give all the wealth that years have piled, the slow result of life's decay,
To be once more a little child for one bright summer day."
Origin’s altar was so much simpler than the other Spirits’. Just a stone tablet, too clean to have been left entirely unattended out here. Lloyd was still catching his breath as Kratos limped towards it, his wings scattering exotic blue shadows across the ground.
A soft glow from his mana became brighter and brighter until they had to look away. And when Lloyd looked back, Kratos was gone. Literally. All that was left was a lumpy pile of his clothes.
“Kratos…”
The pile of clothes shifted until a tiny head popped up out of them. Big brown eyes blinked up at them under a mop of auburn hair. He looked around, shifting in place. “Dad?” His voice was thin and quiet, shaking under it all.
Colette moved first, kneeling in front of him. “Hello,” she said. Her soft voice always carried a hint of melody to it these days, perfect for speaking to tiny, frightened children. “I’m Colette.”
“’m Kratos.”
Lloyd tore his eyes away to look at Raine; had she ever heard of anything like this? But she looked just as baffled as they were.
“Do you know where you are?”
He shook his head, shivering a little in the breeze.
“Don’t worry—my friends and I can help you figure it out.” Colette removed her own coat to bring it around his shoulders. “Here. We don’t want you to catch a cold.”
The altar began glowing gold, bright as sunlight. It made Kratos jump, attaching himself to Colette’s arm. “C’mon,” she said. “Want me to carry you?”
“…’m too big to get carried. ‘s what Dad says.”
Lloyd managed to get his voice to work. “Don’t worry—Colette’s really strong!”
Little Kratos stared at him, not responding, but he didn’t fight Colette when she picked him up. “Kratos and I will stay out of the way over here,” she said. “I’m sorry you have to do the fight without me.”
Lloyd nudged her affectionately. “Don’t be silly. Like we all need to be at full strength to take this Origin guy on anyway.”
“Now you’ve gone and jinxed us,” Zelos complained.
Origin didn’t want to even attempt the pact. Their pleas fell on ears too stubborn and hurt to listen. Instead, his eyes went to the child in Colette’s arms and the pile of clothes before the altar.
“Kratos was willing to sacrifice his life for this!" Lloyd shouted, fists balled in frustration. There was no way they came this far to fail now. "He thought we were worth betting on against Mithos!”
“He is a sentimental fool,” Origin said. Even though his tone was soft, it still resonated with weight and power.
“Maybe! But he still decided that the world needs another try, even...even after all he’s seen and done.” Lloyd didn’t know what to do about how tired Kratos had looked after their duel. Proud, a little triumphant, but he’d never looked older than that moment. Like every one of those four thousand years had made itself known. “Please, let us try!”
“...You who possess the right of summoning. Make your vow.”
Lloyd’s limbs felt like lead after fighting Kratos and Origin back to back. But Kratos still remained a child, and they couldn’t very well bring him with them up to Derris-Kharlan like that. So they decided to all head back to Dirk’s.
“Dirk is my dad,” Lloyd told the child in Colette’s arms. “We can get you some clothes that fit and some food while we try and figure this out, okay?”
He couldn’t make out the first half of Kratos’ sentence, but he caught the end. “...my dad?”
“I don’t know where he’s at, but we’ll try and help you find him, okay?”
Kratos nodded, letting his head rest on Colette’s shoulder.
Kratos took to Dirk cautiously, but fairly easily. Especially after getting spooked by Noishe, who’d rambled up to him and nearly knocked him over. While they took their turns getting Healed and taking baths, he sat in a chair in the kitchen, watching silently. It was weird; the kids Lloyd knew—and remembered being—were fidgety and even when they were trying to be quiet, they still ended up making noise. But Kratos didn’t do any of that. He just sat there, and spoke only when spoken to.
“Is it like a status effect or something?” Lloyd asked Raine. “Can you do anything?”
“I can try. But I’m afraid I’ve never heard of something like this.”
Kratos sat easily for the examination. He was five, apparently, but to Lloyd’s admittedly unpracticed eye—he was a tiny five. Not underfed, but just...so small.
“Looks like being outside earlier got the beginnings of a cold.” Kratos’ eyes went big at Raine. “I’m going to give you a little bit of medicine to help you get better, okay?”
She measured out a capful of panacea, and even though Kratos made a face, he drank it without a word of complaint. A pause, but nothing. Then she tried a Dispel and a Nullify, but neither of them did anything either except make Kratos stare at her a little differently.
“He seems to be in perfect health, other than the obvious,” Raine told Lloyd after Dirk took Kratos to help him in the garden. “His mana level seems very low, but that’s not unexpected in a child.”
“We can’t just leave him here, can we?” Sheena asked.
“It’s not as if it’s an unsafe environment,” Regal pointed out. “And time is of the essence. We cannot allow Cruxis to continue.”
“There’s no one to take better care of him than Dad.” Lloyd was more certain of that than he was of gravity. “And Regal’s right—if we don’t beat Mithos, nothing else matters much.”
“What if Cruxis comes for him? He’s a huge vulnerability for them, and he’s easy to take out as a five year old.”
“That...does not seem likely,” Regal said slowly. His damp hair was curling around his ears. “He seemed quite sure that breaking the seal was going to cost him his life. Perhaps Mithos would be under the same impression and not even think to come looking for him.”
Lloyd leaned his shoulder on a support beam. He could hear Dirk’s murmur as he spoke to Kratos, the familiar cadence of patient explanation of what he was doing and why. They’d brought Kratos’ clothes and sword with them in a wing pack, unsure of what else to do. The sword currently sat at Lloyd’s hip. The weight wasn’t familiar at all—the balance of the sword different than anything he’d ever known, but it was comforting nonetheless. Steady as Kratos’ presence had been, back at the beginning of all this.
The rest of the group sat or stood around his dining room expectantly. They would’ve come here either way to restock and to rest before going to face Mithos. Nothing else had changed really.
“...I think we should keep going with our plan,” he said finally. “We rest here tonight and then go face Mithos in the morning. If Kratos is magically better overnight, great. If not, we—we didn’t think he’d be here anyway.”
The words stuck thick in his throat. It was a stupid decision of Kratos’, sacrificing his life for this. Every fiber in Lloyd’s being hated it. It was pure chance it hadn’t worked out that way. If Kratos ever recovered, he’d get an earful about it.
They won. The world shook itself back together, and Mithos’ resigned gaze burned itself into Lloyd’s memory. He’d looked like Kratos had—tired. Deeper than bone and heavier than stone.
And little Kratos had not gotten magically better overnight. They rotated Healing and falling into exhausted heaps. The familiar creaking of the fourth step from the top made Lloyd stir awake. A few moments later, Kratos shuffled into the room with a teatray.
His mouth moved, but Lloyd couldn’t hear anything. “Say it again? I couldn’t hear you.”
A minute flinch that made the items on the teatray rattle. Kratos’ voice came a little louder. “Dirk said to bring you this. Said it’d make you feel better.”
Lloyd waved him over to the bed, his arms weighing a thousand pounds each. As expected, the tray had some of Dirk’s tea, some awkwardly cut sandwiches, and two cookies.
“This looks tasty!” Lloyd helped him settle the tray on the bed. “Did you help him with it?”
Kratos nodded, pointing at the sandwiches.
“Nice job!” His smile was a crooked, slow thing, and he was missing two teeth. Lloyd couldn’t help smiling back, even if it took so much energy right now; Kratos was a cute kid.
The sandwich was the best tasting thing Lloyd had had ever. “Want some? Did you eat already?”
A shake of the head. Lloyd ushered him up onto the bed to sit with him and offered him the plate to pick one. Hesitating, Kratos took the smallest sandwich, munching on it. Lloyd poured some tea—yes, that was Dirk’s favorite get-better blend. Ginger, lemon and copious amounts of honey.
“You can have some tea too if you want. Dad always makes sooo much, it’s hard to drink.”
“...is my dad going to come get me?”
He’d never heard anything about Kratos’ parents, his upbringing, anything. He’d barely heard anything about his own mother, let alone any of his grandparents. “...We haven’t been able to track him down yet.”
“...He might not want me back.”
“What?”
“Maybe he don’t wanna be found ‘cause he doesn’t want me back.”
Kratos’ parents were more than four thousand years dead. That didn’t make the flash of rage any less overwhelming. It took Lloyd a minute to collect himself so he could speak calmly. “You’re not here ‘cause you’re in trouble. We like you, Kratos, and we’ll help you get back to where you need to be.”
“Okay.” But Kratos didn’t look like that had done anything to reassure him, and nothing Lloyd said would change his mind.
“I think we should call Yuan,” Sheena suggested as they did dishes the next day after breakfast. “He’s the only person who knew Kratos like that.”
Genis and Colette had taken Kratos to play. It had taken encouragement, like he wasn’t even sure how to play with other kids, and even now, he wasn’t loud when he caught them in tag or hide-and-seek. But he was smiling, and it looked like a good distraction for them too.
“He tried to kill him though.” Lloyd reached up to put a stack of dishes away. “How do we know he won’t do it again?”
“He did that ‘cause he was trying to control the Eternal Sword. I don’t think Kratos is in danger now that everything’s over.” Sheena scrubbed hard at a stubborn spot in one of the pans. “Besides, we beat him like three times now. We could do it again if he tries anything.”
“Ha, yeah, I guess so.” Fond pride curled in his chest. The Sheena he’d met almost a year ago wouldn’t have been able to talk like that. And even now, still recovering from the fight against Mithos, favoring one leg, her confidence was so steady.
“...It’s okay to feel weird about this, Lloyd. It’s a crazy situation.”
He ran the dishtowel over a serving dish, slow rotations as he turned thoughts over in his mind. “...You know that Dad said he looks like me?”
“Who—Kratos?”
“Yeah. Dad told me he looks a lot like me when he found me. I was close to the same age too.”
“They didn’t know my age when they found me, but they guessed I was kinda around four too.” Sheena’s hands stopped moving. “...We got really lucky, to be found by our families, huh?”
“We sure did.” Lloyd rolled his shoulders, breathing out. “Okay! Yeah, let’s call Yuan.”