I release all rights and characters to their respective owners.

To all of my wonderful reviewers: DropOfInk, Rizaidym, GraysonPaladin, Wostvely, PinayAngelisaBEAST, DuchessOfDementia, valeshippingftw, LordOfRandomness, yuko1909, Hrvstmn31 , Joe, nanotaz, Trauerbrandung, …, Felix (actually my name), ^_^ sweet, tranquil09, allbluewitness, UltaFlame, MartinIII, insoki, mediocre, AxelXIII, CyBeastSaber, The Fox Writer, Rocky0825, SpiritGuardian, AAA, Anonymous, Marahute Sol, Kd7sov, 17th warrior, riais, Grayjack72, bente-unerz36, Lofast, and Frutillas. As always, I can't thank you guys enough.

There's not going to be a whole lot more to this story… It is rapidly coming to a close. Thank you to everyone who has helped to make this story so special, reviewers and readers alike.

Without further ado, I present the fourteenth installment of Tundra.

Tundra

Chapter 14: Prox

The characteristic element of the Proxians was Fire. It gave the people of the north heat – a brief and welcome reprieve from the bitter, relentless blizzards that were more common than the sun. It gave their people an inner strength, and allowed them to survive the harshest conditions that could be found on Weyard. That was what their legends said.

Given the land's current state, Isaac didn't agree. He walked behind the rest of the group as they made their way from the ship – forced by the ice to moor well to the south of the city – to the edge of Prox. The wind howled too loudly to allow for any conversation. Instead, his eyes searched all around him, taking in the terrain. Though the snow reached up to the bottom of his knees, he could see the remains of what looked like farms, abandoned and left to wither in the unnatural cold.

The dunes of ever-forming snow around Prox did not seemed moved by the plight of the families that used to plow its land, fighting tooth and nail for anything they got, now impoverished and awaiting the end of the world – inevitable as it was. Just as impassively, the dunes watched nine companions from foreign lands march slowly toward Prox.

Isaac had always wondered what it would feel like to finally arrive in Prox. He had thought that there would be, depending on the circumstances, fanfare, or perhaps that he would be hot on the heels of Saturos and Menardi. Not once had he imagined this hopeless, indifferent trudge toward some unwelcome fate.

He felt his soul sink at the thought, and he tried to conjure happier things to his mind. He instinctively looked at Jenna, who walked next to him, but he saw in her eyes only the same fear that he felt in his heart. He said nothing, but took her hand in his and let her know, silently, that she wasn't alone.

As the minutes drew on, Isaac allowed his mind to become lost in the simple rhythm of his footsteps and felt himself slowly float away from his body, away from the frosty wind that bit at his face and hands through his scarf and gloves. He remained in this state of escape until the wooden palisades that fortified Prox became visible through the thick snow.

As they entered the village, Isaac realized with a jolt that in a matter of moments, he would be reunited with his father. What would his father think of him now? Would he be proud? Would he notice the utter transformation from a scrawny boy who could barely lift an axe to chop wood to a chiseled manling who could carry a full suit of armor with ease? Isaac could barely even remember how his father had looked. It seemed like so long ago that the Boulder had fallen.

The blond Adept tried in vain to shake the nervousness off as they passed through the gates. He noticed at once that the wind no longer buffeted his face so fiercely, though the cold was as omnipresent as ever. Isaac looked to Jenna, and saw again the same images in Jenna's eyes that occupied his own: one of anxiety and uncertainty. She hadn't seen her parents in three years either.

The Proxians seemed surprised, even the slightest bit wary, that Felix had returned to the village. Agiato had not expected them to come; he and Karst had opted to scale the Lighthouse on their own – the beacon remained unlit, though they had been gone for a long while. When the villagers said this to Felix, it carried an undercurrent: they had been gone too long, and hope was lost.

Isaac, however, gave these key details little more than cursory attention – he looked everywhere, trying to decide which house held his father, but the wooden, snow-covered buildings of Prox all looked the same to him. Everything here looked the same: it was despair made tangible. The bright feelings that Isaac had hoped would accompany his reunion with his father were utterly absent.

It was then that Isaac heard Felix speak, and his ears perked.

"And my parents? Are they well?" he asked.

"Felix, your parents have… disappeared," said one Proxian girl. "We don't know where they went."

And Isaac knew at once why he had not felt the warmth of a reunion filling up his chest.

"I see," said Felix, as though he understood. "I need to speak to Puelle then, and before it gets any later. Where is he?"

