Chapter Two
The northern wilds. It comes rushing back. The snow seems to fall for eternity, yet never grows any deeper. Just the slow erasure of footprints.
Felix picks his way, his legs high as a deer's before crunching into snow. Space seems to fade here. Step all day and it's hard to tell you've moved at all.
Ten years ago today they lit Mars Lighthouse. Ten years ago today the Golden Sun formed. Ten years ago today Karst died.
He'd stayed back in that cold room with the ice like ivy creeping up the walls. Sheba came back and shook him, her hands warm but somehow distant over his. She reached out with her mind.
Felix, I know what you're feeling. But we can't waste time! They wanted to see the beacon's light, the least we can do is grant their last wish.
... Agatio's last wish.
Hey, who's the mindreader here!? She wants it too! She may've tried to kill us, but... I can only think what I'd do if Lalivero was in danger.
She'd hate you forever for moping like this, Felix. Wasn't she always telling you to focus?
Felix snaps back. He'd been moving in a slow, falling circle. The wind howled in his ears. The storms were only stronger since Alchemy returned. Warmer, but stronger storms.
And still. Signs of life. He feels with Psynergy a bush just buried under a thin layer of snow. Digs down with gloved hands until he feels the delicate branches. Casts Growth, and it bursts from snow in a green dawn. Berries ripen and drop into his hands. He eats to regain his strength. The suddenly-fresh juice seeps into his rough beard and crystallizes.
He can't say what impels him to do this. Once a year, to leave everything behind, to cut all ties. To wander like a newborn: like he was after the storm. Facing another life.
Your hands... so warm... people have such warm hands... I had forgotten.
The last gasp of winter. Felix forges on. He must see the rift. See with his own eyes that it's closing. That it wasn't in vain.
But the snow stretches on forever.
And then suddenly it doesn't.
A single blaze of red against the tundra. Motion. Something moving in the wind.
He's wrapped in so many layers of clothing. Puelle was glad to see him. Martyl was so old now. He hoped she'd see the flowers one last time. She always thought of him as a grandson. She gave him her blessing, said he was a fine man. Menardi and Karst's grandmother.
She forgave him, of course.
Felix makes for the only thing not white here like a drowning man for driftwood.
I heard that Karst and Agatio were defeated by a monstrous dragon... Felix beat the dragon, though...
They'd been right, in a sense. The Wise One doomed Karst and Agatio as sure as his parents would have been. Removed, calculating, emotionless, that being saw no reason to allow the Proxians to remain alive.
Monstrous dragon. With teeth like swords.
The blaze seems no closer.
And it is under his hands.
One of Karst's scarves. Still vibrant red after ten years. The ice'd caught it in one end, and the other whipped in the wind. He takes off a glove and, as if afraid, reaches through petrifying cold to touch the cloth.
It feels exactly as he remembers.
With the snow spiralling around his head and the cold closing in, Felix is gone.
I won't be long. Just... let me say goodbye. He looks at Sheba, her wide green eyes, and touches her cheek.
She turns her head away a few degrees, looks over his shoulder. For a few moments she says nothing. Talk to me after. I'll be there for you.
I know.
She stands with the grace of the wind, and walks straight-backed out of the room. Her spirit strikes him as incongruous with her small frame, and not for the first time. He told her this once, and almost smiles at the memory, her whip-smarting response.
Almost.
He crouches beside Karst. Agatio's eyes are closed nearby, but his chest rises and falls in a staggered, laboured rhythm. He's unconscious. Karst's just as bad, but her eyes are open - too wide, and numb with pain she looks right through him.
"Karst." No response. "Karst. Focus."
At that she does respond, with the bending of her lips that he's come to recognize as her ironic smile. He's seen it much more often after Menardi died: bitter amusement. "Never thought... I'd hear you say that to me."
"I never thought it would come to this."
"Oh, don't be a child," she snaps. A thin trail of blood winds its way over her cheek. She bats away his hand as he moves to wipe it. "We were both ready for this to happen."
"You and Agatio, ready to die for Prox." His voice is flat as the Northern Wastes.
"No, you fool. You and I. You knew... this could happen since Jupiter Lighthouse. I've been... waiting for it." Her breath fails her when she reaches for words. Felix desperately casts all the Cure he can, but she's slipping off a precipice. Far away and falling still.
"Why?" And a bit of hurt slips into his voice. He's so struck by her words he misses the tenderness beneath.
"So it wouldn't be you. So we could stop fighting." He sees her heroically repress a coughing fit, the strain in her lips. Still unwilling to show weakness. He deftly wipes the blood from her face while she's distracted... and then peels off his glove and lays his hand on her cheek.
She sighs a long sigh. The kind that comes from the bottom of the lungs and soul.
There's so much he wants to say.
"Hey. If you cry, I'll... kick your ass." She smiles weakly. "You were always soft. I thought... that meant weak. Yet you won... twice. I should have... let you walk the path you wanted. You were so slow... helping everyone... while Prox dies. Menardi dead... and you saved every kitten... on your way."
