summonerd | i just wanna know: who broke it?

Anna thinks about it for about two seconds and then decides to just go with the first thing that comes to mind, like always.

"Okay, so you know how you can like... feel Zelos, in your head? It's kind of like... throwing a blanket over that awareness you have of him."

Hmm. Actually, no, that was terrible.

"Well. Maybe not quite like that." Anna sighs and shrugs, helpless. "I wouldn't stress too much about it though, you'll figure it out. Just play around with it, a little. Ask Zelos, maybe. He'd probably love to help."

Sheena frowns a little at the description. It's a very Lloyd kind of thing to say, so it makes some sense but isn't at all the way she would have thought about it. "I think I get the concept," she says, slowly. Reaches for their connection to try it, but there isn't much of any strong emotion on her end to test it with, at the moment. It'll have to wait til later.

"Yeah, I will," she says, to both things Anna'd said, really. She's right, probably; she'd been able to distract him last night by asking him about the differences between their world, after all. It's easier to handle that kind of conversation - just Zelos telling her something she doesn't know - than it is to imagine the two of them being open with each other, at least. That's something. "Thanks." She smiles, grateful.

After the mess that have been these past two days, Zelos decides to get serious and spends most of this day observing his companions through miscellaneous interaction and formulating questions and theories at the back of his mind. So when he's not bothering Sheena or avoiding Anna out of shame, Zelos is hanging back with Lloyd and Malos instead. The latter is thankfully a little easier now after last night, talk of stars and culture and jokes flowing easily as they trek through otherwise undisturbed nature. Zelos still sticks to Malos' side more often than he does Lloyd's, though, the presence of a fellow blade more comforting than a human's, but at least the poor kid doesn't look like he's ready to cry and bolt it away any second anymore. Good, good.

Don't fuck that up again, Zelos.

Talking to the two humans non-native to Aselia makes him wonder. All the questions he'd fostered during his talk with Lloyd surface every now and then, as do the observations of their eth--their mana that Zelos gathered the night before. But that's not what catches his attention most of the time. Instead, Zelos focuses on something else entirely; something written on Lloyd and Sheena's faces from time to time, something about his initial meetings with the two of them that he really, really can't ignore.

So he waits.

He waits until nighttime hits, until their camp is set and someone else other than him offers to take first watch. He lets everyone else fret over who's doing what as soon as he makes sure that Sheena will be asleep during first watch, then settles down comfortably, making it a show out of finally going to sleep. This is a human issue, anyway. If the rest of their party has anything to discuss about keeping watch and sleeping and whatnot, then they can do it without Tethe'alla's Aegis in the picture.

Zelos closes his eyes. Waits, sleeps, falls, lands. Pings outward as an invitation and request.

And when he opens his eyes back up, he's standing on a green circle of green glass surrounded by green mist and void, standing right before a man covered in blood who once wore his face.

There's more people here, of course. Faces and presences that Zelos had never quite cared to focus on during his waking hours, a little sharper now that he gets to project this memory stored in his core back out into the dreamspace, making it more corporeal and here and easier to examine. Four new people along with three he recognizes--seven. They stand frozen in time, completely silent, statues playing out a scene Zelos has only seen once, but that he's grown obsessed with the more time that passes.

He just... wants to know. He has to know.

Standing near Sheena's position, unmoving and afraid to test just how far he can push his projection, Zelos grimaces, curls his hands into fists, and breathes. Despite the novelty of the clarity of their faces Zelos cares little for most of the people here, and so his eyes catch somewhere that draws his attention in and simply won't let go. His mirror grins from where he lay dying, tired and triumphant and miserable all the same, looking up at and closely held in the arms of a boy that Zelos is beginning to think isn't actually seeing the Aegis of Tethe'alla when he lays his eyes on Zelos.

He shivers, at that. Barely manages to hold his ground.

Closes his eyes instead. Breathes, waits. Exhales. Opens his eyes.

Tries again.

'To tell you the truth, I was getting pretty tired of living anyway,' comes the echo of his other's voice. Despite the differently-shaped stone on his chest, both the sight and the memory of his words still makes Zelos shake, fills him with confused sorrow and rage. He's too afraid to let the little bits of the memory he's got stored play out, to hear the rest of his mirror's words once again. He's stuck. Frozen. And even as he feels the dreamspace shift and twist and a guest arrive, as his port becomes occupied by the one he'd made his request for, Zelos doesn't move.

