The cool mountain breeze rushed forth, rustling the tall bamboo leaves in a soothing whisper, chasing finite ripples across the glassy-surfaced ponds. The mid-morning zephyrs were once a welcome comfort to those meditating out in the beautifully cultivated gardens on the holy grounds of the Lama Temple. It was a quiet place of serene beauty - a description that could also be used to describe the temple master, Hamma. In days of old, Master Hamma could be seen gliding about, correcting her students with a gentle smile and a soft word here and there, or instead relaxing in deep meditation herself. The powerful Jupiter adept could see visions on the wind, predicting the future for those who dared risk crossing the fierce Lamakan Desert from the north, or the harsh mountain pass from Altin in the east, to meet with her.

But those were in the days of old, when people desperately sought escape from the toils and torment of a collapsing world. Alchemy had been restored now. There were no longer bands of roving villagers-turned-thieves - the land was fertile, and they could easily farm to support their families. The monsters had vanished; natural birds and beasts peacefully roamed the fields and forests. The mysterious and devastating natural disasters had all but dried up, and the threat of Weyard's collapse was no longer imminent. All was well in the world.

"Or so they say," murmured a soft voice. Ivan, the Jupiter adept that had helped restore alchemy and the power of the Golden Sun to the world, was not convinced. Although he was the youngest and smallest out of his trusted companions, he was often the most mature and logical. That was the result of having the power to read minds at will... It changes how one looks at things.

Frowning, he cupped his pointed chin in his hands, surveying the once-proud Lama Temple grounds with his troubled violet eyes. Hamma, his enigmatic elder sister, had left to live in her birthplace of Contigo. Her temple, once a lush paradise, was now overgrown and abandoned. The bamboo had flourished, taking over the winding pathways, encroaching the muddy ponds that had once been so pristine... The building itself looked stable, but the colours had faded, the wood had chipped and splintered, the gateway sagged on its hinges... It was a sad state of affairs.

Ivan sighed heavily, slipping off of the rock he was perched upon to land nimbly on his feet. He found himself oddly at peace in this desolate and lonely place that he had once aspired to serve at... When the final lighthouse beacon had been lit, when the world's end had been averted, when peace was restored...

Everyone he had grown to love chose their true loyalties, and he found himself back where he started... Alone, miserably lonely, and struggling to accept who he was as a person. Ivan was shy, he was always small for his age, he was never physically strong... Reading minds made him an introvert, since he didn't need to ask people's opinions to know what they really thought. He had been orphaned, adopted, raised in a place where his abilities were unknown and frightening, something to be ashamed of. He loved only his Master, Hammet, and the Lady Layana, and found himself separated from them, orphaned again, and even accused of stealing their most prized possession. When he met Isaac and Garet, he was desperately reaching out for someone, anyone, to come and save him from his nightmare... and they did. They cleared him of his thievery charges, showed him he was not alone, and took him with them on their mighty quest... It was the happiest time of his life.

It did not last.

When they achieved what they set out to do - save the world - they returned to their homes and families. Isaac, Jenna, Felix, Garet... they all returned to rebuild their hometown of Vale, living peacefully with brothers and fathers, mothers and sisters, something Ivan found himself immediately uncomfortable and jealous with.

Mia left for Imil. Ivan found himself missing her particularly... Mia had often been the sweet voice of reason, when Isaac and Garet got too carried away with the glory of combat. Without her motherly influence, Ivan felt alienated between the best friends from birth; he would never be that close to anyone in his lifetime...

Piers and Sheba left to a less certain future, choosing to try and return to where they had lived, even though their answers did not lay there. Piers left him the ship, with its magnificent wings, claiming he relinquished its ownership the moment the wings were attached - which only added further guilt. Their departure also disheartened Ivan, since he had felt a kinship to the orphans, especially Sheba. But in the end, he wasn't important to her, or any of the others.

He had left the party.

