Ilias knew he had changed. He used to be so carefree, an idiotic, patriotic teenager that signed up for the army during a war. His first kill snapped some clarity into him, but in truth the thing that affected him most was no matter how the time passed, the war never ended. And so, Ilias just kept going, one foot in front of the other, for the mission. For the King's sovereignty.

He had accepted it with a grim certainty, his heart finding itself sworn in loyalty to the throne, every day waking up with only survival and getting through the day in his mind. It was a life not worth living, but it had been fine because he'd have done anything by his general's side. His love, the person who had stuck with him the moment he joined their regiment. And perhaps they would've died together, in that wretched way.

But for a short wonderful moment, that spark had been rekindled, in the appearance of some orphan girl who had somehow brightened their life with meaning. Ilias had thought they could've been a family. But not in this universe, for in this one he'd find himself in a moment of discomposure he so rarely showed. An accident, they said. Simple. Cold. Cold as the empty casket of her small funeral, attended only by two.

Yet as always, he shoved that ugly ugly grief down and just. Kept...Moving. Accepting. Handling his pain in his own way. Mourned for Alana and what she could have been, and mourned for what should have. His pillar through all that grief had been his love, but who would tell him that in the death of the child he'd have to lose them too?

There was some, madness that had taken ahold of them, this look in their eyes that him think that they planned to follow her, to leave him alone. So he confronted them. Foolishly, perhaps, sharp, scathing words spoken to each other that left him aching. Yet he pushed on further, voice cracking, desperate. He was helpless only to beg.

"You think you're the only one grieving? She's gone. She's dead and you know who isn't? Me. Please. Don't leave me too."