Author's notes: Woah, it took me like forever to write just another chapter - and I have to admit that it was mostly my laziness that prevented me from writing more. However, the next chapter to this story, and I decided to be more of an omniscient narrator, sometimes looking into Felix' and the rest of the groups heads, too. I also decided that I want to flesh out Kraden, Menardi and Alex, I don't like them to be two-dimensional and black/white. Enough said, here's the new chapter, thank you for reading and if you like it and want me to write the next chapter faster, review! ...please.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Golden Sun-related.


Chapter II - Into Coldness And The Void

Clinging tightly onto her pillow, Jenna desperately tried to sleep, to forget all she was going through. Yet, the merciful oblivion was denied to her, while she found her thoughts whirling around more vividly than ever - Garet, Isaac, her parents, Felix, Kraden, the Proxians, Alex, Vale, herself - Jenna forced her eyes shut, hoping to forget her situation for just a moment, but the images were just brighter inside her mind, dancing around like marionettes.

She opened her eyes again and sat up in her bed, leaning with her back against the cold, wooden wall of the room. Pulling her knees to her chest, she pondered on her situation and sighed. What had she done to deserve this? Why her? Felix had promised to answer her some questions... but would this change her situation?

A tear slowly ran down her cheek, dropping on the white blanket of the bed. She wiped over her face and gritted her teeth. It was just not fair. Why would these damned Proxians kidnap her and her whole family? She looked over to the sleeping form of Menardi, only two metres away from her - how easy would it be to just stab her while she was asleep? Jenna rose from her bed, silently walking through the darkness to the Proxian. A dagger, pushed into her heart? She clenched her fists. Choking her in her sleep? Not even Menardi's psynergy would help her...

Jenna froze and fell back on her bed. She was aghast at her own thoughts. Would she really strangle a defenceless woman? Could she really kill a person?

She looked at the silhouettes of her hands, biting her lip. No, she couldn't do this. She would be no better than the Proxians. But what could she possibly do? She lied down and curled up in a foetal position, staring into the nothingness of the black room. She tried to fight her tears, but eventually, she gave up and cried into her pillow all the bitterness and desperation. Jenna sobbed uncontrollably and didn't care whether Menardi would hear her. It felt good in a strange way, and finally, she fell asleep, pressing the wet pillow to her body.


The sun was already shining down for some hours until Jenna was woken up by the shrill voice of her roommate threatening to set her on fire if she didn't stand up in ten seconds.

Grumbling, Jenna rose from her bed - she wouldn't easily subdue to that beast of a woman. In fact, she felt at least a bit better than yesterday. If Menardi had found her sleeping position strange, she at least didn't say anything; the same went for her red eyes.

After she got dressed, Jenna followed Menardi to a small bathroom, she was relieved at the sight of feeling fresh again. She almost ran to the little jug with water and scooped some of it in her face. It was ice cold and took her breath, but at the same time, it felt like a complete cleansing, both physical and mental.

Menardi grimaced and said contemptuously: "Don't get too accustomed to it, if I had my way, rain would be enough for you, whelp. Now hurry up, we've got to go."

Down in the tavern, the others were already sitting at a table, except for Alex, silently eating their breakfast. The rich merchant and his following were there again, but they were busy eating and didn't take notice of the motley crew the Proxians had gathered. Felix looked up as Jenna entered, but he remained silent. After they had finished their simple meal, Saturos said in a low voice: "Alright, today, we'll head towards Goma Range. It should take about three days, maybe two days, if we're fast." He stopped to look towards Jenna and Kraden, then continued: "Alex will join us during the day, whatever he's doing now. Let's go, the faster the lighthouses are lit, the faster you'll see your parents."

The journey led them to the east, unknown territory for Felix and Jenna, while Kraden seemed inappropriately happy to travel such a distance for the first time in his life. Every once in a while, he would point at trees, hills, road signs or eye-catching rocks, telling stories about these locations he had read about in his books while being stuck in Tolbi. Jenna wondered how on Weyard he was able to remember all these things, but at least it made the day less boring, as Kraden would always jump and babble uncontrollably when he saw something he recognised.

Yet, the voyage became more dangerous, as different strange monsters attacked the group during the day, all bigger and more malicious than Jenna had ever seen any creature. Although Saturos and Menardi had no problems in fighting them off, the Valean girl was sure that she wouldn't want to stay alone here. Felix always tried to cheer her up, but his false smile was so weak that it did more to demoralise her further.