"Karst. Stop, please. Don't waste your breath. Stop talking." He takes up her cold arm and she lets him remove her glove. Watches him curiously. He checks her pulse at the wrist, then the neck. Her heart is strong still... but far too slow.
"When... will I... if not now?" Her red eyes are sharp and lucid now. Like a sunset. She cracks each word from herself like a sculptor flaking stone. "My honour... demands that I... right this. Felix... I never said this... but I am glad for the three years you were with me in Prox. You've... made us all proud. You... make me proud." She hisses suddenly under her breath, and arcs her back. Her eyes close involuntary. His healing psynergy is almost tapped. "Your way is right. I can accept... that." There's a stillness as she hefts a new block of self. "You."
Karst coughs, and blood speckles her lips. Felix's hand clears it, and he feels her lips move under his fingertips. Sudden warmth - is she blushing? "You don't have enough blood left to afford blushing," he scolds.
She breaks into laughter. "Ahahah-oh ouch! Ouch! Mars..." quick prayer. "Shut the fuck up, Felix," she says, but she really is smiling now - and it's gone as quickly as it came. "That... that girl. Sheba... she's close to you... isn't she?" Karst's eyes are enigmatic.
Felix hesitates. She smirks. "That's all... I needed to know. Be soft... with her. Or I'll... hunt you down and... cut off your balls."
"You better be around to do so," he says, barely above a whisper. "But yes. She is... very dear to me. Thanks... Karst. Karst listen, I..."
"Ssssssssh." She draws it out too long. Her eyes flick over his shoulder, and he realizes her lucidity is fading. "Let me say it. Felix... you were the first... I ever loved. Sometimes I thought... you'd never learn... how to be Proxian. But I never saw... that you were... teaching me. Thanks. Mars keep you. Felix, do me one last... favour."
"Anything." And means it.
"Kiss me. Agatio's unconscious... otherwise he'd punch... your lights out. Kiss me."
With solemn dignity and trembling hands, Felix winds his fingers through Karst's. Behind her chill back, his other hand supports her as she leans up. Her scales are rough under his fingers, her skin just a little tougher than human. Her eyes are on his the whole while - red sun and night - their lips meet.
They feel each other's breathing. The precise taste and heat. The cold after-battle sweat. Karst's blood. Felix puts everything he cannot say through his lips.
They part with the air they shared dissipating into the cold reaches of the Lighthouse.
He sees too late the mischief in her eyes to stop her open hand striking his cheek.
"Idiot. I thought you said... you were close to that girl... don't kiss another..."
She laughs softly at his pained expression, and then winces. "Oh, Felix... I will miss you. Go light... the beacon. Take care... of..." but Felix's hand is over her lips. He nods once. Bends to kiss her forehead.
"Good-
-bye, Karst." Felix says softly, holding the scarf in his hands. The snow slows. Felix brushes the cold crust from his brows, looks again at the white expanse. With calm movements, he takes the scarf and winds it around his chest, under his cloak, as a tourniquet. The red is striking against the blackgreen of his travel clothes.
It's enough, he realizes, it's enough now. There's so much stillness. Her last word... what would it have been?
Perhaps he was wrong to leave so suddenly. Perhaps, on these trips of grievance, that Sheba would like to come. He catches her sometimes, staring up into the sky for hours on end. The sky, where the wind comes from. The sky, where she fell from. The sky that hides the family she never knew.
Smoothing the final touches on the knot where it rests over his heart, Felix thinks that perhaps he'd like to see Sheba again. That he'd like that very much. He'll check the Rift first. Then return.
By the time he does, it's too late.
From an Angaran mountainside, Sheba watches from a distance the gleaming ship on air, moonlight anointing its metal. It glistens as it draws wide circles over the country... and she, Sheba, has seen nothing like this ever before. But there is something in it that causes a tightening in her chest. She reaches inward and touches it.
It's homesickness.
But then, Sheba has no time to think, no time to look inward, as lightning crackles and meets far over Angara in a violet writhing ball. With an immense sucking sound, the sky seems to fold on itself and swirl, as if a god's hand is twisting it. A vortex spins to life, and its depths have no end.
Grass beneath browns as if in a fire, turns to ash. Streams dry up. She sees a circle of travellers, their campfire winking out, and then their own bodies extinguishing: eyes sink, flesh desiccates, bones crumble and leave only clothes behind. She sees great and vivid detail in her mind's eye. There are no screams. Even the air is stolen.
The first Mourning Moon yawns as if awakened from a long sleep. The very sky aches as the airship wheels and turns suddenly, straining by Jove-knows-what force to avoid being drawn in.
She feels a strange kinship with the unknown ship. Do you always travel? Are you without a home? Is there no place you rest? She knows she might be projecting and doesn't care. Go, she mutters mentally. Go. Go.
The ship is held in perfect balance - it occupies the same space, unable to move forward, but never drawn back. Time itself slows, its threads unravelling. Stretched.
The hollow of the sky is a hollow inside her, too.