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“Hey Lloyd, can I talk to you?” Mithos says. Lloyd looks up from the bed he’s helping Colette make at Altessa’s, a little surprised. Mithos has only been with them for about an hour, and Lloyd had kind of expected him to be busy talking to Genis, like every time before. The break in a familiar pattern makes Lloyd a little nervous, especially considering all that Mithos is. Mithos has… very rarely deviated from the same decisions he makes every loop, or at least, not without Lloyd deliberately trying to prompt a change.
So, he’s nervous, but also a little curious. It’s not like Mithos knows he’s been time traveling, anyway. And maybe this time…
Well, at the least, maybe he’ll learn something that can help him out in the long run.
“Sure thing,” Lloyd says, though he looks to Colette before he puts the sheet down. “You mind?”
Colette shakes her head and smiles. “No, go ahead!” she tells them. Lloyd wonders, not for the first time, if her smile at all looks like Martel’s, or if the dimples are all Colette. He wonders, not for the first time, if being around her is difficult for Mithos, like being around Tabatha is.
“Can we go outside?” Mithos asks. His eyes are sharp and his gaze doesn’t trail away from Lloyd, but there’s some kind of edge in his tone. It’s weird to call Mithos, of all people, anxious, but… Lloyd’s pretty sure he’s uncomfortable about something.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Lloyd tells him, trying not to be nervous himself. What’s Mithos going to do to him? Nothing he can’t handle. Nothing Mithos would actually get away with if he tried.
Mithos nods, short, and leads the way. Probably like he’s used to doing, huh, considering Cruxis. Unless in Cruxis he normally has people sent to him? Lloyd’s kind of curious now, but knows he can’t ask. Not Mithos, anyway. Maybe he can ask Kratos next time he sees him. If there’s time amidst everything else—What even happens next time he sees Kratos? Lloyd tries to remember, but then his feet hit grass and he remembers that he’s about to have some kind of conversation with Mithos and he should really focus on that instead.
“What was it you wanted?” Lloyd asks, as Mithos stops by the trees near Altessa’s house. Far enough out no one can eavesdrop unless they followed. Lloyd guesses that makes sense. He hooks his thumbs through his belt loops, hoping to look casual.
Mithos stands very still, eyes looking Lloyd up and down. Lloyd tugs at his belt loops a little harder under the scrutinizing gaze, but waits for Mithos to speak. Mithos cocks his head to the side. Scowls.
“Why do you…” Mithos begins, a little coldly, then seems to realize himself. “Are you a summoner?” he asks, instead.
Lloyd shakes his head. “Nope,” he answers. He knows exactly what this is about now.
“Hmm,” Mithos says, and he scowls harder. He looks like he’s trying to choose his next words, but likely keeps getting caught on not wanting to blow his cover.
“This is about Origin, right?” Lloyd asks. He knows it is. (Kratos can usually sense Origin on him too, even if he doesn’t always mention it.) “Because, I do have a pact with Origin.”
Maybe it’s stupid of him to bring that up to Mithos now, but… he’s not going to get the outcome he wants from this journey if he doesn’t take some risks, right? It’s worth a shot, Lloyd thinks. Definitely more useful than letting Mithos decide he’d rather not blow his cover.
“That’s impossible,” Mithos spits.
Lloyd raises his eyebrows. “Why? Because Origin is under seal, and Kratos is still alive?” There’s no point pretending like he doesn’t know what’s going on here.
Mithos’ expression goes from confused and angry to surprised and incredulous. “How do you know about that?” he demands. The setting sun’s light cast through the trees behind him makes his golden hair look almost like a halo, and Lloyd nearly laughs at the irony of the sight.
“Because I’ve done this before,” Lloyd answers, with a shrug. He tugs at his belt loops, still, giving his hands something to do, trying to distract himself from the heartbeat in his ears. “I made a deal with Origin to go back, because… some things went wrong.”
He doesn’t need Mithos to know what things, exactly.
