Chapter 3: Revelation

It was the third time in two nights Melia had made the long walk between her house and Colony 9, but this time around she was taking it slowly and quite enjoying it, trying to crowd out the memories of what had happened with her special gift. The sky was clear once more, and the moon was repeating its nightly stroll past the head of the Pedagogue.

In the first few days of living in this new world, the skies were a source of much strangeness. The moving sun was frightening to many, and the moving moon made it trickier to intuitively know what sign of the zodiac was active. But the High Entia astronomers, working together with the Machina, quickly developed a new theory of the universe that explained both the moving bodies and how the sea seemed to curve out of sight. The idea of a spherical earth was still strongly debated by many, but it was expected to take a while to become pure fact.

The stars on the other hand were nicely behaved, with the same constellations in the same positions and yearly movements. Melia was always one for stargazing and astrology, and was mostly walking slowly so she could take more time to observe.

The Pedagogue was the sign of August. (No one knew the origins of the names and lengths of their timekeeping systems, though Alvis claimed they stemmed from Zanza's original society.) Shulk exhibited all of its typical attributes: a no-nonsense, socially-deficient introvert focused on the ways of logic and science. Melia herself was a Rhapsodist, the February sign of perfectionism, stubbornness, and active leadership. Melia recalled how she could not sleep the night she discovered Shulk's sign, both excited and worried at how perfectly it coincided with her own - it was traditional astrological lore that a pair of signs diametrically opposed in the sky provided the best chance of romance.

This train of thought, however, lead to staring distastefully at the east, where the Athlete was rising. Fiora's November birthday, at right angles to Shulk's, should have ensured a negative affinity between the two, not a death-transcending love. No friendship between an Earth sign and an Electric sign was supposed to last for long, especially one of opposed polarity.

Melia shook her head. It was so easy to be envious of Fiora's position, yet equally difficult to hate Fiora herself. She legitimately knew that Fiora was the best partner Shulk could have, yet still could not bring herself to be free of the fantasy of selfishly breaking it up.

She returned to the stars to try and get her mind elsewhere. Above the Athlete was the Warrior, the extroverted Fire sign. She did not know for certain when Reyn's birthday was, but she would bet that it would be in the impulsive sign of October. It would also be a decent match for Sharla, a Perfumer of March. Knowing that Sharla was also into astrology, Melia wondered if she knew of Reyn's birthday. Dunban's birthday was similarly unknown to her, and Riki was oddly reluctant to reveal his.

Of course, the sky didn't just have stars, but wanderers. Surprisingly enough, the quirkily-named coloured discs operated as expected in the new world, though the new "solar system" theory made their movements far easier to understand. The conflict-bringing Red Star was currently under the Elder's eyes, suggesting a disagreement with a superior, while the Joyous Star was visible near the baton of the Conductor, bringing celebration alongside music. The other wanderers were not visible, positioned below the horizon.

Joyous in Conductor was portent of the birthday party today, thought Melia. But what of Red in Elder? I have no superior with which to disagree. Several minutes were spent considering the idea. The Elder also represents one's own conscience. Perhaps it refers to how I debated with myself over the past while with respect to Shulk's gift.

The call of some animal in the distance derailed her train of thought. Unable to remember what she was thinking, she mentally shrugged and decided to recite some of the names of the more prominent stars. The Conductor's baton, formed of Treb and Teno, points to the North Star. The Conductor's head is the Tempo Star, a duo of Quartus and Octus. Below such...

It was about quarter to eleven when Melia finally reached the front door of her house, now considering some of the more unusual gifts Shulk had received.

Alvis had mentioned that this "telegraph" requires two distant operatives yet may have an unpredictable maximum range, she pondered. My house is distant from Colony 9 yet closer than any other settlement. Perhaps I will offer help to Shulk tomorrow should he still wish to investigate it further.

