A Time For Everything
By Kadevi
September 11, 2004
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It was supposed to have been a visit like any other year. Autumn's full gales and cheerful coolness was predominant over much of Weyard like always, and sunshine that wasn't as brilliant as summer's glare brightened everything. Leaves set in large, multi-colored piles of golds, crimsons, and bronze crunched and flew everywhere when children jumped into them, settling softly in the bouncy foliage. Adults laughed as the harvest season drew to a close, and they had a few days to lounge around in wicker chairs or on the thatched roofs, watching their children play together.
Time passed lazily - after months of scrambling across seas and mountains after lighthouses and lost friends, Isaac and his former companions had eventually separated to their respective homes. Isaac remained in Vale with Garet, Jenna, and Felix. To nobody's surprise (a circumstance that surprised Garet very much), he proposed to Jenna and had a small ceremony with family and friends about a week after their engagement so the very friends he had traveled with for weeks and weeks on end could be at the ceremony.
Ivan and Sheba returned to Vault, and later on, to Lama Temple with Hama. The peaceful existence and quiet lives they lived there was enough for the two young Jupiter Adepts, who had several towns within easy travel distance. Since neither were frivolous nor materialistic people, they tended to travel frequently, from Lalivero to Tolbi to Garoh and even up to Prox. They were often hard to reach and harder to find, but surprisingly, both managed to find their way back to Vale whenever there was some new happenings or news.
Picard returned at first to Lemuria, but was denied entrance upon his arrival. He was disheartened at this at first, but got the bright idea to explore the seas he had been unable to travel when they were pressed for time during their journeys. He first told his friends of his plans about a year after peace had settled in Weyard, and when he made a visit to Mia in Imil (with the flying ship, it was much easier and faster) she came along.
Strangely, Mia admitted to a strange lethargy since her return to Imil. She hadn't much use there, not after the Hermes water of Mercury Lighthouse had begun flowing again. Justin and Megan took care of everything that did not warrant the amazing healing capabilities of the precious healing water, and thus Mia, after finishing her instruction of the two, had found herself wanting for adventure again. Occassionally, when they met (usually in the oddest of places), Ivan and Sheba would join the two, though they didn't gain as much pleasure from being out at sea as the two Mercury Adepts did.
It was very normal - very routine, really - for all eight Adepts to return to New Vale every autumn. There were no huge life-changing events in their lives, but soon times of trouble and conflicts passed. There were no wars or battles fought, though monsters still roamed the land (much to the dismay of Weyard's people). People and towns prospered; new towns and cities sprouted from nothing seemingly overnight. Formerly small towns and villages blossomed into bustling, populous cities. Even New Vale, though its transition came at a much slower pace than others such as the nearby Vault.
It would be an understatement to say that all of them were unused to the slow, peaceful lives they now led. It wasn't that they craved adventure, so much as viewed it as faster-paced, more lively, and ultimately a time when they built the most important bridges in their lives. It was difficult for common folk to see their heroes as just ordinary people. To them, these eight young people (excepting Picard, who looked young but wasn't really) were the heroes of the land, and were treated as idols everywhere. The tale spread through the land, but no matter how many riches and splendors were thrown at them, none of the Adepts changed all that much.
For what was sitting at home, doing nothing, compared to setting up a cold camp and gathering wood to strike a fire in the evening? A warm, home-cooked meal would always surpass what passed for the travel they usually ate in the past, but what of the glowing conversations and debates? Of course the worry and concern that had become almost second-nature paled in comparison to content and happiness, but the journey gave a sense of purpose to the Adepts, a feeling that couldn't be banished once their quest was completed. When peace set in, and their lives began anew, they were at first happy, but all too soon everyone felt the need to do something.
As it was said before, Ivan, Sheba, Mia, and Picard took to exploring - Jenna and Garet were happily married and caring for their three unruly children. Isaac and Felix eventually became the captain of New Vale's new guard force. It didn't quite compare to the adventure, but it was something to do.
Nobody had expected danger to come again. By all rights, it should not have happened, especially not to the group of eight Adepts who had changed the history of Weyard forever. Hadn't they had enough suffering for a lifetime?
But heartbreak and grief did come to them, just not in the form any of them would ever have expected.
