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Chapter Text

There were many places in Selphia that one would say were good to have a picnic. The lake in the middle of town. The castle farm on occasions that it was more than a glorified vegetable garden. Near the waterfall in Yokmir Forest.

Frey and Forte were not eating their lunch in any of those places.

No, the two of them were sitting in a corner of the central chamber of the Water Ruins, listening to the storm raging just outside and trusting their hastily set up array of metal shields and ropes to divert any electricity thrown their way by the nearby horse monster.

This had not been how Frey was planning to spend her day, but Venti was getting testy about her lack of any visible progress and she figured that, lack of any dignity or not, braving the storm was a better idea than dealing with an annoyed dragon. And, okay, maybe she was almost enjoying herself. Just... it'd be better if she'd remembered to bring food that wasn't pickles. Even if half of them were turnips.

"The Bean Toss Contest is tomorrow," Forte spoke up, ignoring the flash of blue lightning that their system safely diverted. Frey knew that. She'd arranged for the contest to take place, after all. And it wasn't like anyone in town was shutting up about it.

...On second thought, maybe that was the real reason she'd gone to the ruins.

"I know," She stated, leaving her more... uncharitable thoughts unsaid. "How do you think you'll do, Forte?"

"...Not very well. For some reason, I always find myself reaching for my blade. The beans don't last very long after that." Frey couldn't really imagine that. Honestly, she didn't think Forte had actually attacked a single thing in these ruins. Yes, long swords were heavy, but it was like the knight didn't possess a single shred of aggression towards the monsters here.

Given their excellent run of Yokmir Forest- on her first day in town, no less- Frey felt she had the right to be a little bit annoyed by that. Or maybe the ease of wielding her broadsword, a piece of muscle memory she'd thankfully kept, had made her overly-critical of the faults of other weapons.

Not that she was planning on turning this into a habit. It was just an observation.

"It sounds like one of those things where your reflexes just work against you."

"Perhaps. But I've heard stories of towns where people threw the beans as far away from the 'demon' as they could, just to see them lunge for it."

"Who'd you hear that from?"

"An ore merchant from Sharance. She hasn't been here since the fourth, but..."

"...Oh, you mean Raven!" Frey realized. If there was one thing about amnesia that she didn't really mind, it was the fact that she didn't have much to sift through to remember the faces of people she'd passed on the street. "But... I didn't think any airships left on the fourth." She'd seen the schedule. And a map. Sharance was much too far away to get to on foot.

Forte just shrugged. "She said that she was leaving, and she did not stay at the inn that night. I do not know any more than that." Okay, so ignoring the mysteriously disappearing merchant...

"...Do you think we'll still be able to use these?" She asked, glancing at the pair of shields that were currently glowing blue, and hadn't stopped for the past minute or so.

"I believe a distraction would be in our best interests," The other woman replied. "Frey, do you have anything that we could use?"

"Let me see..." Frey began to dig through her bag. Honestly, she just picked up whatever she found lying around, she didn't even know what was in there most of the time... which was probably why she found an untouched plate of sashimi at the bottom. Honestly, how did that even get there?

And, more importantly, how did she not notice that until she and her sort-of friend had finished eating a meal of nothing but vegetables?

She decided that this was the horse's fault. After all, if it hadn't been there, she wouldn't have had to set up an elaborate contraption for the sake of eating lunch to begin with, and she might have been calm enough to notice the sashimi.

Just out of spite, if this one turned into a person, too, she'd throw the plate at them later. See how much they liked that.

(...A lot, apparently. But Frey couldn't bring herself to get upset about that. Randomly throwing plates of sliced pike at people wasn't behavior expected of a princess, anyway.)

Chapter Text

Frey walked through the streets of Selphia, steadfastly ignoring the ghost girl trying to get her attention. She had a farm to tend, a fishing contest to consider entering, and a knight to talk out of doing something really stupid.

"Forte, please, you have a hard enough time fighting things on foot." No, she was not still bitter about the trip through Water Ruins, no matter what anyone said. "Where would you even keep a mount?" The only place in town that even had room for a monster barn was the castle farm, and Frey didn't have enough lumber yet. For some reason, tree branches just refused to blow onto her land.

"I'm sure I will figure something out," Her friend replied. "Shouldn't you be preparing for today's contest?"

Frey took a moment to observe her battered old fishing rod. She was pretty sure the main reason it was so badly off was because nobody really trusted Eliza to hold anything that was actually of value.

...Then again, most people couldn't hear Eliza, and she couldn't move, so it seemed like a logically sound decision.

"I'm... not sure I'd do all that well, honestly."

"The fish don't have to be particularly impressive. All you need to do is get them out of the water." Well, yes, but Dylas lived in Selphia now, and Frey had seen him bring up more fish in the past three days than everyone else in town combined since she'd moved in. Odds were she didn't have much of a chance to begin with.

But... maybe it was worth a shot. Just to see if she could.

"...I'm trying to talk you out of a bad idea. How is it that you're managing to talk me into one?" Forte completely ignored that. Frey supposed that was only to be expected.

"Forte."

"No, I did not flip to a random page of my little brother's book and decided that I needed a horse from a sentence I read in passing. Why would you even think that?" Frey just stared at her friend disbelievingly.

"No, you also decided that getting a monster was the way to go, and it led to Volkanon's Elefun getting loose and running away." Honestly, she wasn't sure where her butler had even gotten- or kept- an Elefun, but she wasn't going to ask. Odds were she'd figure it out if it ever became important.

"That-" The knight looked away, blushing, as though the absurdity of the situation had finally caught up to her. "Well. Didn't you have a festival to enter?"

"You mean the one I have no chance of winning?" She knew people would say she was just being pessimistic, but she'd only been fishing for about a week. She was well aware as to how unrealistic the idea of victory was.

"I would not say there is no chance. Just... a rather small one." Okay, Frey could recognize an obvious attempt to change the subject. And she might as well humor her, for the time being.

Frey liked to believe that, going into the contest, she had had realistic expectations of what her performance would be. She would go in, she'd catch a few fish, she'd go home with some recipe bread to help her learn how to cook said fish, and she would spend the next few days eating nothing but sashimi just like the rest of town.

Thankfully, this was not entirely incorrect. She did, in fact, pull in enough fish for three days' worth of meals, so long as they were served with a side of sliced fruit or something.

However, she had also expected to be mainly pulling in fish.

"Oh, it's Frey! How are you doing?" Amber asked, setting herself down on a rock that was a safe distance away from the lake.

"I think I've caught something," She replied, reeling her catch in. Instead of a fish, there were five old cans that had somehow managed to attach to each other. "...I think I should talk with Arthur about possible anti-littering laws, I'd need his signature for that..." Really, she wasn't sure anyone in Selphia actually ate canned food. There wasn't any at the general store, anyway. And while there might have been some at the restaurant, she wouldn't put it past Porcoline to actually eat the cans.

"But that'd mean more fish!"

"Most people consider that to be a good thing, Amber."

"Aww...."

"You're... not going outside of town anymore?" Frey asked, unsure if she'd heard correctly.

Forte shook her head. "In my excitement to leave, I forgot about what I was trying to protect. I need some time to rethink things."

Okay, that was fair enough. Though she thought it might have a bit more to do with the knight's desire not to go following an odd ghost girl.

"But I can't do these things on my own," She pointed out. She hadn't even wanted to do them in the first place. "And you're the only other one our age who's got any real battle experience."

"Now, you know that isn't true." Well, okay, technically...

"We don't know if they can fight as humans, though," Frey stated. "And even if they can... would they even follow me?"

