Memory, Sentiment, and Everything In-Between
Just a little clarification of concept. A number of character studies, based on how a group so intricately connected might feel about the loss of the thread that holds them together. Some characters will have multiple presentations (platonic and romantic love, friendship, hate, possibly even indifference); may be a fair bit of slash and the like, but nothing particularly explicit. Thanks for reading this little introduction, and enjoy.
Isaac (Platonic)
Has it really been thirty years?
Sometimes, it feels like so much less. I wake up in the morning, and I smell someone frying eggs somewhere, and without warning I'm back, thirty years in the past. I'm tired and moody (as Jenna would so nicely put it), listening to the sizzling, popping and spitting of breakfast being cooked over an open fire. I can smell it, drifting in on a light summer breeze, hear the roar of the ocean towards the coast and the hum of a woman's voice as she quietly sings to herself, and I can lose myself in the memory of a time when I was young, careless and free. Then Jenna will walk in, but she'll be 30 years older, only a few wrinkles on her still-beautiful face, and the memory shatters, leaving me almost thankful and almost bitter at the loss all at once.
She'll walk over to me, eyes glittering with mirth even in her middle age (or what would be her middle age, were we not all trapped in our youthful forms) and set down a tray beside my head. Then she'll lean over to kiss me, just once on the lips, tender and caring as always, before she stands up, nods a little, and walks out, hips sashaying with as much grace as she's ever had. The routine plays out the same way whenever we're together; she knows what I'm thinking, and I know what she's thinking, and the fog of nostalgia and sorrow that shrouds us both thickens, choking and dense and threatening to engulf us both.
Then, I'll hear a voice that never fails to remind me why I keep moving forward, what it is that motivates me to press on the way I do. It'll say something like "Wake up, Dad," or "Time to eat, Dad," and it all becomes worthwhile, the routine, the sometimes-overpowering monotony of it all. For Matthew; for my son. After all, I owe him the same opportunities my parents gave me, and I love him, in ways that I never believed I would love anyone thirty years ago.
Occasionally, I'll talk to Matthew about our lives, all those years ago. I'll tell him about how we all fought alongside each other, foes turned friends, all to save Weyard. The reminiscence is good for me, as it helps to keep my memory sharp, and it's good for Matthew, too, who sits next to me on my bed in our house in Kalay, enraptured by the stories of his extended family who united against all odds to save the world.
Our house is beautiful, built from solid stone and detailed with the most intricate carvings of the highlights of our journey on the walls, so the basic reference materials are there when I need them; anything else that I forget, or don't know, I make up or defer to Jenna. She seems to delight in reliving our younger years (some say our glory days, though they're young, and don't understand the real glory is in raising our children), coming alive the way she used to as she jumps around animatedly, waving her spatula like a sword while she narrates anything from an uneventful trip through the mountains filled with log-pushing and storm-summoning to a particularly fierce battle between our group and a band of roaming bandits, or monsters, or whatever it is she's remembered. That reminds me of breakfast, somehow, though the link is tenuous at best, but it never fails to make my stomach grumble, and Matthew, regardless of his age, whether five, ten, fifteen or older, giggles childishly while Jenna chides me about not eating. The giggle is always enough to distract her into fawning over her little baby boy, who complains about not being a baby anymore despite enjoying the attention, as always, leaving me to enjoy a good meal. I bite into it, and without fail, one word comes to mind.
"Felix."
I say it unthinkingly, and immediately regret it. The room falls into quiet, but the sound cuts through the air like a knife, pierces the haze of our little family life and fills it with an unwanted but refreshing clarity. Jenna, caught up in her ministrations over Matthew's uncontrollable hair, squealing over her delicately beautiful son, stops and blanches, a look of slowly rising rage forming on her face. Matthew looks down at the floor, crosses his legs awkwardly, and sighs, waiting for his mother to toss a meaningful glare at me before she grabs his arm and storms out. She does, eventually, and I'm left alone with my thoughts once more, though the pain of Matthew choosing his mother over me every time never quite eases. I relax in the knowledge that, as always, he'll come back later and apologize, but it will only ever be half-hearted; he's come to agree with his mother about this, dislikes the way I bring up the name every time. He's more used to bottling up his feelings about his missing uncle and keeping them locked inside. For that I'm grateful; even if he's the spitting image of me, he's far more like his mother's side of the family in temperament – caring, loving, forgiving. It helps that his volatility is suppressed by his eerily familiar stoicism; he's far more like Felix than he could ever possibly know.
That path of thought always leads back to the beginning, though, and it always makes me wonder why Jenna doesn't just learn new ways to cook, so we can avoid all the unpleasant feelings. I may well know it's selfish, but it seems easier simply to change than to forget – or at least, it would be, were it not for the fact that everything she does seems to be influenced by her love for this missing big brother of hers, right down to the way she fries eggs. How she makes something so basic seem so personal, I'll never know, and try as I might to be frustrated by it, I cannot; long ago I came to the realization that his spectre would always hang over us, like a pall. It doesn't bother me anymore, or at least, not as much as it used to, when we would fight over it, have massive arguments about how he was ruining our life without even being there to do so, or to help us resolve it.
In a sense, I'm grateful for that, because, try as I might, I can't deny that I want my big brother back just as much as she does.
At Jupiter Lighthouse, I told him I trusted him, and in retrospect, laying my cards out on the table like that during the first hand might have been the most stupid mistake I've ever made. He had just nodded at me, smiled one of those small smiles that I'd desperately longed for from when we were younger, before all the quests and duties had been thrown on my shoulders, and pocketed the Mars Star. It had filled me with confidence, for the first time since my journey had begun, and I had known, without a doubt, that things would turn out alright. There was no other possibility.