The Jupiter adept slowly crossed the bamboo field, golden hair brushing against pale leaves. He still wore his comfortable green and violet tunic, soft fabric intended for heavy travelling - even though he was running simple errands. There were no more monsters to fight, so he hadn't brought a rod weapon with him. Not that one would be necessary, with his powerful level of Psynergy - but it was the statement, the challenge to the world to throw something at him, to make him feel useful again.

When Ivan had left New Vale, he felt oddly uneasy. He had two places to go, but... He did not want to return to Master Hammet. He felt guilty... Ivan knew it was stupid of him, since the merchant had raised him as a son more than as a servant, but... he'd lost the Shaman's Rod... Obviously the prophecy had dictated the Rod to be used in exchange for the Hover Jade in the Shaman Village, but... Ivan hadn't been the one to use it.

He felt like a false prophet, a pointless existence. He wasn't the only descendant of Anemos - Sheba had been able to fulfill the most important part of his legacy for him. Was this the "terrible destiny" that Hamma had so dreadfully predicted? He couldn't even return the Rod to his master, who had worked so hard to raise him. No, he would never return to Kalay... He didn't deserve to live with the closest thing he had to a family.

Hamma... Ivan shook his head unhappily. His sister had disappointed him. There was something about her, something in those cool lavender eyes, that rendered him helplessly obedient and willing to please. Perhaps it was knowing that she was his only living relative, or perhaps a long-suppressed childhood memory of her love, but Ivan could not help but linger on her every word. When they'd first met, in this temple, he was inexplicably moved by the sadness in her eyes... which he had not seen since. He'd believed her prophecy, heart and soul, and yet, in the end it had brought him nothing. He'd believed her words, spoken in the eerily nostalgic Contego, that she would spend time with him after the lighthouses were lit. And while she did honor her promise... well... it just wasn't the family bonding time Ivan had hoped for. He still felt unloved by the world.

The short Jupiter adept stood facing the sheer mountain wall, his back to the abandoned temple. It was of no further interest to him.

She was avoiding him, Ivan remembered concluding. She never once spoke of their parents, of whom Ivan desperately wanted to learn about. In fact, she rarely spoke at all! She seemed so cold, serene like a frozen pond, graceful like a sculpture of ice... Untouchable. But he couldn't help but long for her approval, since no one else even offered to take him in... Hamma was all he had in this world... which was what brought him here.

"You! What you do here? I remember you, you Isaac's friend!"

Ivan's gaze snapped up, pale face fiercely defensive. But he relaxed as he recognized the broken english, spoken with the lilting inflections from eastern Angara. It was Feizhi, the girl from Xian that he and his former friends had met during their travels. She was why he had come to this forsaken place, although she didn't know it yet...

"Feizhi, I am Ivan. I'm Hamma's brother... She wanted me to deliver this message to you."

He reached into his bag, revealing a scroll. Violet eyes scanned the plant-strewn rock - where was she, exactly? The tall girl was agile, and well-versed in martial arts, so he had no doubt that she could be anywhere on the cliffs. But he tried hard not to jump when she tapped him on the shoulder, a small smile on her heart-shaped face.

"I read Master's message... I miss Master Hamma. You lucky, Ivan, she take you with her. I stay with father in Xian, but father get sick. I travel to find cure, all way to Champa! Find no cure, go back home. Father dead. Hsu and students left. I stay. I guard both temples. They both ghost places."

"Haunted," Ivan corrected softly, handing her the sealed scroll with a curious look. That was indeed an apt description... A place of haunting memories and wasted beauty. As Feizhi scanned his sister's scrawling eastern script, Ivan found himself studying her face and features. She was surprisingly pretty up close... Her headstrong, gung-ho attitude was all that he remembered of her - that, and how she acted as though she loved her friend Hsu, but then flirted with Isaac. But both of her crushes had left her behind, just as both of Ivan's had done to him. Didn't that give them something in common - lacking some vital component, that would make them at peace with life? Could two incompletes make a whole?

