Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà
by Tafkae
Chapter One: Prox
He was caught totally off guard. The storm arose out of nowhere, giving him no time to react. He took down the sail and frantically turned the wheel, at the same time trying with all his might to calm the water enough for him to at least land safely. Every so often, when the waves ebbed, he could see lights on the horizon, and he would be trying to move toward them except that spinning the wheel didn't change his course at all. Since that wasn't doing any good, he desperately bailed out the ship as best he could, but the water came faster than he could clear it off the deck.
And then he turned around, and saw behind him a wave twice as high as the boat was long. Before he could even move, it came crashing down, snapping the mast like a toothpick and carrying it directly toward him. He shouted, drowned out by the torrential rain; then his entire body cried out to him in agony; and then the rain was gone, the waves were gone, everything was gone, and all he could feel was cold…
Alex gasped as his eyes flew open. It was cold. He tried to get his bearings, but there was only so much he could see while lying on his back staring at the underside of a thatched roof, so he tried to sit up.
"Ow. Ow. Ow. No."
Dagnabbit, I should've known better, he thought. Sure I survived somehow, but that doesn't mean I'm okay. He put a hand to his abdomen, where the pain had originated, sliding into the "healers' trance" to find out what exactly was wrong with him. All he sensed was minor internal bleeding, that wasn't so bad. He fixed it easily and moved on to inspecting the rest of his body for injuries.
The hit list was more or less what he expected: mostly superficial wounds, except that both his legs were broken in more distinct places than he would have liked. On the other hand, someone had apparently splinted them. It was while he was setting to work healing them that he realized that not only had his legs been splinted by someone, but he was also wearing someone else's clothes.
After finishing with the worse leg, he finally took a break to inspect the room around him. It was a small place not very unlike the type you'd see in Imil, with thick white walls and a fire flickering in the hearth. He himself was seated on an unexpectedly soft floor mat. But he couldn't identify whose house it was, and it certainly wasn't his, which would be the logical place to take him if he were in Imil. Apparently, that meant he was now somewhere else. Satisfied for the time being, he began healing up his other leg.
He had just gotten done with that when he heard a crash behind him. He whirled around to see a little boy who, it seemed, had been holding a ceramic jug until very recently, and was now going to have to sweep up the pieces. The strange thing was, though, that the little boy's skin and hair were both distinctly sky blue, and those were definitely scales on his shoulders.
When he realized the boy wasn't going to say anything, Alex smiled cautiously and waved. "Hi there! What's your name?"
The boy trembled and swallowed a few times. "T-T-Tessius," he stammered.
"Nice to meet you, Tessius. My name is Alex." With that, he started untying the knots binding the splints to his legs.
Tessius stepped forward hesitantly. "M-Mister, don't take off the planks! Then your legs will heal funny…"
Alex, ignoring him, finished removing the splints and flexed his legs a few times; then he actually got to his feet, to Tessius' stunned amazement. "It's all right, they've healed up just fine. Take a look," he added.
Cautiously, the boy approached him, finally squatted down by his knee, and gingerly touched it. "That doesn't hurt?" he asked incredulously.
"Not a bit," replied Alex. "You though…" He bent down and looked Tessius deep in the eyes. "Just how long have you been playing outside? You're blue as a jaybird."
It seemed that was too much excitement for Tessius. "D…DADDY!" he screamed, running away out of the room.
Startled, Alex followed his path into the hallway. "No, no, wait, I didn't mean it—"
"Ah, don't worry about it, sir, he's always jittery like that—"
From the doorway across the narrow hallway emerged a man, every bit as blue as the boy, and only slightly less surprised. The man was staring at his legs. "Ah – please, sir, you must rest…"
"I'm fine," declined Alex.
"Sir, I am a doctor!"
"And I'm a healer." Alex smiled. "We get roughly the same results, but my way is much faster and more reliable."
For a moment the doctor stared at him as if he were insane, then conceded and reluctantly returned the smile. "A healer… Well. Then I suppose that makes my post a bit superfluous for the time being."
"For the time being, maybe. So where exactly have I washed up?"
The doctor gestured toward a nearby window, which was half drifted over with snow. "You're in the city of Prox. And… well, if it isn't too much trouble, the Elder explicitly told me to bring you to talk to him as soon as you could walk."