Isaac stood motionless. What was Felix doing? Why wasn't he angry?

"He's on the north edge of the village, watching for the beacon," she replied.

Felix nodded in reply and turned around, apparently to go and find this Puelle. The girl, seeing that the conversation was over, moved away and hastily entered a house to the west. Felix made no show of the fact that Isaac's father – whom he had not seen in years – was missing. That did not sit well with Isaac.

"Felix!"

The dark-haired warrior did not respond, but started walking away, in the direction of Puelle.

"Felix!" Isaac echoed sharply.

"Enough, Isaac," he said, invoking no emotion.

"ENOUGH?" Isaac screamed, closing the distance between himself and Felix, and drawing the attention of the few villagers who remained outside. "I HAVEN'T SEEN MY FATHER SINCE I WAS FOURTEEN! FOURTEEN!"

A tear fell down Isaac's right cheek as he grasped the front of Felix's shirt with both fists, shaking him violently.

"WHERE – IS – MY – FATHER?"

The echoes of his rage faded into the northern winds. Neither one seemed willing to break eye contact. Isaac's blue eyes stormed with fury and poured out silent, continuous tears; Felix's deep brown eyes said nothing. They stood there, wordlessly, for over a minute, faces within inches of each other, as the rest of the group looked on in shock. Then, on some wordless cue, Isaac released his hold on Felix and fell to his knees in the snow, his wrath spent.

Isaac sat on the ground as silent sobs racked his body. Every moment that Isaac had ever wished for his father over the past three years fell out of him and onto the snow: every time he had lied to his mother and said that everything was alright, every time he saw a child run and jump into his father's arms, the moments his father had missed – his first shave, the day he grew taller than his mother, his worst mistakes, his greatest successes. The frozen earth ate it all up – impassively.

"We'll find him, Isaac," Felix said with a quiet brand of confidence.

He offered the blond his hand. Isaac looked up, swallowed his tears, and accepted it, pulling himself up to his feet. His breaths were still shaky. Isaac wondered if they would be able to make it to the top of the Lighthouse. He had never known such doubts.

"I must speak with Puelle," said Felix, "and then I will meet you at the inn. It's too late for us to make the trek to the Lighthouse. We'll go tomorrow."

They made their way into the inn. It was warm and homely, which helped to ease Isaac's heart, weary as it was from the dismal entrance. They ate a fine meal of warm bread, soup, and some tender meat none of them had ever tasted before. Though the meal was lovely and their hosts were cordial, conversation at the table was subdued and sparse – a testament to the sense of dread that enveloped the city of Prox.

Almost two hours later, Felix had not returned, and the group began to disperse from the center of the inn. Most of the group went upstairs; Kraden, whose aging immune system had fallen victim to the cold on the way in, took a strong sleeping draught and excused himself to go to bed, saying that he would be fine by morning when the potion wore off. Isaac sat himself on a couch in front of the fireplace and glued his eyes to the crackling flames. He didn't respond as Jenna slid into the square beside him.

"It gets worse with every Lighthouse," Isaac said after a moment. "Every time we climb one, something terrible happens. And here we are, at the end… and all I can think is that we're going to die."

She pulled him closer to her, and buried her head in his side.

"I'm glad you're with me," she said. "Just like the night before the boulder fell."

Isaac paused as the memory resurfaced in his mind, an echo of a part of his life that he almost didn't remember – it seemed like so long ago. The pieces pulled themselves together slowly, slowly, until the scene was complete in Isaac's mind. It had started that evening.

"Isaac?" cam Kyle's voice from the bottom of the steps.

Isaac didn't want to talk to his father. Every time his father had tried to talk to him, it was always about how Isaac wasn't practicing Psynergy enough, wasn't doing his chores, wasn't pulling his weight out in the fields, and the fourteen-year-old just wasn't in the mood to deal with it. He slipped on his shoes and coat and shut his bedroom door behind him, hoping that whatever his father was nagging him to do wouldn't get in the way of what he had on his mind.

"Isaac," Kyle asked, "have you done your chores?"

"Yes, Dad," Isaac said quickly, rushing out the door and shutting it behind him.

So maybe his chores weren't all done, but most of them were at least halfway done. That counted, right?

The sunset was already finished, mostly. There were still hints of pink and purple in the night sky, but already it was mostly dark, save the occasional lantern flickering throughout the village. Isaac made his way down to the dock, where he had left Jenna almost half an hour ago.