Melia entered the house and noticed that the map of Colony 9 she had used to plan last night's escapade was still on the table. It was a low-detail copy of the full colony map that no longer had any purpose, so she tossed it into the fireplace. Best not to think of that again. During her long walk home she believed she had come to terms with her botching the delivery of Shulk's special gift - while its existence was no longer a secret, as long as its purpose and origin remained unknown, she figured she could live with it. Besides, Shulk was never anything less than impressively oblivious to her feelings towards him, making it even more unlikely for the beans to be spilled, and it was a relief to no longer have to stare at the light shining through the box's cracks as she tried to sleep.

She looked towards the calendar attached to the far wall. The only day with any sort of markings on it was today the 19th - August had been quite an empty month, with not much upcoming in September either. She vaguely wondered whether the portents of the astronomers would indeed result in massive seasonal variations - she did not look forward to the possibility of the temperature dropping dramatically in the next few months.

Pausing for a moment to decide that a snack was in order, Melia took stock of the cupboards. While she missed the vastness of the imperial palace and the ability to effectively snap her fingers and acquire anything she desired, it was almost a dream come true to live alone in a small house in the middle of nowhere, with no rules or regulations imposed by others. If she wanted to eat some fudge in the middle of the night, nothing could stop her.

Taking a slab of fudge from a high shelf, she lobbed a chunk off which a knife, which was then carefully washed before being replaced. If there was one thing from her old lifestyle she couldn't bring herself to break, it was cleanliness at all times. She wrapped the soft fudge in a napkin and washed her hands - she planned to read for a while and then go to bed, and though eating while reading was a newfound pleasure, there was simply no reading with fudgy hands.

Turning to ensure that the front door was locked and the light was off, Melia ended up walking into her bedroom backwards. Only upon closing the door and turning around did she see the worst thing she could possibly imagine.

"Oh. Um, hi."

Shulk was sitting at her desk, with the gift sitting on it, casting its polychromatic light over the room.

Melia went completely rigid, dropping the fudge on the floor. The jig was up. How he found out was not even relevant. There was no escape.

Shulk wasn't sure what kind of reaction he had expected, but this probably wasn't it. He continued to display a weak smile in an attempt to loosen the tension, but after several seconds had passed and Melia was still petrified, he figured he'd have to make the next move.

"This...is from you, isn't it?"

When he'd rehearsed the line to himself earlier, he used the wording "This is yours, isn't it?". He wasn't really sure why he changed it on a whim, but it did sound more respectful.

Melia continued to not budge an inch. She didn't need Shulk to confirm that, yes, you've been caught. Her brain was trying to both unfreeze itself and come up with some sort of explanation - a fabricated one if necessary, as her shocked reaction had already betrayed that Shulk got it right. Her eyes trying desperately to open the floodgates didn't help.

She could not have prepared herself for Shulk's next question.

"You keep the other one, don't you?"

It took a few seconds for the meaning of the question to sink in. Once it did, Melia changed from a stone statue to a wet rag, collapsing onto the floor and crying profusely.

Shulk frowned. The inner workings of women's minds were always a total enigma to him, and since doing what made sense seemed to have made things worse, he figured it was time to try something that otherwise made no sense.

Leaving Melia blubbering on the floor, Shulk stood up and cast an eye around the room. He'd tried to avoid snooping too much when he first arrived, but now that he pretty much knew exactly what he was looking for, an oddly familiar sensation started emanating from behind a shelf of smaller books. He reached behind and extracted a wooden box, effectively identical to the one sitting open on the desk, though stained a darker colour and much heavier. He carefully opened it up and placed the contents on the desk.

It was clearly the other half of the pair. The stand was carved in ivory instead of ebony, and the glyphs along the bottom were slightly different. But the obvious difference was the focal point: instead of a weightless glass ball of light perched atop the base, there was basically a rock. A perfectly spherical rock, but a rock nevertheless. There was an eerie feeling of nothingness surrounding it.

Shulk's frown intensified. Did she give me the fixed one and keep the broken one? She knows I'm good at fixing things, why not do the opposite?

His mind cast over some of the other stuff on the desk. A lamp, some books, a few papers. The paper on top was a jumble of unusual symbols.

Wait a minute. Those symbols!

Shulk carefully slid the paper closer. It was a hodgepodge of High Entia letters and mystery symbols, with lines and arrows connecting them in intriguing ways.