Alex nodded his assent, and the doctor returned the nod. "Tessius!" he called. "Bring the down coat."
Waiting for Tessius, Alex took a closer look through the window. Everything outside it was covered in a light blanket of snow which was still falling softly, yet he saw people here and there going about with only light jackets, if they wore jackets at all. What's more, every last one of them, men, women, and children, were various shades of blue, pink, or green. The doctor chuckled nearby. "It even snows in the summertime here. Surprised?"
Alex looked back at him. "I'm more surprised at … well, there's no one with your … pigmentation … where I come from."
"Ah, yes," said the doctor. "That's true. It's unique trait of Prox." Just then Tessius skidded down the hallway, out of breath, holding a heavy coat, which the doctor passed on to Alex. "Wear this. I've heard outsiders are less hardy against the cold than we are. That coat I've only had to use a few times, for house calls in nasty blizzards." He sounded proud.
"Thanks," said Alex, glancing back at the window as he donned the coat. This time, though, his reflection jumped out at him; it was still spotted with bruises. "Well! No wonder the poor boy was so afraid, I look like I've been in a shipwreck."
He quickly healed himself to presentability while following the doctor to wherever they would meet the town elder. A group of children stopped in the middle of their snowball fight to stare at him. One of the smaller pink ones whispered loudly, "Look, he's so white…" and was quickly shushed by a nearby bigger kid. Alex waved at them, but they didn't wave back. A little discomfited, he sped up a bit to keep with the doctor's pace.
Before long, the man led him to a building that shared the thatched roof and snowdrift-lined walls of the house he'd just left, except that this one was at least twice as big and had a second story, where the other houses, he noticed, were limited to one or one with a loft. Inside, the ground floor was devoted mainly to a large meeting room in which nine men in varying stages of old age (as well as varying skin tones) sat in a large half-circle, already discussing something.
"… but the mountain having erupted, they've surely been burnt to a crisp!"
"That is supposition, not fact."
"You're too optimistic. It is the exact spot we sent them to, they were undoubtedly there when it happened."
"My son would not let himself die in such a fashion!"
"Your son, your son. Is that all you talk about?"
"Quiet!" wheezed the one seated in the center, obviously the oldest of them all and a sickly shade of green. "You eight bicker and bicker while guests are standing in the doorway getting cold, shame on you. Come in, come in…"
The doctor stepped forward first. "I'm sorry to disturb your council, Elder, but you did tell me…"
"Yes, I know what I said, young man. Thank you, you may go." The doctor nodded and left, and the Elder looked to Alex. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come in."
Alex obeyed, stopping a few feet before the end of the Old Men's Semicircle. "I can only suppose you'd like to know who I am," he said.
"Now, I called you here because we – oh. Yes, what you said! You're ahead of me," the Elder chuckled.
Alex nodded. "My name is Alex, I'm from—"
"Splendid, splendid," the Elder interrupted. "What I most wonder, though, how is it you look like you were never injured?" He leaned forward in his seat. "I was there when the fishers brought you in, you know, and no one was sure you'd make it…"
All eyes in the room were now on him, as if just having noticed that detail. Alex couldn't restrain a grin. "It just so happens I'm a healer," he said proudly.
One of the councilmen heaved a sigh. "That's a shame. For a second I thought one of ours might have grown some talent."
"Hush. They try."
"Doesn't mean they can."
The Elder's eyes suddenly lit up. "I wonder… a healer, and with your hair…" Alex glanced quickly at the teal strands draped over his shoulders. "Can it be that… the people of Lemuria have returned to us, after all this time…?"
"Afraid not," said Alex, raising one eyebrow. "I've never heard of Lemuria. My hometown is Imil."
"Oh." The Elder sank back into his chair, clearly disappointed. "I suppose there's no need to recover the ship, then."
Alex blinked. "It wasn't destroyed?"
"Of course it was!" said the Elder. "Half of it washed ashore and no one's seen the other half. Had it been a Lemurian ship, though, it would still be well worth recovering. They're damned fine pieces of craftsmanship, they are. The only decent sailing ship in Prox is Lemurian-made, and we've had it for close to five hundred years."
"That's pretty astonishing," said Alex.
"I agree. Unfortunately, it's out of port at the moment, or we'd return you to Imil straightaway. But Saturos and the others ought to return in a few days, oughtn't they?"
