Warnings: Total tearing to shreds of any canon.
Pairings: Felix/Isaac.
Rating: T for language in the A/N.
Notes: …and then canon got fucked and they lived happily ever after…or not. I've always wondered how the Proxians stayed ahead of my party even though there is no way for them to pass the ivy. Also: in Spanish "contigo" means "with you"; I'm not sure if that's what the writers of the game were thinking, but hell, have a side story while you're here.
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Always With You (For A Maximum Of Five Minutes In Person)
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"Ugh, why won't it burn?" Menardi snarled. She tried another flare on the ivy-covered rock.
Jenna stood beside, her arms folded, watching her captor fail yet again to burn the ivy off so that Isaac could move the stupid rocky-stump-thing away from the entrance. "Look, you've got to use more finesse," Jenna said calmly. She whipped up a nice flare as soon as Menardi's faded. "Aim straight for the ivy."
Saturos rolled his eyes and glared at the girls. "Would you please remove the ivy so that we can make it through the cave? It is almost nightfall, for Iris' sake! We should have reached Bilibin by now," he grumbled.
The ivy continued to do nothing, still unaffected by the flames, except for a bit of charring on the rock. Menardi interrupted Jenna's flare with a strong push to the back of the party. "How's this for finesse? Pyrocl-"
A large amount of water suddenly covered Menardi, courtesy of a well-placed douse. "Please refrain from drawing attention to the party, Menardi. We do not wish to destroy all surrounding greenery," said Alex. He took a few steps closer to the ivy, gently urging Jenna to the back of the party as he did so. "Perhaps a different tactic…" mused Alex quietly. A miniature raincloud appeared over the ivy and drenched the entire ledge that the rock sat on.
The ivy remained unaffected. "Frost," Alex mumbled. A pillar of ice grew up around the ivy. Again, no effect. The ivy looked just as green and lush as ever.
Another flare from Saturos removed all traces of the Mercury adept's psynergy. "So what do we do now?" he demanded angrily.
"We ask the Venus adept," Alex replied simply. "Isaac!"
Isaac carefully made his way to the front of the party, gently pushing Jenna farther back toward Kraden as he did so. "Yes?"
Saturos pointed at the ivy. "Figure out what is wrong with it," he said.
Isaac nodded obediently. He had to lean over the gap between the ledge with the party and the ledge with the ivy to reach it, and nearly fell, but with much effort he managed to reach out to the ivy. The leaves were unmovable. They were supple, green, and completely resistant to all efforts to pull one off. Isaac pulled the shortsword from his belt and tried to cut one off to better examine, but the plant actually chipped the blade rather than be cut.
"Try using your psynergy," suggested a voice from behind - Kraden's. The old man had moved to the front as well, completely reversing the party's original order. "Pour your will into your psynergy, try to persuade the ivy to part with a leaf," the old man instructed.
Isaac nodded and did as he was told. Soft transluscent light-brown, almost yellow, orbs of psynergy flowed from his fingertips and into the plant. Finally Isaac pulled back, clutching a single leaf of ivy in his hands.
"Now concentrate on it, try to examine its very composition," the old scholar instructed. Isaac nodded and began to glow the signature yellow-ish brown color of his psynergy.
"Earth," Isaac said simply. The glow of his psynergy ebbed away, back into Weyard, causing the nearby grass to look lusher than ever. The rest of the party looked at him curiously, waiting for some sort of elaboration on the topic. "It's made entirely of earth psynergy. Since earth and fire share a symbiotic relationship, and since it doesn't even react with water all that much we're going to need wind."
Kraden nodded sagely. He was proud that Isaac knew all of this without needing to be told. His education in psynergy would need to continue if there was any hope of entering Venus lighthouse, but as of yet, the only important thing was the basics.
The Proxians and Alex pondered the problem. "Contigo," They said at once. Everyone turned to Alex expectantly., though Isaac and Jenna merely did so out of confusion.
"Contigo?" Jenna asked skeptically.
Alex nodded. "Contigo," he replied. His psynergetic molecules scattered and reformed on the opposite river bank.
"Alex," Saturos said in a warning tone, "We can't cross the water."
"My apologies." A wave of his hand caused the water to change its course. Rather than simply flowing downstream, the water arced over the muddy river bed. The entire party, sans Alex, had to walk around the sloping path from Goma Cave's entrance to the arc of shining water that would have put the goddess of rainbows to shame.
Jenna sighed exasperatedly as they trudged toward the water. "Are we camping out again?"
Kraden brightened up and looked to the Proxians only a few steps in front of him. "You wouldn't mind terribly, would you?"