These symbols...we saw them in the High Entia Tomb. Shulk looked back at the two spheres and their stands. And look, it's the same script as on the stands! It's like an old alphabet, full of messages to decode!

Looking at more papers on the desk provided more text of the ancient alphabet. Melia was clearly working on decoding the old texts, as each crown ruler was decreed to do upon their ascension to the throne, but it was evident she was not a linguist and her progress was slow.

The pattern-finder in Shulk's brain kicked into overdrive. Oblivious to all around him, in less than two minutes he had cracked a particularly stubborn character mapping, and from there it was simply a case of following the chain reaction down the pipe. Within four minutes he had a fresh sheet of paper covered in his untidy scrawl, describing some of the more unusual conversion processes. He applied his findings and was able to read most of the ancient script, discovering that most of it was eulogies. Considering it was probably all from the Tomb, this made sense.

Excitedly looking for more stuff to decode, he turned back to the orbs and their bases. He tried his own, the ebony one, first. The uninked carvings were not easy to read, but they ended up being not much harder to decode.

In times of anger, haste, and war | Let the steadfast feelings of your lover | Calm your passionate heart

Shulk's exuberance started to dip, realising he might be stumbling across something that was not supposed to be known. Still, he continued with the ivory base.

In times of fear, loneliness, and doubt | Let the passionate feelings of your lover | Bolster your steadfast heart

Well, being a pair, the similarity made sense. It didn't help him figure out what they were all about, though he was starting to suspect it was one of those deep-rooted "girl things", as Fiora had once put it.

His thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. Turning to look, he found himself starting straight into Melia's eyes. She was standing on her knees and wearing the unusual combination of a tear-streaked face and a small, almost relieved smile. He was embarrassed to admit that he'd forgotten she was there, crying her head off while he snooped though her things. He felt like a cad.

"Er." He didn't get much else off before being captured in a tight hug. Well, he was right about one thing - doing what made no sense seemed to improve the situation.

With no sign of the hug ending, Shulk mentally shrugged and wrapped his free arm around Melia's shoulders. It occurred to him that "people hugged by Melia" must be quite an exclusive list, with her father and Riki being the only ones he could recall being on it, and her mother and brother probably being three and four. With her being so picky over who to add to said list, he had to have done something seriously impressive - but he had no idea what. Maybe decoding the ancient glyphs was a huge deal to her.

After what felt like an eternity, Melia finally let go and fell onto the floor, quickly clambering up to sit on the bed next to the desk. She wasn't sure why, but a feeling of relief had overtaken all her other emotions. Mass quantities of embarrassment and several more helpings of tears were surely to come, but she decided that Shulk deserved to know exactly what was going on.

"You may ask any questions of me regarding this matter." It was kind of a funny wording to start the conversation with, but it's what came naturally.

Shulk went with (what he thought was) the most obvious question first. "What are they?"

"They are...a treasure of the imperial family, passed down for as long as historical records exist. None but the imperial family has known of their existence for thousands of years. They are known as the Sun's Tear and Moon's Tear."

"Well okay, but that's not really what I meant. What do they do?" Something in Shulk's mind was telling him these were not simply decorative artifacts.

Melia was slightly unnerved that the socially-clueless Shulk had figured out the objects had a purpose, but continued. "They...gauge the feelings that one owner has for another. The stronger the...feelings are, the brighter they glow. They are said to have been used in ancient times to help actively search for...companionship, before being re-appropriated as...gifts."

Shulk could tell by the pauses that Melia was still subconsciously hiding something, and from the words etched into the Tears' bases, he had a pretty good idea what. "They're powered by love, aren't they?"

Melia slowly nodded, tears starting to well up again. "They were one of the things left to me in the private half of my father's will. With no more imperial family to govern their use, I saw no reason to keep them to myself..." Her voice trailed away as the crying began anew.

The pieces were slowly coming together in Shulk's mind. The High Entia documents from back home that he was using to learn the language, combined with the wording used on the Tears' bases and the information he had just learned, combined to imply that the orb on the black base was the Moon's Tear, the gauge of a woman's fondness towards her lover; on the other hand, the white base marked the Sun's Tear, showing the man's feelings towards the woman. Looking back at the orbs on the desk, at the light show on his stand compared to the dead rock on Melia's, it clicked in his head.