"Assuming they're alive," one of the others grumbled.
"Oh, give them some credit," the Elder snapped. "Now, Alex, you said your name was?" Alex nodded. "I've only got one last question… the Northern Reaches are treacherous waters, no matter the weather. Where were you headed, that you needed to sail?"
"I'm going to Vale. I agree the land route's safer, but the pass from Imil was blocked and I didn't want to wait a month to leave."
The council murmured amongst itself; Vale obviously meant something to them. "What about Vale is so urgent it couldn't wait a month?" one asked suspiciously.
"I'm impatient," Alex shrugged. "I wanted to find out if it was true, that they know how to relight the Mercury Lighthouse."
Suddenly all nine men fell utterly silent. At first Alex was afraid he'd misspoken somehow, but the Elder's next comment assuaged his worry. "It seems," he said, "that your goal is not too far removed from our own."
A few days later, Alex stood at the northern outskirts of Prox, looking out over the bleak countryside surrounding the city. Far away, through the haze and falling snow, he could just barely make out the shape of the red tower of the Mars Lighthouse. Just a few miles beyond that tower, they said, lay the end of the world. He wondered if they meant that literally.
Pulling his coat tighter, he slid down the snowbank he'd been standing on and started making his way back to the inn, where he was staying. It was considerably colder here than in Imil, and that was saying something; he was starting to have trouble pretending he didn't mind the climate. At any rate, I'll be going back home soon, he thought, so I can put up with it for a little while longer.
He turned over the information they'd given him in his mind. The world is falling apart. If the four lighthouses are not lit soon, it will crumble. The sparks to light them are in Vale, and the people of Vale will not let anyone have them. Note: conflict of interest. Saturos, whoever he was, was supposed to be out convincing Vale to give up the sparks. When he got back, they would head to Imil to set Mercury alight again. Or at least, that was what he'd been told.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a sudden commotion about town, as people here and there began to run toward the docks, where a ship with a dragon's head adorning the prow was coming into port. That must be their Lemurian ship that's coming back, Alex realized. His spirits lifting, he sped up to join the small crowd gathering at the dock.
He arrived just in time to see, between the heads of the few people in front of him, two figures hop off deck and descend a ladder hung over the railing. A girl of about sixteen broke from the crowd and rushed into the arms of the second one, a pink woman with long, yellow hair. "Sister!"
The first one off the ship, a blue-skinned man, stepped forward as the gathering parted to let the Elder through. "Saturos!" the old man greeted him. "And Menardi. I think I speak for all of us when I say I'm glad for your safe return. The success of your journey blesses us all." He paused for a moment, then leaned sideways to look toward the end of the dock. "Where are the others?"
Saturos heaved a deep, annoyed sigh. "They didn't make it," he said eventually.
The crowd stirred and murmured at this; the Elder himself looked especially stunned. "Do you mean… six of Prox's finest warriors… just like that?"
"We underestimated Sol Sanctum," Menardi elaborated, gently pushing her younger sister away. "The mountain blew up in our faces in the middle of the raid. Saturos and I managed to escape, but the rest… fell behind."
The Elder drooped, leaning heavily on his cane. "This is… such terrible news… tragic…"
"But—" Menardi's sister interjected "—but they succeeded! Isn't that good news?"
Saturos and Menardi stiffened. "Karst—" Menardi began.
"Since they've got the Stars, the others didn't die for nothing. Stop acting like it's a complete disaster, because it's not!"
"Karst!"
Karst stopped and looked up.
"We didn't get the Stars, Karst," said Menardi.
"The mission was a disaster," Saturos added reluctantly.
Now the murmurs of the crowd became shouts. "All that and you didn't bring them?" "Why did we send him? A monkey could have handled this better!" "Bastard! Why didn't you save my son!" "Failure! All Saturos brings us is failure!"
"SHUT UP!" roared Saturos. "You'd give up that easily and still have the guts to call yourselves the Fire Clan! I know how important this is! We have not been defeated!"
The crowd quieted. Even Alex found himself speechless at the fury of the outburst.
"I know what we're up against now," Saturos continued. "I'm going back to Vale the second they let their guard down again. I'll do it alone if I have to, but I will restore Prox!"