The others had disagreed, and we had rushed to the lighthouse's aerie, only to find an amused Felix holding his own against a flagging pair of Proxians, each of whom were growing more irritated by the second. Briefly I had wondered when Felix had become so skilled, so strong, so secure in his own abilities that he was able to take on Karst and Agatio at once and dominate the fight while Ivan and I had been so thoroughly defeated, but it had only been moments before I realized that this was Felix I was talking about; soft-spoken, kind, level-headed Felix, who was never caught off-guard, never outsmarted, never beaten at anything. Somehow, he had survived so much pain, suffering, and loss, and still come out on top; why would this be any different?
As soon as Karst and Agatio retreated (just after Piers rejoined the fight, when it was clear that they'd been outclassed), I had confronted him. At the time, it had seemed the most prudent course of action, the sort of thing a leader like Felix would do, so I'd been shocked when he collapsed into Piers' arms, and very nearly terrified – what would I do if Felix had been hurt? How would I face Jenna, the girl I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, if it was because of me that her brother had died for a third time? Piers seemed to have the situation well in hand, though, as he cured Felix's fatigue quickly, smiling warmly at the Venus Adept as he helped him to his feet.
I approached them quickly, and though I wanted to speak at length, I knew it was pointless. They intended to light the lighthouse, and we were in no condition to stop them; a battle, as all three girls agreed, would be needlessly dangerous. I had my own doubts; did I want to fight Felix? Did I think we could beat him? Garet certainly agreed. Felix had always been the best with a sword, and we were so drained that a swordfight would be the only option. I was sure that we would stand no chance. What seemed more important, though, was that I would be taking up arms against Felix, of all people. We'd come this far to stop him, that I knew, but to fight him? None of us had even considered it, especially not after his sacrifice at the peak of Venus Lighthouse. We'd always assumed he would just give up; now, he and his group were ready to challenge all our assumptions, maybe even overturn them, and I didn't want any more bloodshed between us. By that point, I was firmly convinced I'd seen enough carnage to last me ten lifetimes.
Felix looked at me, practically looked through me, and then he spoke, and I knew that I was done. That silver tongue of his, all the honeyed words and persuasive expressions had always suckered me in before, just like everyone else, and we found ourselves mutely agreeing to a meeting in Contigo. It wasn't perfect, nothing short of a proper end to our quest would be, but it seemed like a good enough start, and I was eager to take it.
When Felix began to explain, after we'd all reunited in Contigo once more, my group and I were completely dumbstruck. He'd taken it upon himself to play the villain, Kraden said, while Felix guiltily looked away as if he, the hero, who had persevered against all odds, was somehow in the wrong. He'd helped innumerable people, saved countless lives along the way, full of grim determination and faith in himself all the time, carrying the crushing burden of being 'the enemy', and none of it had slowed him down, let alone stopped him. Even when Saturos and Menardi had fallen, or Alex had abandoned them, they'd carried on; Felix had carried on, trying to save the world. Nothing, not even the Wise One, had stood in his way.
I couldn't contain myself then, not after being forced to examine all my own failures and foolish preconceptions (Why was the Wise One in the right? What made him right? Was it because the elders of Vale said so), so I excused myself and stepped outside to catch my breath and collect my few remaining thoughts. Had I been the villain all along, unwittingly condemning the world to death? Was I doing the right thing after all? There was no right answer. If I decided Felix and Kraden were both lying, trying to delude me in some mad bid for power (Felix, who had defeated gods and demons alike, found Lemuria, seen the edge of the world, become a witch doctor, for Alchemy's sake! Didn't he have enough power already?), stopping them could destroy the world; just observing the effects of the three lighthouses on Weyard, how they imbalanced the world so much, was enough to prove we couldn't leave things unfinished, and none of us knew how to extinguish the other beacons that had already been lit. We didn't even know if it was possible, and certainly not whether it was possible for us, at our level of knowledge and power.
On the other hand, if we went along with Felix, we'd be turning on the Wise One, and unleashing Alchemy on an unprepared, unsuspecting world. War, strife, suffering, more, all virtually guaranteed. Was it worth it? The possibility of a quick death for Weyard, or the certainty of a slow one?
Silently Jenna had come outside to join me, hoping to comfort me and soothe her own doubts, claiming that everyone was resting, trying to make sense of what they'd learned. Felix was the only other person fully awake and aware, pondering what he should be doing – always so damn compassionate, so wise, so condescending! – and she had been worried about me. She knew I was unsure, and though time has stolen her exact wording from me, I can clearly remember the gist of what she told me, and how much it allayed my fears.
"I trust Felix," she'd mumbled, but her downcast eyes spoke volumes of the extent of love and belief she held towards her big brother when I brought her face up to gaze at mine. "I know you do too, Isaac."
It was then that I finally made my decision, out of love for Jenna, and admiration for Felix. I remembered why it had been so important to find him, to stop him, to learn the truth of things: he was my mentor, my hero, my elder brother, and I'd be damned if I let him walk out of our lives again. I cared, and still care, far too much to let that happen.
"Felix!" I had shouted, throwing the door open and giving him what I believed was my most intimidating look. It didn't seem to affect him at all, but by then I had everyone's attention, so I stepped forward and stood in front of the man. Later, Jenna would tell me that I exuded fiery passion, so much intensity that even Felix had been slightly cowed, even if he didn't show it. "I'm with you," I had said, and he'd smiled this radiant smile in response that captured my heart and refused to yield it. From then on, I knew I was irrevocably anchored to this man's cause, as his hands grasped mine and shook them vigorously, eyes brimming with new vigour.
I was tethered to Felix's side from that day; the side of my brother, my companion, and my most trusted friend.