"You are our town's princess, and an inspiring figure besides. I am sure there are very few people who could not be convinced to join you."

Well, it was nice to know someone had faith in her leadership skills. Even if it wasn't her.

But she still had to figure out what to do with those cans...

Chapter Text

The first one Frey recruited, she decided, would be Amber. Whether the butterfly girl turned out to be talented physically or not, Frey seemed to have no particular talent for magic, and it would help to have someone to cover that. Given that Amber seemed to be using minor wind magic to help herself fly, it was safe to say that she'd probably have the knack for it.

Of course, Frey didn't want to risk coming out of nowhere with her request, no matter how much the ghost girl urged her to hurry. So she'd have to curry favor first, a couple shared glasses of chilled fruit juice a day, enough to get them comfortable with each other.

After all, it would be hard to concentrate in battle if she was startled by the green-haired girl jumping on her back randomly. Which she was prone to do. It was annoying.

"Hey, Frey?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to jump on you now." And the acting princess found herself being tackled to the ground. "I remembered to warn you this time, so that's good, right?"

"I-I guess so..." It was the most she was ever going to get, anyway. And while Amber was always happy, it still cheered Frey up to see her smile. "Just... could you get off, please? You're making it kind of hard to breathe..."

"O-oh, sorry!" The other girl fluttered off of her body, and Frey sighed. It seemed that there would still be quite a bit of work to do to make any sort of group functional... starting by teaching her friend about personal space.

Somehow, that sounded even more daunting than following the ghost to a haunted mansion.

Dylas was a bit more difficult to work with. Frey knew he liked sashimi- he'd actually responded positively when she'd thrown a plate of it at his face, who even did that!?- but other than that, he refused to let any sort of personal information slip out.

And it wasn't that she hadn't been trying. It would be easier to talk someone into leaving town to face monsters with her if she actually knew things about them. But all she really knew about Dylas was that he was good at fishing.

Well. That seemed as good a place to start as any. His memories seemed less ruined than hers or Amber's, from what little she'd managed to eke out, so it was probably safe to ask.

"You know, Dylas, you're pretty good at fishing." Start with a compliment. That was the best way to get new people to open up. "You must have a lot of experience. When did you start learning?"

"I don't know. Sometime."

"That's not a good answer."

"Well, I can't give you anything more than that." He seemed strangely bothered by it, as though he hadn't even noticed that that particular piece was missing until she'd pointed it out to him.

Frey could almost sympathize, though she had the opposite problem. One moment she was preparing a gift for someone's birthday, the next she was remembering that her birthday was in midsummer. Or she'd be looking over the day's menu at the restaurant, and immediately realize just what her favorite was from the listed options. No actual events, just small, personal details, but it was still enough to set her on edge, every time.

"All right, then." She'd give it a few more days before trying to get him to join her budding adventuring party. Possibly with sashimi as bribe. She was sure she still had some needlefish left over from the contest...

Surprisingly enough, once Frey had gotten the other two in the same room, it was easy to get them to agree to go on an adventure together. All that they asked of her was that she provide lunch for them.

Now, given the fact that she only knew how to use a knife and a mixer, most people would have had the common sense to swallow their pride and purchase the food, even if it meant buying it from one of the party members.

But this was Frey's first time adventuring with people who were not duty-bound to accompany her, so she felt the need to at least attempt to keep her pride. Also, the stuff on the menu was expensive and she didn't trust Porcoline not to eat the food before it was given to her.

So their lunch would be nothing but sashimi and juice. And some onigiri with various herbs sprinkled in, but that was easy. And, likely, all going to Amber due to the younger girl's dislike of all things piscine.

Now, with any luck they wouldn't ask for food until they were at least halfway through the mansion...

"So, what are we doing here, anyway?" Or ask that. Because she didn't fully realize the answer herself.

"I'm... not really sure. But you've seen that one ghost around town, right? She just... really wants me to come here for some reason. It's probably nothing. But best to be safe, right?"

It wasn't nothing.

Chapter Text

Frey sighed as she walked back to the castle, tired from the effort of helping Dolce chase Pico around town. It had been fun, watching the ghost's antics, but that still required chasing her down, and that had been an exhausting endeavor.

Still, it wasn't like she hadn't enjoyed herself, and she'd even found something really interesting. Well, tripped over it, but it was the same basic thing. She gripped the object tightly in her palm, realizing just how easy it would be to lose track of it otherwise.

Invisible stones were incredibly valuable, though it was difficult to tell how many there were in the world for obvious reasons. There was no way of knowing exactly how long this one had been laying in Selphia's streets. But it was a nice treasure to find, despite how difficult it would be to remember where it was. It wasn't like she could keep it in a display case or anything.

...Well, okay, technically she could, but someone could steal it and she'd never know about it, because the smooth marble was completely invisible.

...Almost completely. There were stories that said invisible stones could have a certain shimmer to them if moved at a certain angle and speed, but Frey only ever got that kind of thing when... using a sword.

She grinned, and hurried up her pace. She had an idea, and to pull it off right, she needed to be in her forge immediately.

This was going to be the coolest thing ever.

Dylas was starting to get concerned. First, Frey had showed up with what looked to be an empty hilt, before promptly slashing an orc with an invisible blade. This was almost normal.

She'd then insisted that the party go to Yokmir Forest so she could get back that charm she was always wearing. Okay, that was fine, there was nothing all too strange about that.

And then they'd gotten to the forest. And Frey was now trying to sneak up on something that Dylas couldn't see, and things were really starting to get weird now.

"Um... Frey?" Amber ventured, fluttering just a bit above the forest floor.

"Quiet, you'll scare it off," The other girl hissed back. Never mind that there wasn't anything there to scare off. Were all Earthmates strange like this? Or was it just her?

...Probably just her. If only because no group of people could last long if its members kept jumping over cliffs.

"Frey!" She was gone in an instant, vanishing over the drop so quickly it was like she was never there to begin with.

But she had been. Just a few minutes ago, showing off her new invisible sword, crying over losing her charm, chasing after things that nobody else could see.

Amber was saying something, but Dylas wasn't paying attention. All he could think about was the cliff, and Frey, and the split second of terror, right before the drop...

...And how it felt to fall, because at some point in the past five seconds, he'd decided to jump after her.

Frey hit the ground harder than she would have liked. Okay, so she'd rather she hadn't fallen at all, but there was no sign of the Chipsqeek- or Venti's Charm- which meant that she had to keep looking. Once she managed to get her heartbeat back under control, anyway.

Another shape hit the ground next to her. The light in the space where they'd landed wasn't good, but for the people who followed her, she didn't really need more than an outline. "Dylas? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," He replied. "You?"

"I'll be better once I have my charm back. Do you see that Chipsqueek anywhere?"

"What Chipsqueek?"

"Hey, Dylas, why'd you jump down here?" Amber's voice came from above, but was getting closer. Right. She could fly. "I told you I could handle it!"

"I was a little bit more concerned with Frey deciding to jump off the cliff." It was too dark to see the look on his face right now, but some things really didn't need elaboration. Of course they'd both been worried about her.

"But I needed to catch the Chipsqueek!"

"Again, there was no Chipsqueek."

"Well, there might have been," Amber spoke up again, coming in for a landing. "I think there was something there... I didn't see a Chipsqueek, though. Oh, but whatever it was, it probably went that way." Frey had assumed as such, it was the only path forward.

"Why are you encouraging her?"