He stands here in the silence of his dreamspace, back to his guest and eyes on his mirror, taking in the way Zelos Wilder looks up at his killer and boasts about his own death instead.

Sheena's first thought is simply not again.

She breathes it, in a tone that would be too soft to be audible if not for the dreamspace's eerie silence, as it coalesces before her, as she takes the place of her memory-doppelganger.

This memory has played out in her mind over and over since it happened - every moment of it, from every possible angle, even versions that didn't happen. (As if she could have stopped it, when she'd been oblivious until the last possible second that it was even happening.) That it's not actively playing out right now is a kindness, if one that feels doomed to end. There's an awful tension to the air, heavy with dread and the ghost of Zelos's dying words. How many times does she have to watch this? It's not like she can forget that it happened, for all that her subconscious seems convinced she needs reminding. It's enough to make her jealous of Lloyd's ability to just opt out of sleep. She takes it in, slowly, moves to wrap her arms around herself, and it's a little like a spell breaking - like she hadn't realized she could move til now.

She turns away, unable to take the sight, and finally catches sight of the aegis Zelos, at her side. That's--

Well. It's a new one, at least, one that pulls a surprised noise from her. He's as frozen as everyone else here, and she's not sure what that means. She can still see the original Zelos out of the corner of her eye, bloodied and dying in Lloyd's arms, and the contrast between the two just - hurts, an intensified version of the ache that interacting with the aegis brings. Sheena laughs, a low miserable sound with no humor to it. She doesn't - can't deal with this. She just wants to wake up.

It's that laugh that pulls Zelos out of his isolated reverie, at least. The laugh accompanied by sharp misery and anxiety, coming together into a concoction of horror in his core that's steadily flowing from his driver. The Aegis struggles to reign it in as it starts mixing with his own anxiety and fear and confusion. Keep it together, keep it down. But despite her entry to the scene Zelos still can't take his eyes off his mirror's face, taking in the twists to his expression, the blood trickling down his mouth.

Zelos grumbles under his breath.

He doesn't move still, remaining stubbornly in place next to Sheena without truly acknowledging her. Her side of the link feels sick. She's uncomfortable, Zelos can tell. He feels a little bad cornering her like this, but, whatever. Zelos wants answers. He needs answers. Slowly, the Aegis clenches his hands into fists, opens them. Clenches them again. One, two, three, breathe. Breathe, breathe. Fight back Sheena's influence over the dreamspace, try to keep her here as long as you can.

Keep the dreamspace up and under control.

Breathe.

"Who killed him?" Zelos abruptly asks. He doesn't gesture or point, but he knows that Sheena will be looking at the dead doppelganger on the floor, so he makes no further move other than clenching and unclenching his fists. "Why?"

She's forgotten all about the emotional link, asleep as she is - not that muffling something this sharp would make much of a difference, anyway. Sheena rocks back on her heels, trapped between the two ghosts. At least it means she doesn't have to look him in the eye while she says it.

The answer comes without her really thinking about it, without questioning it. (Of course he'd ask. Why wouldn't he? This is a nightmare, after all, and having to explain her role in her oldest friend's death is about as nightmarish as it gets.) Her response is halting, shaky. "He… handed Colette over to Cruxis, and then attacked us. He-- We didn't--" She cuts off abruptly, grips herself tighter. The tactile feedback isn't really there, but it's better than nothing. There's a ragged edge to her breath before she forces herself to continue. "We didn't- realize until it was too late to stop."

Oh. He... his mirror was a traitor?

Zelos stumbles back a step.

He draws a sharp breath, holds it. Takes his wide eyes off his mirror's face and lets them fall onto the glass floor, lost and unfocused in his horror as Sheena's words settle in his core and repeat themselves ad infinitum. The emotional link trembles with each iteration. It... tracks, kind of. Makes sense. Because really, how else would Wilder have achieved what he wanted but by forcing their hands, right? Suddenly the pain and grief makes sense. The little fucker really did use these people for his goals.

They're not so different, huh.

Prickling anger makes him shake. Whatever Cruxis is Zelos doesn't know, but the way that Sheena says it, the way the word's dragged out of her mouth, it easily makes it seem like an enemy. And Colette... Zelos logically knows that this isn't his fellow Aegis that Sheena speaks of, but the similar name still throws him off regardless. So his mirror handed his Colette over to the enemy, then left the stage without dealing with his own actions by killing himself. Left two people obviously grieving. Left, like a goddamned coward.

