Here's chapter 2! I'm not bothering with a verbose intro like last time, just plunging right in.
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I don't think that they'd understand-chapter 2
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The darkness was a welcome cloak to Felix as he journeyed out of Vale and into the forests outside of the town. Lemuria was at least a month's journey away by foot and boat-and there was the trouble of acquiring a boat.
These things would have been unbearably daunting to Felix had he not been in possession of the Teleport Lapis. It had been no easy task obtaining it, for it was originally Ivan's, but with a little bit of help from the Cloak Ball he managed to steal it from him. While the slight Jupiter Adept wouldn't be too happy with him, Felix planned to be long gone by morning.
He grasped the stone in his hand and concentrated his Psynergy. He thought about Lemuria, focusing on a single spot in his mind. The dock, he thought. Gathering together his power, he unleashed the Psynergy and dissolved into the air.
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Piers hated Lemurian politics. Even though the lighthouses had been lit for over a year, that windbag Conservato still raged about the necessity of keeping Alchemy at bay.
What are you going to do? Darken the lighthouses? Guide the world towards inevitable destruction?
Conservato and Piers loathed each other, though they had to restraint from strangling each other in front of King Hydros. Instead, they expressed their dislike through a series of long, dry, and dull debates.
Conservato's point is moot. The lighthouses are lit, Alchemy has been unleashed, that's the end of the story.
Yet no matter how many times Piers argued that the undoing of Alchemy was next to impossible, Conservato went on like a broken Victrola. He harrumphed and blathered and glared at Piers, the "treacherous outcast", but Piers felt it was not for his political views.
He knows. The old blithering windbag knows.
The laws in Lemuria were perhaps worse than in Vale. Love between two men or two women was forbidden in Lemuria as well, but exile was out of the question. Not only was it too much trouble to send a Lemurian on a Psynergy-powered ship out into the Sea of Time, they could possibly betray secrets about the hidden land and attract more outsiders like Lord Babi. So, there was a special "asylum" for those outcasts to spend long years of confinement until their love passed. True, there were second chances in Lemuria, but Piers saw no kindness in this law. He felt pain for people he knew who were waiting in cells, waiting for their desires to end but could never end. He was terrified that someone would one day find out and put him in the same prison.
He wanted nothing more than to go and find his love, but these endless Senate meetings had forbidden him from doing so. It was bad enough that he had left Lemuria once; he doubt he could ever do it again, especially without being noticed. He wanted to write a letter to him, but it had no way of ever reaching him. Lemuria was almost completely shut off from the outside world.
Every day, Piers thought about Felix. He could see him perfectly in his mind's eye: his unkempt, chocolate brown hair, deep brown eyes that sparkled when he laughed but held reflections of his troubled past, his slender but strong frame. Piers missed the days they spent together, even though they were constantly battled monsters and traveling without end. Felix rarely spoke, but the few words he said held so much meaning and feeling. He remembered the days on the ship, when they took turns sailing the boat throughout the night. They had bonded so much over that year….
The last time he saw Felix was not long after Alchemy was released. While he still had beautiful charm to him, Piers saw something troubling the youth. Something that ran very deep within him. And when Piers had said he needed to return to Lemuria, the look in Felix's eyes was heartbreaking. It was as though he'd just announced his own death. The pain, the loneliness, and the sadness within those dark brown eyes nearly moved Piers to weeping. But he maintained his composure.
They all saw Piers off when he boarded his ship. He gave each of his traveling companions a fond goodbye and embraced each one of them. When it came to Felix, he had trouble letting go. As he stared into the boy's eyes for the last time in over a year, he could have sworn Felix was about to say something. But, frightened, Piers boarded his ship, bid them all farewell, and sailed for Lemuria without looking back.
Like nearly everyone else who falls in love, Piers feared rejection. But he feared it more than most because if he confessed his love, he also had to confess that he loved another man. While it was unlikely that Felix would ever mock him for it, Piers knew that if Felix didn't return his ardor, he could lose his best friend.
My only friend….The one that makes these long days and Senate meetings possible.
More than ever, Piers wanted to see Felix. He needed him, if not to confess his love then at least to have some escape from the loneliness and ennui. He gazed out of the window, hoping, praying to Mercury that he would get some sign from his love. He may have only imagined it, but Piers swore he felt the ground move under his feet. For just a moment.
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Felix landed hard on the dock of Lemuria. He wasn't quite used to the Teleport Lapis and made a mental note to use it more often.
Standing and dusting himself off, Felix breathed in the deep saltwater aromas of the Lemurian harbors. Though he'd only been there a few times, Lemuria felt like a second home to him. Piers smelled just like the salt water, had the same air of purity about him as the city did.
The guards let Felix into the city, although from the glares he received from them he knew he wasn't exactly welcome. He was, after all, one of eight people who had brought Alchemy into the world again, and from what they thought, he had a hidden agenda to destroy the world.
In the main part of the city, Felix's loneliness was quickly replaced by excitement. He was about to see his dearest friend again! Although as quickly as his hopes sailed, they crashed once again as he realized that he had to tell Piers his feelings. He couldn't leave Lemuria without doing so. The Teleport Lapis wouldn't be his forever-there was talk back in Vale of putting it under lock and key; most of the Valean elders didn't know that Ivan had had it in the first place. Who knew when he would get to see Piers again?
He quickly found Piers' house. He could see some of his old discarded equipment on his front stairs. Felix had to smile-Piers wasn't one for being tidy.
Felix gathered his courage. He prayed to Venus that he could say what he needed to without sounding like a complete fool. He balled his hand into a fist, raised it, and knocked on the door.
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Piers snapped out of his reverie at the sound of someone knocking on his door. A courier of the king, most likely come to fetch me for another Senate meeting. He would've gotten up to answer the door, but he was too lost in thought to be bothered. "Come in," he called, with more than a hint of sadness in his voice.
The door downstairs opened, and a pair of feet began to tread slowly up the stairs. Piers wished he'd said he wasn't home-a Senate meeting today would take all his will to live and toss it into the Sea of Time.
When his visitor knocked on his bedroom door, he was surprised. Couriers didn't usually come to his bedroom-they didn't even know where it was! Still, he was too busy dreaming to bother to answer it himself. He merely beckoned his guest in with another, "Come in."
He didn't turn around, too scared of the possibility that it might be him. I'll turn around, thought Piers, and it will look like him. I'll want to run to him like a child and embrace him and pour my soul out to him, but he will only say, "King Hyrdos requests your presence immediately." And I will be crushed, because it won't be him. It's never him.
"Piers? Piers, why wouldn't you answer the door."
Piers knew that voice. He turned around quickly, with his eyes shut, still terrified that he would be an illusion. He slowly opened them to see his guest.
"….Felix….."
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Two down, one to go. I'll get to the good stuff next chapter, I promise! Please read and review!
Felix and Piers: (puppy dog eyes)