Author's note: Ahoy. Given the shortage of reviews thus far, I thought I should mention that this is not an easy fic to write; the characterizations are very tricky. I could really use input on what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. Thanks. Now, on with the story.

- Chapter 3: Looking for Someone -

How did this all begin, Felix wondered as he trudged through the snow.

It couldn't have been back in his captivity in Prox. He and Karst had been nothing more than friends when he was there, and even that had ended when Menardi had found the two of them together. After Karst was dragged off by her sister, he'd snuck off to their house and peeped in through a window. Inside he saw Karst weeping as Menardi gave her the beating of a lifetime, screaming at her that she'd get worse if she ever talked to "those freaks from Vale" again. When he went to look for her the next day, Karst gave him a furious glare. Understanding, he'd walked away and did not go near her again.

It wasn't until over two years later that he saw her again, at Madra. He recognized her, of course. She certainly looked different: hair trimmed and styled so that it framed her heart-shaped face, figure more toned and developed, her modest clothes traded for a multi-piece outfit that revealed the smooth curves of her waist and the hard pink scales of her shoulders. Not the girl he'd known before, but a woman. Even so, as a Proxian in Madra she certainly stood out, and when he overheard her talking about Menardi, his suspicions of her identity changed to certainty.

What amazed him was that, after all those years, she recognized him. Not at first sight, but the instant she heard the name Felix she knew who he was, even expressed surprise that she hadn't recognized him before. How? He'd changed over the years too, and in the course of his travels his face had become coated with dirt and dried blood. He wouldn't have been surprised if his own parents didn't recognize him, the way he looked then. Yet Karst did.

It didn't matter. Sheba had cruelly taunted Karst about Menardi's death, but Felix couldn't blame her for what happened. Even if she hadn't, and even if he had told Karst who he was when he confronted her about Menardi's death, the way he should have... Any which way you cut it, they would have been enemies. Karst wanted to kill Isaac. He felt sorry for Karst's loss - he'd lost his sister too, for three years - but Menardi had had it coming to her for holding an innocent girl like Sheba prisoner. He had no doubt that what Isaac had done had been in self-defense; he couldn't let Karst kill him for that.

Yet at the top of Jupiter Lighthouse, where she and Agatio betrayed him... He didn't want to fight her. He did fight her, for the lives of his parents, for the life of his sister, for the lives of Sheba and Piers, for the lives of everyone who would die if Karst and Agatio were as unsuccessful at lighting Mars Lighthouse as he thought they would be. But he hated doing it.

Even then, he wondered why. As adolescents they had been only casual friends, not close at all. As adults they had always been enemies. If he should have felt anything for her at all, it was anger: anger at her for betraying him, for threatening those he loved, for deriding his worth as a warrior. Showing her how grossly she had underestimated him by decorating the top of Jupiter Lighthouse with her blood should have brought him nothing but satisfaction. Watching her lying helpless before him, at his mercy, he should have felt only triumph.

But something was wrong about the whole thing.

And at Mars Lighthouse, he realized what it was. Though enemies by circumstance, in essence, they were kindred spirits. She was fighting to save the people she cared about, just as he was. Both of them were warriors at heart; they delighted in shedding blood and proving their strength to any who threatened them... and he wondered, when she'd taunted him that he couldn't possibly have killed Menardi, was she really mocking him, or had it been a come-on, a challenge for him to prove her wrong? In that meeting at Madra, had the sight of him aroused her interest just as the sight of her had aroused his? Had it all been foreplay up until the point where he stopped her from killing Isaac?

He realized, then, what he could have had, but it was too late. All he could do was take her in his arms and feel the warmth fading from her. He wanted to hold her until the end, but they needed to light the lighthouse. And to let her see it lit before she died was a better gift for her.

It wasn't until months after that he realized that the lighthouse which had revived his parents should also have revived Karst and Agatio. But when he did, he knew what he had to do.

He had to confront Karst with how he felt. Even if it meant the others would ostracize him. Even if it meant Sheba would hate him. Even if Karst herself would spurn his feelings. Regardless of the consequences, he could not allow his heart to remain silent.

That's what I thought, anyway. But if Sheba dies... Damn it, why didn't I tell her about my feelings for Karst before we left? Why didn't I see that this could happen?

He reminded himself that self-recriminations would be of no help to Sheba. He had to find her, and to do that he needed to focus on...

On what? He looked around, seeing nothing but mounds of snow and the last glimmerings of the setting sun. At this point, any direction I search in is just as good as another. Damn it, I don't even know where the hell I am anymore! Why didn't I think to go get help finding Sheba? Why did I have to panic and run after her like a complete idiot!