The idea of sharing anything with his mirror suddenly fills him with disgust.

"He betrayed you," Zelos abruptly spits. It's more like a statement to the air than a question, with raw, shaking fury strumming at their emotional link as the rest of the statues in the scene disappear in clouds of dust. The mists surrounding the area begin to move in a circle around them both, slowly gaining traction and speed, though the statues left remain immobile--there's only three left, reflections of people Zelos knows. The only people he could care about in this scene.

His mirror still grins, laughter in his tired eyes and bloodied mouth.

So Zelos laughs right back. "What a goddamn coward, huh? Look at him. He's pathetic."

Her gaze follows him as he stumbles back, the sound of footsteps on glass loud in her ears.

The anger running through the dreamspace is echoed in her heart, and it's enough to make her frown, bring a hand up to her collarbone. It doesn't feel like hers, though with something of her own bubbling up to match it, any distinction is hard to make. Even in a dream, even with the words coming from a reflection of Zelos, Sheena isn't about to let anyone talk about him that way.

"It's not like that," she says, sharp with grief. "We should've realized. I should've realized, before it ever came to-- to this." Yeah, right, Sheena. As if she ever knew what was going on with Zelos. As if she would've known what to do if he hadopened up. She swallows hard, shaking her head in an attempt to drive those thoughts away.

"Oh, yeah? You were gonna realize he was a traitor?" Zelos asks, hands balled into fists as he looks up to meet Sheena's gaze. Sharp anger ping-pongs between them both, grief blooming from within Sheena and rooting itself in Zelos' own core. And with it, suddenly, like a flickering fire, a desire to hurt rises up his throat. A desire to release this rage somehow, to get answers in the only way he knows how.

So Zelos scoffs at her, grins sharply as he glares, lets his face turn cruel. "That's so stupid. What was he to you, anyway? To you and Lloyd both? 'Cause what I'm gettin' here is that he was a big, good for nothing traitor who played you like a damn fiddle." He laughs, shrugs. "You sound like you deluding yourself."

Edited (Important) 2019-04-29 03:03 (UTC)

It's Sheena's turn to take a step back, wide-eyed and hating all of this. The hand at her collarbone curls into a fist to match, the dream and their link intensifying her anger as it bounces between them. This isn't a normal dream, she's realizing, but does that mean--?

"He was our friend," she says, finally, glaring. "I don't-- I don't know if we could've changed anything, if we'd known, but-- we still should have tried harder to understand while he was-" Her voice is tight, shaky with rage as she speaks, but it breaks on the last word. "Alive."

Somehow, the way Sheena's words break and stutter at the end is enough to rip Zelos' anger away from his chest and out into the air in a harsh exhale through grit teeth. When he breathes in, shame and confusion fill his lungs instead, and he tries his damn best to keep his face and posture calm and stable, if slightly annoyed, but the dreamspace betrays him anyway.

The mists surrounding them both turn grayer, and slowly, like a heartbeat, the green of the glass floor underneath them loses its light, shutting down and graying out as well. Still making eye contact with Sheena, Zelos can only see out of the corner of his eye as the statues begin to shatter and dust away, carried by a wind that spreads the mists between driver and blade.

Zelos sighs. Steels his expression, bites foreign and familiar grief down, allows it to be consumed by that confusion and shame from earlier instead. He blinks, relaxes, and asks, "You put a lot of faith in him, huh."

That's all he says. Something small and quiet in the wind, vulnerable only in the realm of dreams. Zelos tilts his head, face blank and voice even, calm. "He must've hurt you."

A little of the tension bleeds out of her as the dream shifts, enough that she's able to uncurl from herself, gaze drifting downward to the fog rising between them.

"I guess," she says, soft. Of course he had, but-- that's obvious, isn't it? "But I…" There's something else she should say, like she's not giving Zelos the full picture somehow, but she doesn't know how. It's too much to sum up the mess that their friendship had been. She just trails off instead, letting the sentence vanish into the mist. There's… something else, anyway, something she hadn't been able to put words to under the weight of their anger. It's a long moment before anything happens, but she shakes her head, props a hand on her hip as she looks back up at him. "This isn't a normal dream, is it?" she asks, expression hard to read. The full range of emotion coming from her is hard to grasp, too, conflicted as it is, but there's an edge of uncertainty to it.

