No Happiness Guaranteed

Previously

…He glanced down at the compass. Its needle was still, pointing not north, nor towards any magical destination, but directly at Elias’s own chest, then at Phetheni, then at the space between them. It was no longer a tool of desperate searching, but a symbol of what he had found. The true north of his heart, he realized, lay not in a place, but in a person, in the shared adventure of life, and in the quiet understanding that happiness wasn't a guarantee, but a beautiful, ongoing discovery.