Broken Wings
N.W. 4408
The Gift of Hope

The gateway of the Ginnungagap was open again, Lloyd mused as he returned to the seal from visiting the line of graves that existed not too far away.

A part of him realized that he'd been down here for centuries, and really should have left a long time ago. He had come down here to tighten the seal, and sleep, and he'd done both, the latter probably in excess.

But a part of him had a mind to simply stay for another few centuries... or millennia. Make this his realm, and give him a bit of purpose in his self-imposed exile.

The sound of armored boots clunk-clunking against the packed ground outside the seal snapped him out of his musings, and that wasn't the only sound that reached his ears.

Cloth swishing back and forth, another, much softer set of footsteps, and swishing hair.

Lloyd reacted, vanishing out of the open space that had been Ratatosk's sanctuary once. They hadn't seen him yet, and while he had a feeling one of them might have been the swordsman Origin had sent to him hundreds of years ago... well.

The other wasn't, and there was no telling what, exactly, Origin's other option had been. Although Lloyd had his suspicions as the duo approached the seal.

Cress was a familiar face. Decked out in the same armor and red cape he'd worn when he'd first approached Lloyd, he also didn't appear to have aged at all. So, either Origin had sent him back from this point in time, or...

Lloyd desperately squashed that 'or' and hoped that the boy hadn't been that foolish.

"So... Big empty dead end," the pink-haired woman beside him said.

Lloyd very carefully checked her mana.

Half-elf. And for her to look to be somewhere in her early thirties, she had to be a couple hundred years old already. Though, at a glance, she did look younger. It was the hair, Lloyd decided.

Still...

He dropped to the ground from his hiding place near the ceiling. "You should leave this place. The gateway won't stay open for long." And he really didn't want to have to open it for them.

Cress shrugged. "Origin's holding it open, more for Arche than for me."

Lloyd felt his stomach drop. That meant...

"So, is this where you've been hiding for the last three hundred years? Eek. No wonder it took us a whole frickin' century to find you," the woman commented. Heh, her voice still sounded young, too.

But... a century... So, the kid had already been an angel for a time, then.

Any human friends would already be gone. That explained the half-elf.

But she wouldn't last forever, either.

Lloyd shot one more look at the swordsman before turning and standing in front of the seal once again.

It looked... wrong. The Cores were gone, the colors faded, and he could see the miasma of Niflheim with ease, though he knew it wouldn't be breaking through any time soon.

There was no biting sarcasm waiting for him here as there had been four thousand years ago. No quiet sentinel, and no fond exasperation.

Ratatosk, Richter, and Tenebrae were long gone. Along with everyone else Lloyd had ever loved.

Cress would understand soon enough. Arche had to be at least two hundred already. Which meant she had, at most, eight hundred years left.

"Lloyd," Cress spoke up, his voice carrying hints of a mild threat. "If I must send Arche back alone, I will."

So, that was it, then.

Origin had told Cress to kill him and end his suffering... or join him.

He scoffed at the thought.

That part of him that wanted to stay in the Ginnungagap for another few centuries reared up, tempting him to do it just to spite Origin and the foolish boy he'd managed to talk into this.

But, at the same time...

He glanced back, meeting blue-gray eyes, and realized that he might as well try to out-stubborn himself, from back when he actually had a reason to live.

Origin wouldn't settle for anything less, he supposed. And... The last few hundred years had been spent mostly asleep, recovering from his near-millennium of madness, and with the rest had come some clarity.

He'd been alone, completely and totally alone, since he'd found out about Kratos. He'd nullified his pact with Origin, and in his avoidance of Martel, he'd abandoned Dhaos as well.

He'd never been meant to be so completely isolated, he knew.

And while he was still pissed with Martel, and wanted nothing to do with her...

Origin had been like a brother to him after Colette's death. And Cress...

Lloyd could see it in the storm-colored eyes that dared him to argue. He could see the shadows of loss, the heartache of losing someone loved above one's own life.

Loss and heartache that seemed to have been Lloyd's only friend these last thousand years.

And... Maybe it would just mean more heartache and yet another name to add to his memorial eventually. But he'd go along with this for now, for one reason and one reason only.

He knew the torture that was loneliness.

Even if Cress eventually gave up on him, and Lloyd had to destroy another Cruxis Crystal, he may as well stick with the idiot. That half-elf, Arche... she'd be gone eventually, and all Cress would have left would be... Lloyd. The broken, tormented soul he hadn't had the heart to end when Origin had sent him back in time.

Origin had set it up like this, Lloyd realized, even as he nodded his reluctant consent to leave. He had set Cress up for the same torture that had been Lloyd's long life.

But as they reached the gateway out of the Ginnungagap, Lloyd couldn't help the tiny flicker of gratitude, and he knew it showed when Origin smiled at him.

He'd hold to his promise, he told himself as the spirit of creation vanished again. He wouldn't die, and he'd return to the Ginnungagap when needed... and when Cress gave up.

But... for a little while, at least... he wouldn't be alone.

Arche took to the sky riding a broom like a classical storybook witch, and in his surprise, Lloyd couldn't quite stop the snort that worked its way up and out of his throat.

Crimson flared, and Lloyd's own blue-green wings formed in seconds as he took off after Cress. None of the angels Lloyd had known in the past had had wings even close to the scarlet shade that adorned the blonde swordsman's back, and a part of Lloyd was grateful. It set Cress apart, kept Lloyd from aching for anyone in particular too badly.

"HEY! Last one to Eienmura is a rotten egg!"

The shout startled Lloyd, even as Cress rolled his eyes.

"Don't you have a daughter that just turned a hundred?" the blonde yelled back to the pink-haired half-elf already shooting off across the sky.

"GROWING OLD IS MANDATORY, GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL!"

Lloyd snorted again, truly amused by the woman's antics, even as Cress started chuckling. "And she wonders why Chester was always so annoyed with her..." The blonde turned to look back at Lloyd. "You know where the Ymir Forest is, right? Given how long the elves live, I don't think the name's changed recently..."

Something seemed to get glued back together within him, filling him with a warmth he'd thought long lost, and he smirked, wings stretching wide as he prepared to respond to Arche's challenge. "Please. Three hundred years in the Ginnungagap hasn't changed the fact that I'm the fastest thing in the sky."

Cress grinned right back and took off after Arche, clearly aware that she was currently leaving them in the dust. Not that she'd be the one kicking up the proverbial dust for long... Lloyd chuckled, very nearly surprising himself with the sound that came out of his throat.

It wasn't the harsh, humorless sound he'd grown so used to... but the light laughter that Corellia had so loved to hear when he was playing with their kids.

And, really... Arche and Cress were young. Maybe they didn't feel like it right now, with their human friends old or dying, but they were.

It was well past time he started making himself useful again. And, whether that use was keeping the humans from tearing themselves—and the world as a whole—apart, protecting the Ginnungagap, or just keeping Cress company... it gave him a purpose, a drive, a will to live.

"Don't die, Lloyd... my son."

Heh... Maybe Dad had had the right idea, after all.

Someone needed to keep the kids out of trouble.

But first things first...

Lloyd grinned and stopped dilly-dallying, shooting through the air and past both Cress and Arche, whose indignant shouting had him laughing once again.

Maybe... this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

And that's a wrap... at least until I finish getting Broken Sword written and edited. (Anyone willing to volunteer as a beta reader? My usual seems to have dropped off the face of the earth on me. No? I can go bug someone else if I have to...)

See you in the sequel eventually.