Well, what the hell is Zelos supposed to feel about an accusation like that? A little prickle of pride at her figuring this out just as fast as she did the resonance runs down his throat, but he squashes it down as soon as he can, letting offence and fear come up and exit him in a scoff instead.

The mists dance around their feet, the hold Zelos has on the dreamspace taut as he struggles to keep control. If Zelos isn't careful then he risks Sheena asserting her own will over the dreamsace and changing it around. At first he's not sure what drives him to keep the clueless charade; the fact that Zelos is already taking so long to reply is a giveaway to the nature of this dream, anyway, and given how lately she seems to understand that being the driver of the Aegis isn't quite the normal driver/blade experience then there's no real need to pretend, but.

He still wants to be in control. Needs to be in control, if only for his own sake.

It's the last thing he has.

"Nope," Zelos answers easily. He allows himself to grin, hands behind his back as the mists flow and lower down to the opaque floor, pooling around them until they're turned to dark, dark grass. Low, pink light gathers in the horizon, somewhere off to his right as the vault above fills with tiny little stars. Zelos' grin twists. After everything he just said he's damn sure that Sheena's not going to take kindly to this, but--there's no real point in keeping this a secret if she's already this far in, so. "Welcome to the Aegis dreamspace, Sheena," Zelos adds. "It's like my own little happy place. Like it?"

Until his face twists, she thinks she understands the shape of things. It's a shared dream, some awful amalgamation of their subconsciousnesses thrown together. (If she'd seen his worst trauma when they'd first met, he'd probably seen something, too - and the other Zelos's death was pretty far up there, for her. Maybe all it'd taken was both of them thinking about it.) Something awful and miserable, but as out of his hands as any other dream.

But then the dream shifts, Zelos's face going along with it, and Sheena's understanding of the situation is knocked on its head.

He can control this.

He can control this, and that means--

She takes a step back, a sick mix of anger and hurt and just a touch of horror boiling in her veins as she stares at him. "Did you… do that on purpose?" she asks, something accusatory in her tone.

Oh, he can feel the sharp, acidic mixture of emotion in their link. The sheer strength of it combined with the tone of her voice is enough to send a shiver down his spine, the reality of what he's done crashing against him all of a sudden, but he manages to keep at least some control over his expression and body language and pretend that it doesn't even bother him at all.

Keep it cool, Zelos. Keep calm.

"It's a memory of yours," he says instead of answering, gesturing around with one hand while the other settles on top of his core crystal. The sunrise in the horizon continues its ascent, slow. "It got stored in my core after we made contact in the castle. It's intrusive."

He gets stuck there. The easy, casual expression he'd kept over his twisted grin is replaced with a sharp look instead, his words shaped like a weapon raised to combat Sheena's own. Zelos tenses unconsciously, tries as hard as he can to control himself from trembling or show any of his discomfort. His driver is so angry, but it's too late to back down, so let her. Because something new and urgent in Zelos wants him to try and fight back, to stand his ground instead of cower or deflect, to get answers to questions he's thought about ever since he saw this memory play out before his eyes.

The memory of his mirror's laughter comes back to mind. Around them, as the sun rises and without Zelos noticing it, his will on the dreamspace makes it so droplets of red spread on the grass.

"Well, I guess it's about time we talked about this, huh?" Zelos spits. He plasters a smirk on his face and tilts his head to look down his nose at his driver. "I mean, how would you feel if you found out the person you're bound to killed you in another world?"

Sheena is, to put it politely, fucking pissed. There's a fair amount of disbelief in her eyes, though, past that; the idea of Zelos choosing to make her relive this, for any reason, is… Well. She doesn't like it, that's for sure.

"That doesn't," she starts, and then stops. No, alright, that is a fair point. "You could have just asked," she says, instead, fiercely. "I would've just told you. You didn't have to go to-- all of this." She waves her free hand, the other one still at her hip. Sure, she would've hated it as much as she does in this moment, but-- "You think I haven't seen it in my dreams enough yet?" She spits that last, furious. If she was being fair, she'd admit that there's no way for him to have known that, but she's not feeling fair at the moment. Sheena maintains eye contact with Zelos the whole time, the mess of her emotions at the moment drowning out her awareness of their link.

