- Chapter 2: Everybody Off -

Standing in the snow outside Prox(igniting the lighthouses had stopped the deterioration of Weyard, but it would be many years before the weather rebalanced itself), Felix procrastinated a moment longer. They had already dropped Mia off in Imil and Ivan in Kalay, but this was where he bid goodbye to Jenna, Garet, Isaac, and Piers. And hopefully, Sheba.

"Everyone," he said aloud. "We'll be here for a few days, but I think I should let you all know that when you leave, I'll be staying here in Prox. You can take the ship back with you to Vale."

Most of them appeared startled to silence. Isaac spoke up, "Somehow, I was expecting this. It isn't because you think you won't be welcome in Vale, is it?"

"No."

"Then I guess there isn't anything more I can say." He held out his hand. "We'll miss you. If there's anything you need -"

"Likewise," Felix said, shaking his hand.

"What are you talking about!" Sheba broke in, storming up to the two of them and grabbing Felix's cloak. "Felix, you can't... You can't just leave your sister! Not to mention your friends!"

Felix shook his head. "Jenna's a grown woman now. Besides, she has our parents with her."

"It's still not right! Don't you care about -"

"It's okay, Sheba," Jenna interrupted. "Felix is old enough... old enough to be on his own now. I wasn't expecting Prox, but I knew he wouldn't be staying in Vale. He..." She broke off in a sob and embraced her brother, hiding her moist eyes against his shoulder. "Damn it, Felix, why did you have to spring this on us at the last minute?"

"I'm sorry, Jenna." He held her as reassuringly as he could, though his sister's body felt like a stranger's to him. It always had, ever since he'd returned to Vale after three years in Prox. "But I know you. If I'd told you earlier, you'd have just argued with me the whole trip."

"Yeah... I guess I can see how you'd think that," she sniffled. "Damn it, Felix, I just got you back... I'm going to miss you."

"Don't talk like that. We'll still see each other now and then. We have a flying ship, remember?"

"Nnn," she grunted, obviously not convinced. She was sensible enough to know that though there would be a visit every five years or so, Felix had his own life. He wouldn't be wasting it making routine visits to Vale.

"Look, I promise I'll see you within the next year, okay?" He made the promise for Jenna's sake, but when he thought about it, he liked the idea for himself as well. It wouldn't be right to say a final goodbye to his family before he'd settled down in Prox.

"Don't make me promises that you won't keep, Felix..."

"I wouldn't do that to you." He gently pushed her away and gave her a light noogie. "...dummy."

It was a weak attempt to make light of their parting, but it sufficed. "Jerk," Jenna rejoined with a sad nod. "You better visit."

Sheba folded her arms with a contemptuous air, eyes narrowing in displeasure. "What about me?" she protested. "Are you really going to abandon me, Felix?"

"You can go with him, Sheba," Jenna suggested. "I'd really miss you, but if that's what you want..."

Sheba looked over at her, and it immediately hit Felix how groundless his worry was. Of course Sheba would stay with Jenna. The two of them were almost like sisters; as attached as she was to Felix, Sheba would never choose him over Jenna. The emotional connection between them was real, not just gratitude for his jumping off a lighthouse to save her from danger that he himself was partially responsible for.

"Jenna..." Sheba smiled and wrapped her arms around her surrogate big sister. "I... I'm sorry. I'll really miss you, too, but..."

Shit. Does the universe really hate me this much?

"...I just can't leave Felix. You're my best friend, but Felix... Felix helped me see what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to use my power to help people. Without him... I don't think I'd know what to do with myself anymore. I'm not ready to figure everything out on my own! I'm sure I will be someday, but... Do you understand?"

Jenna nodded. "I think so. If you want to help people, like you said... Then it's probably better if you go with Felix."

"That's not a good idea," Felix tried. "This is a town of Proxians, Sheba; you'll be an outsider. And you know how boring I am by myself. Don't forget the weather, either. Honestly, Sheba, you have no idea what it's like to live here year round."

"It's not like I've been living in a palace these past months," Sheba said with a roll of her eyes. She took him by the hand. "C'mon, I won't complain so long as you're with me. We'll be outsiders together, like usual."