As he approached, he noticed that she was wrapped up in a jacket, knees pulled up to her chest; there were tear streaks on her face, now dried.

"Sorry," he said hastily. "My parents made me do my chores before I could come back."

"It's okay," Jenna said, her nose obviously stuffy from the tears.

"There's no reason to be scared," said Isaac. "I'm sure it's just a dream."

"It didn't feel like just a dream, Isaac. It felt real, and I thought they were all dead. And I couldn't talk to Felix about it, I just couldn't. I can't talk to him about anything. He doesn't understand, or he doesn't care. He never talks to me about anything either, and with what's happening with my parents, it's not like we have nothing to talk about. I wish I could talk to him… I don't want to have to tell you everything. I don't tell you everything…"

Isaac sat, trying his hardest not to interject. What could Jenna possibly be keeping from him? He told her everything about his life; at the very least, he told her everything was relevant. And what was this about her parents?

"Do you want to talk about it?" Isaac asked her.

"No," she said, almost too quickly. "Not at all. Not at all! I don't even want what's going on to be real. Isaac, my parents are fighting all the time. They don't have a nice thing to say about each other, and they don't talk to each other at dinner. It's terrible. I can't even stand to be in the house anymore. Every time I try to ask about it, they tell me to go away, go outside, ignore it, or pretend it isn't happening. And Felix, he doesn't do anything about any of it! He just goes right along with it and pretends that it's normal for my parents to hate each other. He's a coward, and I don't trust him anymore."

Her voice quavered with wrath and hurt, and her eyes grew narrow. She shuddered with revulsion, but didn't cry as the pain she had been storing inside herself for month after month finally came to a head and burst through her open mouth.

"And I can't help but think it's going to get worse. They call each other the most terrible things, and they go to bed at night without apologizing. I'm afraid of… of everything they do. It seems so pointless, but they keep doing it. What if they leave or they die? I want to stop having nightmares about them dying every night! I don't want to be alone Isaac, and if they don't stop I'm going to be alone!"

The last word rang out and then faded behind the low roar of the waterfall behind them. Isaac searched his mind for words or actions, but found nothing. He waited for Jenna to continue.

"I don't want to do it anymore, Isaac. I don't want to hear them fight, I don't want to have to trust Felix with this, I don't even want to live. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

And at that moment, the mask of anger on her face faded, replaced by a stream of tears. As her anger fell away, so too did her will to fight; she slumped onto Isaac's shoulder, unable and unwilling to hold her body upward any longer. The constant battle ground of her home life had left her sapped, and on Isaac's shoulder the strands that held her together came undone. Her body shook under the force of her sobs.

Isaac was in turmoil. To hear his friend say that she 'didn't want to live' set his mind on overdrive, motoring as hard he could to think of something, of anything, to say that would assuage her doubts and make her feel better. Still, nothing came to him. What could he possibly say to her?

So Isaac sat there, holding Jenna tightly to him, and prayed. He prayed for words, and he prayed for the strength to say them.

"Jenna," he began, "I… I don't know exactly what to tell you but, um, I-I'm your… your best friend, and I can't bear to see you do this to yourself. I mean, I have no idea what that's like, being in your house right now, but I-I know that… I would miss you too much if you were gone. You're always there for me, and… I'm going to be there when you need me, too."

He paused.

"I don't really know how to say this, but I want you to know that… that I care about you. And I promise I'll always be there when you need help. You don't have to be alone, because you have me."

Jenna said nothing, merely pulled Isaac to her a little tighter and continued to stream her tears onto the right side of his shirt. Long after the sun had completely faded behind the hills, Isaac and Jenna sat on the edge of the dock. Isaac sat patiently as her tears abated, her breathing slowed, and finally, she looked up at him – and behind her swollen eyes, tear-stained cheeks, and puffy nose, Isaac could see a small spark of hope in her brown irises.

"Thank you -sniff- for staying out here with me so late," she said. "It means a lot to me. I'm glad you're here, Isaac."

She paused.

"But… can you stay for a little while longer?" she asked him.

"Sure," he replied with a small smile.

And so he stayed, until Jenna began to shiver visibly. At that point, he walked back to her door with her, where she pulled him into an enormous embrace before she went inside, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Isaac made his way back home as well. He stifled a yawn as he made his way back across the bridge to his house. As he quietly and carefully entered his front door, he thought briefly about waking up his parents to say good night, but instead went straight to bed. After all, moments like that didn't happen every night.