At lunchtime, they made it to a bridge across a small river, settling down on the other side to fill their empty stomachs. While she hungrily shovelled her ration of bread and meat into her mouth, Jenna noticed Felix talking to Saturos with a stern expression on his face. The Proxian nodded and Felix walked over towards her.

"Sis, I promised to explain everything I know to you, and I'll do it now. Saturos said it's okay that we leave the group shortly, although Kraden has to stay here. Please, come with me."

Jenna solely nodded and followed her brother, very interested in what this was all about. When they were out of earshot, Felix sat down and started to talk, bitterness and discord in his voice: "So, Jenna, there's more behind this thing, you know."

Jenna sighed and grimaced. As if she hadn't expected this.

Accepting that she wasn't about to respond, Felix went on: "You see, the lighthouses are the beacons of the elemental powers. While they're unlit, the elemental powers are weak. Well, Prox is a village in the icy northern desert, very near to the Mars lighthouse. Because the lighthouse isn't lit, it gets colder every day. But the worst thing is the degradation of the earth itself. I was there and I saw it slowly breaking away into nothingness. If we don't light the lighthouses, Prox will fade into coldness and the void. And with it our parents. And Ka... err... well, yeah, they'll all die - and we can't let this happen!"

During his last sentence, his fists had clenched and his expression had become fierce. Jenna wondered what he had said before, but dismissed this thought as unimportant for now, instead, she asked: "So... you're saying that they just want to save the world and the Wise One is a liar? They kidnapped us and all, but they are the heroes?"

Jenna's face grew red from the anger flaring up in her, continuing with barely suppressed fury: "If they wanted to save the world, then why did they behave like this? Why were they the only ones believing in this? And why did they take you along with them?"

Felix sighed. He took his sisters' hands and said calmly: "Jenna, please, I'll explain it to you. To begin with, they actually saved our parents, Isaac's father, and me out of the river after the boulder incident..."

"... which was caused by them!" Jenna interrupted angrily.

"Well, yeah, but they were desperate. As I said, Prox will vanish if the lighthouses won't be lit. Also, we weren't treated like slaves there. Our parents live freely inside Prox and I was trained in the control of my psynergy. It was a hard training, but I'm still alive - and if we light the lighthouses, we'll return to Prox to our parents and... uh, well, to our parents and head back to Vale", Felix concluded, biting on his lip, probably for his slip of tongue.

Jenna's eyes narrowed. She leaned closer to her brother, a sneering grin on her face. Grabbing his right shoulder, the auburn-haired girl said disdainfully: "You're not doing this because you want to save the world, do you? You might do this for our parents, but there's something - or someone - else behind your motivation, big brother. And I don't want to die because of you playing the white knight, just for your information."

Her brother's resigning expression showed her clearly that she was right. Slowly, he said: "Okay... I guess I'm not that good at hiding... things. I'll explain it to you later or tomorrow, we should go on now. And you should probably bring a good deal of appreciation with you..."

Jenna raised her eyebrows. As if it wasn't obvious to her that he had fallen in love with a Proxian girl. She shrugged and walked back to the Proxians, Kraden and Alex, who had apparently deemed it proper to show up again.

When the two Valeans returned to the group, Menardi couldn't go without a "About time you came back.", making the rest of the group roll their eyes.

Although Felix' answers raised a whole bunch of new questions, Jenna had at least something to think about and the possibility that the Proxians might be somehow human - well, or "metahuman" - something she hadn't dared to hope for, especially in Menardi's case. However, she still felt abducted and captured, a mere hostage to secure the Proxian's plans. Felix felt so far away, Alex was just obscure, and Kraden was more of a scrawny old man on his last trip than a wise mentor to Jenna.

With this in her mind, the group travelled on the muddy path along a river that streamed into the Great Eastern Sea, many miles to the south. Jenna had only seen paintings of the ocean and had heard tales of its vast, indescribable size. Despite her fire-aligned nature, she had always had a liking for the sea, although she wasn't as extroverted with this as Garet. Now, she was imagining that she could follow the river to the south, flowing freely in the embrace of the endless blue, far away from her sorrows and the overbearing situation she was in. She closed her eyes and licked her lips, tasting the fresh, salty water, feeling the cool breeze on her skin, telling of freedom and peace...

A sudden impact with a stone interrupted her wishful thoughts, sending her from her already aberrant path flying through the air, into the rapid stream along the road. The foaming water was way too strong for her to resist, and she yelped and screamed in fear of being drowned in the murky depths by this raging current.