Ivan sighed, turning his violet gaze upwards to the cloudy sky. He thought too much. That was probably why no one ever got close to him... he was always lost in his own mind. Maybe Hamma was like that too...?

"Ah... Ivan?" she asked him suddenly, brows furrowed in concentration. He turned to look, a full head shorter than the eastern girl, standing on his tiptoes to see where she was pointing on the scroll.

"I... I'm sorry, Feizhi, I can't read the Xian script. It's all squiggles and pictures to me," he said with an apologetic smile, a slight flush rising in his pale cheeks. Feizhi frowned, snapping the scroll shut in frustration at their language barrier. "Master Hamma, she says to ask you, I do not know how to say..."

"Oh!" Ivan's flush deepened slightly - why am I blushing? he thought frantically - "I can - if you'll let me, I'll just Mind Read you... If that's okay...?"

Normally I don't bother to ask... Even an adept can't stop me if they don't know it's coming, and that's the one thing I don't bother to be polite about. Why...? I wonder why I feel so awkward around her. I guess because she's so close to my sister, and because she likes Isaac... Both people I look up to, so of course I can't measure up to them...

Feizhi blinked curiously at him, and then began to laugh. Unlike her bold, halting speech, her laugh was soft and sweet, a pure sound from the heart. She smiled at him, heart-shaped face framed by glossy lavender bangs. "Yes, Mind Read, Master Hamma show me that. That fine, you go ahead, little Ivan."

Blushing furiously, the Jupiter adept ducked his blond head and shut his eyes, effortlessly reaching the Psynergy within his body. As he opened his eyes, the world around him appeared in a shimmering, colourful mess - the effect of looking at and inside and beyond everything simultaneously. Feizhi's thoughts streamed into his mind as he held her eyes.

Master Hamma wants me to return home with you, Ivan, to live in Contego. She says that she will begin training the two of us, and that she has been waiting for us to be on the same level. Now that I have been practicing and mastering the Psynergy I've been given, and you are ready to better yourself, we will be perfect training partners for the task at hand. I am happy with this... I have been so lonely here by myself, and you make me smile, little Ivan. I look forward to spending time with you, and Master Hamma too... This is a wonderful occasion. I may not trust you at first, after the pain of losing Hsu, but perhaps someday I will be able to-

Quickly Ivan blinked, freeing himself from Feizhi's mind. He hadn't meant to delve into the more personal aspects of her thoughts, but it was so hard to keep things separate, especially when one is curious...

Wait, why am I curious?

Feizhi giggled, rubbing her temples. "It feel funny, like energy tickle inside head," she exclaimed. "Master Hamma much more gentle."

Ivan bristled. "Well, forgive me for not being as good as my sister!" he snapped, but instantly apologized. "S-sorry, didn't mean to... well, I guess I'm a little... Sorry."

The tall girl slapped him on the back good-naturedly, although her martial art-honed muscles almost laid Ivan flat. "You silly, little Ivan! Now how we get to Contego? We go through desert?" She shivered, hugging her arms together. The monsters were gone, but the desert was still an eerie and dangerous place.

Rubbing his back ruefully, Ivan bit his lip and glanced up at her. Hearing her inner voice so soft and gentle, he'd forgotten she was so athletic... It seemed strange to him that a Jupiter adept would be physically strong as well as mentally. She would have great potential, if the Psynergy stone that had struck her gave her full powers...

"Huh? Oh, no! We'll just take the ship back, it's much faster... I docked it back here... Come on, let's leave now!"

He took Feizhi's hand and led her swiftly to the outskirts of the Lama Temple grounds, oblivious to the decaying wooden gate he passed beneath. A fluttering excitement was rising in his narrow chest, something he hadn't felt since a day long ago, in a town called Vault... This was the start of something new, he could feel it, taste it in the wind! He wouldn't be useless, leftover, discarded anymore... He had a purpose, something to strive for! He wouldn't just stagnate in Contego, or sail aimlessly around the empty seas. He, Ivan, had something to look forward to... A future.