Not even hours later, the ground began to shake as the Boulder atop Mt. Aleph fell.

"Seems like another life," Isaac commented. "That was the last night things were ever simple. Right before I left to come see you on the dock."

He paused, and Jenna looked at him quizzically, a little bit hurt.

"But I wouldn't have it any other way."

He looked down at her with his bright blue eyes, his tussled blond hair, and smiled, just slightly. Jenna, unable to stay angry, smiled as well, though like his it was a small thing. A moment later, Isaac's smile faded as a result of his choices at the end of that night.

"I never said good night to my parents, Jenna. I even thought about waking them up. Now my Mom is sick, and we have no clue where my father is."

"I trust Felix," Jenna said in reply. "He hasn't really been wrong yet. If he says they will be okay, then they will be okay."

Blind trust in Felix didn't really suit Isaac, though. But, beside the fire, he didn't feel like a fight was worth it. Instead he snuggled up closer to Jenna, his most wonderful friend, and let himself forget the foreboding monolith of ice and red steel that awaited them. Soon her breathing leveled out, and Isaac too began to doze off. He noticed for a moment that Felix had not returned to the inn, but he pushed the worries aside and basked in the warmth of the beautiful girl in front of him.

As Jenna and Isaac fell asleep on the couch, they didn't notice the slight sound of Mia as she glided across the floor and made her way outside, pulling her coat on as she went.


Felix had the location fixed in his mind – directly northwest of Prox, he had seen a strange, bluish light that did not belong in the spectrum of dusk as he led the group into the city only a few hours earlier. He had known instantly what it was, but he had kept silent.

As soon as he saw the chance, he separated himself from the group and made his way north, stopping to speak to Puelle only briefly, indicating that they would talk at more length the next morning. He then snuck around the edge of the village, moving hastily out of sight of the light emanating from the windows, and into the shadows of the mountains to the east.

Looking back every so often to make sure that he could find his way back later, Felix made his way deeper into the endless snowdrifts. She was here. She had to be here. He trudged purposefully through the freezing whiteness at his feet, always careful to move in a straight path.

He walked for over an hour without a sign of life. He stopped and scanned the landscape, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but found nothing. The landscape was clear from where he stood to the horizon.

Horizon?

The snow had stopped falling. Felix looked around again. There was no sign of the village behind him.

Not good.

In fact, as Felix looked around, he became convinced that something was awry – There was clear blue sky all around. There was no evidence of the swallowing blackness that was the northern edge of the reaches, nor of the mountains that had been hidden moments ago behind the veil of snow to the west and south.

It had been just moments ago, had it not? How long had it been since the snow had faded? And how did he not notice?

The entire situation screamed of the supernatural. Felix resisted the urge to draw his sword, but instead stood still, watching vigilantly. For minutes, he saw nothing, he heard nothing.

You have made a choice, I see, came the Lady's voice. But have you forgotten what I told you?

Felix fought the urge to turn away from her resonant voice.

"Bring… my heart," said Felix, feeling as though he had committed a grave sin in responding to her question.

Do not forget, Felix. But I have not called you here for something so small. I come with a warning, one that you should heed – beware the Dragon, beware the Eye, for they are tainted miracles, born of scorned fire and hardened earth. Too long has their angry power been trapped away, corrupting them from within. Beware, but do not avoid. Seek the Dragon to find what you have lost. Seek the Eye for the answers you desire. The Eye sees much of Fate, just as he did in the past.

She paused, pulsating with the haunting white light that seemed to spring from an internal source. It was powerful and mesmerizing, holding Felix to the spot where he stood.

Your test approaches, Felix, the Lady said. You have dreamed of this moment before – come. It is time.

She reached out, still glowing cerulean beauty out of every inch of her skin, and gently took Felix's hand. She pulled him along snowdrift after snowdrift; there came a point when Felix noticed, with as much shock as he had earlier, that the snowstorm had resumed. Moments after, he saw the ominous silhouette of Mars Lighthouse through the wind and snow.

You know what you must do, the Lady said.

She faded into the snow, just like in his dream. This time, however, no one yelled his name from the top of the aerie; he was alone.

Felix watched the Lady until the last trace of her had disappeared, and then shifted his gaze to the ancient steel construct, sizing it up. He walked confidently into the entrance, seeking answers to his questions, writing the end of his Aria.

From a distance, it would have appeared that the Lighthouse had, like the mouth of a dragon, swallowed Felix whole.