Felix reacted first, shouting and running towards her, summoning an earthen barrier in the water, but Jenna only bumped against it, and while the air was pressed out of her lungs, the stream carried her further off, around the barrier and down the river. Yet, it had slowed her down enough for the rest of the group to catch up with the siblings - not that all of them would be a help to her. Kraden babbled about hundreds of brilliant saving methods, none of them of any use at the moment without hours of preparation, and Menardi seemed only too willing to let Jenna find a watery grave.

This left Felix, Saturos and Alex to do the work. The latter used his psynergy to teleport to Jenna's position, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the saving riverside, but the girl's desperate struggling instead forced him into the water, too, with only his right hand clinging onto a root that slowly slipped from his grip, with Felix catching his hand just in time to prevent Alex and Jenna from leaving the riverbanks for good. The raging torrent however was too much for him to hold on for long, but Alex managed to swing Jenna towards the riverside, where Saturos had arrived to pull her out of the water, calming her down and serving as a big pillow for Jenna to wail her shock into. His face was an awkward grimace while he patted the crying girl on the back.

Without the additional ballast, Alex just teleported himself into safety, giving Felix the possibility to crawl back on solid ground. Both of them breathed heavily, yet they were relieved that all danger was past.

"And here I thought that we'd stay on safe ground until Karagol Sea", Alex commented.

"Dry humour", Saturos grinned, "or is your statement dripping with sarcasm?"

Felix sighed and bit back a comment about both of them being bedwetters, while Kraden, his head a crimson head, arrived, with Menardi behind him, not a gleam of relief on her face, just utter disgust for Jenna's embrace of Saturos, Jenna in general, Alex for being such a boaster, Felix for befriending her sister, and Kraden because he slowed down the journey.

Despite exhaling air like Jupiter himself, Kraden still managed to praise the three men to the skies for their braveness, hugging all of them for their efforts, embracing Jenna to ensure her that she was safe, and hugging Menardi just because she seemed lost, changing her facial expression to a baffled smile, until she managed to make a sour expression again.

With Alex and Jenna completely soaked, and Saturos dripping like the wet pillow he was forced to play, the Proxian decided that it would be the best to stay there and lightened a campfire to dry their clothes.

While the fire was crackling, the group sat in a small circle around it, enjoying the warmth and the light that helped forgetting the hectic of the rescue operation. Jenna sat shivering between Felix and Saturos, breathing shallow. She leaned against her brother, her head almost burning hot, while her eyes were closed. Felix had used his psynergy to heal her, but hadn't it been for Alex' Mercury psynergy, she would have suffered from a severe fever.

At the moment, it was mostly the exhaustion that drained her energy, but at least she was safe, Felix thought. Another thought crossing his mind was the quick help Alex and Saturos had provided - secretly, he had expected them to act just as passive as Menardi had, but this had shown him the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they weren't completely merciless.

It didn't occur to him that they possibly hadn't even thought about the moral aspect but just about keeping the Earth adept of the group in line, nor did he want to think pessimistically now, as he had done so often during the last three years. After a brief time, he shut his eyes and his thoughts wandered to the far north, to a frozen village, to a separated family, and to a warm face that had raised his gloomy spirits ever so often.

Meanwhile, Jenna's dreams revolved around the person that had pulled her out of the water, saving her from drowning in the cold abyss. In her head, the brown- and blue-haired men were just little helpers to him, while he had ultimately rescued her from mortal peril, absorbing all of her fears into him.

As the last glimmer of light faded into the night, the whole group lent themselves to their illusions while only Kraden and Menardi were awake, their whisperings inaudible through the howling wind.

"So, why did you do this to me, old man? Why did you embrace me like a little child?" an obviously churned up Menardi hissed.

Kraden softly put his right palm on her shoulder and said: "Don't get me wrong, Madam, but to me, you're ALL little children. And as the quirky old uncle, it's my duty to cheer you up. Although one day, you have to tell me why you won't play with the other kids. You know, they don't dislike you, and if they accept that you're doing this to save your village, they might help you. I'd like to help you, but only if you want me to."

For a very short time, Menardi looked like she would cry, but then she overcame her emotions and roughly shoved Kraden's hand off her shoulder.

"I am NOT a little child, and you better accept that we could kill you anytime", the Proxian snarled, turning around and walking away into the darkness.

Kraden sighed, heading towards the sleeping tent and said to himself: "Typical act of defiance, the "misunderstood girl"-pattern. By tomorrow, I'll have broken the ice."

His brown cape drifted in the wind, not unlike a giant fallen leaf, as he opened the tent and mused about the best psychological approach.


End Chapter II

Yeah, the chapters could be longer, but if it took me so long to write this in English, how will it end with even more content? Also, one chapter: one day.

Don't forget to review if you like it!