The song to accompany this fic is Vienna Teng's Blue Caravan, which in my mind, will always be the Imilshipping song - and this fic is to emphasize that. Technically, it is a songfic, and I am well aware that doesn't allow those... but I feel there is enough text, and out-of-song story to justify it. And besides, the song is so connected to the story, I couldn't really do without it. ;; Read and review, please!
In case you're wondering what the song sounds like, search Blue Caravan on Youtube. Apparently, doesn't allow links in its stories, which is major fail. v.v
A special thank-you to Sora G. Silverwind for introducing me to Vienna Teng - who seriously kicks ass -, for connecting this song to Mia/Alex, and for beta-reading this fic and making some suggestions as to which parts I could improve on. Thanks, See-see. :D
Disclaimer: Neither Golden Sun and its characters, nor Vienna Teng's Blue Caravan, belong to me.
Blue Caravan
Mia walked across the Imilian tundra, the snow crunching under her boots and a glittering expanse of white crystal stretched around her in every direction. Her head was hung downcast, her staff clutched protectively in her hands. She was leaving Imil. The thought still hadn't hooked itself in her mind yet, it still seemed an unreality.
She remembered a girl, not much younger than her. More innocent and naïve, bowed over the piano as her delicate hands brushed the keys, beating out a melody as her cerulean hair fell around her face. It was herself, she was in her room, and she was not alone.
Dun duna dun, da dun dun, da dun, da dun, da DUPH.
She winced involuntarily as she hit a sour note, and she flipped her hair back angrily. "I can't do it!" she cried in frustration, and hit a sullen BOOMPH on the bass keys.
A caring arm slipped around her shoulders and rubbed her arm, quieting her instantly. "You have to have a little faith, Mia."
Mia tilted her head and nuzzled his arm just as gently. "Alex, this piano is difficult. It was easier memorizing the fourth Alchemic theory of Pelagius Aquarius."
Alex laughed softly. "You exaggerate, Mia. Here, let me show you."
He stood behind her and put an arm over each of her shoulders and leaned forward, bracing her head against his chest. He placed his hands over hers and raised them to the keys. Mia, a smile playing at her lips, went along.
Alex guided her fingers across the keys, his palms on the backs of her hands and his fingers over hers as he carried her fingers to their destinations, and a melancholic tune soon emerged, wrapping the two in its harmonious chords. Alex loosened his handhold but didn't quite let go, letting Mia ply the keys instead. She closed her ivory lids over her eyes and lost herself in the music, swaying back and forth to the tune, humming idly under her breath.
With a quiet smile, Alex let go of her completely and crossed the room, and picked up a cello from its stand, putting his fingers to the strings with the easy confidence of the experienced. He glanced upwards, and called to her. "Do you remember the words to our song, Mia?" Without waiting for an answer, he plucked out a steady stream of notes on the cello, humming the tune to himself.
"Of course I do," Mia said sweetly. And so, she raised her head and sang:
Blue, blue caravan
Winding down to the valley of lights
My true love is a man
Who would hold me for ten thousand nights
She looked back from her piano playing and smiled at him, her heart warming at the sight of him so wrapped up in his playing as his fingers danced across the strings. Eventually, he noticed her gaze and looked up, returning the smile.
In the wild, wild wailing of wind
He's a house 'neath a soft yellow moon.
So blue, blue caravan
Won't you carry me down to him soon
That's the kind of person Alex was. Whatever he felt the desire to learn, he put all his will towards it until he had it mastered. Piano, cello, song… all had fallen victim to his determination and will. There was no song he couldn't play, no tune he couldn't compose, and he even shared his talents with her.
She stopped playing the piano suddenly, her forehead scrunched up thoughtfully. "Alex?" she asked, twisting her head to look at him over her shoulder.
"Yes, my dear?" Alex said, smiling at her from beneath his hair as he took advantage of the break to tune the cello strings.
"We haven't written the next words." She said pointedly. "What now?" she said, rolling her eyes at the obvious question.
"We write them," Alex said with a smile. "Strike up a slightly faster tune, please Mia, and let's see what you can come up with."
Mia nodded. "Okay," she said, and began to sing, hesitantly at first, but then with greater confidence, making up the words as she went along.
My man has a beautiful angel
With a voice like a crystal shell
I live for him every day, every way
So, blue, blue, caravan, never take my man away.