"Well, I can fly out of here, but the two of you have to find your own way somehow, right?" Frey decided not to mention the Escape spellbook tucked away in her bag. Dylas might insist on leaving with that, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to find that Chipsqueek again if they left that way... if she could even bring herself to jump back down again.

She started to rethink things once they were set upon by a small pack of Silver Wolves, but really, that was what the new sword was for.

Chapter Text

Frey hugged the odd stone she'd found tightly to her chest, enjoying the feeling she got from holding it. She was sure the Chipsqueek would like it- after all, it seemed to be overflowing with life, and who didn't like that?

Dylas and Amber were still close behind her, of course. They'd only just gotten out of the cave, and while the sun was now setting, she needed to find that monster and get Venti's Charm back. Of course, that required that she have some sort of idea where it was.

...She'd start with the clearing where she and Forte had found Amber and work backwards. That seemed like a good idea.

Or, rather, it did until they came across something that didn't quite belong. "Huh...? Has this tree always been here?"

It hadn't, of course. And Frey didn't know why she'd bothered asking when she wasn't sure either of the other two had entered the forest on their own since she'd met them, let alone come to this part.

Before she could think any further on the matter, her group was buried in apples.

Frey did not have a very long memory. Quite the opposite, in fact, though anyone who poked too hard at that fact would be getting a Failed Dish to the face, no matter what Volkanon kept saying about propriety and behaving the way a proper princess should. If they wanted proper royalty, then they should have picked Arthur.

Still, despite how nonexistent her knowledge was of her life before she came to Selphia, she felt that she could safely say that the odd stone in the center of the forest clearing, overflowing with Runeys, just might have been the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "It's... really pretty."

"The forest is so happy!" Amber agreed, fluttering in the air above and cheerfully chasing after Runeys while brandishing an apple. Frey figured it was only a matter of time before the butterfly girl ate the apple instead of scaring the poor rune spirits with it, so it probably wasn't a concern.

"It feels sort of... nostalgic, somehow," Dylas stated, poking at a Water Runey that floated up to him.

"In a good way?" Frey asked. "Or a bad one?"

"I dunno. It's just... how it is. It's like... like I could sleep here forever, but..."

"Oh, you feel it, too?" Amber stopped terrorizing the poor Runeys to come in for a landing, tossing her apple core to the side. "I don't remember all that much, but I know I was sleeping here for a while. Oh, but then Frey came and woke me up, and I got to meet everyone! The forest was sad, then, but it'd make everyone else sad if I went to sleep again, and now the forest is happy, so it doesn't matter!"

That... was a lot more than she'd expected the other girl to say. But if she took those words, then maybe... "Well, I don't get that same feeling, for some reason. And we probably shouldn't spend the whole night out here, but it'll be some time before it's fully dark, so we can stay a while, if you want to." Further observation was required.

After all, while Frey had just gained a glimmer of hope... it was probably best to make sure. And something told her that it would be important for her to wait.

Given that Doug showed up less than five minutes later, the wait probably wasn't necessary, but maybe it was better that it happened here.

And then he actually started talking.

It was strange, just how easy it was to focus on one thing. Frey didn't have any particular passions, but once she decided on a project, she saw it through to the end, no matter what. Even in a fight.

Especially in a fight. Even if it wasn't one where she was using her sword.

Well, okay, she could technically have used it for intimidation, if not for the fact that it was invisible. She hadn't exactly kept that bit in mind when she was designing it. Given that her main opponents were monsters, it hadn't seemed to matter.

But that wasn't the point. Because Doug was gone, and Amber and Dylas had heard the whole thing, and threatening a resident of Selphia with a sword wasn't a good way to remain popular, anyway.

For a moment, Frey hoped that the other two hadn't heard the conversation, never mind that they were right there. But even as Amber was happy to fly ahead, hovering close enough to the waterfall to splash her hands in it, Dylas was a bit more attentive to the situation.

"So... I take it you have some idea what happened earlier?" Okay, was there a good way to evade this conversation that didn't involve being rude and leaving with Escape magic alone?

A quick glance around the forest confirmed that there was not, though if she jumped in the river, the others might be too concerned with fishing her out to ask questions. Of course, that would also involve falling... okay, so she couldn't really avoid this conversation.

...Then again, Dylas was still barely talking to her when they weren't doing something important as a group with Amber, so maybe that could be a good excuse. Assuming, of course, that the truth didn't work. Or as close as she could get, anyway, that wouldn't be disbelieved or upsetting to Ventuswill. She'd rather avoid dealing with an angry dragon, if that was at all possible.

"I... can't tell you. All I can really say is that, if we get some more of those stones, it might make Venti feel better."

"Really!?" Amber swooped down from above again, a large grin on her face. Frey really needed to get more used to that. "We can help Ven?"

"You call her Ven?"

Amber nodded. "Yeah. Cause Ven's Ven!" Okay, fair enough. "Come on, we need to find another one! ...Wherever it is."

"Wasn't there one the last time we went to the ruins?" Dylas suggested. Frey paused to think about it.

Right. There had been. It had felt important, and so she hadn't touched it, because none of them were sure what that would do. Causing what was left of the place to collapse with them inside it didn't seem like much of a good adventure.

"Okay, right, so we should do that at some point." Preferably soon, but after today's constant onslaught of opponents, Frey just wanted to sleep for a week. Only not, because she was busy and had things she needed to do.

Still, if her constant stream of responsibilities ever abated... it was a nice thought.

Except Vishnal would probably insist on waking her up every day regardless. And she wouldn't be able to turn him down, because she wouldn't be able to help feeling like she'd kicked a helpless baby Wooly.

Maybe she'd settle for doing as little as possible and just go to bed really early.

Chapter Text

Frey understood that, theoretically, anyone could win at any festival so long as they were sufficiently skilled and/or lucky. Theoretically.

In practice, it was just a bit different. "You remember that the Fishing Frenzy was last season, right?" She checked, glancing at the pile that seemed to be much too big for just three hours worth of fishing.

"I know."

"So you realize that you can leave some fish for the rest of us." She was well aware that, in Selphia, they spent the first part of the season eating the crops from the previous season, and the rest of it eating whatever was fished up in the seasonal contests, but nobody could ever need that much rainbow trout. "Are some of those even edible?"

"If you prepare them right." Okay, something to look into possibly learning one day, along with about a hundred other things that would be useful to know, but not completely necessary. Frey was accumulating a lot of those.

Sadly, she wasn't accumulating a lot of fish to go with them, but she hadn't really expected to win, anyway.

Really, her biggest worry was that people would go to her with complaints about poisoned food. That was a lot of rainbow trout...

...And, okay, maybe her next goal was catching something more than a single squid, so she could say she tried, since this was sort of pathetic. At least she wasn't pulling up cans, this time.

She did, however, pull up a rubber boot. Frey didn't think anyone in Selphia even wore rubber boots. She couldn't remember seeing a lot of travelers with them, either... had someone come all the way up to Selphia just to dispose of unwanted footwear?

...It said a lot that she actually thought such a thing was plausible. Still, the easiest way to find out would be to see if there was a match somewhere in the lake...

if there was, she never found it.

She really needed to talk to Arthur about those anti-littering laws...

"I'll take some bronze, an Earth Crystal... and do you have any broken hilts? My boots could use some reinforcement..." Frey was sort of surprised to see the woman from Sharance back in town, after more than a season with no word from her.

"I have cheap cloth. That is the closest that I have for you," Raven replied.

"I see... well, I'll have a couple rolls of that, then." She was well aware what kinds of dangerous monsters could lurk out there, and she was handling the equipment needs of three people. It was important to stock up on whatever supplies were available.