Mithos’ eyes widen, but now they shine with the clarity of understanding. He looks Lloyd over again in this new light.
“Did I… win?” Mithos guesses, smiling the slightest bit.
Lloyd exhales, letting his gaze slide away from Mithos. He rocks from his toes to his heels then stops.
“You lost,” he answers. “You… died. But… I’m tired of people dying.”
Mithos is silent for a second as those words sink in, and then he laughs. Loud and sharp, like Lloyd’s just told a brilliant joke. His laughter startles a nearby bird. He clutches at his stomach, runs a hand through his hair, turning away from Lloyd as the laughter takes him.
Lloyd fidgets, caught between discomfort and wonder. He feels a distant pang of longing, wondering if this Mithos looks anything like the boy his father once loved—still loves—as a brother, wondering if it’s moments like these that make Kratos’ decision so hard for him.
“What?” Lloyd asks, finally, annoyed.
“You’re- You’re telling me-” Mithos wheezes, between laughs. “That you went back in time- just- for me? You really are soft-hearted!”
“Hey!” Lloyd protests, swinging his hands down and stepping towards Mithos, not that he actually intends violence. “It was for more than just you!”
Mithos stops laughing so suddenly it’s like he’s an entirely different person.
“I’d be careful, Lloyd,” he warns, voice quiet. “There’s only so much you can actually change, without things going worse, believe me.”
Lloyd’s struck with the sudden realization he never asked Origin if Mithos hadn’t tried this before. That realization is quickly followed by another.
Martel is still dead.
Lloyd stares at Mithos, mouth dry, for a long moment. Then he sighs.
He, like Mithos must have, realizes that there’s a point where he must give up, isn’t there?
“Yeah,” Lloyd whispers. “I was… starting to realize that.” He doesn’t admit it with anything other than heavy shoulders, but he’s done this journey… so many times he’s lost track, and the ending he wants is still so far out of his reach every time. “Or at least, that I can’t fix everything, even though I want to.”
Mithos hums, short, as he considers Lloyd. The cold, somewhat hostile look on his face is replaced with nothing more than simple curiosity. He runs his thumb over his chin, intelligent eyes shining.
“What is it you’re trying to change?” Mithos asks. “Obviously I can’t promise I’ll help, but…”
Lloyd hesitates. It’s… weird. To be having this conversation, a conversation he’s had many times before, but never in a situation where they both aren’t a second away from killing the other. Is this really the time they’ll find a solution? A compromise? After all, if anyone knows how to end this without Mithos dying, it…
Would be Mithos, huh?
But then…
Lloyd thinks he already knows the answer to this question. He’s known it for a long time. He’s just been avoiding it.
So rather than asking Mithos if there’s a compromise, or any way to change his mind, Lloyd sighs and says:
“Be honest with me. Would you be satisfied living in a world without your sister?”
The wind stirs around them. Mithos’ eyes burn.
“No,” he says, without any hesitation.
Lloyd nods.
“Yeah, alright,” he says, with a little laugh. “I guess… I guess I should have expected that.”
The sun is dipping low beneath the horizon, its last rays silhouetting Mithos where he stands before Lloyd. Disappointment rings strong in Lloyd’s chest, as well as exhaustion, as well as… It’s not relief. Resignation, perhaps. Maybe he should call it quits. Take as much as he can manage, and be satisfied with that.
Mithos has already proven that time travel can’t save everyone.
“There’s… really no saving her?” Mithos asks, so quiet Lloyd almost doesn’t hear him.
Lloyd looks up, surprised. Mithos looks… distant. Kind of sad. It breaks his heart, but Lloyd shakes his head. He searches for the words to explain, but Mithos nods before he can even open his mouth. It looks like Mithos understands.
“Then…” Mithos whispers, turning his gaze away from Lloyd. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Lloyd blinks.
“What?”
“Well?” Mithos repeats. “You know… who I am. What I’m capable of. How this ends.” He laughs, lightly, defeated. “You might as well end it now.”