Distracted by his thoughts, Felix misstepped and sank up to his waist in a snow bank, hands reaching out to stop himself and pressing into the surface layer. Shocked by the chill of the melting snow against his wrists, he could feel tears running from his eyes only to freeze on his cheeks.

Damn it... It was me who betrayed Vale and helped kidnap my own sister, me who dragged an innocent little "goddess" into the mess with lighting the lighthouses, me who struck down Karst and Agatio. Torment me all you want, but let Sheba live! She doesn't deserve this, damn it!

He pushed himself back up and moved on. Even if it was hopeless, he wasn't going to give up. Better to die in a futile gesture than the injustice of his living on when Sheba had died.

A sound made him stop in his tracks. Did someone just... sneeze?

He ran in the direction of the sound, legs pulsing with new energy. In a moment, he could make a little purple stripe, and his heart pleaded that it was Sheba's robes and not his mind playing tricks on him. As he got closer, he slowed his steps so as not to frighten her. Little by little, to his relief, the little purple stripe bloomed into a seated human figure with blond hair. It seemed that the gods had answered his prayer.

She was facing away from him, shivering with the cold, so he was able to approach without her noticing. He laid a hand on her shoulder. She started at the contact and dove away from him.

He was ready this time, however, planting a firm hold on her shoulder and, when she tried to slip free, forcing her face down into the snow. "Stop it, Sheba," he said. "I'm trying to help you."

"Let me go!" she screeched. "You're hurting me! Let go!"

"No." Her struggles were weak, and she was probably worn out from trudging through the snow, but he couldn't rule out the possibility that she was playing possum.

"Why can't you just leave me alone? I hate you, you hear me? I hate you!"

"I know," he said, unexpectedly finding a lump in his throat at hearing that statement. Sheba went limp beneath him, panting for breath, seemingly spent from her outburst. Satisfied that she was too worn out to give him trouble, he pulled her out of the snow and hefted her up bridal style. "I know you hate me. But are you really willing to let yourself freeze to death just to spite me?"

He said that without thinking, having momentarily forgotten that Sheba didn't believe she could die, but she said nothing to contradict him. She just lay quietly in his arms as he carried her in roughly the direction Prox lay in. After wandering in search of Sheba for so long, he had lost much of his bearings, but he had been careful to maintain at least a vague sense of which way was back.

Sheba was still shivering and sneezing. He was tempted to look at her face, both to see what shape she was in and to gauge how sincerely she hated him, but he forced himself to stay focused on the path ahead. Darkness had fallen, and if he didn't get back to Prox soon, Sheba might not last the night.

After trudging through the snow for an hour, Felix's legs were beginning to feel like lead. His limbs pleaded with him to collapse into the soft cushy snow and rest, but he allowed them no relief. No feeling whatsoever remained in his numbed face.

"Felix?" Sheba said, her voice drained, whole body quivering with cold. "I... I d-d-don't -" She sneezed. "...h-hate you."'

"That's nice," he replied. "But it doesn't mean jack shit if you die out here because of me."

"I-It's not -"

"Stop talking. You'll make yourself get worse." This was a lie, of course; he just didn't want to have to listen to her sneeze-punctuated chatter.

He noticed a fading tingle. Did Sheba just mind-read me? Thanks to the numbing effect of the cold, he hadn't noticed until after the fact.

To check, he glanced down at her and saw a massive scowl on her face. "Real n-n-nice, Felix," she said. "I was -"

"Just shut your mouth, okay? Please."

Blessedly, she complied, though he feared that was out of weakness rather than politeness. He carried her on for another hundred steps before a second blessing appeared: a glimmering light that could only have come from Prox.

An hour later, they were seated in Menardi's house with blankets wrapped around themselves and their feet planted in a wooden tub filled with water heated by Mercury psynergy. The village healer hovered over Sheba, examining her in between her violent sneezes. When he couldn't bear the suspense any longer, Felix said, "Has she come down with something serious?"

The healer opened her mouth to answer, but Sheba cut her off, "She thinks I'll be fine. It's just an - achoo! - common cold." With an angry glare, the healer turned and struck Sheba across the face. "Ow!"

"Never presume to speak for your elders, girl." She gathered her things and headed for the door, pausing only to hand Felix some leaves. "Keep her warm, and the illness should pass within four full rotations of the sun. For good measure, give her some tea with these mixed in."

He just nodded, but Sheba screeched as she went out the door, "Get back here, you witch! You -"

"That 'witch' just got out of bed in the middle of the night to tend to you, Sheba."

