Something Greater

i heard church bells from afar

But we found each other in the dark

And when the smoke does finally pass,

We will rise above all the ash.

– Dallas Green, "We found each other in the dark."

–-–

If Adelina Fortnight had been told two years ago that she would one day have to stop mourning over her late husband and work with her ex-boyfriend in order to bring a bigfoot to Shangri-La before eventually going off on her own journey, she would've laughed a hysterical, snarky, bitter laugh. She would've thought the person telling her that was insane and dismissed it, yet now... now, she could definitely believe it, because it had only recently happened to her.

What had happened was still fresh in her mind... the visit from Lionel, where he'd tried to take the map from her, but she'd chewed him out on missing her husband's – his own friend, whom he claimed was like a brother to him – funeral, angrily kicking him out when he'd said he would pay her for the map; the one item they pulled out of his hands when they'd uncovered his body after the avalanche. When night came, he broke into her house and took it, and she had to leave her confinement just to confront him at the station... only to end up joining him and Susan on the journey to Shangri-La, all because of the little comment he made.

"You were always such a vibrant, intoxicating woman. It pained me to hear that you'd shut yourself in, like a bird trapped in a cage."

Taking his words into account, he was right. Ever since Aldous' grim demise and the funeral, she'd shut herself away from the world, her only friends consistent being her yellow parakeet, Paca, and her argentine butler, Ricardo. She didn't even try visiting her immediate family – her father, mother and seven brothers, all of whom attended the funeral – or writing to them, nor even her friends or brothers' wives.

She had spent days, months and two years locked within her home, mourning over her loss... only for a visit and a heated argument with her former lover to make her realize that she needed to stop shutting herself away. She needed to move on, break free and go back to the life of adventure, the life she almost gave up on.

And that was exactly what she did.

Adelina went with Lionel and Susan, using the map to guide them to Shangri-La. Along the way, they'd dodged a hired hitman's attempts at killing them and befriended a shaman and her granddaughter, and... well, there was quite a bit of tension between her and Lionel, too. On the boat, they'd fallen into each other's arms and on the elephant ride through the jungle of India, they nearly kissed.

Of course, the tension wasn't entirely just romantic. When the Elder Yeti had them all thrown into the ice pit, she saw how broken up Susan was over it, and Lionel... he only cared about himself, so she didn't hesitate in chewing him out over it, just as she'd chewed him out on many of his other glaring flaws.

It was classic Lionel, never caring about anyone but himself. It was his inability to be there for her when she needed him that led to their breakup to begin with, and yet he had the audacity to be surprised that he was always left alone. She had begun to believe that perhaps, there wasn't a great Sir Lionel Frost after all... the great Sir Lionel Frost had to be a myth for no matter how many times he spoke of proof, he showed no signs of being the great man he claimed to be.

...that was, until he went and proved her wrong.

He hadn't gone back to moping about himself after she'd called him out, instead he... he decided to help Susan, telling him, I believe it is time we settle our debt, Mr. Link. I said I'd take you to the place where you belong, and I am a man of my word. The Elder Yeti is right, you don't belong here, now get up. We're leaving.