It’s with a bitter and twisted half-smile that Lloyd watches Mithos attempt to what he’s been told, all too aware of what that means for the both of them and what it means for what they’ve been through. The feeling of yet another betrayal of trust opens up Lloyd’s skin and sinks itself deep into the dermis, leaving what will end up a lasting scar to match the others Lloyd’s gained in the past year and a half. His blood bubbles in his body like furious lava, molten and unpredictable, just waiting to release itself on some unwilling victims, but Lloyd forces himself to keep a grip until he can release the worst of it in some form of training or fighting.

Mithos doesn’t deserve the brunt of it. It’s not his fault his father has thoroughly ruined their lives.

“At the end of the journey I went on back home,” Lloyd starts, exhaling hard to release some of the tension building up in his body, audible in the tone of his voice, “Kratos left. As in he left the planet. There was a comet named Derris-Kharlan, and he said it was his duty to take it away and find a new place for it.”

Lloyd laughs, something low and sick. “I thought he was going to eventually settle down on another planet. I didn’t think he’d fucking decide to make one. Where he got that power, I don’t know. All I know is that he was one of the three other people on my home planet that knew that song, that was an angel, and that he was the only one who was able to leave for space.”

He pops open the first button on his coat and reaches for the locket strung around his neck, being careful to keep the ring hanging from the chain hidden in his palm, and stares at it, sneering. “So much for honoring my mother’s memory,” Lloyd says, “he made a mockery of her suffering.”