"Thank you very much." The purchase was made, and now Frey had enough to start work on making sure her friends had enough equipment to not get knocked down by a stiff breeze. While it likely wouldn't be as embarrassing as getting buried in an avalanche of apples, it was important that they actually had the ability to survive their fights.

"You know, Raven, I haven't seen you around in a while. But Kiel said that you're usually around at least once a week. Did something happen?"

"Nothing bad, just... it wasn't something that anyone else could have helped with." Intriguing, but not really any of her business.

"Oh, okay. I guess I'll be seeing you again a bit sooner this time?"

"Assuming all goes well." The quiet woman walked away, leaving Frey to try and remember what she'd been planning to do with her purchases. Right, things they could wear and be relatively safe from attack by opponents.

As for potential friendly fire... maybe it was about time she invested in insulators. Once she figured out one that was good enough to use.

Odds were it would be made out of that one discarded boot.

Chapter Text

There was a difference, Frey found, to working purely from a recipe and going by instinct. When it came to the former, she always had a solid image in her mind of what she wanted and what purpose it would serve, and how said purpose would be carried out. Every factor was known, and it would become exactly what she'd envisioned, every time.

When relying on instinct, though... things became much less precise, but they often turned out better. Sometimes, when she sat down, she didn't fully know what she was making, until the object of her inspiration came out the other end. Other times, she was recreating something with her own touches.

It was much more difficult than crafting by rote, but easier than working in new touches to a completed project, and it was something that she could appreciate.

Now, if only the others could, too... She needed to prepare all sorts of protections for them, as while they knew the Water Ruins fairly well, she remembered that one Friday on Selphia Plains.

So many spores... and when they fled, they'd ended up in a cave full of vicious Mamadoodles. Not their best day ever.

Suffice to say, no matter how many times they'd visited those ruins before, there could be surprises, and Frey intended on protecting her friends from them however possible.

In Amber's case, this meant a bracelet made to improve her ability to block magic. Just in case a rogue tidal wave appeared, or she forgot Dylas' lightning patterns, or something. This was simple enough, the metal needed just a quick touch up with some gems, and it would be enough to serve their purposes.

For Dylas, though... Frey wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to give to Dylas. Some sort of protective charm, certainly- he spent even more time close to the opponent than she did- but that was too simple, it needed something else worked in.

Knowing how to make these objects by heart, she was aware that she could probably work in anything that she wanted to. But with the nature of the item she was making, whatever was added needed to be special, with some personal significance, in order to get the full effect...

An idea came over her. Abandoning her work area, she dug around her storage chest, eventually pulling out a decently-sized mass of staticky blue fur. Carefully, and while wearing rubber gloves, she snipped off a small piece at the end of it, judging it to be enough for her purposes.

Perfect. She could easily wrap this up in the main insect carapace, and nobody would notice it was any different from an ordinary charm unless they were using it at the time. She loved it when things added on to a project were so completely hidden like that.

Hopefully, this would be enough to keep him safe.

This monster had had contact with humans before. Frey wasn't sure how she did, but she knew it, the second she laid eyes on the thing. It had met humans, and probably come off badly from the experience, given how unusually intent it was on attacking them over a rock that it couldn't have been around for more than a week.

Or maybe it was just a territorial creature, but she simply couldn't shake the thought of this Chimera having once received a watering can to the face.

..No, that couldn't be right. That was just silly.

"Do we really have to fight it?" Amber asked. "It's scary..."

Frey didn't much like the look of it, either, but she didn't see how they had a choice. Although... "Amber, if Dylas and I lure the Chimera away from it, could you fly over and grab the Rune Sphere? You're the best one for it."

"Yeah, I can do that! But... will you really be okay?"

"I'll have the Escape spell ready, I promise. Just go!" And then there was no more time for words, because she had to fight a monster with really sharp claws that she'd rather not be anywhere near her body.

It wasn't that fighting was difficult, to her. Actually, that was the one thing she was entirely sure she was good at, because she never had to think about what she was doing. She just moved, and attacked, and things tended to work out. Most of the monsters she faced simply didn't know how to deal with her.

Of course, most of the monsters she faced didn't have prior experience fighting determined Earthmates.

Amber was, as Lumie would put it, 'on a case.' More specifically, The Case of the Chimera's Rune Sphere. Or something like that, she wasn't too good with names.

Ambrosia wasn't all that great with names, either, so the two of them decided to just leave it be for the moment and never refer to it by name again.

Either way, Amber had been given a mission. Fly past the Chimera, pick up the Rune Sphere, return to her friends and teleport past the barrier.

...In hindsight, it would probably have worked a lot better if not for the fact that Frey and Dylas both preferred close combat. Sighing, Ambrosia recommended that, if the monster wanted the pretty life-filled rock so badly, they could just drop it on its head.

Amber thought that was an incredibly fun idea.

All things considered, Frey thought things had gone pretty well. Sure, Dylas had needed to fish the Rune Sphere out of the lake that the Water Ruins sat on top of, and her wounds were feeling pretty tingly, and maybe she'd lost a bit more blood than she would have liked, but it all worked out okay.

Even if the others seemed to disagree. "Frey."

"What is it?"

"We are never doing this again."

She couldn't bring herself to try and argue against that.

Chapter Text

"Miss Frey, if you don't mind me asking... why do you have an Ant on your shoulder?"

Frey blinked, before looking away from Volkanon to pet the insect monster in question. "Well, I was out grabbing purple grass for compost, when I dropped a piece, and Sushi here was close enough to start snacking... I'm going to introduce them to the others now."

"Ah... of course." It probably said something about her life that nobody batted an eyelid to her explanation of what had happened that morning. She wasn't quite sure what it was, and she didn't think she wanted to know.

Leaving the castle through the room's other exit, Frey took the time to soak in the feeling of being back on her own land. There were turnips, and potatoes, and clovers, and several other different types of colorful flowers, as well as grass for monster feed, all arranged in neat little patches scattered about the growing area. Thinking back, it was hard to reconcile this picture with the overgrown lot she'd been given back at the start of the year, which she took as a sign that she was apparently doing something right.

Not that she didn't have any help. "Onion, Creame, could you come over here for a moment?"

Onion was a Duck, and Creame was a Buffamoo. It was nice to have a steady supply of milk, along with the assistance with keeping the fields clear and making sure everything got enough water. She was the one who planted, harvested, and applied the necessary fertilizer, but having her monsters handle the rest of it meant that she could occasionally take a day off. Sort of.

...Honestly, maybe she'd planted a bit too much feed grass, but she'd heard horror stories of what happened during storms, and it would be best to have the food ready until the next batch was grown again.

Really, though, even adding a new member to the group wouldn't make a dent in the food supplies. "So, this is Sushi. They're going to be fixing up that part of the field that's always covered in rocks." It wasn't that she hadn't tried to clear it. She had! She'd even made plans for what to plant once everything was clear. It was just that every time she looked away, it seemed like a new rock just randomly appeared.

There was a reason she'd hired Onion and Creame.

Once she was sure the avian of the trio was aware that Sushi was not a snack, she decided to see if there were any weeds available for composting a bit closer to home. She sat her bag down for the moment, leaving behind everything but her sword, for in case there was something she needed to cut down.

She wasn't sure why people bothered using sickles for harvesting seeds when swords were so much more fun.

"Dylas, we need to go to my mining spots again."

"We just went there two days ago."

"Yeah, well, I left my bag out where my monsters could get into it, and they kind of absorbed all of my elemental crystals, including the Dark Crystals which will be nigh-impossible to replace, so we should try and get started early?" Okay, so when she put it like that, Frey admitted that it sounded really dumb and irresponsible of her. And maybe it kind of was.

