Hello all!

A few weeks ago I took down my story "Family" from the site here, it was getting old and I'd lost a lot of interest in it. I still like the story and where it was gonna go, just not in the context of Golden Sun anymore.

Shut up about Dark Dawn already- I said SHUT UP! Felix isn't in Dark Dawn and his encyclopedia entries are scanty at best. I'm gonna do what I want and NEENER NEENER BLEH at everyone else! However: PLEASE RE-READ THIS CHAPTER OKAY? I edited several (small) aspects to agree with Dark Dawn, and since I develop a tick whenever I go too far against the canonical grain (sort of ironic, no?) I'm trying to keep with Dark Dawn as well as I can, while still refusing to relinquish the Dusk Ship.

So here it is, another Felix/Karst fanfic!

Consent

Chapter 1

Waking up was different from getting up, and he didn't want to get up yet. She was also laying on his arm, and he couldn't feel the fingers anymore.

"...Wake up." His voice was quiet, rough from sleep as he shifted a little on the bed. But it wasn't really a bed, just a heaped up pile of blankets on the stone floor. It was good enough. With his eyes still closed Felix nudged the back of her head with his nose, then rested back down on the pillow behind her.

"No."

He smiled at her weak reply, feeling, listening to her take a deep breath and stretch a little. They could have been closer, maybe with her back right up against his chest, but it got hot under the heavy wool blanket they'd slept with, so a little space was nice. But it could only be a little.

"Please?" He listened to her take another deep breath, like she was about to sigh, then cracked his eyes open as she wiggled a little before rolling around to face him. His arm was still asleep but he made it move so he could draw her closer, watching her faceted red eyes slowly clear as she pressed up to him. She wasn't the sort to curl or clutch, so he busied his fingertips by playing with the hem of her plain shirt; it had a big hole in the side and several stains, so she only ever wore it to bed.

"There's nothing to eat." Karst's voice managed to be sleepy and shrewd at the same time, but there was a lazy smile on her lips as his fingers took advantage of that hole over her waist.

"Again?"

"Again." Ah, right, he remembered now. She'd come in the evening before and they'd eaten the last loaf of rock-hard bread together. Her psynergy wasn't meant for baking, so unless they wanted to just eat flour they would need to find something edible in the market.

"Big strong man, can't even bring home some meat for the table." She ruffled her fingers in his dark hair just the way he didn't like, and he shook his head away after enduring just a second.

"Meat? No, but I can carry a brick of iron." And he could shovel coal, and pump bellows, and sweep floors... A blacksmith's life was not a very glamourous, but it might have paid better if he was actually a blacksmith.

She went for his hair again and he caught her wrist in his free-hand, forcing it down onto the blankets next to her head before rolling them a little and releasing his other arm. He flexed away the sensation of pins and needles, aware of her other hand twisting into the collar of his shirt be fore she quickly pulled him down for a kiss. It wasn't chaste or tender, and he managed to pin her other wrist down before they finished. He laughed at her a little as he felt her kick one leg uselessly under the heavy blanket: trying to hit him.

"That won't work."

"Fine." She stopped kicking.

When he went in to kiss her again her forehead shot up and bashed his nose. He was off her in a flash, profanities spluttering past his lips as he had a hand up to try and vainly catch the blood falling down his face.

"Charon's bitch!" He snapped, hearing her laugh at him over the furious roar in his ears. She knew how to hit a man so fragments of bone shot into the brain, but the knowledge didn't help as he moved off the makeshift bed and held his abused face.

"Here, let me fix it." All he saw was a huge grin and he almost slapped it right off of her, growling something obscene that only caused her to laugh a little more. It wasn't necessary for her to half-climb into his lap just to get at his face, but he stopped fighting her off and braced himself for the next step.

"For Mars' sake you had to break it?" He said shrewdly, uncrossing his eyes after the pain of having the cartilage re-set. It felt like he was holding his face just inside an oven door as red light collected over her palm and soaked into the split skin, mending the wound. He busied himself with wiping the blood off his lips, turning his face and spitting red onto the cold stone floor next to their cot. The home had almost no furnishings, and it wasn't like he could stand up with her sitting on his hips.

"That's disgusting." She wrapped her arms around his neck, the comment only half-hearted as he warily let her move in for another kiss. One of her hands was in his hair while the other trailed down the back of his shoulder. They never kissed or touched in public, because with Karst it was never just one or the other. They didn't peck lightly at one another, or give a friendly hug, and certainly didn't walk around arm-in-arm like most couples did in Loho. No, if Felix was going to touch her, or vice-versa, there would be no half-measures or 'attempts' at intimacy.

It was the sort of relationship where he didn't need verbal permission to lift that stained bit of cotton right up over her head and discard it. They were just careful about locking doors and where they installed windows in their private little abode.