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When they first got the news, they couldn't believe it. Mia's face went snowy white, and Sheba gasped in horror, dropping the missive onto the deck. Ivan froze, and Picard promptly grabbed the paper and crumpled it up, stomping into his cabin with it.
When they each managed to put aside their shock for long enough, they read the letter again. Once. Twice. They read it until tears ran down their faces, or their jaws were gritted with anger, their fists threatening to tear the paper to peaces. Picard stored the short message somewhere in his cabin, and they immediately made their way back to New Vale from Fuchin Temple, since they had been exploring in Treasure Isle with few results except more laughter and memories.
Terror they hadn't felt for years kept the four running as fast as they could towards New Vale in silence, their minds imagining horrible scenes in which smoke smothered, and air burned. Each day passed in a blur as the winter up north shifted slightly to autumn further south. Giant hills, baby mountains, forests, plains, and trails went by so quickly as they ran, hoping that the letter they had received wasn't true, even when a small, remote part of their minds clamored that it was. They all saw the thin column of smoke in that direction, noting that it got bigger and bigger as they neared their destination. For that brief period of time, they managed to evade grief and heartbreak. It was a small respite, but none of them had felt such fear in a long time. It numbed them of all other emotions until they got to New Vale.
They had to climb up a slight rise to see New Vale, which was built right above the old foundations of their namesake. All four, clasping hands tightly, ventured up as four friends, together.
"Oh no..." The gasp came from Mia, who tried to hold back the tears of grief at the horrible scene that lay before them. Those two words summed up everything. She broke free from Picard and began running as fast as she could toward the groups of people who lingered and mingled among the charred ashes of New Vale, desolately few people compared to the bustling city they had seen only one year past. Picard followed, sprinting after the no longer young healer, as did Ivan and Sheba, who could only stare in horror at what lay before their eyes.
The entire city had been burned down. The cryptic, concise message they received said the fire had started in the east part of town, where there lay an area of forest and trees that was also now bare and black. What people remained were searching hopelessly in the ruins of the city, searching for survivors among the wreckage. Their faces and skin were stained with soot, hair coated in a thin layer of gray ash that seemed to spread to the Valeans. Where before were buildings four or five stories high, and a few even higher, were now merely hollow shells, some collapsed, others standing like black, empty ghosts. Everybody seemed numb as people arrived - mostly from Vault, others from a new city slightly farther called Murall. They joined others in pulling fallen timbers off empty ground, calling for survivors though by now, there could hardly be hope for anyone.
As days passed, only the rising and setting of the sun reminded everyone that time was not at a standstill for their tragedy. Silence cloaked everything, as well as a numb shock that could not be permeated. It was a deafening silence, and neither Picard nor Mia, nor Ivan or Sheba, could find it in their hearts to cry from grief or speak much, albeit a few words here and there.
A week after their arrival, Isaac and Felix's bodies were found under the rubble of one of the largest buildings in the city. They were together, their cloaks keeping their clothes and bodies recognizable, faces clean but for a layer of ash and smoke. Mia heard first, and searched for Picard, Ivan, and Sheba before approaching the area where the two were laid out at her request. They stared down at the two - so serene and peaceful even in death. Mia cleansed their bodies with Psynergy just as they arrived, so when they looked down upon the two Venus Adepts, they saw them as they were in life.
"They look like they're sleeping, don't they?"
Sheba looked up, her face torn between sadness and anger. Jenna was standing on the opposite side of the four, her eyes already red and puffy, though dry at the moment. The shielded look in Sheba's eyes disappeared as tears overflowed and spilled down her pale cheeks, violet eyes tight with emotion. She almost looked fifteen again, sobbing uncontrollably, her small form that of a child's. Jenna clutched Sheba desperately as her own tears overflowed as well, and when Mia joined the two, they rocked together helplessly, wishing they could be anywhere but by the side of their dearest friends, yet feeling guilty for wishing as such.
"It's okay," Jenna choked through her sobs, burying her face in Mia's shoulder. "It's okay to cry. I couldn't believe it. Who would have thought tragedy could come to us? Eight teens who saved the world. Nothing could touch us, and yet here we are, crying because we've lost two of our own."