He could've just asked? Oh, please. Zelos scoffs. "Yeah, right. Like you would've told me anything about it."

The anger bouncing between them expresses itself in the dreamspace in a storm cloud that quickly covers the rising sun behind grey, blocking out the light. Zelos squints in the sudden dark, skin crawling with the cold and the rest of Sheena's words. Because, yeah, he kind of went too far, maybe. He hadn't really been expecting her to figure out the true nature of the dreamspace now of all times, after all.

Shame and apprehension pool in his core. The hand still over his crystal closes into a fist that he keeps over the warm surface of the rock. Everything Zelos has done here tonight, everything he's said--he's really crossed a line that he'd only thought he could get away with crossing because of Sheena's inexperience as a driver. For all their progress in these past few days, this was a poorly thought mess at an attempt to get answers.

But, for all he wants to take it back and placate, he is still the Aegis.

And all he knows how to do is destroy.

"It's not like you humans are particularly fond of talking to your blades, anyway. And I wanted--no, needed to know," he growls, never losing the smirk and stepping forward, circling Sheena and leaving red marks behind on the grass, "if my new driver was going to repeat what she'd done."

"Of course I would've," Sheena says, with a frown as her gaze follows him, unfazed by the sudden shift in light. It's a reminder that this Zelos really doesn't know her at all, somehow - she'd sworn not to run, anymore, and… she's been trying, at least. She's not sure if she's succeeding. (Maybe she should've brought it up before now, but she hadn't even known for sure that he'd seen it - and besides, he could have brought it up, too.) "I mean-- don't get me wrong, I still would've hated it, but I'm not gonna lie to you. Especially not about something like this." A little of her anger boils off when she realizes the way the emotional link feels, though most of it is quickly replaced with frustration. They barely know each other, and if he'd seen his alternate self dying so soon after meeting her she can't blame him for the mistrust, but she's not letting him off for this just yet.

And then he continues, and her whole train of thought crashes off the rails violently.

She just. Stops dead, going numb with horror. "No," she says, faint, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. "No, I--" She shakes her head, emphatic, too much force going into the motion as if it would help shake away the cold dripping down her spine, her sudden awareness of the blood on the grass. "No."

The wave of horror crashing against his shame is just about enough for Zelos to stop dead in his tracks, his pacing around Sheena interrupted, but leaving behind an incomplete red circle over the dark green grass of the fields around them. He still hasn't noticed it, so focused on Sheena as the Aegis is. Instead Zelos is glaring, hands closing into fists and opening back again as he regulates his breathing, as he tries not to break control.

In the distance, though, the dark clouds over the sunlight finally do break. Rain pours down, far away from the two of them.

And with the rain so too comes Zelos' resolve crashing down.

Maybe it's the sight of Sheena freezing up and crumbling under his gaze, or maybe it's the sound of the storm in the distance, or the lack of sunlight, the way the dreamspace reflects every single emotion that Zelos' expression refuses to display. Perhaps it's simply the mixture of horror and shame finally reaching a boiling point in his throat, clogging it and his thoughts. Whatever it is it pushes Zelos to stumble backwards, hands curled into fists and tapping against his thighs as he reaches for the dreamspace's port, ready to disconnect them both if that'll push them both out of here, away from each other once more.

He finds the concentrated block of ether mixing with mana, the space where their consciousnesses merge, and pulls until the scenery melts away into darkness. When he wakes, Zelos makes a tremendous effort to remain motionless and keep his eyes closed, pretending to sleep still, listening in and trying to focus on the way the ambient ether changes with his companions' signals, looking for Sheena's and paying careful, close attention to the way their resonance link feels after that. How badly did he fuck up, he wonders. Involuntarily Zelos shudders, but after that he stills again, too afraid to face the repercussions of his actions just yet.

So he hides. Hides, lies, pretends. Watches from a safe distance. It's so pathetic that Zelos almost breaks the mask and laughs.

Maybe him being a coward is a universal constant.

Zelos kicks her out of the dream and into consciousness, unceremoniously, and all Sheena can feel is relief as she lands back into her waking body.

