For the majority of the time he's been sitting on the kitchen floor, Lloyd's been half-in and half-out of his own mind. No more vivid imagery flashes before his eyes, but he'll get small things - the sound of swords clashing together, a muffled, anguished plea for Zelos to stop, the terrible sound of a rapier falling to the floor, the hand that held it going limp. They're not flashbacks, no, but they're the aftershocks, the things that do nearly as much damage with less fanfare.

He's tired of them. Lloyd no longer has the energy to shut his memories out of his mind best he can, just accepting their presence and suffering through them silently, his numb emotional core barely even processing anything outside of the noises and the things he can see in this world he's in, familiar but not quite, a house of mirror's reflection of the things he knows.

Anna starts speaking, so he tries to follow along. It's best he understands the way this world works, after all, so he eats a pancake he's not hungry for to keep up the charade of being a normal human - (He hasn't been hungry in months. The scars on his shoulder blades burn.) - and keeps quiet, reading Anna's lips when he's not able to catch the words she says past the white noise that blares in his mind.

Malos fetches Zelos and they leave. Before Zelos places the mask on his face, Lloyd sees fierce anxiety, the kind that made his own Zelos' eyebrows pinch together, that caused a wrinkle on the bridge of his nose to show itself. Anxiety morphs into discomforting, quiet terror, the way his eyes lose their edge and his mouth pulls taut. Lloyd knows these emotions, has seen them on every one of his friends, has seen them in the mirror. Experiences haunt, but memories kill.

Lloyd shakes his head, ridding himself of the desire to reach a hand out and comfort him. He doesn't know this Zelos. That'd be out of line.

Anna keeps going, and slowly, the emotional core that went numb after his episode in the forest behind the house turns itself back on. There is confusion, first, of the way this world works, of how Aegises can just be created by humankind, be used against their will, and then it deepens out, his stomach churning as the lesson continues. Canons. They made fucking canons.

The connections aren't lost on Lloyd. Mana canons have a similar purpose and a similar effect, but given that summons are picky about who they create pacts with, their powers are often used willingly. That willing transfer of mana makes the process harmless to spirits, makes sure that they feel almost nothing if anything at all. This - what this version of his world has happening - they're siphoning what is essentially the lifeforce of these Aegises, of these people who just so happened to be born differently, to be born with different powers and culture and history.

Furiousness boils to the top of his chest, pounding in time to his quickening heartbeat, and he can feel his lips pull back into a snarl. Suddenly, Zelos' fear makes sense. It makes way too much sense.

(Suddenly, Lloyd sees falling snow, feels the cold brush at his neck where his coat opens. "I never wanted to be the Chosen. I spent every moment of my life wishing I could run away.")

This world, it's just as cruel to so many people as his own. Exspheres are blades, cruxis crystals are Aegises, life forces being used up and crumbled away as though the lives that held them are worth nothing. The people in power sit back and watch this happen, happy to keep endless wars going, pleased to see the decline in innocent life, content by the idea of endless, power and wealth, and people like Zelos and Colette, people born into things they never wanted and could never control - they're left to take the blame. They're the ones that face the people, that are trapped in their cages to be flashed around but never truly loved or cared for.

Lloyd clenches his fists, and the words escape his mouth before he thinks about them. "How do we break these canons apart?"