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“Where are we going to look?” Mewt asked as they started down the sidewalk from Doned’s house. He was walking with his hands in his pockets next to Ritz who was pushing a layered Doned.
“I don’t know,” Doned said from underneath his scarf.
Ritz piped up. “Why don’t we go ask around Main street, see if anyone saw him.”
“Okay,” both Mewt and Doned responded.
***
“Marche . . . Marche, wake up.”
The first thing Marche saw when he opened his eyes was an almost blinding white light. He cringed and squinted, putting his hand on his forehead, using it to try and block the light. His eyes darted from left to right, searching franticly for the owner of the voice that woke him.
“Where are you!?” he yelled, rising to his feet.
“You have returned to what you abandoned by choice. You have come to let Ivalice reflect you once more.”
“What are you talking about!?”
The voice was airy, thin, like whispers carried on the wind. Marche spun around, his feet clicking of off a floor that he couldn’t see underneath him, because of the overwhelming light. He gritted his teeth in frustration and clenched his fist.
“Come out!” Marche yelled. “Let me see you!”
At once the light faded away and Marche blinked to see that he was surrounded by stone rubble, ruins of what looked like a castle, vines and other vegetation encroaching on the debris. He was standing on a large stone square, what looked to used to be the courtyard of the old castle. The air was heavy; humid, like it had been raining for years and had just stopped. Putting his hand at his side, Marche felt that his body were heaver then usual and he looked down to see that he was wearing armor, his armor that he had worn everyday for the year and some that he had been in Ivalice.
“Marche Radiuju. Tell me why you returned.”
Marche clenched his fist and looked down at him feet, his boots worn yet sturdy on his feet and his golden-hilted sword sheathed at his waist.
“I came back,” Marche told the voice, “because I want to fix my mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“All of my friends had something precious here and I took it away by taking them away. I…I love my home in real Ivalice. It’s perfect for me, almost paradise. I think that’s how it must have felt to my friends here, in this dream Ivalice.” He took a deep breath, admitting to himself that he was back in Dream Ivalice.
“You feel guilty, Marche. It’s something I can feel emanating off of you like the stink of death. You came back to face these demons.”
“No! I came back to try and fix everything!”
“Your friends. I can sense that they’ve forgiven you.”
“Maybe.” Marche started walking, keeping his senses on edge. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I hurt them.”
“How will you fix it, then?”
“I don’t know yet,” Marche said, walking off of the courtyard square and starting down a long-winding stone path then wound around and through more rubble.
***
“Yeah, I saw him. He was running full tilt that way.”
Ritz smiled and followed the finger of the street vendor. He had his cart set up underneath an awning on the sidewalk of Main, a few blocks down from where Ritz and Marche had talked. It was an elderly man that knew Marche, Ritz and the others well; he had run his street cart for years, selling hot drinks and sweets.
“Thank you, Mr. Tobis,” Doned said and waved at him as they walked off. He waved them goodbye.
“What’s down this way?” Doned asked, looking around.
Behind him, Ritz answered, “The train stations and some old fields.”
“Is that it?”
Mewt scowled. “What would Marche be doing down this way? There’s nothing down here.”
Ritz stopped moving abruptly, making Doned almost fall forward out of his chair.
“What happened?” he asked, slightly annoyed.
“The grave,” Ritz said, her voice flat. “It’s down here.”
Mewt spoke up. “You don’t think that Marche would . . . ?”
“Let’s go,” Doned said. “Let’s go and fast.”
Both Mewt and Ritz nodded in agreement and they headed off.
***
“Where do you plan on going?”
“I don’t know.” Marche walked underneath an old stone archway that looked like it would collapse at any minute. “I’m just looking for a way to fix my problems.”
“And you think that you’ll find it here, of all places?”
“I know I will. It’s nowhere else, so it has to be here . . . back where it all started.”
“Tell me something . . .” The voice hesitated then came back, like it was thinking. “Do you enjoy having friends?”
“Of course!” Marche wove around a large standing piece of wall. “I treasure them.”
“They why go through the trouble of losing them? If you find your ‘answer’ here, then you will indeed lose them, correct?”
“That’s a possibility. I’m looking for a way to make things right: for a way to make it so everyone was as happy as they were when they were here. I took away paradise and now I have to give it back.”
“Another question, then. What is ‘paradise’?”
Marche stopped walking right in front of an old, dry fountain. He looked up at the broken statue of a woman in the center, holding a pot in her arms.
“Paradise is a place of pure beauty. A place in which you have everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
“And the world in which you come from isn’t ‘paradise’?”
“No.” Marche closed his eyes. “Not for my friends. They all had paradise here! Ritz had her hair and Shara, Mewt was a prince and had his mother and Doned . . . my brother could walk! I . . .”