Her face is tacky and damp with tears - she must have been crying in her sleep. Great. At least it doesn't seem like she'd been loud enough to wake anyone. Lloyd's got enough on his plate to deal with, and she has no intention of telling him about any of what just happened anyway. She lets out a shaky sigh, shifting in her bedroll to wipe her face dry. There's no getting back to sleep after that, her head still a mess of her own emotions, Zelos's distant-and-fading ones, and everything she'd seen, but she lies still, watching the stars without really taking them in.

The unease remains even as the others finally wake up and get moving, and she can't quite find an inner balance. She keeps her distance from Zelos, awkward, self-aware enough to know that if she tried to press the issue now, while she's still upset, she'd only end up making it worse. (And besides, what would she even say?) So she stays quiet - shakes off Lloyd's concern with a definitely-fake laugh and a comment about just having had a weird dream, spending her time practicing dampening the emotional link between them. She doesn't get far, still off-balance as she is, but even taking a little of the immediacy out of it feels like a victory.

There were only so many supplies they could really pack with them, so inevitably they do end up having to hit up a market somewhere. It's safer if Zelos doesn't go into town, so he and Sheena elect to camp out a little ways away. Malos apparently has some important thing he has to buy (he won't tell her what, which is rude, but she DOES know it's a gift for Lloyd) so he sends Anna and Lloyd into the market for food.

Thankfully they aren't completely out of cash yet, so Anna can do Entirely Legal haggling for all the supplies they need. She and Lloyd talk road-trip recipes, she's delighted to learn he knows quite a few more than she does (in her defense, Jin's always done most of the cooking) so she lets him buy what he needs. They're just about ready to head out when they walk past a fruit stall.

Fruit isn't gonna last 'em much longer than a few days, but Anna is dying to have something sweet for a change, and she's pretty sure they can afford a little. So.

Except, hold on a minute.

"You're charging how much for apples?" she demands, incredulous.

The guy running the stall is short and round and looks kind of grimy. All of his fruit is definitely imported, from the labels on the crates. His face is like a stone as Anna accuses him.

"We are at war," the merchant reminds her. "It's much harder to get fruit when--"

"Bullshit, we've been at peace since the misfire," Anna counters, before he can get any further into that excuse. She scans his prices again, getting more offended the more she considers them. Oranges can't cost that much either. She'll believe the bananas, since those only grow in Altamira, but-- Where is he importing these from? Bumfuck nowhere? "Look. Five apples. Half that price."

"No sale."

Architect, he's a real piece of work.

"Come on, that's totally reasonable," Anna insists. "You don't even have to give me good apples."

"That price is final," the merchant argues. "With our Aegis missing we are essentially at war, so I refuse to take even a single gold less for my wares."

"...fuck your apples, then," Anna says, turning away. "Come on, Lloyd."

Honestly, if you had told Lloyd a year ago that he would be doing something as mundane as going grocery shopping with an alternate universe version of his dead mother, he would have asked you what knocked you so hard on your head.

But here he is, being led through the market by Anna, holding their packs and calling for her attention when passing by something that is needed or could be useful for their travels. It's… really nice, actually. Neither of them bring up their conversation in the forest on that first night of their travels, instead joking around and having light-hearted conversations about the things they enjoy about traveling, funny stories and cool recipes traded back and forth like second nature. And watching Anna haggle for food and necessities as though every overpriced item is a personal slight to her character is fun too, especially when Lloyd gets to sneak in a few lines of support for her arguments. He wishes Malos were here with them, as used to the blade's presence as he's gotten in the past few days, but Malos was dodgy when Lloyd asked why he wouldn't come, so he let the topic drop. It's fine, he's having fun.

At least, it's fun until they get to the fruit stand. The apples the seller has on sale do look delicious, and Lloyd hadn't realized how much he missed the sweet treats until he was staring at them in the basket they were being held in, but those prices are outrageous, a blatant attempt to swindle some poor folk and the unknowing into buying overpriced food, a goddamn necessity. Already, Lloyd's mouth sets itself into a frown, definitely irritated by the gall of this dude, but while he probably would have just walked away from the stand and let it be, Anna takes the obnoxious pricing to heart and gets heated.

The man really is quite a piece of work. The way he talks is condescending, assertive and arrogant, disrespectful towards Anna and her own knowledge. Lloyd bristles at the way he says "our Aegis," as though Zelos is not a goddamn person, just a weapon. And even though the Dwarven Vows echo through Lloyd's mind, he thinks if Dirk were here to see this guy, he'd understand.