"So...you...fell in love with me? And this thing lit up? And you were embarrassed to love someone who...er, is taken, and so passed it to me in secret?"

Melia nodded while sniffling. "It was an efficient solution that did not pan out as desired."

"Because I opened it in public?" Shulk's eyebrows went up. "Couldn't you have left a note or something that said to not do that?"

A weak chuckle. "You know my handwriting is far too distinct from the rest of the population." She had a point there; even on the translation notes laying on the desk, Melia's script was unnaturally perfect.

Shulk closed his eyes and put a hand on his chin. Melia watched him think for several minutes, weary of where the conversation could be going. She tried to guess what kind of question could be coming next. Her opinion of Fiora? Why the Sun's Tear was a rock? Shulk deciding he didn't want to keep the Moon's Tear? She tried to purge the third option from her head. After a few more minutes, Shulk came back to reality.

"Sorry, I was thinking about the past. I was trying to...um, locate a time where...uh, you changed." This was harder to explain than he expected. "Well, I mean, if I could find a moment where I noticed a change in your behaviour, I could guess when exactly that...um, this whole thing started." A short pause. "But I can't. The whole time I've known you, you've been the same person all along. You're almost too good at hiding your feelings." A chuckle. The next sentence was the awkward one. "So, I guess I have to ask you, when was it that you...fell...for me?"

It was Melia's turn to think hard. When did this whole thing begin? She thought back to when she first met Shulk. She had just recovered from Telethia-induced ether deficiency, and had woken up to him touching her arm. Still with half a mind in combat mode, she had given him a hearty slap in the face, and had to quickly apologise upon realising he had several friends along. She recalled the unusual way her voice hitched as she delivered the apology - something else was on her mind at the time, a memory from not long before then.

Melia was in her chambers, nervously going through the motions of her ether arts. Within a few short hours, she would be departing for Makna Forest alongside her bodyguards in order to eliminate the Telethia known to be loose there. While well-practiced in combat, Melia felt that an entire Telethia was above her level of competence, especially as her Mind Blast was not yet developed enough to successfully purge targets of their auras.

There was a knock on the door, much sooner than expected for the mission to begin. Melia put down her Practice Staff and straightened up.

"You may enter."

Alvis walked into the room. "Good morning, Your Highness."

Melia loosened up slightly. "Hello Seer. For what purpose have you come?"

"I have received an unusual vision outside the course of my regular duties." A pause. "It pertains to you, and only you."

"To me?" Most of Alvis's visions pertained to the High Entia as a whole and were delivered to the Emperor only. "Does my father know of this?"

"He does not, and I do not believe he should." Another pause. "It is much more personal than most visions, yet simultaneously much more vague."

Melia didn't like the sound of this; Alvis's normal visions were vague enough. Still, it had to be important. "All right. Let us hear it."

Alvis closed his eyes. "There is nothing but blackness, a cold, empty void. A dazzling light cuts though the darkness and illuminates the image of a young man. Then, a voice speaks: He who wields the sword of light, shall meet the crown princess, and together change the fate of this world."

Melia nodded, trying to commit the passage to memory. "A personal and vague vision indeed. Tell me, what did this young man look like?"

Alvis's eyes remained closed. "A boy of pale skin and golden hair."

Golden hair? Melia had never known a High Entia to retain the golden hair of their birth past the age of ten, far removed from becoming a "young man" with a sword. Maybe he would be half-Homs like herself; rare cases of such colouration were known to exist.

"Very well. I shall remember your words, and heed them to the best of my ability."

"Thank you, Your Highness." Alvis bowed as he left the room.

"I suppose," Melia began as she came back to the present, "it has been the case for as long as I have known you."

Shulk was surprised, the ghost of the slap lingering on his mind. "Really?"