Sheba hated the snow, even watching it through a window. Growing up in Lalivero tended to put a damper on a person's enthusiasm for freezing cold precipitation, and this certainly rang true for Sheba. She was glad that she hadn't ever been to Imil, because it was supposedly almost as cold as Prox. Even the inn wasn't warm – it wasn't cold either, but it didn't feel as insulated as she thought it ought to. Even wrapped up in two blankets she still had to work to suppress the occasional shiver.

It had certainly been a strange walk into Prox. She had long since known of its existence, having heard the stories from Felix, Saturos, and Menardi, but the picture the two had painted did not dovetail with the true landscape. She had expected something that more closely resembled an arctic version of Kibombo.

"We live simply," Menardi said, "so that we may light the beacons as fast as possible."

Right, thought Sheba. The only thing 'simple' about this place is that they haven't discovered how to keep a house warm. Nothing else here is simple.

Nothing else was simple; her mind fixed itself on the invisible but nearly tangible sense of despair that hung over their heads as they walked in. It hadn't gone away, either. The fireplace on the opposite wall had done some small part in holding it at bay, but Sheba felt that as soon as she set foot outside again, it would come back with a vengeance. Even with all nine of them, Sheba had felt like she was walking alone. She had seen Isaac and Jenna holding hands, and when she had, it nearly tore her apart.

Everyone was so desperate to have something, anything, to hold on to, to keep living for. Where was her "someone"? She didn't have a family back home, childhood friends, or a lover. She curled her knees up to her chest as she shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

A little voice inside her head whispered, "You'll always be alone. You're different. You're strange, just like your powers."

Sheba blinked out a solitary tear. She wished, hoped, prayed that Felix would come and find her and give her some much-needed comfort, but he was still speaking with Puelle. Where was Piers?

She looked around, and the large mound of blue hair poking out from the sheets answered her question. Garet was asleep too, in the bed next to him.

That left… Ivan and Mia. Sheba was somewhat familiar with Ivan after the time they had spent trying to get Jenna and Isaac together, but not so much with Mia.

Maybe I should get to know her better tonight, thought Sheba. She might be able to help. She doesn't exactly have anyone here either… Maybe I could talk to her.

She looked downstairs, but there was no one else besides Jenna and Isaac, who had fallen asleep in each other's arms on the couch. Where was Mia? And for that matter, where was Ivan? Even the innkeeper slept in his chair. There was no one else upstairs…

She opened the door to the basement, and there she found one of her missing companions playing with a pair of nails, holding them up in the air with electricity that occasionally jumped off of his right hand. He didn't seem focused on it, though.

A moment later, he noticed Sheba, and dropped the nails onto the floor.

"Hi," he said.

He sounded just as bone-tired and weary as she felt.

"Weird trip in, huh?" she said as she stepped over next to him on the wall, as a way of starting conversation.

"You're telling me," he replied.

Sheba lapsed into silence, not really having anything else to say. What could she say? Ivan, remember that time a few days ago at Magma rock when we fought those monsters? Or how about just the other day when Isaac and Jenna found us out and everything blew up? Great times.

Right.

Ivan spoke up then.

"You seem out of sorts tonight, Sheba. You okay?"

There was a shocker. Since when had Ivan been sensitive?

"Yeah, I'm fine… Well, I mean…" she paused. "Who I am kidding? Yeah, Ivan, I'm all kinds of messed up in the head right now."

She sighed.

"I'm just… I don't even know what to think right now. We're so close to the end, but we've been falling apart ever since the storm hit. I expected to feel... different, now that we're here. I thought we would march in here and we would just… know what we had to do, and then do it. I didn't think we'd be lying and sneaking around each other. I definitely didn't think we'd be so incredibly confused."

Ivan bit the corner of his lip in thought.

"I know what you mean," he replied. "I think we're just tired is all. We get done at Magma Rock, and all of a sudden we hit that storm. We get out of the storm, and a day later we're off to the Lighthouse. It's a mess. We're all tired, but there's no one else who can do it besides us. At this point, we're counting the days until Prox falls off the map. And they're counting on us to save their lives? Yeah, I'm feeling that stress."

Ivan sighed too, and looked off into the unlit corner of the room.

"And then there's the whole thing where we might die trying," he finished.

"Yeah, that…" agreed Sheba. "I mean… can you really even talk about something like that? We've gotten into some tight spots before, and we've had some pretty serious injuries, but none of them have ever seemed so… ominous. I can't help but think that this 'great power' at the top is going to be the end of us."

She paused. Her heart seemed to beat against a tangled mess of rope, unable to decide if it wanted to be free or if it wanted to just collapse under its own weight.

"I don't want to die, Ivan."

No tears; just doubt and distaste.

"Neither do I," he said.

Another silence.

"I wish I knew what to say," Ivan said apologetically. "This doesn't make me feel any better about it either."

"Can I just… have a hug then?" Sheba asked.

"I can do that," he replied, with a matured version of his eternally present grin.

He wrapped Sheba up in as big of a hug as his small body could muster. Sheba was happy, for the moment, to be close to someone, to anyone. It made her feel somehow less alone. The hug said, "Yes, I feel it too – the weariness, the despair. Let me show you what mine is like, and then I'll see yours; then we can wash each other's hands off until there's nothing left."

Eventually Sheba's breathing, shallow as it had been, leveled out and grew deep. She felt... not truly better, but the immediate pain was numbed, and she felt confident that she could think.

"Anything else you want to get off your chest besides that stuff?" Ivan asked.

"Yeah, actually," Sheba replied, recalling the original reason she had come down to the basement. "Where's Mia?"

"She went upstairs a while ago," said Ivan. "Is she not there?"

"Nope…" Sheba muttered darkly. "There was no one else upstairs, and only Jenna and Isaac asleep on the couch on the middle floor. She's not here."

"Maybe she just went to find Felix? He's been gone for a while too."

"I thought about that, it just seems weird that she wouldn't ask someone else to come with her, especially you or Garet," she replied.

"Now that you mention it, that does seem weird. Do you want to go look for them? Maybe Puelle is telling them something important," he added.

"That's a good idea," said Sheba. "Let's get our gear."

Not ten minutes later, Sheba and Ivan were out the door of the inn. The snow still fell constantly, and the wind battered them from all sides. It was dark save a few torches placed intermittently throughout the town, and those were hard to see through the frozen gale.

Ivan leaned toward Sheba's ear, suggesting that they head to the northern edge of town to talk to the sentry. They made their way up the ridges until they were able to discern the light of a row of torches behind a human silhouette.

"Have you seen Felix?" Ivan yelled above the wind to the guard.

"Felix?" the Proxian replied as they got closer. "He should be back at the inn. He and Puelle talked hours ago."

Not good, thought Sheba, and she didn't have to read his mind to know that Ivan was thinking the exact same thing.

Ivan thanked the guard, and began to glow with Psynergy. He looked around. His eyes grew wide. Sheba followed suit, using Reveal, and saw what Ivan had seen. It was a solitary set of footprints which went due west from the circle of vigilant guards. The footprints continued to a small gap in the city wall.

"Well," said Ivan, "what do we do now? They obviously went out of the city. Do we try to go and find them?"

Sheba reflected for a moment.

"If they're in trouble, we have to try and help. At least we won't be sneaking off – the guard will know that we're going to look for those two."

"Let's do it, then," said Ivan.

And with a quick explanation to the sentry, the two Jupiter Adepts grabbed a torch and stepped out into the wasteland to the north looking to chase after their absent companions.


And that is it for this chapter! I most sincerely apologize for how long that took... You guys have no idea how many times I've fumbled with this godforsaken chapter. There was a point where I was getting maybe a sentence down every two weeks. It was that bad.

I think this chapter sucked, but I'm moving into so much more action now, so I feel like it will get better. This definitely isn't the best chapter I've ever written, but I think the next one will be much better. As usual, my dialogue feels weak, but I complain about that enough. The only other thing I would really appreciate everyone's input on is if there is too much change in tone from the previous chapter, and also if the tone changes too much inside the chapter itself. While I'm rather happy with the scenes involving Felix, Isaac, and Jenna, I'm concerned about the scenes with Ivan and Sheba. They don't seem to mesh well when they're depressed. Any thoughts?

:)

Feels good to be back. I'll be very thankful to any of my old reviewers who have managed to stick around this long and still feel like this story is worth reading.

I also need to take a moment to plug another Felix-Mia fic that goes by the name of "Catharsis", by the writer DropOfInk. It is completely different from mine, but I think it is an excellent take on the second half of TLA. This fic is also noteworthy in that it is the only other Softshipping fic with over 10K words, and the only other multichaptered fic with any hope of being finished! I know that many of you love Felix and Mia as a couple, so take some time to check this story out! Beware: therein lies much angst, quite unlike my (usually) fluffy romance.

Thanks again for stopping by, everybody!