Without another word, he shoved his way through the crowd and stormed into the city. Angry, the crowd dispersed, leaving only the Elder, Alex, and Menardi and her sister standing there on the dock. Alex followed Saturos with his eyes until he disappeared behind a snowbank.
"What's this?" said Menardi's voice. Alex looked back to see the woman pointing at him.
"Oh, this is Alex," the Elder replied. "He was shipwrecked on our shores not too long ago. Incidentally, he's a water adept, that might interest you."
Alex blinked. I feel like I ought to know what that means.
Menardi's eyebrows lifted in obvious interest. "Yes, that's astonishingly convenient." She looked back at the Elder and gestured at the ship behind her with her thumb. "Speaking of which, we picked someone up on the way back."
"Who?" said Karst.
Menardi shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't been able to wake him up to ask him."
"You sure he's alive?"
"At the moment? Probably." She paused. "At least, I doubt he would have croaked in the last five minutes, when he's already been hanging on for five days…"
Alex's eyes went wide. "Are you saying you just left a dying man unattended on your boat!" Not waiting for an answer, he bolted to the ship and up the ladder.
"Hey!" Karst shouted, chasing him. "Idiot, you can't go on our ship!"
Alex ignored her and entered the cabin. The missing passenger wasn't hard to find. Lying on a mat near the wall was a young man in terrible shape. His skin was appallingly grimy, his clothes tattered and damp, and his long, dark brown hair clumped and matted in every direction. In addition, he was dotted here and there with bruises and a few nasty cuts, some of which had been haphazardly bandaged in such a way that it seemed like whoever had done it was trying to keep blood from getting on the mat, not stop the bleeding. After five days of travel, it seemed the superficial injuries were already beginning to subside somewhat; however, as Alex examined deeper, it appeared the journey had aggravated most of the man's serious wounds, or at least hadn't remotely helped them.
Karst looked over Alex's shoulder as he deliberated what to fix first. "Wow… he's filthy."
"He's dying," Alex corrected, irritated.
"Same thing. Geez. What'd you do to him, sis?" she asked Menardi, who had just come into the cabin herself.
"All we did was fish him out of a river," said Menardi almost defensively.
"Well, that explains why he's half drowned," Alex replied, cross. "Unfortunately, that's the least of his worries right now. This is going to be a lot of work."
"I didn't ask you to heal him, you know."
"But you expect me to. And I don't blame you, I'm certainly the best one for the job." He laid one hand on the man's chest and the other on his forehead. "What actually happened to him?" he asked as he began the mending.
Menardi shrugged. "I don't know exactly. The town got pretty chaotic when the volcano erupted. Rubble flying everywhere, everyone trying to save their houses and chickens, all that nonsense. My guess is he was knocked into the river by some flying rubble."
"So he's actually from Vale," Alex conjectured. "But … why risk his life to bring him all the way up here, when you could have dropped him off at his own house?"
Menardi smiled knowingly. "Just heal him, outsider."
After that, Alex didn't try to engage her or Karst in conversation again, and instead concentrated on healing their passenger. Over two hours later, although on the verge of exhaustion, he sat back and sighed. "There, finished."
"About time," said Menardi, slapping her book to the table and walking over to join him. Her sister had gotten bored and left long before. "If you're done, why isn't he awake?" she asked.
"I haven't woken him yet," said Alex facetiously. "However, since I'm just as eager to learn his name as you are, I'll oblige." He leaned forward and shook his patient. "Hey. You're alive, wake up."
"You're sure enthused."
"Nah, I'm just tired." He shook him harder. "Heeee—"
"JENNA!" the man shouted, sitting bolt upright.
For a few seconds the others were silent, as he tried to get his bearings; Alex seemed to have been startled into temporary speechlessness. "… Who are you?" the man asked at last.
"Menardi," said Menardi.
"Ehh, I'm Alex," said Alex, regaining his composure. "Incidentally, I just saved your life. What's your name?"
The man hesitated, looking back and forth between them. "Felix," he finally answered.
"Nice to meet you," Alex said pleasantly, extending a hand. Felix shook it uncertainly, but had something else heavily on his mind.
"Where… where's my family?"
Alex looked to Menardi, who frowned. "I don't know who your family is," she said. "There were a few other bodies we dredged out of the river, but you were the only one alive."
Felix stiffened. "I… what did they look like?"
