A Melting of a Heart Chapter 10

Feeling

By Key Mima

She found him in the library, apparently reading a book.
 
"She went to you?" he asked, not bothering to look up. "How embarrassing."
 
"Janus, I know you love her. Why don't you let her know?"
 
"I do not love her."
 
"That's sad..." Schala replied. "You're lying to yourself, the girl who loves you, and your older sister."
 
"Schala..." He looked up at her, his eyes dark and melancholy.
 
"What happened to you that made you forget how to feel?" she asked, searching his face for the answers.
 
Magus remained silent.
 
"Why can't you admit to yourself that you love her?" she asked.
 
"Schala... I've never been in love. I don't have any idea what love is. I don't think I even want to know."
 
"Love is what you feel when you're with me, I hope," Schala answered, smiling slightly.
 
Magus chuckled. "But it's not the same. I... Well, I feel very drawn to her. I'll always be there to protect her, even if we're not friends after this."
 
"And whose fault is it that you might not be friends after this? 'Well then, I'm sorry. You're sadly mistaken.'?"
 
"I didn't know what I was saying. I don't want her to love me, Schala. It's too..." he trailed off, waving a hand.
 
"Dangerous?"
 
"Possibly. I can't say I'm really the safest guy around. Or the guy with the best social life. It's pretty hectic being me."
 
"And being her. She was with you for three months. I think she's used to the routine."
 
"But Schala..." Magus pursed his lips.
 
Schala frowned to herself. "Okay, well let's go back to this 'drawn to her' thing. What do you feel when you're around her?"
 
"Better. I used to just think gloomy thoughts, consumed with my war, consumed with darkness. But Sunev came into my life, and she was like a torch. I could see in the dark. And it made me happy. Well, as happy as I can be."
 
"That's love, Janus!"
 
He frowned. Schala put a small hand on his shoulder and smiled. It had worked.
 
"I hate you, Schala..." he said, a cynical smile coming to play on his lips. She grinned.
 
"No, no. Not only because of this talk. I hate you because of what you just told me in the hall."
 
"Don't tell me that now in your life you've loved Sunev all along?"
 
Magus grunted. Schala made a joyful squeaking noise and threw her arms around her older, younger brother's neck.
 
"You won't regret it, Janus. I promise."
 
But just as he was about to reply, a rumbling noise from outside was heard. It lasted a few minutes, then faded away.
 
The siblings stood up, looking out the window.
 
"I wonder what that was..." Schala murmured, gazing down at the clouds, and further down to the ice covered ocean.
 
"I don't know..." Magus replied, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Was it the Blackbird?"
 
"It doesn't sound like that... It's more mechanical..."
 
A few moments later, Dalton poked his head in the door. "The Moutain of Woe just fell!" he yelled, looking at them, eyes wide. Both of them were frozen in shock. "Your mom wants to see you, Schala. We'll be waiting."
 
As soon as Dalton left, she turned to Magus.
 
"I need to go," she said. Magus nodded. She hugged him again, and turned away. "And by the way, Janus," she said as she reached the door, "I loooove you..." She giggled to herself and closed the door. Magus tried frowning, but this time only his smile showed through.



Sunev heard the crumbling. It didn't sound like the game, but she knew what it was. It had been just over a day, though. Time must have passed very differently in the other eras. She jumped from Janus's bed and rushed out of the palace.
 
Although getting from the sky to the ground was made fairly easy by the Zealans, Sunev still found it excruciatingly time consuming. She saw the Epoch in the snow as she landed on the second continent. Running to it, she found everyone's extra supplies. Crono and Frog had brought Ayla along this time. She smiled. She had always liked Ayla better than Marle.
 
Entering the mouth of the cave, where it warmed a bit, she took her shawl from her face and wrapped it around her shoulders. Zealans must never have visited the ground much. Their clothes certainly weren't made for it.
 
I hope I beat Schala to Crono and the others, she thought to herself, entering Algetty. I don't wanna get here just in time to be too late. I need to figure out the low down with Lavos. Is the game still going normally? I don't know what they did, if they did anything differently in the other eras. So far things seem to be going right...
 
The man waiting at the entrance jumped a little when she appeared and ran into a room, where he had a loud conversation with Melchior.
 
"There's a woman at the door!" he cried.
 
"Not Schala?" who she guessed was Melchior replied.
 
"No, I've never seen this one before. You should have him check." There was a rustle of movement, which she took to be pointing.
 
There was some mumbling, and someone stuck their head out the door.
 
"Sunev!" Crono called, running to embrace her.
 
"Crono!" she answered happily, choking a bit from the tight hug. "I see you're doing remarkably well, considering."
 
"Aw, c'mon! You know nothing could take us down."
 
"Nope..." Sunev muttered, her mind drifting to the coming events. "Well, I've come with a request, Crono. No offense intended or anything... But I was wondering if I could..." she twiddled her thumbs humbly, "join your party?"
 
"Join our..." Crono trailed off. "Well, I dunno. I'd have to ask about that. Have you gotten any better since the last time we saw you fight?" Crono avoided their unfortunate confrontation, to her relief.
 
"I think so..." Sunev replied, remembering the night in the woods. Her mental power had become effortless to control since then. She could do anything, it seemed.
 
"Well..." Crono mused, flashing her a cocky smile. "I'll just have to see, then, huh?" Sunev grinned and nodded.
 
To the bystanders in the open city's surprise, Crono then whipped his sword out and slashed at Sunev. She stopped it, her hands at her side. She merely focused on it and it froze. Crono pushed harder, but nothing gave way. Blinking in irritation, he pulled the sword away, and tried again from another angle. But he wasn't able to move the sword an inch. He backed away, allowing himself more space to apply pressure to the invisible wall.
 
"It's not going to work, Crono," she said, leaning on the other side of her power like it were a solid object. There was just a finger's length between her arm and the blade.
 
"Well then let's even the odds a bit!" Frog then descended on her exposed side. She jerked forward, and erected a weak shield around herself. "Good Lord, lass! Thou hast quite a power, there." He sheathed his sword, and offered her a smile. "With an ability like that, we'd be quite the lucky group to have you. But.. canst thou attack?"
 
"Did you hear what happened in Zeal?"
 
Melchior stepped out from the meeting room with Ayla. Sunev smiled slightly, but since she and Ayla had never formally met, she said nothing.
 
"Do you mean the forest?" Melchior asked, fingering his moustache.
 
"That I do."
 
"What an odd occurance, for it to just disappear like that..."
 
"I did it."
 
"'Did it'?" Melchior, Frog, and Crono asked in unison.
 
"You throw forest?" Ayla asked, scratching the back of her head thoughtfully. "Even I not do that..."
 
"Did you pick it up with your mind?"
 
"Yes. And I threw it. Man, was I pissed..." Sunev grinned and ran a finger under her nose, sniffling. Then she shrugged.
 
After a long period of awed silence, Crono spoke the words that everyone else had on their lips.
 
"W-Welcome aboard," he stuttered.

.

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