Keep us together for a thousand years
Until we grow old and cold
Keep our love strong and our spirits bold
Even after we leave this world.
Mia resumed a normal beat on the piano, smiling up at him exuberantly. "Is that satisfactory, Alex?"
Alex paused, his expression troubled. "No, Mia." Seeing her expression of hurt, he went on hastily. "It would not play well with the rest of the song. Perhaps something like this." He put his fingers to the cello strings and began to pan out a rhythm of his own. Then, he raised his own voice, and in his cocoa baritone, the voice that had initially drawn Mia to him and charmed the hearts of so many women, he began to sing.
Blue, blue caravan
Won't you drive away all of these tears
For my true love is a man
That I haven't seen in years
He said, "Go where you have to
For I belong to you until my dying day."
So like a fool, blue caravan
I believed him and I walked away.
The last traces of his voice melted into silence, one still pungent and pregnant with the memory of the song. Mia opened her closed eyes, took a deep breath and wiped her hair out of her face. Alex never ceased to amaze and entrance her, but this time, something was bothering her.
"Our song can't have a sad ending, Alex," she said, half-pleading. "We're supposed to remain together forever, and be happy."
Is that what you think, Mia? Then, stay happy in your naiveté, and content in your innocence. If only you truly knew. Alex thought as he looked down at Mia, who was still staring at him with that puppy dog look, and forced a smile on his face. "I'm sorry, Mia. I didn't know what came over me."
The image in her mind changed, and suddenly Mia was recalling a different scene, one that took place much later than then, but still in a time when her heart was whole.
A blizzard howled all around her ears as she drew her fur-rimmed cloak closer around her, her pack weighing heavier and heavier on her back. The world around her was of drag grays and whites, snow-laden trees whose frosted branches formed shapes in the storm, and snow so cold it squeaked as she stepped on it. She tried to pierce the fog of snow with her eyes, and faintly saw a shadow through the screen in front of her.
Alex, Alex! She wanted to call, but her throat was parched from thirst. All she could muster was a weak sound that she doubted made it over the wind.
She slogged uphill, blazing a path through the snow that Alex had walked through only seconds ago, and was already filling again. It was nigh impossible going and as time passed, her struggles to call his name grew less and less successful, his shade in the snow growing further and further away, until the tracks she stepped in weren't even recently cleared, and were soon erased completely by the blowing snow. She was lost in a blurring blizzard of white, with no one around to find her. She wanted to choke out a sob but it froze in her throat, she wanted to cry but her eyes were too tender to bear the wind. She couldn't summon up the strength to inhale the bitingly cold air any longer, and collapsed in the snow.
That was how Alex found her, his hair raging out behind him in a river of blue as he galloped over the snow, his hands reaching forward to the girl collapsed in the snow, her skin white with frostbite and her lovely turquoise hair matted with snow. He wrapped one gloved hand around her shoulder; worry colouring his eyes as he called upon the power of Ply.
The familiar sprite appeared over her body and after casting a concerned look over the freezing maiden, cast a stream of healing light over her body, soothing the frostbite from her skin and healing dead cells.
Alex was relieved to see her stir and quickly gathered her up in his arms, pressing his hands against her back and lifting her up with him, pressing her to his chest to share his warmth and shelter her from the cold.
"I-I'm sorry, A-alex," she managed to say, her teeth chattering through her words. "I-I held you back."
Alex folded her closer and buried her face in his shoulder. "It's not your fault," he said gently. "It's mine for letting you join me on this quest. I never should have let you come."
Mia smiled weakly. "I w-wanted to come. I wanted to be with y-you." Then her knees gave out beneath her, and Alex knelt with her, holding her up as they sat in the snow, the wind giving up its constant howling. A temporary comfort.
Alex dew back and shook his head. "No, Mia. If you, a seasoned healer, falls to the cold… what chance do the Imilians have? They need you, Mia. They need your caring, your love, and the powers that Mercury gave you."
"But, Alex." She protested. "I need you, and you need me."
Alex had to smile at that. Cute, Mia. "You're always happiest when you're helping people, Mia. You have the kind of angelic soul that loves taking care of people, holding their hand and curing them of all the ills with a word and a gesture. I… was never suited for that life, Mia. I could never wage a war against something I could never defeat, or settle for anything less than- but that's not important," he said, shaking his head. "Mia, I need to leave, to see what's out in the world, to meet new races and to find what no man has found before. I want to be able to see the mountains, the seas, the plains and the forests, and hold them all in my hands. I need to do this," he said, as gently as he could. "I need to see the limits of my potential, try them, press them, and exceed them."
