He has an... okay feeling about today. It’s not quite strong enough to be called a good feeling, but he still smiles a little more frequently at Waver and the others and offers to take a walk to pick up ingredients for dinner.
It’s not a good feeling, but the absence of a bad one, he realizes as he waits for the crosswalk light to change to green. He isn’t sure why he doesn’t feel bad. There’s more than enough to occupy his waking hours and haunt his sleep, with the recent experiment toying with his memories yet again and Martel’s presence just out of sight tying his stomach in knots whenever he sees her name on his phone. But for whatever reason, he simply hasn’t been thinking about it. His only real concern right now is making sure he doesn’t go overboard buying sweets for Gray at the store.
It’s nice. Maybe nicer than he deserves, but nice all the same.
He even finds himself humming and shifting his weight gently from side to side as he waits in line to check out.
He makes it out of the store with only two bags. Most of them are what he came in for, even. And nothing is perishable -- when his route home takes him past a park with a small duck pond, he doesn’t have to worry about anything going bad when he decides to take a short detour to walk along the trail.
He’s almost so at peace that Mithos’s presence by the edge of the water doesn’t make him nauseous at first.
His next step falters, stopping short.
There are three versions of Mithos in his memory, all fighting for his attention. There’s the Mithos of the Kharlan War -- determined, by no means innocent, but full of hope for the future of peace.
There’s Lord Yggdrasill, the leader of Cruxis, who swore he would have him killed were it not for the memory of Martel, who kicked him in the ribs so that even now he feels the phantom sensation of not being able to breathe.
Then there’s the faint ghost of the Mithos from the old city. He had... forgotten, hadn’t he? Mithos didn’t know of Yggdrasill’s crimes personally. But he experienced them. Yuan... tried to comfort him? Did he succeed?
Standing there with his bags, Yuan suddenly feels vulnerable. Visible. If Mithos hasn’t noticed him yet, he surely will now that he’s been standing mere feet away for so long.
A shudder shakes his frame as he snaps back to awareness. Too bright, too loud, too clear.
“Mithos? What are you doing here?”