Ice climbs up Lloyd’s spine. He clenches his hands into fists. His knuckles bump against his swords. He pulls his hands away as if burned, chokes on all the air in his lungs.
An overheard conversation—a memory, from the last loop—plays back in his mind.
(To tell you the truth, Noishe, I’m getting kind of tired of living.)
“N- No,” Lloyd stammers. His heart pounds like a drum. “No!” he says, with more force.
Mithos cocks his head back toward Lloyd, eyebrows raised. “Why not? I’m sure you’d save everyone from a lot of suffering.”
Lloyd thinks of snow and Flanoir, of Zelos with blood on his mouth around a bitter smile, of Colette scared and kidnapped, of Genis inconsolable—he hasn’t even had enough time to get to know Mithos this time around—of Kratos making too many difficult decisions, of all his friends broken and hurting and sacrificing themselves for the sake of this journey.
None of that has happened yet.
But.
“First of all, my friends are gonna think it’s kind of weird I murdered someone they think is just a kid,” Lloyd protests. “Second of all—” He fumbles on the words, because it’s weird to say I won’t murder you as if he hasn’t put his swords through Mithos’ chest before. “I can’t. I just can’t. I’d rather let this play out.”
Mithos laughs, short and brief. “Fine,” he says, with a shrug. “Though if you changed your mind, you could just tell your friends that I decided to leave.”
Lloyd screws up his face in disgust. “No,” he insists.
“Alright,” Mithos says. “I won’t make you.”
He doesn’t move other than to look away from Lloyd again, eyes fixing on the stars that are starting to peek out behind Lloyd's head. He stares at them for a long time. Lloyd doesn’t know how to break the silence. He guesses they should head back before it gets completely dark, though. Oh…
“Are you coming back to Altessa’s?” Lloyd asks.
“Hmm,” Mithos says, considering it. “I’m not sure.”
“It’d be kind of weird if you didn’t,” Lloyd admits. He aches for any sense of routine he can get from this repeating journey, and the thought of not having Mithos around for the next stretch of it scares him more than anything else.
“I’ve already learned what I came here for, though,” Mithos argues. “You’re… a lot like your father. Well.” He reconsiders. “You’re probably braver than him. More soft-hearted, too.”
“Uh, is this supposed to be a compliment?”
“Just an observation.”
Mithos’ gaze falls towards Altessa’s house. Crickets chirp, distantly. “I guess… I’ll stay,” he says, at length. “I have no reason not to. Unless… you plan to tell everyone my identity.”
Lloyd shakes his head. “No. I…” He wonders if he told Mithos how much he actually enjoys his presence in these next few weeks, if that would change anything. He can’t find the courage to, at least not in detail. “I don’t want to ruin anything,” he says, instead. “Besides, maybe I can still change your mind…?”
“Doubtful,” Mithos counters.
Lloyd shrugs. Mithos brushes past him, heading back towards Altessa’s. He gets about three steps before another thought occurs to Lloyd.
“Oh, Mithos, hang on,” he calls.
Mithos stops.
“Yes?”
“Can… I ask you another question?” Lloyd says.
Mithos’ eyes narrow. “What kind of question?”
“I think- I think there’s something else you can help me with,” Lloyd explains. “Something else I was trying to fix.” Mithos cannot be saved if he does not want to be saved, but maybe Mithos knows how to save someone else. Or at least, how to stop him from leaving.
It’s a moment before Mithos answers, but finally he shrugs.
“Alright, I’ll humor you,” he says. “Why do you think I know how to save any of your friends, though?”
“Because you know Kratos a lot better than I do,” Lloyd answers.
“Ohhh.” Mithos folds his arms over his chest, looking faintly amused. “What’d Kratos do?”
“He leaves,” Lloyd says. “Even if I ask him to stay.”
Mithos squints. “Leaves?” he repeats.
“Oh,” Lloyd laughs. Sometimes he forgets that he’s the only one who knows. “At the end of this, Kratos leaves on Derris-Kharlan, when I send it away,” Lloyd explains. “He says… he wants to atone for his sins. And that he owes it to the half-elves, which I guess I understand, but…” He pounds his knuckles against his thighs, scowling. He knows it’s selfish. But he just wants his father to stay, wants a chance to get close to him, really close to him, a chance that even this looping journey hasn’t quite provided him.
Mithos laughs, startling Lloyd out of his selfish thoughts. It’s not quite as loud and long as the first laugh—it’s high and delighted, in a way. Mithos runs his hand over his face, grinning and shaking his head.
“Oh, Kratos,” he laughs. “You finally found a place to run where no one could ever find you, huh?”
Lloyd scowls, not understanding.
Mithos doesn’t give him a chance to ask. “The answer’s easy,” Mithos says. “You just tell him he can’t go.”
He says it with such a quiet certainty Lloyd forgets how to breathe, for a moment.
“Excuse me?” Lloyd asks. He doesn’t think he understands, and if he does, he doesn’t like it at all.
“You’d be surprised how well he listens,” Mithos says, with a cold smile. Lloyd shivers. He’d never really wondered much about why Kratos stayed with Mithos, for four thousand years, because he thought he understood. But maybe he hadn’t understood all of it. “That’s the thing about Kratos. He loves to run, but he can never really stay away. I bet he’ll regret leaving within a year of doing it—”
“But then he’s already in space,” Lloyd argues, a little annoyed. “So I can’t get him back.”
“Which is why you don’t let him go to begin with,” Mithos says, like it’s obvious. That uncomfortable feeling of things he hadn’t really wanted to know creeps up Lloyd’s neck again. “Just refuse to send him, or send Derris-Kharlan without him.”
Lloyd scowls, seeing Mithos’ logic and not liking it. “That’s… mean,” Lloyd protests. “I can’t just do that! He’ll get really mad at me!”
“It won’t last,” Mithos assures Lloyd.
(It doesn’t make Lloyd feel any better.)
“But- I really don’t think he’ll let me,” Lloyd says, because—he knows. He’s done this again and again and again, and whether he asks or begs or argues, Kratos’ mind doesn’t change. “Why would he listen to me like he listens to you?”
Mithos rolls his eyes. “Lloyd, if you really don’t think he’ll listen to you, then you severely underestimate just how much he loves you.”
It hits a little close to home, and that’s not fair, because it’s not like Lloyd thinks Kratos doesn’t love him. It’s just being told no every single time gets kind of discouraging!! He opens his mouth to tell Mithos this, but Mithos keeps talking—
“I mean, you’re only here because he released Origin, right?” Mithos asks.
“Yeah,” Lloyd answers.
“And I’m assuming you didn’t have to kill him for that.”
“No.”
“See?” Mithos grins at Lloyd. “You ask, he does.”
“But he doesn’t stay,” Lloyd spits back, a little fed up. “He talks his way out of it. Says he has to go—”
“Oh, he’ll push back against you, for sure,” Mithos says, unfazed. “Especially if he thinks leaving fulfills some kind of duty. So just don’t let him go. Send Derris-Kharlan away without him. If he gets upset, believe me, it won’t be forever.”
Lloyd scowls, because… he’s not really sure he likes Mithos’ idea at all, even if he can see how it will work. It just seems cruel, to make the decision for Kratos.
“Well, thanks,” Lloyd mutters, because Mithos deserves that for answering Lloyd at all, even if Lloyd didn’t like his answer. “I’ll… I’ll think about it.” He can’t promise more than that.
“It’ll work,” Mithos tells him, completely convinced on the matter. His eyes dart towards the setting sun, which has fallen almost completely below the horizon. “But… we should go back to Altessa’s, shouldn’t we? Unless we want someone getting suspicious.”
Lloyd nods. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
It’s not the answer he wanted.
But it’s an answer.