He opened his mouth to protest again, but then he saw that not just Sheba, but everyone was giving him a look that suggested he'd have to be the world's biggest jerk to not let her stay with him.

"...Fine." Why fight the inevitable? I've earned years of suffering, and the universe is apparently determined to see that I get it.

Puelle was pleased to see them back, of course, having been unhappy about their leaving in the first place. Felix still didn't know how he felt about the Proxians regarding him as a hero; after all, he'd let Saturos and Menardi die. Still, that was just one failure. Maybe he could accept being called a hero if it turned out that he had been able to save Karst and Agatio.

Once they'd discussed ways they could help out in Prox, Felix said, "There is another thing I wanted to check on. Have you found Karst and Agatio yet?"

Puelle raised his bright eyebrows. "They're dead, are they not?"

"Then you've recovered their bodies?"

"Ah, I understand," he said, though his expression remained a bit confused. "Well, Mars Lighthouse is still a dangerous place. It's nothing that myself and a couple hand-picked warriors couldn't handle, but it's too much trouble just to recover two bodies, when it is better to let them rest there, with Mars Lighthouse serving as a monument to their sacrifice."

"What!" Jenna practically screamed in horror. It was probably the apparent disrespect for the dead that struck her hardest, but faced with Puelle's unblinking look, she stammered out, "But... the stench!"

He shook his head. "The bodies of Fire Clan members will not decompose within Mars Lighthouse. They should be lying there unchanged from the moment you saw them last. ...You left them in dignified positions, correct?"

"Yes," Felix said, recalling with pain how he had straightened Karst's leg and placed her shivering arms over her torso. The leg he'd help break, the arms he'd help mangle. It was the Wise One's fault, but he was still responsible. "Still, at some point I would like to make a final visit to their resting place. I haven't really paid my respects."

Sheba scowled. "You don't owe those two anything, Felix. They betrayed you!"

"And I betrayed Saturos and Menardi," he retorted. "Loyalties don't matter. It's what they fought for that counts."

She folded her arms. "And what they fought for was killing you and Isaac."

He didn't argue further. Sheba was never one to change her mind.

The lot of them stayed at the inn for three days while they helped with clearing away snow, repairing houses damaged by bad freezes, and otherwise undoing the damage wrought by the advance of Gaia Falls. To his credit, Isaac realized the hollowness of the gesture.

"This destruction won't end when we leave. All this terrible weather is going on year round," Isaac said to Felix, head lowered with guilt. "At least you'll be staying here to help, but... What good does it do for the rest of us to lend a hand for three days?"

"None whatsoever," Felix acknowledged. "You'll be doing plenty to restore Vale once you get back there. Home is where you should be helping people first, anyway."

Thankfully, Sheba didn't complain too much about the work. It helped that she was allowed to take a break whenever she wanted, of course, but the girl clearly had a great deal of pride.

And Felix finally took the opportunity to share his dilemma with Piers, to an extent.

"Piers..." he said as they were clearing ice from a roof. "What do I do if after you guys leave, Sheba changes her mind about wanting to stay with me?"

Piers smiled. "That will never happen."

"What makes you so sure?"

He shook his head. "Sheba is too stubborn, and too obsessed with you."

"What if I do something to change that?"

Piers turned and gave him a look. "Felix, if you don't want Sheba to be with you, just tell her."

"That's not what I meant," he protested. "I want her to be with me - I mean, I don't, but not in the way you made it sound like, and besides, I would never... What I mean is -" He threw his hands up in the air. "Look, I just don't want her to be hurt."

"That's good to hear," Piers said, turning back to his work. "But I'm not sure I understand what you do want."

Felix thought for a moment. I'd rather not tell him about Karst, but... Wait. "Look... What if you guys say goodbye to me and Sheba, but keep the ship here for another 24 hours, in case she decides to go back with you?"

"That sounds reasonable. You'll have to ask Isaac, of course."

His last move before seeing his friends off was to speak with Puelle about housing arrangements. Naturally, Sheba accompanied him when they went.