Neither Proxian responded. They did mind. They minded a lot. This set back the schedule again, and at this rate they could not possibly get back to Prox before it froze over again.
Jenna stopped at the edge of the arc of water. "I don't trust it," she said. Both Proxians walked around her, ignoring any fear she held. Kraden patted her on the back encouragingly as he passed, and Isaac, bringing up the rear, had to drag her to get her to go under the arc.
All three fire adepts had immediately and visibly relaxed upon reaching the other side, though none of them would admit it.
Alex dropped the water back onto its normal course, almost before Isaac had taken his last step onto dry land. Isaac's gaze lingered on the river momentarily. It was a clash between his previous experiences with rivers and just how gorgeous that one had been above him. "How did you do that?" he asked cautiously.
"Element manipulation," Alex replied, and was gone, leaving only a few scattered orbs of psynergy floating away as any indication he had ever been there.
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The Proxians sat on one side of the fire conversing about what their next move should be. Should they risk someone seeing smoke to douse the fire, or should they let it go and keep trying to schedule the journey?
Jenna, Kraden, and Isaac were on the opposite side, discussing elemental manipulation.
"Psynergy is mostly based on elemental manipulation, for example, Jenna takes the combustable molecules in the air and her target to make her flare ability have an effect, while Isaac moves the land for quake. All Alex did was directly manipulate the water into arcing above the river bed," Kraden explained.
Isaac nodded, while Jenna barely kept up.
"Look at it this way: earlier Jenna told Menardi to use 'finesse' against the ivy, and aimed it more directly at the ivy. This shows she was manipulating her element more, while Menardi merely used more power."
"A lot more power," Isaac mumbled.
Jenna spun in her seat. "What was that?" she demanded angrily.
"Nothing, nothing," Isaac replied innocently.
The group sat in an awkward silence for a few moments, the only sounds being the soft crackle of the fire and their captors' (allies'?) hushed voices. Jenna was the first to speak again, "What's taking Alex so long?"
"He has to search all of Contigo for a Jupiter adept, he may be a while," replied the scholar.
"Where is Contigo?" Isaac asked.
Kraden paused for a brief moment to recollect his knowledge of geography (he was a scholar of alchemy, after all, geography was no big concern in most cases). "Atteka," he said at last. "It is the place where the famous merchant Hammet began his career, or supposedly, anyway. No one has ever been able to get the man to confirm it.
"Contigo is near where a city was said to have torn itself from Weyard itself. Supposedly that is what the moon is. There is a quite interesting legend, too, if you care to hear of it...."
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Felix and Garet followed their two little Venus djinn away from the setting sun. According to Flint they could probably make it to Goma Cave by morning, but neither boy wanted to walk all night. In retrospect, perhaps they should have stayed the night at the inn, Garet thought miserably, though Felix would absolutely refuse to hear of that. Jenna and Isaac were still captive, after all, and the sooner they got home, the better.
They chose a small area on the outskirts of the forest that lead up to Goma Cave and left the djinn to keep watch.
By sunrise Sap was practically ready to burst with excitement for the new day. He still had not been able to fight any of the weak enemies in the wild, and the prospect of attacking two strong, scaly warriors from the far North sounded incredibly fun. Flint was more reserved and tried to lead his two charges up to Goma Cave without annoying them into oblivion.
It was well past noon before the small party reached the entrance to Goma.
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Contigo was named for a legend. It began, like many others, with a romance. A young maiden, whose name has been long forgotten, and her fiance, a dashing young man, were ready to be married. The people of Anemos were, like they always have been, at war with the not-so-far-off Shaman village.
The Shaman village prided itself on strength, honor, and tradition, and had anyone bothered to even attempt to forget old grudges, they may have noticed that the only difference between the two peoples was that the people of Anemos preferred psynergy, honor, and tradition. Or perhaps it was their common love of honor and tradition that really dragged out the war, for the cause had been long forgotten. It was known that somewhere along the line there had been the accidental death of a child, but at this point no one could recall anything except that there had been vengeance, and vengeance, and vengeance continuing.
The young couple had been happy together, they were both a lovely pair. The maiden and her striking lavender hair, with her lover and his beautiful dirty blond locks. Nothing had been able to seperate them until tradition and honor demanded that the young man avenge his father who had recently died in the war.
The maiden was upset at her lover's desire to fight, and being of no small amount of power herself, requested that she be allowed to go as well. Her lover, of course, in fear that he would be unable to protect her, refused to allow her to join him.
Before he left, though, the maiden vowed that they would live in peace upon his return. She began preparing and researching so that she could take their home into the sky. Her project quickly drew the attention of the others in her tribe, and soon all of the Anemos people were ready to leave.