But, really, she'd been expecting them to go straight for the half-dozen plates of sashimi she had squared away in there, not the gems. The sashimi, at least, would have made logical sense- it was food, and monsters were willing to eat it. But she couldn't think of any reason that a Duck would want an Earth Crystal.

At the very least, anyone trying to mess with the castle farm would be in for an unpleasant surprise. But nobody was that stupid.

...Well, okay, there was apparently one person who was that stupid. Said person was now running away with their clothes burning away from various ant-sized bite marks.

Frey decided that was probably punishment enough.

Chapter Text

"Hmm? What is it, Princess?"

"Vishnal, my calendar says that something called a Firefly Festival is tomorrow. Could you tell me what that is?" The name seemed fairly self-explanatory, but it was always best to be certain.

"Oh, it's a summer tradition where people gather by the lake to watch gathering fireflies. I've been told it can be a very romantic occasion, though it's... hard to see that, with how the town is now." Right, having exactly one couple that lived in Selphia full-time probably would put a damper on those kinds of things.

"I see... But people still enjoy it, right?"

Vishnal nodded. "Oh, yes. It's very beautiful, and this is the time when you'll see the most fireflies all year. The guaranteed good weather probably helps with that, of course..."

That was right. There were days when it was guaranteed to be sunny, even when the days on either side were nothing but a torrential downpour. Which days they were, and how many, varied from place to place, but festivals were always arranged on those days, in order to make the most of them.

Frey hadn't really bothered to learn Selphia's clear-weather schedule. She'd just asked for the list, and for festival ideas, and matched everything up where it made sense in the empty spaces. She still needed some more respect in order to properly institute the ones later in the year, but then she wouldn't have to worry about keeping track of the guaranteed sunny days ever again.

It wasn't like she was the only one to do something like that. There had to be a reason Beach Day existed, after all. And in that case, it would have been a lazy king.

Of course, that still left the question of what to do while everyone was busy tomorrow...

It was a strange thing, about festivals. The day before one occurred, everybody would be talking about it. Except for Doug, but that might have just been because he wasn't talking to Frey in general, it was hard to tell.

"There's a festival tomorrow!" Amber immediately reinforced this point by jumping on Frey's back. It was too early in the morning for this... "Hey, Frey, are you going to see the pretty fireflies tomorrow?"

"I was considering it..." She grumbled, "But if I have to deal with this kind of thing all day, then I think I'll pass." Maybe she'd just buy some sandwiches from the restaurant and have a picnic somewhere away from all the people making a fuss about fireflies. Yes, they were pretty, but that alone didn't merit two whole days worth of conversation.

It wasn't that she didn't like participating in festivals. It was just that the town as a whole seemed to gain an odd collective obsession that honestly terrified her. How could an entire town become so single-minded, and for just a short amount of time?

The butterfly girl visibly deflated. "But then you won't get to see the pretty fireflies!"

"There's always next year." Maybe if she could find a reason to go in that time. "I mean, I can't be the only one who's staying home. It's not the end of the world, Amber."

"Yeah, but... it'd be less fun without you."

"There's so many people in town, you'll hardly notice. But, anyway, now that you're here, maybe we could get Dylas and head out to the Delirium Lava Ruins for a bit? We could grab some juice on the way."

"Juice? Yay!"

Amber wasn't sure why neither of her teammates had wanted to come see the fireflies. They were amazing! So much light, dotting the air above the lake and the reflections on its surface.

Ambrosia wanted to fly out and join them. Amber almost did, but stopped herself, because that would scatter all of the pretty fireflies.

"You look happy." Kiel walked up to her, carrying a plate of baked apples. "Having fun?"

"It's so pretty..." And despite how she was holding back the other part of herself... she wanted to go out there, too. But more importantly... "Oh, that's some kind of fruit, right?"

"Oh, this? It's just apples cooked in a frying pan... Do you want to try one?" Of course she did! It was fruit! But it would be rude to just snatch it, so she had to ask.

"Can I?"

"Of course! I brought them here so I could share them with people. Here, try it."

It was delicious. Ambrosia would have politely thanked Kiel for the treat, telling him that she enjoyed it.

Amber was a fair bit less subdued. "Wow, this is really good! Thank you, Kiel! Oh, you were going to give these out to everyone, right? Do you need any help?"

"...And you wouldn't eat them all?"

"Of course not! Promise!"

In the end, the apples didn't even last ten minutes.

Chapter Text

Originally, Frey had thought that having a whole wing of the castle to herself was just a bit excessive. She was just one person, how could she ever need that much space? Of course, then she was given access to things like forging her own weapons and brewing her own medicines, and soon she was glad for the extra places to squirrel said workstations away.

As it was, her section of the castle was comfortably cluttered with various work areas, and it wasn't unheard of for her to vanish into it for a day or two to work on various projects. And there was still more than enough room for her, even if that was mainly because her kitchen was still rather bare.

A nice, large space for her to live in... and for her to wait out the biggest storm of the season, once she'd made sure to harvest all the crops she could so that, while the inevitable losses still happened, she'd at least have money from the harvest to buy replacement seeds.

Of course, said effort meant that she had to towel off, and try to eat something warm, if not for the fact that she didn't have any way to make warm foods yet.

Given that she had no intentions of going back outside, and that the dragon room was open to the sky, she hadn't expected to encounter anyone else that day. Maybe she'd just take whatever was in her storage and see what she could make out of it, and load the next day's shipment with various weapons and accessories. Or even get started on the next set of armor for her friends, in case whatever was inside that lava-filled cave was stronger than anything outside it. After all, things had been that way everywhere else they visited.

It appeared to be a pattern. It was not one that Frey enjoyed, because she honestly just wanted things to turn out all right without having to fight every monster from here to Maya Road. Sadly, things did not seem to be turning out that way.

So she'd try to lose herself in her work, and hopefully she'd come up with whatever she needed to make sure everything went well.

Vishnal brought her lunch a bit later. Despite the fact that he would have had to use the castle kitchen, and then traverse the storm, the food was all perfectly fine. "We thought you might need something to eat," He explained, "Given that nobody's seen you at all today."

"I've been busy." Honestly, she thought that the piles of hats, rings, and boots would make that clear. She poked her bracelet pile, only for it to spill out over the ground. They were mostly completed, so it wouldn't be that much of a hassle until it was time to ship them. Or unless someone stepped on them. "You didn't have to do this, I could have made something for myself."

"Perhaps, but this means I can assist you using the powers of my new Skill Icon." Right... he was still going on about that.

"I-I don't really think it's that..." It was nice to see him succeed, and his new confidence seemed to be making a huge difference, but she knew that the instant Vishnal lost said confidence, for any reason, he'd go back to stumbling over himself in excitement. It just seemed like the sort of thing he would do.

Of course, maybe it was her own fault for acting hesitant over whether or not his food was edible, but she'd had a similar run-in with Forte that same day, so nobody could blame her for showing caution. She knew the knight hadn't meant to knock her out, but it had still been enough to make her paranoid about anything she ate for the next few days.

Then again, Frey herself was experimenting with poisoned butter now, but at least she was trying to aim it at her enemies. And, unlike Forte, at least she hadn't managed to burn ice cream.

The other unexpected friend appearance of the day was Amber. "Yay! I found Frey!" The butterfly girl was completely soaked, but that didn't seem to dampen her cheer at all. "The weather's really bad today, isn't it?"

