Felix of Vale

It's over. She's gone. There's no reason to stay.

And yet, where would he go that wouldn't remind him of her?

But he's been in and around Vale too long already. He can't settle. The world needs him.

Above all, he can't stop. The world needs him. Perhaps not as much as it did five years ago, but it needs him.

He stands in the pass that leads to... whatever Mount Aleph has become. If he remembers right, the Boulder that marked the official boundary used to be right there. From here, he can see most of the village - but not the house where she spent her last weeks, nor the field where they buried her trapped her.

And yet, he thinks he can hear her here, feel her here. Feel her telling him to go, to be free...

It wasn't the first time they'd been to the edge of the world, but it was the first time since Alchemy had been restored. Sheba was curious to see what it looked like over the edge, again, and to see if anything had changed.

This time, though, Felix was a great deal less nervous about it.

Once Sheba started to lean over the edge, she suddenly jerked to a stop. She looked around, noticed the giant Psynergetic hand holding her cape, and saw Felix sitting a short distance away with the barest hint of a smile, holding Isaac's Catch Beads.

It was then that Felix started to become worried, as he, in turn, saw Sheba's face take on an impish grin. In a quick movement she wriggled out of her cape and hopped along the edge to a spot out of range of the beads.

Faster than he had ever moved before, Felix rushed to her side and physically grabbed her arm. He didn't like the edge, didn't like being so close to nothing - but there was no way on or off the face of the planet that he'd let that nothing swallow Sheba.

--

I'll be there when the storm is through!

Yampi Desert.

Apparently, an endless expanse of sand and rock.

It seemed like the Mayor of Madra was right; there was no way through to Alhafra. They -

This line of thought cut off abruptly, as Sheba pointed out... something. It looked like a moving lump of sand. Felix put a hand to the ground, trying to feel out what it could be, but since he wasn't very used to sand and it was moving too quickly, he couldn't tell anything.

"Sheba," he said softly, "Do you think you can blow the sand off of that, so we can see what it is?" She nodded, and set up a wind to do just that. Unfortunately, the thing kept covering itself back up, and Sheba couldn't keep up her wind long enough to get more than a glimpse of red.

Felix had an idea. He pulled out the Pound Cube, crept toward the lump's path, and Pounded the ground right in front of it. It jerked backward and up out of the sand, revealing itself as a large scorpion. It ran across the sand away from Felix and disappeared through a pass.

The next thing Felix knew, he and Sheba were chasing it at full speed.

--

Wonderful journey!

It was a good thing, in Felix's opinion, that they hadn't encountered anyone once they got into Babi Lighthouse. He didn't like the way Saturos and Menardi kept terrifying and attacking people. He didn't think anyone had died, but there was no way to make sure, not when the Proxians were in such a hurry.

In any case, they had reached the part of the Venus Ruins the lighthouse was built on. At the other end of the room was a door that looked like it hadn't been opened in a very long time. In fact, Felix didn't see how it could open at all.

Alex, as usual, hung back without explaining himself as Saturos hurried the others over to the door. "Felix," the latter said, "come here and close your eyes."

Puzzled, he did so. Sheba looked around nervously, staying close to him. He decided to ask her about it later, but things were tense enough at the moment.

"This wall bears an invisible button. I want you to find it and press it."

His eyes still closed, Felix frowned in puzzlement. Nonetheless, he reached out and put his hand on the wall, trying to feel its structure with his Psynergy. Abruptly he found something odd. Exerting his power a bit, he felt it move. A moment later the room filled with the groan of millennia-old hinges opening.

Suddenly Felix heard unfamiliar voices from the other side of the room. Saturos and Alex quickly herded them all through the door, which closed behind them.

Feeling for Sheba's hand, Felix stepped forward into the dark.

--

Love is a river, I want to keep flowing;

Felix was tired. The weather kept getting worse, and the swirling snow kept him from being sure they were even going in the right direction. Finally, he slumped to the ground.

"Felix? What's wrong?" asked Sheba, from a little behind him.

"Are we ever going to get there? Will we ever be able to light Mars?"

"Of course we will. Look." She held his arm and did something - Felix thought it might be based on Reveal, but he wasn't sure - and pointed off to the right.

He looked and saw a blue glow. "You got the stars, and you lit Mercury, didn't you?" she reminded him. "Even though it's the element that opposed most of your group at the time?"

"Well, yes, but Alex was there, and it's not a direct opposition for me," he objected.

"Even so," said Sheba, and Felix could hear a smile in her voice. "Look," she said again, pointing farther right, where Felix could see yellow shining dimly. "Even when the only thing holding you together was the threat of Isaac following you, you made it to Venus. And even when Isaac defeated Saturos, he didn't stop the beacon from being lit."

Felix could only nod; she'd been there for much of that.

She indicated a spot farther still to the right, where purple gleamed through the blizzard. "Then, even though Saturos' ship sank, and Karst was hounding you, you got to Jupiter. And when she and Agatio attacked you, despite the lighthouse opposing you directly this time, you held up fine for a while before Jenna or I got there."

Again, Felix nodded mutely.

Sheba pulled on his arm and turned, so that they were facing each other directly. "So why, when you've overcome all of that, do you think you wouldn't be able to light one more lighthouse? Isaac's helping this time, and it's an allied element for you - your sister's element, for that matter!" She smiled at him, brushed his cheek with her lips, and tugged him up. "Let's go save the world."

--

This is the start!

"-a Jupiter, aren't you? You direct the wind?" Felix was shouting to be heard over the noise of the wind and what it was doing to the tent fabric.

The girl nodded, wide-eyed.

"Then read my mind!"

She closed her eyes, and Felix could see and feel her Psynergy reaching into his mind. The wind slackened a bit, then died completely. The girl rushed toward him...

...But before she crossed the few feet she had disappeared. again

--

Unexpected, what you did to my heart!

Sheba had been disappointed when they finally got the Hover Jade. It didn't seem to lift them more than a few inches off the ground, and only for a few seconds.

"That's not a hover! It's not even much of a jump!" she'd complained.

But she wasn't complaining now.

"Look, Felix!"

Felix was trying very hard not to look. That they were still under Jupiter Lighthouse, in a room carved out of ordinary rock, helped, but he still didn't like being eight or ten feet above the floor, on a platform made entirely of Psynergy. Especially when he wasn't in control of it. Intellectually, he knew there was no safer way to get into the Lighthouse, and that Sheba wouldn't do anything dangerous, but he couldn't...

His train of thought was interrupted by Sheba's hand slipping into his. Small and light as a curl of wind she might be, but that contact calmed Felix enough to open his eyes and begin to glimpse what she found so amazing.

--

At the beginning with you!

Felix still couldn't believe islands could float.

That wasn't particularly important now, though. The weird wave had hit and knocked them into whichever continent this was. Unfortunately, it had also scattered them. Felix himself wasn't seriously injured, but he didn't know how the others were faring. After calling a few times and getting no response, he set out - north, arbitrarily - to see whom he could find.

Then he was among trees - not enough to be called a forest, but enough to be the dominant feature. It was there that he found Sheba, her head against a tree. He cast Cure, she woke up and stood up, and together they went to find the others - and the future.

--

...Never dreaming what we'd have to go through.