"Is Menardi's house still available?"

"Hey!" Sheba protested. "I'm not staying in any house where that bully lived!"

"Then you can leave on the ship with the others. That's your alternative."

"Geez, Felix," Sheba said, staring at him with offended eyes. "What are you so mad about?"

In truth, he wasn't mad at all. He was just hoping to convince her not to stay with him.

"You don't have to stay there, Felix," Puelle said. "I can imagine that place has unpleasant memories for you of your first stay here. For all you've done for Prox, we can keep you in a decent room at the inn until a suitable house is built for the two of you."

"No. I refuse to live on charity." With only a brief side glance at Sheba, he continued, "And if Menardi's house is available, I owe it to her surviving family to at least keep the place from falling apart. That's where I'm staying. Sheba can stay where she pleases."

There was only a brief uncomfortable silence before Sheba said, "I'm staying with you, Felix. It's not the home that really counts; it's who's in it."

After they'd bid farewell to Jenna, Isaac, Garet, and Piers, Felix wasted little time. He wanted to know the truth - and it was time for Sheba to know the truth as well. Once he and Sheba had their things set up at Menardi's house, he said flatly, "I'm going to Mars Lighthouse now. You can come if you want."

She gave him an odd look but followed his lead and bundled on her warmest clothing. An hour later, they were trudging towards the bright beacon still encircled by heavy drifts of snow.

The going was slow. Sheba's feet(and therefore, the soles of her boots) were small, so she tended to fall into snow drifts. Being too short to climb out herself, she could only wait while Felix silently pulled her back up. She apologized each time, which Felix found a bit absurd. It wasn't her fault.

Sheba's only fault was that she wanted to be with him, and that wasn't so much her choice as it was her fate. Sheba would always be with him, it seemed, as a constant reminder of his sins.

They were just a few hundred meters from the Lighthouse when Sheba stepped on a patch of ice and slipped. Felix gave her a hand to steady her as she got back up, and the little goddess asked the question that must have been on her mind the whole trip, "Why are you in such a hurry to pay your respects, anyway? Puelle said, their bodies aren't going anywhere."

He sighed, the air freezing his breath. "It's not just that. I didn't say anything because I didn't want the others to get involved, but... If the power of Mars Lighthouse revived my parents, it sure should have revived two powerful members of the Mars clan."

Sheba's eyes widened. "Why didn't I think of that? But... do you think just the two of us can handle them?"

He shook his head. "We're not here to fight. Karst and Agatio aren't our enemies."

"What! They tried to kill us!" She sounded more distraught and confused than angry. "What do you mean by that, anyway - that you don't want the others to get involved? What are we doing here?"

As she often did when she anticipated that a question of hers has a very complicated answer, Sheba began reading his mind. He did not try to evade her probe, but willingly focused his thoughts on his feelings for Karst.

As she read his mind, Sheba's face contorted with greater confusion, then dismay. When finished, she took a step back from him. "No," she said, looking up at him with something almost like fear.

Felix sighed, both relieved and ashamed to have the truth out there at last. "Sheba," he said with an apologetic tone(though in truth he wasn't sorry at all) and held out his palm to her.

"Get away from me!" she screamed, and bolted from him.

"Sheba!" He darted after her, but she used her power to stir up a whirlwind behind her, blowing a miniature snowstorm into his face. Caught off-guard, he fell back a step and held his hands in front of his face, utterly blinded.

It took only a minute for the snowstorm to dissipate and for Felix to brush the heavy flakes from his eyes, but by the time he could see again, Sheba was nowhere in sight. Only an endless cascade of white stretched on in every direction. Any footsteps she'd left had apparently been swept away by her little windstorms.

He called her name at the top of his lungs. No answer.

Oh no. Oh gods, please, no.

He ran through the snow in the direction he thought she'd gone, nothing but desperation fueling his hope that he could find her.

Night would fall in a few hours, but even that was just the beginning of his fears. Sheba still believed that she was a goddess, that she could not die. The little blond adept didn't even know she would need shelter from the sub-zero cold.