"And that makes it - achoo! - makes it okay for her to hit me!"

"If you want to live in a place, you have to accept their rules."

"No way! I'll never accept injustice! I -" She broke off with a remarkably loud sneeze.

"Just shut up, okay? Gods of Weyard, you're a pain in the rear."

"So you've told me." She wiped her nose. "Half a dozen times."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that you don't have to stay here with me." He adjusted his blanket around himself; unlike Sheba, he had adapted to the weather in Prox enough to survive half a day out in the snow, but that didn't mean he liked the cold. "Isaac's ship is still in port. You can leave with Jenna and the others in the morning."

There was a moment of silence. "Felix... How can you feel that way for that psycho, anyway?"

"Hey, she may have a temper like a volcano, but she's still my sister."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." She sneezed. "Answer the question."

"You're asking me to explain the 'how' of love?"

"No, just how you can feel anything for her besides hating her guts."

He sighed. "It always amazes me, Sheba. You can read minds, yet you have no understanding or sympathy for anyone. Look, how would you feel if someone killed your sis- Well, how would you feel if someone killed Jenna?"

"Heartbroken, I guess. But I would never - achoo! - never murder anyone, especially someone who had nothing to do with it."

"Nothing to do with it? Sheba, I was there when Menardi was killed. I could have stopped them. For all Karst knows, I might have helped them do it."

"Okay, but I wouldn't kill you even if you had."

"Fair enough," he said with another sigh. "Just understand that it's a bit different from my perspective. You don't want to know what I'd do to anyone who would kill my sister." He stood up, stepped out of the tub, and began toweling off his legs. "Karst and Agatio fought for the same thing we did, you know. They deserve a second chance."

"You just don't get it, Felix. Karst's a whacked-out, screwed-up, blood-crazed psycho! No number of second chances is going to change that."

"You don't know her."

There was another silence as Felix slipped his socks on.

"What if she tries to kill you again?" Sheba demanded.

"She won't. We saved her life and all of Prox, remember?"

"What if she rejects you?"

"I'll drink my sorrows into oblivion, have a massive hangover in the morning, and then man up and get over it."

"What if..." She stopped to think, making another sneeze in the meantime. "What if you find her and you don't know what to say?"

"Yeah, I was worried about that," he admitted. "So I planned out what I'd say if nothing came to mind. I'll just tell her that I'm glad to see she's alive, that I was thinking of her wish to see Mars Lighthouse lit before she died the whole time I was fighting to make that happen, and that I'm sorry we ended up fighting, because I think we both want the same thing. That we have the same desires in our hearts." There was a significant silence. "I'll make that tea for you now."

"...I'm not leaving with Isaac and the others tomorrow. I'm still staying with you."

"I won't give up Karst just to make you happy, Sheba."

"I'm not... ah... ah... CHOO!" She wiped her nose again. "I'm not asking you to. That's the whole point."

He stared at her. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. As soon as I can I'll get my own place to live in Prox so I don't have to be around her, but I still want to be around you."

This, he couldn't figure out. Was she really this stubborn? With the weather, and the people, and Karst, Sheba was bound to be miserable in Prox. He couldn't mean that much to her.

"I'm going back to Mars Lighthouse first thing tomorrow," he said. He had already been impatient to learn if Karst was still alive, and talking about it didn't help matters.

"I'll come with -"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You need to stay here and get well. Besides, you already delayed me once."

"I'm sorry."

"No; it wasn't your fault. I should have told you why we were there before we left. But I don't want to risk having you freeze to death again. Understand?"

"Yeah..."

Why the blazes did it take me so long to search here? Felix wondered as he walked through the stately halls of Mars Lighthouse. Was I that afraid... of finding Karst's corpse? Of seeing her cold and lifeless because of me?

He couldn't put much faith in that theory. Wasn't it obvious once Mars Lighthouse had revived his parents that it would do the same for Karst and Agatio? It should have occurred to him much sooner. At some level, it must have already occurred to him. So the question became: Why was he so afraid of finding her alive? Was it shame?

Or perhaps it was intimidation. After all, Karst was a very beautiful woman, and he had never so much as held the hand of any girl besides his sister. He hadn't yet been interested in the fairer sex when he was taken from Vale, and Proxian women held no attraction for him. Proxians were simply too different... almost inhuman. Karst was the only one who stirred the least bit of interest from him. Since leaving Prox, he'd met other attractive women, such as Mia and Kushinada, but they were all either spoken for or had dull, uninteresting personalities. When he saw Karst at Madra, it was almost like his hormones were sparking to life for the first time.