The news of her lover's death reached the maiden too soon. She decided that to best be with him she would fly into the heavens above, where she was sure he would be waiting. The maiden set off the string of psynergy and used all of her strength to lift the people of Anemos into the sky.
Her last words were "At last, I can be with you."
A few townsfolk too prideful, or too fearful to leave their home had stayed behind and named their new town after the two lovers, seperated too soon, and the last words of the maiden, who had been misinformed. Her lover, already grief-stricken by the news had jumped into the sea and swore to return to her in the afterlife.
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The Proxian party was laying low for the moment. Alex had still not returned from his visit to Contigo, and it was too risky to venture out where people might see them. Better to let Felix and Garet assume that the Proxians were hopelessly far ahead of them.
Isaac sneaked out a little past noon to get some water from the river nearby.
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Felix ran forward as they reached their destination. It could only be a matter of time before they fell hopelessly behind Isaac, Jenna, and Kraden. He was surprised to see Isaac basking in the sun across the river. Felix put up a hand to hold Garet and the djinn back and moved forward almost silently.
Isaac sat up as Felix reached the opposite bank of the river, as if sensing him. No words were exchanged, not that it would have been reasonable to risk the Proxians hearing a shouted conversation over the roar of the river anyway. Isaac changed position so that he was on his hands and knees and pushed his will into the earth below him.
The result was an awkward half-tremor that left several large, wet rocks with conveniently flat surfaces for walking jutting out of the water. The rocks only reached three-quarters of the way to the opposite bank, far more than Isaac was willing to risk jumping. Felix, on the other hand, was unwilling to watch Isaac even jump the short gap between the carefully-close first few.
Garet stayed back with the djinn, perceiving that this was a private moment. "Sirs, I really don't thinks you shoulds let Sirs Felix go tos the enemy by hisself," Sap attempted to whisper. Flint smacked him on the back of the head with his tail.
The rocks were slippery-almost as bad as the pedastals in Sol Sanctum had been. The Sanctum, and home, seemed so far off now. How many days has it really been? Felix thought, it feels like weeks.
Isaac stopped on the last rock, taking care to not fall off and look like an idiot by washing downstream again. There wouldn't be any Proxians waiting to save him this time, and it had been too long since he actually swam.
"It's been a while since we last talked," said Felix, at last.
Isaac smiled. That was an understatement. "Only a few years," he replied smoothly. "Sorry about all of that trouble back at the Sanctum! Jenna is alright, even though she doesn't get along with Menardi." Felix nodded. That sounded like his sister. Fear was not likely to stop her from being a smartass. "Did the Elders send you?"
Felix shook his head. "Do you remember those legends about the Wise One?" Isaac paused to think before nodding. The Great Healer had been rather firm about the presence of the Wise One. "That's who-or what, sent us. It gave us a choice."
Isaac's knees were beginning to get incredibly soaked. He nodded thoughtfully at Felix's words.
"He said if you light the beacons that the world will end," Felix added casually. They could have been discussing the weather (which was lovely, by the way) for all that their tones of voice expressed, as opposed to two best friends being reunited over trying to save the world.
Isaac shook his head vigorously. "No, it will end if we don't light them, though. We have to! The world is falling apart!"
"Isaac?" A far-off voice called. "Isaac!" It was Jenna. Isaac scrambled back off of the platforms, shouting apologies as he did so. If Jenna saw Felix...well, after the reunion there would be too much confusion, and Jenna would try to travel together, but Menardi would just as soon kill Felix and Garet as look at them.
Felix watched his friend run again. It was not a pleasant feeling.
A few moments later Garet deemed it safe to approach his travelling companion. "Are you okay?" he asked concernedly.
Felix did not respond immediately. He seemed to be slowly pulling himself out of a stupor. "Garet, what if we're on the wrong side of this quest?"
"What?" replied Garet."On the wrong side? What's that supposed to mean?"
Flint smacked Felix's ankles lightly with his tail. "Sirs, it's time to get a move on. We can beat them to the Mercury lighthouse to better plan out a way to stop them from lighting the beacon," the djinni instructed. Sap hopped along behind, a little disappointed that the enemy had not been fought.
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AN: The Contigo story will come up here and there--mostly just brief mentions of it. Please consider it as an 'I'm so sorry!' for leaving the story to fend for itself for too long. Up next is Forge. It's kinda obvious that the story's completely broken off from canon by now...I'm really dying to write about Mercury lighthouse. If no one has any objections I may skip from Bilibin to Imil chapter after next (next is a bit of Goma cave plus intro to Bilibin). It's not like anything big happens there anyway.