“You what?”
“I was greedy! I strove for my own ambitions, fought for what I wanted and not what everyone else did! It was a mistake . . . a mistake to go against them . . . they’re my friends, the only ones I have. And my brother . . . all of them are my life now! I realize that it was all me! My error, my mistake.”
“Your emotions are strong, Marche.”
The voice trailed off and a loud rumbling soon replaced it, shaking the ground and clattering the loose rubble around. Worried, Marche spun around to see if he could spot the cause: he saw it within seconds. Standing behind him was a judge, but not a normal judge. This judge was bigger, at least four feet taller then the normal six-foot ones. Its eyes glowed a faint blue, and in the spaces between the armor Marche could make out a dark smoke. It held an axe that stretched up to well above its head and the blade was shining sharp. It took another thunderous step forward then swung its axe down, hard, cutting the air so it whistled.
Marche yelped and leapt backwards, avoid the blade as it crashed into the earth, spiking the stone and creating a large cracks that spread like spider webs. Marche reached for his sword, acting solely on old engagement instinct, and withdrew it. The blade sparkled like it was water in the morning sun, and Marche put on a face of determination.
“I will atone for my sin!” he yelled, and bounded off of his left foot, headed right at the Judge, following the axe that was embedded in the ground.
The judge reacted by letting go of its axe and throwing a right hook at Marche. The iron fist caught him in the side, cracking his armor and sending him flying into some rubble some twenty feet away. It hurt Marche all over, spikes of pain echoing through his now-battered body as he pulled himself to his feet and raised his sword again. He shook his head to clear it and then dashed forward.
The Judge met him halfway and sent both of his fists downward in a attempt to grind his foe into the ground. Marche saw the attack coming; the Judge was fast, but not that fast, and slid to the side to avoid it. The Judge’s fists hit the ground in a flurry of dust and destruction, and Marche acted quickly to hop up off the Judge’s iron arm and plunge his sword into the smoke that was between the helmet and the torso. It offered little resistance and the armor went dead as soon as he did, all of it crashing backwards to the ground in a single loud moment. Marche landed on his feet, stood still for a minute and then turned away from the Judge, sheathing his sword.
“Do you believe that you have truly sinned?” The voice asked.
Marche frowned and started walking again, his right arm hugging his side and the tender bruises that were under the punctured armor.
“It is a sin to murder,” Marche said. “And I have killed too many dreams.”
***
Marche’s lips had gone blue with cold by the time Mewt laid him in his bed. The snow that had covered him had long melted, soaking him completely.
“Blankets,” Ritz said to Doned. “Where?”
Doned pointed at a closet outside the room, “In there. Get lots of them.”
Ritz ran off to get the blankets and Doned wheeled himself as close to the bed as possible to take off Marche’s wet jacket and scarf. On the other side of the bed Mewt stood, holding the book that Marche had had in his icy fingertips, passed out at the grave.
“Why, Marche?” he asked.
Ritz came back and waited until Doned had taken off his brother’s coat and scarf and wet sweater to layer six heavy blankets on him. Doned hung the wet clothes on a nearby chair then turned to look at his two friends.
“Now what?” he asked. “It’s obvious that Marche went back to Ivalice.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Ritz answered.
“We go after him.”
Mewt was shocked. “What?! Go after him!?”
Ritz’s hand went up to point at the book in Mewt’s hands. “We use that and go to get him!” Her finger went from Mewt to Marche.
Doned shook his head. “Marche must have gone back for a reason, right? Maybe we should let him try and figure out whatever he’s going through on his own.”
“No!” Ritz yelled. “What if he’s in danger? What if he’s hurt!?”
“Let’s go,” Mewt said and opened the book on top of Marche. “Doned, your mother won’t be home until tomorrow, right?”
Doned nodded, “She works the night shift tonight.”
“Then let’s go! My dad will think I’m here and so will your mom, Ritz.”
“You seem like you want to go back more then any of us.”
Mewt huffed, “Well, Marche went alone. I . . . I want to . . .” He smiled. “I want to grab him and ask him what’s wrong!”
“Yeah!” Ritz said, psyched up. “And I wanna smack him for making us worry!”
Both of them smiled and turned to look at Doned, who had a frown on that quickly turned to a smirk.
“Marche’s my brother. I have to go.”
“Then it’s settled. Are we ready?”
The three of them looked at each other then nodded. A air of finality came about the room and Mewt read the words that were inscribed on the first page.
“lta oron Sondus kameela.”
The effect was instant, sending everyone in the room into a slumber. Ritz fell to the ground and curled into a ball, Mewt collapsed onto his knees next to Marche, and Doned slumped forward in rest.
All of their last thoughts were simple prayers that things would be okay.
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