Maybe... maybe I'm afraid of confronting her as a would-be lover. Maybe the only way I'm comfortable relating to a woman is by fighting her.

But Felix was never one to run from his fears - not consciously. He took the long hall to the room with the dragons at a light sprint. Coming to the top of the stairs, he saw the lit torches. He saw the two dragon heads.

Between them he saw: nothing.

He frantically searched the room, combing every last inch for any sign of Karst and Agatio. Finding nothing, he sat down on the floor of the chamber, resting his arms on his knees.

It's funny... This is just what I expected to find, but now that I've found it, it doesn't seem to make sense. Unless Puelle was wrong, and scavengers -

Felix shuddered. No. There would at least be bones left if that were true. But if Karst and Agatio are alive, why didn't they return to Prox? Could the Wise One have finished them off? ...No; from everything he said and did, I doubt he'd care whether the two of them live or die. But why would Karst and Agatio let everyone think them dead? Unless...

It hit him like a lightning bolt. "No," he breathed. "Oh gods, no. Why didn't I think of -" He scrambled to his feet and ran for the lighthouse exit, cursing himself every step of the way. "Stupid... thrice-damned... lovesick fool!"

Felix didn't stop running until he reached the place where the Lemurian ship was "docked", but he was still a good 50 seconds too late. The ship had lifted off and was moving over the Proxian snow towards the northern seas.

"Isaac!" he hollered at the top of his burning lungs, still sprinting after the ship against the screaming protests of his legs. "Isaac! Stop!"

His shouts were rewarded by the appearance of Garet's head over the bow.

Yes. Thank the gods. He heard me. "Garet!" he screamed, frantically making gestures to turn around. "Turn the ship back! Turn back!"

Garet squinted at him a moment. Then, smiling, he waved at him.

No no no you stupid asshole, I'm not fucking waving goodbye, I want you to fucking turn the goddamn fucking ship around! "Garet, turn back! TURN! BACK!"

Still waving, Garet shouted something at him that he couldn't make out. Then he turned and walked away.

"Garet... you stupid... piece of..."

Felix's foot slid on a patch of ice, and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, exhausted. Each breath felt like a dagger coming up from his lungs. He was too late. The ship was over the river now, passing between the mountains. Out of reach.

It's all my fault... My stupid blindness... Isaac...

"Isaac," he heard Piers call. "I've found a problem."

He adjusted his grip over the wheel. "Are you serious? I scoped out every last corner of the ship yesterday while we were just sitting here twiddling our thumbs, and there was nothing wrong then."

"Of course," Piers acknowledged. "This is why we make routine checks every time we take off, isn't it? There's a minor dent in the starboard hull, in the second storage room. Could be from wood rot, I suppose. It's bad enough to let in water if we take to the seas again, though."

"Alright," he sighed. "Guess it's up to me to fix it. Can you take the wheel for a while?"

"Certainly."

Isaac let out another sigh as he headed below decks. Despite his suspected age, despite the fact that this ship was supposedly designed by his people, Piers knew nothing of how to repair it. Garet could repair most anything, but he was liable to break something else in the process. That left him, the only other guy on the ship, to do the job. Already he missed being able to split that chore with Felix and Ivan.

In fact, Isaac would be relieved when this trip was over in general. Though his companions had agreed that he should lead the group, it seemed like Ivan was the only one who ever listened to him. Felix's group always deferred to Felix, Garet ridiculed his decisions as often as not, and Mia... Maybe it was unfair to say this, seeing as they would have died many times over without her help, but the girl was nothing but trouble.

Guess they didn't want a leader so much as someone to be responsible for everything. Oh well. It's almost over now.

Finding the dent in the hull, he frowned. It was definitely not just a case of wood rot. Probably one of the others had done it while horsing around, and Piers was either covering for them or just not observant enough to recognize damage caused by force.

Either way, it had to be fixed. He took a lantern and headed to the next storage room, where the spare boards and nails were kept.

As he opened the door to the storage room, Isaac thought he saw something moving in the darkness, briefly illuminated by the light of the lantern. It was a slight enough movement and fleeting enough glimpse that it was most likely no more than his imagination, but having a healthy aversion to rats, he stepped into the room slowly and cautiously, his lantern held as far in front of him as his arm could reach.

A sharp and unpleasant feeling struck his chest, and in the same instant a similar feeling tore at his back, drawing a startled gasp from him. He instinctively looked down.

And saw the blade of a scythe piercing clean through the center of his chest.