"I don't remember," Menardi groaned. "I think two of them had dark hair, the third one was a blond guy."
"Was there … a girl with red hair?"
"Um… no. No, I don't think so."
Felix closed his eyes and nodded a little, trembling, but didn't say anything further. After a minute or so of awkward silence, Alex stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, it's been a long day. You must be starving," he said.
As if on cue, Felix's stomach growled.
Menardi ditched them as soon as they were off the ship, leaving the two of them to their own devices for dinner. The inn wasn't crowded, but the few eyes in the room were fixed on them even after they sat down. "Who the hell are those?" "Not more of them…"
Once they'd ordered their food, Felix leaned forward some. "Alex, who are these people?" he asked almost in a whisper.
Alex shrugged. "I don't know them. I've only been here a few days myself."
"That's not what I –" He sighed. "What are these people?"
"Proxians," said Alex simply. "I don't know why it is, they all look like that."
"And that would make this… Proxia?" asked Felix, suddenly remembering he hadn't yet asked where he'd ended up.
"Close. Prox. From what I can tell, it's about as far north as you can go without falling off the end of the world," Alex explained.
"Must be pretty far from Vale, then…" Felix inferred, and Alex nodded. "But why did you bring me all the way here?"
"Me?" said Alex. "I didn't. Menardi got you out of the river and brought you here, she said – I just healed you when they got here."
Felix blinked. "You … healed me? Well, uh, thank you," he said tentatively. "Does, uh… does that mean … are you an adept?"
Alex smiled and shrugged. "That's the second time today I've been called that, and I don't know what you mean by it, so sure."
"You can use Psynergy," Felix tried.
"Which is what?"
"It's—" He had to think for a moment. "It's a sort of power, associated with an element…"
"Like water, for instance."
"I guess so." He'd never heard of a water adept, but anything was possible…
"Then yes." Alex leaned back against his chair. "Yes, by that definition I guess I am an adept. Why do you ask, are you?"
Felix hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Yes."
His indecision bothered Alex. "'Yes' yes or 'no' yes?"
"Yes," Felix said more firmly, then paused. "We really aren't supposed to talk about it with outsiders, but being an adept yourself…"
"So I'm automatically trustworthy? Well, can't argue with that logic," Alex remarked half-jokingly.
"Well, that's not exactly—"
"No, I understand." He grinned. "Now, getting back to your first question. I don't know why Menardi and Saturos decided to bring you back to Prox with them. Right now I'm guessing they want you to do something for them, but you never can tell with people you just met…"
Felix didn't say anything, deep in thought. Finally, just as his companion was about to pick up the stranded conversation, he said, "Alex, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell them I'm an adept."
"Hm? … Ohhhh, I see what you're getting at," replied Alex.
"Yeah. Things like this are the whole reason we're not supposed to let outsiders know. And if they think I'm not who they're looking for, they might let me go home just that much sooner and—"
He cut himself off and ran a hand anxiously through his hair. Alex finished his sentence for him. "Worried about Jenna?"
Felix jumped. "How did you know her name?"
"I guessed. It was the first thing you blurted out when you woke up. Is she your sister?"
He nodded. "She's twelve. I just…"
"Ahh." Alex's face brightened a little. "How about that? Our sisters are the same age."
"You have a sister?"
"Funny how much we have in common!" he remarked. "I can understand you're worried; I am too. But –" he sat forward and rested his elbows on the table "– I find that little sisters are incredibly resilient creatures. There's a point where I have to let go and trust that she'll take care of herself."
Felix stood up, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Alex, our parents are gone! And for all she knows, I'm dead and washed out to sea, too! What do you want her to do? She's only twelve and she has no one left!"
By the time he finished, he was shouting in Alex's face. Everyone in the establishment was staring intensely at the two of them. Alex sighed, seemingly unfazed by his outburst. "Please sit down, Felix."
"Don't just pretend everything is going to be all right for her!"
"Felix, please."
"No! You can't just… you can't…" His clenched fists trembled. "It's not all right. You don't know her, you can't understand. Just – leave me alone."
Alex watched sadly as Felix stormed out of the inn into the cold.
Elisa: It can really be taken either way, since Alex and Mia's relationship is hardly explored at all in the game. I personally think they make cute siblings.
Thanks for your reviews, more are of course appreciated. :)