They cried as pain that had been locked away came flooding out, grief consuming them that much more because it had been so unexpected. And though later they would deny it, Garet, Ivan, and Picard mourned as well, staring off into the distance as they huddled in the scant protection of their rebellious thoughts against Fate.
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You feel the pain, and you expect it as you wake up every morning, wide-eyed and nostalgic as memories of good times past linger in your mind. The ragged, painful edges of grief wear away with time, but nobody can truly forget. It's always there, lodged deeply inside you. A scar that can never be mended, and yet cannot be seen. Everybody has their own private tears, but this was a pain that could be shared, and thus the burden was less among the six Adepts who had been left behind with the deaths of Isaac and Felix.
What can you do but bear the pain? Others will expect you to stand up tall and accept it. They don't want you to be weak, because in the face of so much tragedy, heroes are looked upon for comfort and strength, not looked upon as human beings with human feelings. One can only swallow the grief and hide the tears behind comforting smiles for others, even when the pain tears them apart inside. Nobody who hasn't felt pain of such magnitude can know what it's like, or what it feels like. For those unfortunate enough to experience it, it lingers forever, and will always cast a shadow on their lives, though at times it may be forgotten.
Who can know what these six Adepts felt? They had been ostracized once already, when they came home heroes. Now, they not only had to know the grief of the death of someone cherished, but they had to hide it when others walked past. Heroes don't feel pain - heroes are those who help you through the hard times.
Where do heroes get to relieve their pain? When do heroes allow themselves to cry?
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After the funeral, an affair that nobody truly remembered through their haze of numbness, the six separated again. Jenna and Garet moved to Vault, and Ivan and Sheba traveled so frequently that they hardly ever got the letters others sent them, let alone replied to them in any sort of timely fashion. Mia disappeared to Imil for a short time with Picard, then both left for almost ten months on the seas, with only brief moments ashore to resupply his ship.
Life moved on. Everyone managed to get past their tragedy in their own way, either shouldering their grief and staying busy or creating fond memories of the past that lightened the shadows Felix and Isaac's deaths caused. Later they found out separately that a group of bandits who had been thought to have been routed and rid of had exacted vengeance for the imprisonment or deaths of their comrades. They set fire to the town of New Vale, and in the light breezes and dry foliage of autumn, the town burned to the ground. There had been few survivors. The bandits had never been caught.
One week before the anniversary they recieved the letter that forever changed their futures, Picard changed course and headed towards New Vale, where there was now only a hill of green grass and pleasant-smelling flowers. As he and Mia arrived, they saw Ivan, Sheba, Jenna, and Garet already standing solemnly around the graves of their two fallen comrades. Mounds of fresh flowers and two swords lay on the ground in front of the headstones. They hugged, shook hands, but today no tears fell.
Picard gave everyone a light smile as he arrived, and pulled a small, wrinkled note from a pocket in his vest.
"Mia and I visited Lemuria this year. I found this poem in a book that my mother treasured very much. Their deaths aren't shadowing our lives anymore, but I still think it will help.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.
It's hard to accept that something so undeserving could happen to Isaac and Felix, but... well, perhaps this was their time to die."
Garet, grown serious after what had happened a year ago, smiled one of his rare, genuine smiles. "It helps."
As the sun set, the six stood there, hands clasped, thoughts and emotions running in complete harmony. They shed no tears as Luna rose, and the stars sparkled solemnly in the dark sky.
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Where do friends of lost ones get to relieve their pain? When do friends of those taken by Death allow themselves to cry?
Just as there is a time to weep, there is a time to smile.
Just as there is a time to feel pain, there is a time when it no longer cuts so deeply.
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This one-shot fanfiction is dedicated in memory of, and in tribute to the lost ones of September 11th, 2001. It was also written and dedicated for everyone who suddenly knew the pain of death to someone they cared for or loved dearly.
I don't claim to know grief. But I felt I had to do something as a writer today. The passage is from the Bible (Old Testament), Ecclesiastes 3:1-15.
Gods bless, everyone. Send a prayer to soothe the grief of those still living. Because even if these injuries of the soul no longer cut so deeply, they are always there.
Kadevi
September 11, 2004