- 88 [Action]

[fortunefail]

[With all these newcomers about, Yuan simply isn't comfortable staying at home. Against all better judgment, he ventures out into the village to have a look. Catch him anywhere, any time!

Later, he'll return to house #8 to find it ravaged, after Kratos had a little 'argument' with Lord Kvar. Wonderfully foreboding. What other surprises may lie in wait here?]

Comments

[renegates]

...Hm. I see. [Except not really. That makes everything about as clear as mud. But perhaps he should be asking different questions.]

Do you know where we currently find ourselves?

[fortunefail]

Luceti. It's a world outside Sylvarant and Tethe'alla.

[Yes, he is aware that sounds crazy.]

[renegates]

[It's odd. He's forgotten what it's like to carry on normal conversation with this man, after so many long years of watching him drown himself in despair and madness. It makes him feel a quiet sense of guilt for what has been lost.

Oh, and he'll need more information than that.]

How did we come to be here? Why... [are you so different? He bites back that one, as though expecting Yuan to transform into the man he's unfortunately come to know.]

[fortunefail]

[Hm. Kratos seems slightly more conflicted than usual. He doesn't actually believe Yuan is the leader of Cruxis, does he?]

No one entirely knows how we come to be here. Some sort of power seems to be drawing people into this world. All from different places and different times.

[renegates]

Different times... [Yes, that would make more sense. A cautious testing remark:]

Prior to being dragged here, I had heard that the Chosen and her group had escaped and turned up in Tethe'alla. [No context of where he was in all of this, because the Yuan he knows doesn't need to know, quite frankly. But if his other suspicions are true, then none of this will mean anything to the man before him.]

[fortunefail]

... Which Chosen, exactly?

[Come on, man. There's been hundreds of them, and Colette wasn't the first to end up in Tethe'alla. Just look at Spiritua.]

[renegates]

[.......wait what. So he is familiar with the Chosen system, but he explicitly insists on not being referred to by any title, and his demeanor is all wrong. ...Rather, it's all wrong because it he is not mangled and twisted. A sad state of affairs when something halfway normal is completely bizarre.

All he can really do is answer the question.]

The girl called Colette Brunel, sir. [....that was out of habit.]

[fortunefail]

[Yuan produces a bit of a frustrated sound at the "sir", but he won't comment on it.]

That event lies in the past for me. It's no longer relevant.

[renegates]

[Now he's wondering what in the world could have happened to change Yuan so much. How much time had passed?]

...Your past, hm? It is hard to believe that you speak of my future, when you resemble who you once were a great many years ago. [this is said rather...cautiously. He's a man standing on ice without knowing how thick it is.]

[fortunefail]

[He resembles who he once was? Is Kratos joking? Yuan hasn't been that man for over four thousand years. What sort of person is Kratos used to if who he is now is supposedly an improvement?]

Just who do you think you're speaking to? What exactly am I supposed to be the lord of? [He has a suspicion, but he needs it confirmed.]

[renegates]

...As far as I know, I am speaking to Yuan, the leader of Cruxis. [ooh, can you hear the regrets clinging quietly to every syllable?]

[fortunefail]

[Yyyup. Yuan will sound a little bitter when he responds.] Then you're mistaken. I'm not the leader of Cruxis. I never was.

[renegates]

I am afraid I do not understand how this is possible. [not different times but...an alternative path of time running parallel to his own? Hm...]

[fortunefail]

That makes two of us. I can't even imagine why I would want to be the leader of Cruxis.

[renegates]

It is because you couldn't let go of Martel. ...While I stood back and did nothing to help in the ways you truly needed.

...You know of Cruxis, however. If it exists in your...continuation of time [bah, he doesn't know what else to call it] but you are not its leader, may I ask who is?

[does he even want to know? He's just trying to wrap his mind around this one.]

[fortunefail]

[But if Yuan refused to let go of Martel, then... Who leads the Renegades in that world? Do they just not exist? ... No, that's impossible. If Lloyd and his friends could escape to Tethe'alla, surely there must be Renegades.]

... Mithos.

[renegates]

[.....that's a tough hit to take. It's bad enough that his former student was crushed trying to bend backwards to Yuan's twisted will, but this... He can hardly imagine, trying to place Mithos in Yuan's shoes, and knowing that the boy wouldn't be able to handle such great despair. A brief silence follows.]

...I...I see.

[let's shift the focus to a different question] What of you, then?

[fortunefail]

I am... [Well, he can't tell this guy he's the leader of the Renegades. If this Kratos's role is still the same as his usual role and he finds out one of his companions is the leader of the Renegades that early... who knows what might happen to that timeline? He has to tread carefully.]

One of the Four Seraphim.