While Anna is arguing with the merchant, Lloyd steps closer to the apple stand and - without taking his eyes off of the confrontation - scoops up two apples from the edge of the basket, quickly and efficiently settling them into the pack he's let hang just off his wrist, giving him easy, one-armed access to the mouth of it.

Anna calls for him to leave, so with the deed done, and his face as blank as can be, he nods and continues on with her. They make their way out from the market's handwoven fiber cover and Lloyd listens with no small amount of amusement righteous satisfaction as his mom calls the merchant every filthy name in the book. She's not paying attention to Lloyd's movements, so he grabs one of the apples out of the pack as soon as they're out of the merchant's sight and takes a bite into it.

"Yeah, what an asshole," he says after swallowing, a wide, playful grin placing itself on his face. "Can't believe he was charging so much."

And then with his free hand, he grabs the other apple from the pack and holds it out to Anna, grin growing impossibly bigger. "Want an apple?"

Anna stops grumbling, blinking in surprise at the apple being offered to her. Slowly, she grins, wide and proud.

"Of course I do," she says, taking the apple from Lloyd. She's so excited, so proud of her son she doesn't even think about taking a bite right away, too distracted by needing to say: "Holy shit, I didn't even see you-- I mean, I guess that's the point."

She laughs, delighted, then takes a bite. It tastes incredible.

"And you managed to snag the best apples? Lloyd I'm so proud."

Lloyd uses his free hand to rub at the back of his neck bashfully, biting into his apple again, but his beam remains strong and bright in the face of Anna's pride. He never thought he'd ever hear his mom say that to him? And Anna isn't his mom, not really, but... Lloyd can pretend for now that she is, let the joy of the moment wash over him.

There is something to be said about her pride being over his own petty theft of fruit, but. Hey, he'll take it! Beggars can't be choosers, and the merchant deserved to have some of his inventory swiped. Plus, the apples are pretty good, and Lloyd can't really find himself regretting his decision when the sweet taste hits his tongue. It's a great day at the market, if he says so himself.

"I've got experience snagging stuff like this from jerks like that," he says, by way of explanation. "When I was going through my own journey with Sheena and some friends back home, there were times where we were strapped for gald and we would have to haggle and stuff too," and then he laughs, "Sheena and I have entire routines on how to deal with shitty merchants. They're always a fun time."

Anna laughs a little as well, just thinking about it, still brimming with pride. "Honestly, you should see some of the shit Malos and I have up our sleeves," she laughs, kind of hoping she'll get the chance to show him-- or maybe see some of his and Sheena's shenanigans. Maybe once they're in Sylvarant. Getting arrested there (NOT that Anna actually thinks something will go that wrong) would have less consequences, at least for Zelos.

Anyway, maybe don't think about that now. Listen to your son, Anna, stop talking about yourself.

"You went on a journey? What kind of journey?" she asks, eager to know more. She doesn't know much about his other friends, just hears names in passing; fond stories about Colette (which fill her with some sadness, knowing where Colette is in this world) (the sooner they get to her, the better), and a boy named Genis who she honestly wishes she could meet becuase it sounds like he and Lloyd are great friends.

Honestly she wishes she could meet all of Lloyd's friends.

But that's neither here nor there and at least she got to meet Sheena, grateful for the chance to see Lloyd interact with family he clearly loves so much (even if sometimes it feels like intruding, like something she shouldn't see, something she wouldn't wish to be apart of, but. Well. Lloyd probably feels the same way about her in return, huh?)

(...maybe don't think about that, either.)

Anna yanks her mind away from that and jokes: "I mean, I'd take a wild guess and ask if you were a fugitive, but Architect I do not wish my life upon you so please tell me I'm wrong, actually."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNJ6LO1QIyk

WELCOME TO HELL

AAAAA WHAT THE FUCK

I Am Dying

Man he's having a fucking awful time

that makes two of them!

GREAT

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oh god

GREAT SHE KINDA TAUGHT HIM TO TRY AND STAND HIS GROUND

UNDER ANY OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES SHE WOULD BE PROUD

I HOPE SHE CAN APPRECIATE IT LATER

she'll high five him next time

Everything's bad

EVERYTHING'S BAD

TIMESKIP TIME

Lloyd Does Crimes

ANNA'S SO HAPPY

IRVINGS BOND OVER PETTY THEFT

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