It wasn't the nicest piece of land in Loho, or the cheapest, but proximity to the market had been just as important as keeping far, far away from the ocean. Loho was a fresh, active settlement growing up out of the ruins of an ancient walled city, and Felix's best guess was that the front of their property had once been a section of one of the city's quartering walls; the sort to distinguish between higher and lower classes, like Tolbi.

Whatever quarter had lain below the city's heart was still under the wall of rubble Loho was dug into, so the two of them had made sure to figure out just how much reach they had back into the earth and unexposed ruins before Felix started building. It turned out that they had a lot more than they had used already, so Felix could take his time and not worry so much about how many feet of stone he turned into sand in an evening, and focus instead on finding a way to get rid of the sand before their neighbours got too curious.

The only furniture in the house was a table and a wooden bench. That was it. Karst had taken on the task of finding and crafting things to actually make the shelter live-able, and had so far procured a fair amount of wood for planing and sawing and nailing together, she just had no nails, hammers or saws to get the job done with. It was Felix's job to work in one of Loho's forges and bring home money for those sorts of things; the hammers, saws, plates, knives, blankets, clothes, buckets, door-knobs, locks, window-glass, and food. Oh Venus the food, there was never, ever enough food unless one counted shellfish. Both of them got a little queasy when the money ran out and the only thing per-pound worth buying were the clams and molluscs which were farmed just outside the city harbour.

They'd learned that a good way to stave off hunger was simply to stay in bed on days when Felix wasn't called to apprentice in the forge.

"People are starting to talk, you know." This he said a while later, not so long that they'd fallen asleep again, but not so short either. "About us."

"Oh? And what do they think we're doing?" She was playing with the hair on his chest curiously, fluffing the brown curls up and then patting them back down slowly.

"Probably what we just did." Mm, he needed to stop smiling so much when he said that.

"Jealous." She teased, and he nodded with a little laugh. There was one small, brass-framed window in their 'bed' room, rectangular and small. Felix had placed it high under the eaves of the roof, along the south wall- the ancient one at the front of their property, so it was extremely inconvenient for anyone to notice, let alone look through. Together they were watching the sun crawl across the bare stone walls and counting the hours. "But who talks to you about it?"

The question caught him after a long enough pause that he'd begun to doze again, looking down at her on his shoulder for a moment as he tried to remember what they'd been talking about.

"Oh, the forge-master."

"That old man?" She grinned at him teasingly, and he tugged the lock of red hair he'd been spinning idly between his fingers.

"Yes, that old man who pays me." She'd already made that connection, but having him say it shut her up for a few seconds. He thought she was going to say something right away but instead she took the time to mess around with the blankets instead. Karst didn't settle down again until she was using his chest as a pillow and looking up at him, Felix watching her curiously and wondering why he no longer had her body pressed up against his for warmth.

"They wouldn't gossip about a married couple." She said simply, in a tone she could have used for saying 'People get wet when it rains.'

"Well..."

"Oh please, it's not like we're doing anything weird." They stopped and stared at each other for a moment. They had the same thought.

"Except that."

"Yeah, but I didn't like that..."

"No, that was a bad idea..." Besides, no one could have known about... that.

"My point." Karst said, getting back to the conversation and pulling Felix's attention along with her. "Is that we should just marry and be done with it." Done with it? "The gossip." He knew what she meant. "Then why are you arguing with me?"

"I'm not!" He protested, but he could already hear the change of tone.

"Why haven't you, anyways?"

"Argued? Well earlier you broke my-" No, no definitely not what she'd meant. "You said marriage wasn't important."

"It's not." She didn't sound very convinced.

"...Come on, sit up." Righting himself as far as he could with her still resting on him, once Karst was up the two of them sat facing each other. She had the quilt wrapped around her legs and torso just by chance, so he caressed her arm and shoulder so it didn't feel like he was delaying the conversation. Her red hair had grown out again, the way he liked it: not in that stupid apple-shaped bob. Even months after that ugly style had grown out he still gave her grief over it.

"What if I told you it was a Valean thing, would that make you feel better?"

"I'm not upset."

"Liar." He took his hand from her seeing how she was just watching it. With them, having her not touch back was akin to most women pulling away.

"You always said Vale was filled with prudes and priests anyways, how could it be a Valean thing?" Her eye were critical, and he gave an absent shrug before coming out with the reason.

"In Vale, matches have to be approved by the council."

"Excuse me?" He laughed at her reaction, the stumped look on her face was almost cute.

"I don't mean the elders pair people up, but you need their permission. It's like Pluelle's blessing in Prox."

"No, it's not." She answered sharply. "Pluelle's blessing is just a blessing, he can object until he's blue in the face and it wouldn't matter. If families have a problem then they take care of it themselves, not go crying to the chief."

"Well, Vale's different."