"Why do you think I'm not running through it?" There wasn't a lot of weather that could stop her if she felt like going out and doing something, but anything that caused huge rocks and tree stumps to fly through the air was it. "Sit down by he forge, that'll probably make you feel better."

"Actually, Porco said that anyone who wants food can go wait out the storm in the restaurant. I was gonna see if you wanted to come along."

"And the chances of us actually getting our food?" Amber paused to think about it.

"Um... More than there'd be without Dylas?"

Frey couldn't find anything wrong with her reasoning. "I guess I have been working for a while..." And, honestly, sitting in a stone castle while a storm raged outside was just depressing. "But... would it be safe?" Nearby, there was a crash as a large rock shattered against the castle wall.

"...Maybe we shouldn't cut through the fields."

That would probably be a good idea.

"So, does anyone know when it's supposed to stop raining?" Frey asked. Fortunately, there had actually been food this time. She wasn't always that lucky.

"The worst of the storm is supposed to be over around midnight," Arthur replied. "But it will still be raining for a few days after that, aside from the Buddy Battle. This is an unusually bad storm."

"And when will it be safe to leave town?" Not that she was planning on abandoning her poor fields or anything.

"It should be fine once the winds are no longer lifting rocks and tree stumps." Yeah, that was what she thought. On the bright side, free lumber and material stone. On the minus side, there went her neatly arranged rows of flowers and potatoes. Which meant that her attempts to get better-quality crops for the Harvest Festival probably weren't going to amount to anything.

At least she'd be able to go out and fight monsters soon enough. Particularly when she was planning on going someplace that didn't really have to worry about weather. With everything she'd made earlier that day, it would be easy!

"What happened to the three of you?" Jones asked.

Frey couldn't blame him. All three of them were wet from the rain- which was still ongoing after three days- had seals on their magic, and there were varying amounts of toxins in their bloodstreams. In addition, she could barely move while Dylas wouldn't stop sniffling, and Amber was half-asleep, as well as their various injuries. "We fought a giant monster plant."

"You provoked the giant monster plant."

"No, that was Amber. She's the one who suggested attracting bees to make honey from it, remember? Anyway, it had a lot of different types of spores, with a lot of different effects, and we ran out of food that wasn't contaminated or poison halfway through." And, okay, maybe they should have visited the clinic before delivering the Rune Sphere to the mansion, instead of afterwards, but they'd made it there eventually.

"...Why were you carrying poison?"

"I... don't think that's the important thing here."

Chapter Text

"Well... at least we know the spell works," Frey sighed, glancing at the gathering of annoyed Woolies.

She could understand why they weren't happy with her, when she'd been using them to test out Omnigate, but they had volunteered, and she was feeding them for their trouble, so it wasn't a problem, right?

...On second thought, maybe she should have asked Raven how she'd managed to get that many of the sheeplike monsters to follow her back to town for experimentation. Or how the woman from Sharance had managed to get personal information out of them in the first place.

"So, that means what you were trying to bring over was the problem, right?" Amber asked, currently trying to clean spilled honey out of one of the test subjects' fur. In hindsight, maybe Frey shouldn't have let others sit in on the tests, but the rain still hadn't stopped yet and everyone was kind of getting sick of it. So it would probably help to get their spirits up, at least.

Besides, to summon Woolies from the forest, they needed to be in the forest to begin with, and it really was great stress relief.

...Okay, that was probably why the sheep were so upset, but she'd leave them alone from then on, really! And she'd ordered a proper feast for them from Porcoline, it was bound to get there... eventually...

...Porco had eaten it all, hadn't he?

So, having established that the problem was with what she was trying to summon, and not the spell itself, Frey let the Woolies run off to... wherever Woolies went when they weren't wandering around travelers.

Aside from the one that was actually a different, more belligerent, kind of monster altogether, which Raven returned to the forest with a well-aimed Fireball spell while passing by. Didn't even pause to look at it directly.

Given that her spell had probably been weakened by the rain, Frey thought that was actually really cool, but she couldn't actually say anything because the ore merchant had vanished soon afterward.

"So, I guess I'll be using the Returning Ring after all," She commented, considering tossing the object in the air before remembering that it was fragile, and therefore, not a good idea to throw around.

Also, because it was still raining, and if she dropped that ring, it'd probably be washed into the canals and Dylas was probably getting tired of having to fish things out of them for her.

"That does sound right," Forte agreed. "And you can use that spell on anyone who ends up going along with you."

"Th-that..." She hadn't thought about that. It did seem like a good way to make sure she had backup, but... Would the spell even work on Amber and Dylas? Chances were it didn't work for Leon because he was still stuck in his monster form, but did she really want to take the risk? "I'm not... sure it'd be safe, to bring anyone else."

Even though she was well aware that, once an idea got stuck in her head, Amber wouldn't let it go. And Dylas seemed to have decided that the two of them needed someone relatively sane to watch them.

Which, well, he wasn't wrong, but that meant that the best way to keep her friends safe was...

...This was a bad idea. But she was going to do it anyway.

That morning, the leaves had changed color to bright oranges and browns. Not that anyone could properly enjoy that, with the fact that the storm had picked up again.

Frey had heard that it was supposed to blow itself out by the end of the day, but given how early she'd woken herself up, that didn't really mean anything. Especially where she was standing.

"Good morning, Venti," She said, watching the rain bounce off of the dragon's scales and ignoring the fact that the sun wasn't even up yet. "I'm going to be going now. I'll be back soon with Leon, I promise."

Hopefully, the fields would be fine with her taking the day off. There was nothing close to being ready for harvest, and her monsters all knew what to do, and it was raining, anyway.

Ventuswill, of course, didn't respond. Sighing, Frey turned and left the castle, inwardly noting that she'd actually sort of gotten used to the constant rain. Still, it'd be nice to see the sun again, later. Just to remind herself that it still existed.

She figured that she could cut through Obsidian Mansion on the way. If she did that, she'd be out of the rain for most of the trip, while the town as a whole wouldn't start wondering as quickly as if she'd taken the airship.

All this to avoid being followed. But it wasn't like she'd feel okay, risking the others. Selphia wouldn't be the same without Amber's bright cheer or Dylas making sure Porcoline's customers actually got their food half the time. Also, it'd be really counterproductive to lose two of Venti's friends in the forest while retrieving another.

As soon as she stepped into the theater, a phantasmal copy of Marionetta cackled and started throwing toys at her. Startled, Frey activated her Escape spell, and found herself standing on the Autumn Road, just a short walk away from the tower.

...Well. That worked out nicely.

For a moment, she hesitated.

Back in Selphia, everyone was probably waking up. Maybe Vishnal would be the first to notice she was gone, or maybe he'd be busy, and her absence could go unnoticed until she came back to town with another new person.

She hoped it was the latter. She liked surprising people.

The others weren't going to be happy with her, once she got back. She wasn't entirely happy with her, now that she realized she'd never really left town on her own. At first, Forte had insisted on accompanying her, and then later, she'd recruited some of her friends to help. She hadn't entirely meant to keep them around like that after retrieving Dolce, but she was perfectly okay with how things had gone.

Amber's ability to fly had helped solve a lot of problems, and Frey and Dylas worked well together. He knew how to get something to hold still, she knew where she had to stand to avoid getting struck by lightning. It worked.

And now she wouldn't have that... or anyone to talk to... and now she had to go face the Gate before she had too many second thoughts.

Once everyone figured out where she'd gone, she'd be in trouble either way. The least she could do was have something to show for it.

Chapter Text

The rain still hadn't stopped yet.