Melia told him of the vision Alvis relayed to her. "I assumed it was a prophecy of marriage, and that it was referring to another half-Homs. But mere seconds upon first setting eyes upon you, I could sense that you were instead the subject." A poignant pause. "I suppose that some part of me was expecting you to develop an equal fondness in return, like the traditional fairy tales. Even after learning of your...prior commitments, I...could not stop myself from..." A third spate of crying began, though weaker than the previous two.

Shulk nodded. He figured any sort of "explain love" question wouldn't get a very concrete answer, but it got him thinking about things he had never considered before.

She must feel like she's never been loved, was the first thing that popped into his head. Her mother's been dead for a long time. It wasn't until her father and brother each died that she learned of their love for her, and by then it was too late. And the one person left she has feelings for, me, had no idea the whole time.

It just doesn't compare to the rest of us. What did any of us lose to the Mechon and Zanza? We got Fiora back good as new. Reyn lost a few of his buddies in the Defence Force, but he seemed to take it rather well all things considered. Sharla lost Gadolt pretty much twice, but always had Juju and Otharon to fall back on. Me and Dunban lost Dickson, and he lost a bunch of friends at Sword Valley too...but like Reyn, he at least appeared to get over it pretty quickly. Riki...didn't really lose anything at all, he earned a lot of respect instead. And what did Melia lose? Her family, home, and society, with only a few new friends for support. It's like comparing a few rocks to a pile of rubies.

Melia had stopped crying again, waiting for Shulk's next question or comment. She had never cried this much in one day in her life, her eyes were sore, and her sleeves were quite damp, but it felt like a huge weight was being lifted from her shoulders.

Shulk figured it was his turn to give some answers. "You want to know how I found out it was you, don't you?"

Melia considered the question. Just a few minutes ago she didn't care, but now that the knee-jerk reaction had faded, she was quite interested in not only how Shulk had found out, but how he had entered her locked house in the first place. "Yes."

"Well, it's a bit of a long story..."

Shulk was about halfway home from the party, his stomped foot aching more with every step. Straight to bed tonight, he was thinking. No proofreading, no research, no nothing.

"Shulk!" Fiora appeared from behind and leaped onto his back, causing him to crumple like an old newspaper. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I really get you that bad?"

"...um, no, I just wasn't ready for you to jump on me." Shulk was always a terrible liar whenever Fiora was around.

"Well, you dancing fool, I'll help you walk back home." The two wrapped arms around shoulders and started moving.

Upon reaching Shulk's house, Fiora sat him down at the table and started massaging his foot. The two talked about a variety of topics while she worked, and continued to talk once the foot had stopped hurting. The conversation had turned towards Fiora's painting, which was currently propped up against the table pending finding a place to put it for real.

"...wait, but how did you keep it a secret from Dunban? I mean, you kind of live with him, and I'd imagine the paint smells a lot."

"Oh he knew I was painting something big the whole time, but he suspected it might be for him, so he stayed out of the way." Fiora giggled. "You probably missed it, but he gave himself the biggest forehead slap when he saw me holding it all wrapped up. Like he didn't think of it sooner."

Shulk vaguely remembered Dunban making some motion when Fiora neared the front of the gifts line and chuckled. His eyes travelled from the painting to the small wooden box on the table, containing the mystery gift. He brought it over and opened it up, placing the object on the table.

Fiora reached over and turned the base around a few times. "I've never seen writing like this before. If it even is writing."

"I think I might have, but I can't remember where." Shulk stared into the prismatic light. Even as it projected its calming sensation into his mind, he couldn't get over the big question. "Who could this possibly be from? I know it's not from you. You'd make sure everyone knew it was from you."

"Of course." Fiora went into thought. "There's no way it's from Dunban, he's hopeless at hiding things from me. And it can't be from Riki, he'd keep something like this to himself."

"It can't be from Reyn," Shulk added, "he'd never be able to keep it a secret. And Sharla wouldn't give me something like this, she prefers practical gifts."

"Alvis too. And it's certainly not of Machina origin." Fiora paused for a few moments. "That doesn't leave much. I doubt there are many others that know you well enough to give you something like this."

"It can't be from Melia," Shulk continued, "she...uh...hmm...wait a minute..."

"She'd already given you something, one of those books, remember?"

"Yeah, but like you said, we don't have much else." Shulk's brow furrowed. "Maybe she inherited a bunch of High Entia treasures and wants to give some of it away without...um, inviting bidding wars?"

Fiora came to a realisation. "Actually, you know what? Melia looked pretty down when she left the party. Obviously not enjoying herself. Maybe you should go cheer her up."

"Um, what?" The sudden shift in topic confused him. He put the gift back in its box and picked it up.

"You heard me." She grabbed his wrist and started pulling. "You can't have gone through the whole day without noticing she wanted no part of any of it, and you interacted with her least of all of us. So go cheer her up! Go! Scoot!"

She did have a point. Shulk had noticed that Melia was staying out of all the events as much as possible, preferring to watch from the sidelines alone. But that didn't seem unusual at all to him. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Fiora?"

"C'mon!" Fiora leapt up and dragged Shulk along for the ride. By the time he fully regained his balance, they had already reached the transport centre.

"Here you are." She tossed a key to Shulk, who caught it in the hand not still holding the mysterious gift. It had a circular handle and was a curious blue-purple colour. "That's the spare key to Melia's house. She gave it to me to keep it safe. Use it responsibly." She followed it up with a large wink. "Melia left the colony by foot just after you left the party, so you should get there before she does."

Bewildered, Shulk remained unmoving. "Um...so what do you want me to do, exactly?"

"It's simple. Do whatever you need to do! Don't leave until she's cheered up!" Fiora pushed Shulk onto the transporter. "See you later!"

It would probably be easier to do something with Melia than to convince Fiora otherwise, so Shulk accepted his fate and allowed the transport to happen.

With the transport complete, Shulk found himself standing in what he would call a miniature gazebo, about a minute's walk from Melia's house. He could see that the lights were off - Melia was either not home yet or had already gone to bed.

Shulk cautiously walked up to the front door. He had only ever been here before during the day; the darkness of the clearing's rock walls was eerier then he expected. He raised a hand and knocked. With no response after a minute, he knocked again. Still nothing. He tried a third time just to be sure - again nothing.

Melia's a light sleeper, he thought, and she's too polite to ignore people at the door. If she were home she'd have answered by now.

Moving slowly, scared of being caught, Shulk put the key he was given into the lock. It opened effortlessly. He tiptoed inside and turned the light on. The front room was immaculate as usual; not a trace of dirt on the floor, not a speck of food on the counter, no dishes visible. The one unusual item stood out like a sore thumb: a crude map of Colony 9 on the table.

Banging the dirt off his shoes outside and locking the door behind himself, Shulk crept towards the table. The colony map had a path drawn on it that led to the Weapon Development Lab through several seemingly random streets.

Why would Melia be plotting a route through Colony 9 that avoids the busy streets, thought Shulk, unless she were trying to do something without being seen?

This sealed the deal to him - Melia was the one who had given him the mystery gift, which he was still absent-mindedly carrying. That was good enough for him - the "what" and "why" could come later. For now, he had to figure out how to "cheer her up" when she arrives.

His natural curiosity taking over, Shulk turned the light off and edged himself into the bedroom. He had never been in here before; as far as he knew, Melia had never allowed anyone else in since the completion of the house. (Shulk figured that, having now both snuck into each others' rooms, they were even.) The bed sat in the left corner across the back wall, with a desk against the left wall and a reading chair against the right. Aside from the door and two draped windows on the left and right walls, most of the walls were covered in shelves, hosting a variety of books and other trinkets.

Shulk didn't really feel like snooping too much, so he sat at the desk and planned his next move. He decided to turn the lights off and open up the mystery gift, figuring its calming influence would help him think of something.

Melia was leaning forward like an attentive schoolgirl, eagerly listening to every word of Shulk's tale.

"...and I guess I wasn't really paying attention, because I didn't even notice you'd arrived until you came in here. And...well, here we are."

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, both coming to terms with the revelations the other had presented. Shulk was mentally kicking himself for never noticing Melia's feelings towards him, even after someone had once mentioned that he himself was acting pretty much the same way with regards to Fiora. Melia felt a feeling of freedom, having revealed her one big secret to the one person it concerned, and was overjoyed that Shulk had not simply brushed her off.