Mia smiled this time, genuinely. "That's just like you, Alex."
Alex gave a sheepish laugh, and Mia allowed herself to be lifted up, enjoying the feel of his hands around her waist. "Come, Mia. I'll take you back to Imil, and we'll see goodbye."
At that, Mia grew sad. "I'll miss you, Alex. Come back soon, please?"
Alex smiled, and leaning in, whispered in her ear. "Go where you have to, for I belong to you," his eyes locked with Mia's own, as she silently mouthed the last words of their song as he finished the line, "until my dying day."
Were you planning it even then, Alex? Even as far back as our song, on that night so long ago, when we played the piano? Had you known even then you were going to leave? Did you know you were going to betray me? Did you know you were going to break my heart?
"Ah, well...I can't stay the same Alex you knew forever..."
His words haunted her mind as the elevator carried them down from Mercury's aerie, her hair casting anchors into the sky as the floor descended beneath her.
You were right about that, Alex, she thought bitterly, her eyes as cold as the coming winter around her. You're not the same kind, caring and compassionate Alex I once knew.
There was the stark crack of stone on stone as the elevator hit bottom, and Mia stepped daintily off, ignoring the boys around her – though she had agreed to travel with them, she wasn't in the mood to talk right now – too much on her mind.
Did I ever know you, Alex? She asked herself. Did I ever know who you really were? The hugs, the smiles, the long talks, the kisses… Was it all an act?
Memories whirled around her head. Poring over Imilian scrolls with Alex, doing her homework with Alex, playfully throwing snowballs at each other, his smile with snow clinging to his face like a beard, and most of all that day when they played their song together, and his hands over hers as they struck the keys together.
But it was all just a memory. Her memories of Alex and how he was sudden shattered into pieces and ghosted away… because, after all… her memory of Alex was false. Alex was false.
Oh my blue, blue caravan,
The highway is my great wall.
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all
Oh he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
"We had a course to follow, Alex – one our ancestors gave to us since time immemorial. As Imilians and members of the Mercury Clan, we are fated to guard the Lighthouse and its secrets, and above all, to prevent it from being lit. That wasn't just way or the highway – that was the only way, as it's always been.
"I was lonely, Alex. You brought the light to my heart, and I worked to heal Imil's pains in the hope that someday you'd return, because you're right, that's what I loved, and that's what you told me to do. But in a single moment, Alex, you broke that – you betrayed the Clan of Mercury, the town of Imil, and above all… you betrayed me."
Mia walked through Imil, gathering up her things and saying goodbye to her apprentices – but even as she did so, she saw people running to Mercury Lighthouse, crying joyfully about the miracle of Hermes. Already, the power of Mercury was infatuating the people – who could say what it would be in a year? Two? Three?
For a moment, she felt a spark of hatred against the people she loved so much. You claim to love us healers, and we slave our entire lives to keep you from dying… but when a day comes that we aren't needed, you cast us aside like common trash.
She followed Isaac, Garet, and Ivan out of town, a bag of healing supplies slung at her side. They were her only chance to atone for letting Alex do this – she could at least save other places from falling to the same fate as Imil, and most of all… she could stop whatever madness Alex was possessed by.
And, maybe then… maybe her old Alex would return to her.
Mia cast aside the past, turning her head away from Imil at last. It was time to look to the future, she thought, as she clutched her cloak tightly around her.
Before she could glance ahead, she heard footsteps crunching on the snow, and a pair of leather boots entered her vision. She raised her head and pushed her bangs behind her ears, and her blue eyes locked with Isaac's own.
The Valean coloured slightly. "Mia, we're waiting for you. Are you ready?"
Mia stared at him for a couple of seconds more, then looked away. "I'm ready."
Isaac nodded, and after pausing for a moment, walked back to Ivan and Garet, making sure Mia was following.
He was cute enough, Mia thought to herself. A leader, someone who could protect her. And yet…
For some reason… the very thought sickened her.
She would never love someone so fully again… not after Alex. She couldn't take the risk that she would be betrayed again…
But now, my blue, blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing old
Oh my blue, blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing old