017: Forever

[beautifultragedy]

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Story: Forever
Summary: Kratos has been on Derris-Kharlan for what feels like forever
Notes: Written for my favorite little sister, vangirl. Also, it has very literally been years since I either played or wrote fanfic for ToS, so, uh... things may be off. Finally, I haven't played Dawn of the New World yet. So there's that. Hope it's not too bad. XD

His footsteps echoed hollow as he walked. The halls of Welgaia were long abandoned; he wasn't sure how long he was there, alone. Oh, of course Yuan was there; but Kratos hadn't seen him in a very long time. In fact, he didn't even really remember what their last argument was about.

Yuan must have, though. Kratos knew their spats were forgotten when Yuan stopped avoiding him. This time, though, Kratos was lonely; perhaps Yuan would accept an olive branch from Kratos this time.

With that in mind, Kratos changed his route to Yuan's "side" of the angel city. That was another thing they had done aeons ago: they had once argued about being in each other's spaces, and their solution was to divide the city in half. For a while, they would attack each other in earnest if they dared to trespass; then one day, the skirmish was playful, a mere sparring match.

Kratos wondered idly which it would be today. He was just over the threshold when he thought better of venturing into Yuan's territory unprepared and loosened his sword in its scabbard. Only a few steps later, the awful alarm Yuan rigged to go off if Kratos crossed a certain point did so; the auburn-haired man grimaced and yanked his sword out of its sheath.

He was a second too slow. Kratos gasped as Yuan slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. The blue-haired half-elf tumbled down on top of him; Kratos let go of his sword to wrap his arms around his attacker, trying to hold him still.

Yuan cursed and struggled violently to break Kratos' hold. "Damn it, Yuan, stop it!" Kratos snapped. "I'm not here to fight!"

"Ha! After what you did to me?! Tough! You're going to!"

"What did I do?"

Abruptly, Yuan stopped struggling. He pulled up a little; feeling that he was no longer resisting, Kratos slackened his hold enough to let him. Yuan stared hard into Kratos' eyes, searching; he saw searching in return, and puzzlement.

Finally, Yuan replied, "What did you do?"

"I don't remember."

"Has it been that long?"

"I suppose so."

Yuan sat up and rolled off Kratos. "If you came here to find out what you did wrong, you can just go home," he groused.

"Actually, I didn't."

"Then why?"

Kratos shrugged. "I suppose you could say boredom and loneliness."

"Hmph." Yuan pulled himself to his feet and Kratos did the same. The human picked up his sword and sheathed it, and then turned to his companion. "I suppose that if you haven't yet forgiven me, I shall take my leave of you," he said. "That was plenty excitement to assuage my boredom, at least."

"No, it's fine. There's no point to holding a grudge if I can't even remember the origin of it," Yuan said, waving a hand dismissively. "Although I'm not sure what entertainment you think you'll find here that you don't have over there."

A hint of a smile cracked Kratos' stoic features. "I'm not going to be violently assaulted over on my side, am I?"

Yuan, in response, smiled broadly. "Be careful what you wish for, Kratos."

Kratos rolled his eyes as he shook his head. "I'm not interested in fighting you."

"Perhaps sparring, though?"

He eyed Yuan dubiously. Despite ages together, Kratos and Yuan never truly grew to trust each other again, and this situation was no different. Kratos wasn't sure that he wanted to even spar with him after that show of aggression.

Still, Yuan seemed pretty eager for his company, now that he was here. "Perhaps," Kratos said, "after we've talked for a while."

Yuan's face fell, and he made a dismayed noise. "What could we possibly have to talk about?" he protested.

"It's been a really, really long time. Surely you've something to talk about by now."

"Kratos, we are hurtling aimlessly through space on a giant meteorite. We are the only living beings here and we haven't seen a populated planet in years. That means there isn't any new reading material. Tell me what we could possibly talk about."

"Tell me how you spend your days."

"You first."

"Well, I..." His companion's command took him by surprise. "I spend it copying my books, mostly. They were ancient when we started this journey. They are beginning to degrade beyond repair; I'm hoping to be faster than the effects of time."

Yuan nodded in approval. "That is a surprisingly good way to pass the time. I think I'll start doing that as well. That said, it certainly sounds like you could do with some sparring after all."

Kratos sighed a heavy, martyred sigh and said, "You aren't going to leave this alone until we rough each other up, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Very well. Let us begin."


~*~

An hour later saw the two angels exhausted but satisfied. Despite Kratos' lack of practice, Yuan was surprised to find that his opponent gave him a decent workout.

There was little discussion after that, only held while the pair rested. Kratos quietly set to copying Yuan's books while Yuan headed to the command center to change their trajectory. It had been a very long time since they'd visited Aulderant; both were curious to see how they were getting along.

Yuan then joined Kratos in his copying. They had a long way to go before they reached their destination, so they came up with a schedule: Kratos would copy one of Yuan's books, then go back to his own side and copy one of his. Meanwhile, they'd dedicate one day to sparring every few days. It was the perfect balance: they'd have each other’s companionship while not being around each other long enough to get on the other's nerves.

It helped pass the time, as well. Soon they were in the command area of Welgaia, preparing to disembark from Derris-Kharlan.

And found there was nothing to disembark to.

The pair stared at the window into space; large, dark chunks of rock greeted them, surrounded by stars. Both of them knew what this meant. "Yuan," Kratos said, "is there any chance you got it wrong?"

"Absolutely not."

"But Aulderant isn't there."

"I can see that."

The pair were silent for several moments longer, a vague, detached sense of mourning in the air. Although they were so old that they remembered little of their lives there, Aulderant had been their home. Kratos sighed heavily. "Well, I suppose that's that."

"I suppose so." As they turned away together, Yuan asked, "Do you suppose we're the only living beings left?"

"Of course we aren't," Kratos scoffed. "And even if we are, the elves of Derris-Kharlan brought life to a dead planet once. We're going through our books. I'm sure we'll come across a chronicle of how it was done."

"Yes, Kratos. Because that clearly worked so well the first time it was done."

"You don't know why it was destroyed, though. It could have been something entirely out of its people's control." When Yuan's gaze turned dubious, Kratos looked away. "Regardless of why they were destroyed, I can't just do nothing. Lloyd fought so hard to save it."

"That was so long ago," Yuan said nostalgically. "Sometimes I miss Botta and the others."

"It seems like yesterday, doesn't it?"

Again, the incredulous look crossed Yuan's features. "What are you talking about?" he said. "That happened thousands of years ago, if not tens of thousands."

Kratos stared at him hard, trying to count the years in his head. Having finished his calculations, Kratos brushed a hand across his eyes. "Not quite ten thousand," he said tiredly, "But close. Forever doesn't seem all that long right now."

Comments

[vangirl]

Oh this was lovely. There's a lot of emotional undercurrent at the end in the subtext without being overt about it, in contrast to the beginning. You're writing has really improved a lot as well.

Thank you so much for this! ♥