Shulk thought back to the afternoon's Nopon play about his adventure. The scene atop Prison Island where Metal Face killed the Emperor, the Monado was unshackled, and Fiora was revealed to still live (with the Faces each played by a conglomeration of six Nopon) was accompanied by a unique musical movement by the band, a choir-backed duet of xylophone and violin noted in the program as "Engage the Enemy". It was a piece that portrayed feelings of fear, loss, and hope all at once.

Melia needs to be loved back by someone, thought Shulk. She needs it. She deserves it. And until someone better comes along, it looks like it's up to me. With the music in his head, he intuited what he had to do.

With one swift movement, Shulk left the desk chair and plopped himself onto the bed next to Melia. "Plop" being the operative word; he misjudged the mattress and ended up on his back for a few seconds. Melia giggled, which by itself was unusual.

Shulk decided to speak his mind. "We should do something. Together. Right now. Something you enjoy."

Melia looked at him quizzically. "Why? I feel a lighter mood than I have felt in many months. You have done what you set out tonight to do."

"No, I'm not done. Cheering you up was what Fiora pushed me to do, but...I see something else now." He looked back at her. "You need someone to love you. Not someone who's a distant memory, but someone who's here right now."

"But...Shulk, you love Fiora with all your heart. I would never expect you to hinder that relationship simply for my benefit."

Shulk shook his head. "You've done so much for others at the expense of yourself, it's time someone returned the favour. Maybe I can't give you the love you wished for, but I can give you enough to make a difference." He took her hand. "So, what do you want to do?"

There was a quiet hissing noise. The two of them looked over to the source: the Sun's Tear was undergoing a transformation. Its rocky body was slowly breaking into fragments and dissolving, leaving a featureless glassy globe behind. The tiniest pinprick of white light was visible in the centre, like a star in a dark sky.

Melia turned back to Shulk, teary eyes sparkling. A liberating feeling was flowing over her mind, as if someone who had lived in a closet all their life had finally opened the door.

"Let's go stargazing. Together."

Midnight had come and gone. The moon had found the only pesky cloud in the sky, dimming its light to almost nothing - perfect for finding the fainter stars.

Melia and Shulk were lying in the grass behind the house, swapping stargazing knowledge and stories. Shulk was an astronomer more than an astrologer and was keenly interested in the patterns of the wanderers and the possibility that more could exist, too faint for the naked eye to see. None of his other companions cared much for the sky, so it felt unusual to be holding an extended conversation about it.

Eventually, Shulk began stirring. "Well, I think I should head home and go to sleep now. Reyn's gonna have a killer hangover and someone's going to have to deal with him."

"All right." Melia was feeling tired too; all the walking from the past two days was catching up to her. "I could use a rest as well."

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then. Hopefully I can get this telegraph thing up and running. Say, maybe you could help with it. I don't think we have enough wire to reach any of the other colonies from Colony 9, but we might just be able to reach to your place. What do you say?"

"I can hardly wait."

The two started making their way back to Melia's house, where Melia would enter and Shulk would continue past to the transporter. Before they went their separate ways, however, Shulk paused.

"Hang on, I wanted to ask you something. Now what was it?" He scratched his head for a moment. "Oh yeah. When's your birthday?"

Even after all that had occurred already, Melia was taken aback by the question. "The twenty-second of February. Why do you ask?"

"Good. I was afraid we'd missed it!" Shulk smirked. "See you tomorrow!"

Melia watched Shulk jog off towards the transporter. She had the distinct feeling that she was about to receive an unscheduled birthday party in six months' time. Lazily sauntering back into the house, she collected the dropped fudge from so long ago and placed it back in the cupboard. Then she retired to her room to find the last surprise of the night - Shulk had forgotten to pick up the Moon's Tear, leaving it brilliantly shining alongside the newly-freed Sun's Tear.

Typical Shulk, she thought to herself. He'll be back tomorrow with a hand-shaped dent in his forehead.

Still, with this being the first night where looking upon the Tears brought happiness rather than shame, she was okay with possessing them both for one last time.