"Very." She conceded, quieting for a few moments as she picked at the pilled blanket they'd been laying on. Felix was getting ready to lay down again and go back to pretending he wasn't hungry when she said something else.

"I still don't get it, it's not like you're Valean."

"What?" And how did she come by that logic?

"Well, you're from Vale." She admitted, and he kept watching her as she strung the words together. "But you don't live with those people. And you don't intend to go back to the camps. You don't even want to visit that place anymore, and you only write letters to your father. You stopped keeping to Vale's meditations after only a few weeks in Prox and I've never seen you go back since. So what makes you think the council has anything to do with your life anymore?"

Absently, he was reminded of another reason for why he loved her. Karst wasn't ignorant or naive enough suggest they just go to the elders and get permission. Their match would be heresy in the community, provided they could actually make it all the way from the edge of the refugee camps to the Elders' presence without being mobbed along the way. Isaac's stories had given Prox a bitter taste to the Valeans, and his Proxian especially wouldn't be a welcome reality.

"I'm still Valean." He said, but the words dribbled slowly past his lips. He saw her getting ready to speak again and cut her off. Yes, he knew he hadn't answered any of her points, so he did something better. "But you're right." He was sort of nodding, half-rocking his head from side to side as he thought it over, then smiled as he reached out and tugged on her wrist. She came willingly and he enjoyed a few moments of skin-on-skin contact, finally pulling his lips from her neck again to speak.

"I'm a starving ex-patriot-" She laughed at him as he pushed her down onto the blankets again. "-who lives in a hole-" He didn't know how she managed it, but she tangled the blanket between them so well he had to let her go in order to move it aside. "-and sweeps coal dust for a living." In the end he gave up and let her saunter out of the room wearing one of his shirts, following only after he located a pair of pants and pulled them on.

It turned out she was lying: there were still three eggs left and Karst had just dropped them into a pot of water when he came out, wrapping an arm around her from behind.

"Marry me, girl. It can't get any worse than it is now."

"Big, strong man," She purred, coaxing the fire to burn with a flick of her hand before turning her attention on him again. "Can't even propose properly."

"Everyone ready?"

"Just waiting on you, slow poke."

Most of Patcher's camp was still asleep as the young man quietly shut the Sanctum door. With the sun peering past the quiet landscape and the sleeping campsite, it was utterly silent as the blonde turned and faced his travelling companions. Both red-heads, both women, and both dressed for light travel. Isaac had been surprised when Kay had expressed a willingness to go with him and Jenna, but he really didn't mind her company.

"Did you get it?" Jenna asked calmly, her voice doing better than her body at hiding how ready she was to get going. Her tanned arms were holding a rough leather bag by a strap around her wrist, white cotton sleeves coming down to her elbows and a red stained travel vest on. A belt of brass trinkets and glass decorated her waist and held up the soft doe-skin pants which tucked into supple boots.

"See? I told you it'd be easy." Jenna shuffled her feet three different ways waiting for him to show them the relic he'd borrowed from the sanctum Priests. He lifted the small gold chain holding the lapis, both of them watching the deep blue stone twirl and glow in the early sunshine before Isaac wrapped his palm around it again. "So you're sure you've packed everything you need?" Jenna rolled her eyes at him and Kay had a determined look on her face he hadn't seen in a while.

"Please don't stall, Isaac." She was hanging back a little, but her voice was firm. Kay had her bright red hair as long as ever and plaited neatly behind her head, a blue and green headband circled her wide forehead and she had a small gold chain around her neck.

"I'm not stalling, just being thorough." Isaac absently wondered at her choice of attire, three layers of white, green, and red fabric making up a sturdy dress and protective apron. He kept quiet though, aware that Garet's sister probably didn't own many pants, and since they wouldn't be walking very far she should be fine anyways. At least there was a blue-dyed cloak sitting on the ground behind her, along with Jenna's equally bright sash, so she was prepared for their autumn trip.

"C'mon, let's go!" Jenna stomped her foot as her patience began to run out, Isaac beckoning her to be calm but not getting anywhere with it. "It's not like we're gonna be staying in Loho very long anyways. If we've forgotten something then we'll just get over it until we come back!"

"Fair enough. Alright, Kay, hold onto Jenna's arm." Giving the directions smoothly, he watched Kay swallow a lump in her throat before gathering up her things and doing as he'd instructed. The Lapis took a lot of getting used to, and he didn't doubt for a moment that Garet had been teasing her for days about the experience. Poor girl.

"Start it already!" Jenna was in no such condition, grabbing his elbow and giving Isaac a jerk that was both playful and urgent. They shared a look, and with a deep breath the venusian focused his power into the small blue stone in his glove.

"Alright, Felix. Here we come!"

Edited for Dark Dawn. I'ma still ignore a lot of DD for this, but will attempt to work it in properly in places. Obviously this is taking place like... 2-3 years after TLA.