Disclaimer: (do I really have to do this?) I do not own Camelot, Golden Sun or any of the characters, places etc. in it.

Dragon Empress, Jupiter Girl: Yeah, it was in paragraphs in word but they disappeared. I've put spaces between them this time, so hopefully a little better.

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When the party approached Vale in the late afternoon, the rich golden glow of the slowly fading sun behind them, they all felt a deep feeling of peace and something more..*homecoming* - even those who had never been to Vale before - all but one. One who knew what news awaited them.

They arrived in the village square to find it largely empty, with only a few people who looked up curiously at the approach of travellers, who were a rare sight in Vale. As they made their way across the square the village carpenter, who knew Isaac, Garet, Felix and Jenna quite well, looked up from what he was doing and froze for several moments, his jaw hanging wide. His face then broke into an expression of pure joy - followed by a completely distraught look in Isaac's direction.

"Oh Gods," he said breathlessly "Isaac, your mother... she...." His voice trailed off.

"Is dead?" Isaac asked, voice entirely devoid of emotion - though his eyes bore mute testimony to his pain.

The carpenter, an old friend of the family, nodded sadly. "Y-You knew?"

Isaac heaved a deep sigh and his shoulders slumped. He did not seem so miserable as resigned, and utterly exhausted in body and soul. "When we came back to get the djinn," he said - still somehow keeping his emotions in check, and all present knew how much it must be costing him "I sensed it. I may not be half as good a healer as Mia" He nodded in her direction "But I know her better than anyone. She was dying, long past the point where anyone could do anything. I couldn't say anything to anyone, though. To say it would make it real and I.... couldn't face that." Isaac's voice finally cracked on these last words.

"She has been buried in the town cemetery?" He inquired of the carpenter, only the faintest of tremors evident in his voice and countenance. The carpenter nodded "Beside Kyle." Isaac nodded and set off in the direction of the graveyard without another word. His travelling companions looked at one another, their previous mood of joy and contentment completely vanished.

Several hours later, after Mia, Ivan and Felix had got rooms at the local inn, (Jenna had lived with Garet's family since her parents' death, but Felix had also been presumed dead on that fateful day) they all sat around in a secluded clearing in the hills. It was a beautiful place, but they were none of them in a mood for beauty as their talk inevitably centred on the news that had just been given Isaac. Finally, as darkness crept in to end the long summer's evening they all decided to check on Isaac.

When they found Isaac he was simply sitting, leaning against another headstone, looking silently at his parents' graves. There was still no sign of tears or that he had cried despite the fact that they all knew he had been very close to his parents - he just looked broken deep inside. He seemed not to understand what was going on around him, and actually had to be lead away and to his house by the hand and put to bed. Although no-one said a word except trying to coax him along, it was obvious that they were all shocked to the core by what had become of their solid and unshakeable leader, the man who had lead them across half the world and through every peril reduced to this.

After a night in which no-one really got much rest Isaac woke them all up and assembled them on a beautiful hillside in Vale in the early-morning mist - an idyllic place, but they were all dreading whatever he had to say.

"I am leaving." He announced bluntly, voice again possessing that cold emotionless edge it had often had recently. "There are too many memories here now anyway, even if I could settle at all. I would see ghosts round every corner. But I do not think I could settle anywhere any more. I've spent too long on the move and... I can't actually handle just living in one place. But I know that is not true of the rest of you, and I'm not sticking around to curse your happiness. I'll drop by from time to time, I'm not disappearing off the face of the earth, but I won't stay anywhere long. You decide what to do with the house and things - anything I'm not taking with me. Goodbye, and thank-you for everything."

They were all still too shocked and dumbfounded by this from a man who had not even seemed aware of his surroundings last night to offer any real objection, and simply stood there as he took up a pack which he had readied and set at the edge of the clearing, a forlorn figure wrapped in a tattered and fading cloak trudging down a dusty road. He did not turn back.