Dylas didn't mind this as much as most people did. It was good weather to collect bait for fishing, though he still preferred to stay inside, and it really was getting rather excessive. And some part of him, a part he tried to squash down whenever it appeared, had a strange appreciation for lightning.

He was also sure Frey didn't mind not having to give her fields as much oversight. While the few Earthmates he'd met before her freely admitted to being better with plants than people, the acting princess had so much on her plate that sometimes she had problems making room for it all.

He had no idea how she did it. And, honestly, he didn't particularly care to find out. Frey was Frey.

What was not Frey, however, was the person who was politely knocking on the restaurant door at six fifty-eight. It couldn't be, because just a week ago, he'd given her a key so that she'd stop picking the lock. And even when she had been in the business of knocking, Dylas couldn't remember her ever doing so in a manner that could be described as polite.

"What is it?" He asked, wondering why one of the castle butlers was standing there when he very well knew that Porcoline's Kitchen didn't open the doors for an hour, and didn't serve food for another two.

"Ah, Dylas, you're here. I was wondering if you had seen the Princess."

"Not since yesterday." She'd come in completely soaked, ordered three whole bowls of stew, and then left. Odds were at least one bowl of that would be lunch on one of their future adventures. That was a thing that tended to happen with food- he remembered being annoyed with her, shortly before they fought Rafflesia, for deciding that lunch would be stale birthday cake. He'd made it for her so that she'd eat it on the day, not hold onto it until right before they fought a demonic flower. "Why?"

"Well, this morning, I got up nice and early, and went to wake her at the same time as always. However, she wasn't in her bed... or the fields. I thought maybe she'd decided to go out with you."

Dylas shrugged. "Well, she hasn't come by yet. Maybe Amber's seen her." Generally, the days when she went to pick up the butterfly girl first were the days that she didn't break in. Probably.

...Okay, so he wouldn't put it past Frey to break into the flower shop. But Illuminata had never run past chasing her, so he'd have to assume that she didn't.

Vishnal nodded. "Yes, that does seem like a good place for us to look next."

"Wait, us? I never agreed to this-!" But the butler had already pulled him out into the storm.

...Well, if he was going to get wet either way... he might as well accomplish something.

"Frey?" Amber tilted her head to the side. "...Nope, haven't seen her since yesterday. She was asking Lumie for flowers that grow well this time of year. Dunno if she had the energy to plant them, with all the magic she was practicing."

Right. The Omnigate spell. She'd been learning it, in order to reclaim anyone lost in-

Dylas shook his head. Tried to get rid of the idea. It wasn't working. He tried to tell himself Frey wouldn't be that stupid.

...She would be. She definitely would.

"Still no clues..." Vishnal sighed.

"That- actually, I- I think I know where she might be." He hoped he was wrong. That she'd just decided to go for a walk on the other side of town, instead of running off to a place full of monsters without any sort of backup. That if he kept looking, eventually someone would have seen her.

But nobody did.

Honestly, he probably should have gone back to the restaurant for lunch, if only to make sure that the customers were actually getting their food. Now that the rain was finally dying down, people were actually willing to go outside again, so odds were Dylas would have had work to do.

So he didn't really have any reason to be in the room with the dragon. Aside from the thought that, maybe, if Ventuswill got up, that meant Frey had succeeded in whatever mad idea had driven her to leave town on her own.

Or maybe it was his own worry. The entire town had been afraid when Ventuswill collapsed. It had just been Frey who was crazy enough to try and think up a plan to help her. In truth, Dylas wasn't sure why he'd latched onto her plan, if you could call it a plan, as tightly as he did. He could understand why Amber had gone along with it- the chances of Amber ever refusing to help her best friend were minuscule. Actually, one could say that for Amber refusing to help anyone.

He just wasn't sure about himself. He'd wanted to help Frey, he'd wanted to help the Native Dragon, he just couldn't understand why. And now Frey was gone, while Venti- and when had he started calling her that? He must have picked it up from Frey- was fast asleep, as though there was nothing wrong in the world.

And he couldn't even be mad at her for it. It wasn't her fault she was sick.

As though sensing his thoughts, the dragon stirred. Dylas wasn't entirely sure what he should do in this situation. Given how important Ventuswill was, someone like him probably shouldn't have been there, right? But... for some reason, he didn't really want to leave.

...Actually, it felt like he should have said something. But he'd never claimed to be any good with words, and he couldn't actually think of anything to say, so he'd just have to hope that silence worked.

"...Where's Frey?" He didn't think anyone currently living in the castle had heard Venti scared like this before. He didn't like it.

"Dunno." He shrugged, trying to pretend the lack of answer didn't bother him. "She... I think she ran off to the Forest." He didn't have to elaborate which one he meant. Not when there was only one forest she'd ever consider going to alone. Hopefully, anyway.

"She what!?" He also hadn't known that dragon voices could get so high-pitched. With his ears, he thought he would have preferred to never find that out. "Why!?"

"She said she was... going to get someone." He still didn't really understand the whole thing, what with how much Frey had refused to tell, but he knew that much, at least.

Ventuswill's reaction was immediate. "That idiot... and she probably doesn't even have a way back." He'd been trying to not to think about that. "At least it's better than... Well." She shook her head. Dylas decided not to ask. "I suppose I should go and retrieve her."

And with that declaration, she unfurled her wings, the action creating a gust of wind that chased away the last of the rain clouds. Dylas couldn't help but feel relieved. Venti would be okay, and if she was going after her, then Frey would be, too. He still didn't have any context for why he felt so glad for the first thing, but that didn't really matter anymore.

Right then, he had work to get to. And maybe he could do something to thank Venti for not leaving Frey in the Forest of Beginnings.

Maybe pancakes?

...Yeah. Pancakes sounded good.

(He eventually did get context. When he did, it came with an entirely new batch of confusion.)

Chapter Text

Of course, the reality of skipping out on farm chores- such as they were- on a stormy morning was that it meant Frey would instead be doing them on a sunny afternoon. This was not inherently a bad thing, even if she'd still had to deal with the rain in the morning anyway, aside from the fact that it meant people would be able to find her.

This, again, was not necessarily a bad thing. Frey liked people well enough, most of the time. And it wasn't exactly a horrific distraction- she could talk and work.

No, the main problem was that, after she'd made an admittedly-questionable decision, everyone who wanted to would be able to track her down and lecture her about it. A list which seemed to include a good half the population of Selphia.

Venti, of course, had already lectured her. Three times. The first time in the Forest, the second right after they got back, and the third wasn't so much of a lecture so much as Ventuswill dressing down everyone who had so much as considered attempting to sacrifice themselves for her in the past, and which had only been fully serious up until Pico started talking, but it still counted. Funnily enough, those had been the easiest ones to deal with.

Volkanon, being himself, had ended up in tears over the very thought that things might not have turned out so well. Vishnal had treated himself not waking up in time to so much as see her off as a personal failing, never mind the fact that that had been her intention. Forte had told her that she would have gone along with her, had Frey thought to do so much as ask.

The worst part was, she was pretty sure that last one hadn't been meant as a guilt trip.

Most of the others, when they inevitably stopped by, weren't quite as terrible. Just a bit of fussing from Nancy, or Clorica trying to get her point across and falling asleep mid-conversation, or her monsters wandering up to her and giving her sad looks for not being there to pet them that morning.

Amber had tackled her to the ground and thanked her for saving everyone. Honestly, that was the most fully positive interaction she'd had with another human being all day. Of course, then she'd almost cried when asking Frey why she hadn't let her help, and she honestly had no clue how to explain the Omnigate issue.

Not that she hadn't tried. It was just that then Amber had asked why she hadn't gotten help from anyone else, and she didn't actually have an answer to that. Other than, maybe, that she didn't really trust anyone else to help her so much, and from the acting Princess, that wasn't the best possible thing to say. Amber had been the worst of all.

Dylas still hadn't shown up yet. Frey wasn't sure what to think of that, because it was hard to tell if he was deliberately avoiding her, simply hadn't thought to approach her yet, or was trying to figure out what he wanted to say, and failing miserably at it. She could easily see all three happening.

Given the direction that he finally approached her from, she ended up adding a few more options- that he'd been too busy dealing with everything else that was happening to bother with her. Or that Venti had distracted him with her happiness at finally having several people to talk to again. Or that she'd attempted to use him to reclaim her dignity.

"So, is it safe for me to go back inside now?" Frey asked. Partly as a distraction, partly because she was running out of seeds to plant and couldn't actually think of anything else to do with her time.

Dylas shrugged, which she took as a sign that maybe she should wait another hour, and maybe not venture back into the dragon room until the next morning. "I think you actually managed to piss her off worse than I ever did."

"...And how bad was that?"

"Well, I managed to lose a fishhook in her feathers, once..." Okay, yes, that did sound like the kind of thing that would annoy her. "She wouldn't talk to me for days after that." That was probably a bad sign.

"...And now she actually has other people to talk to," Frey finished, while using her sword to utterly destroy a weed that popped up within her field of vision. Probably not how swords were meant to be used, but whatever. She'd made it, she could decide what it would be used for. "So I should probably bribe her with fresh veggies."

Or pancakes. But she didn't know how to make pancakes, and while she was sure she could bribe Arthur to help her acquire them with handcrafted glasses, plants were a lot easier. At least, in the castle plot. She'd never really managed to get things to grow elsewhere.

"Is that always your first answer to dealing with people?"

"Name one time that it didn't work." Dylas didn't respond. Frey decided to take that as a sign of her victory. "See? I know what I'm doing."

"No, you don't."

"...Is this going to lead to a talk about this morning? Because I already got that lecture. Several times. You were there for one of them. I get the picture. You're not happy." She sighed and reached up a nearby apple tree, one of the fruits falling into her hand before she could even touch it. "I don't need everyone to make me feel guilty about it."

"Don't scare us like that, then."

"Oh, so you're saying you were scared?" And there it was. Aside from the utter mortification that was the Love Potion Incident, Frey had been a bit too busy with her already-hectic life to focus on those sorts of things, but she'd always found that Dylas was pretty cute when he was flustered.

"That- I- Who wouldn't be?" She didn't really have a good response to that. At least, not that she wanted to admit to being worried about.

But it was good to know. That everyone cared. Not that she didn't have a way to see that every day when she did her princess work, but sometimes the confirmation was better. Especially individually.

Which meant she needed to find a way to make it up to everyone. Even if she purchased as many things as she possibly could... she'd be spending a long time trying to track down apology gifts.

At least it would be good practice for Valentine's Day.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Frey felt it was safe to order from Porcoline when Dylas was out fishing, it was Recipe Bread.

Not that she wasn't keeping him under observation. She needed to learn to mix up spices if she was ever going to branch out into using more than the simplest of cooking utensils, and she wasn't about to jeopardize that by looking away from the biggest glutton in Selphia when he was messing around with the dough. Particularly when such dough was limited supply, and it was impossible to find anything that wasn't Cooking Bread elsewhere.

Seriously. She'd tried. This was why most of her projects in her forge came from experimentation.

When the bread came out of the oven, she just grabbed it from the pan and shoved it in her bag to eat once it cooled off. It was probably a very good thing that she was wearing gloves.

On her way out, however, she noticed a large bar of chocolate in one of the potted plants. "Meg, Porco's been hiding snacks here again."

"...What is it this time?" The music stopped, to be replaced with the sigh of the long-suffering.

"Enough chocolate for a whole cake. I think. Don't quote me on that, I don't actually know how to bake things." Still. Free chocolate. That was never a bad thing. She could just melt it, throw some Heavy Spice in there, and then she'd have the perfect drink for the next big storm. Clearly, this was going to be a good day.

"Nooo!"

"You might as well take it then," Margaret shrugged, ignoring Porco's heartbroken wails. "If he can't keep his food somewhere reasonable... at least the rice was vaguely healthy..."

The door opened. Raven stepped in, and glanced between Porcoline crying out for his lost chocolate, Frey extracting chocolate from a potted plant, and Margaret's bemused expression. "...Is this a bad time?"

"No more than usual," The musically-inclined elf replied. "It's nice to see you, Raven. You don't stop in here very often."

"I'm afraid that I'm not here to eat this time, either. Your sister asked me to bring you something." Margaret accepted the package with an apprehensive look.

"This... won't explode into a cloud of rainbows or something, right?"

Raven seemed to think for a moment, before responding. "I... am not sure. It can be hard to tell with her."

Finally managing to get the chocolate into her bag, Frey started paying a bit more attention to the conversation. "You have a sister, Margaret?"

"Yeah. Her name's Daria. She's... an experience, I haven't visited her in a while... Not since before the Sharance Tree bloomed, at least. Of course, I can't exactly leave..." As one, the three women turned to where Porcoline was slowly coming down from his dramatics.

"That... would be a bad idea, yes."

Frey nodded. "You know he tried to eat bronze once?"

"...Would this be around the same time Dylas had to keep him from actually eating the plates?"

Raven shook her head. "I'm sorry. I keep trying to imagine this, but I can't remember who Dylas is."

"I'm not sure if you've run into him, actually." Margaret reached back, playing a few idle notes on the piano. "He's the one with horse ears. You might remember that, when summer was actually sunny, he went around shirtless all the time?"

"Are you complaining?" Frey asked. Margaret turned to look at her, as though she was looking for something.

"...Oh, that explains a lot."

"What?" Behind them, Raven quietly slipped out the door. "Meg, I'm not sure what you're trying to say."

"You like Dylas."

"That-I-" Okay, was there any way for her to get out of this one? It didn't look like it. "Wh-what makes you say that?"

"You follow him around and throw plates of sliced fish at him."

"That was only the one time! Or... maybe twice... and I guess that time we were separated by a fissure and could only pass food back and forth counts..." This probably wasn't helping her case. "I-I'll just... stop talking now."

Behind the counter, Porcoline let out another pitiful groan. Margaret turned her attention to him. "Porco, you'll survive. It's just chocolate."

Frey took this opportunity to make her escape.

The fact was, any potential romantic inclinations Frey might have towards any of her teammates were hard to pin down, mostly due to the fact that, a week or so ago, a love potion bottle had burst open while in Frey's bag and contaminated all of the food, which they didn't notice until after they'd already eaten lunch.

What followed was a drastically embarrassing afternoon that left the three of them unable to really look at each other for days after the incident, and which made actually sorting out her feelings... difficult.

"And why are you asking me for help?" Barrett leaned back against the airship, looking decidedly unimpressed.

"Because the only fully functional couple in town is sickeningly sweet, I know that you're married, and if I were to ask the ages-old dragon for help, that fact would be all over Selphia within the hour." Venti was a good friend, but she'd talk to Amber, who'd talk to Kiel, and then the whole town would know. There was no other way it could turn out.

"Look, I'm not sure I can help you. Mostly because Alvarna doesn't really do the whole 'dating' thing so much as spending time with someone, and maybe you'll end up deciding to get married eventually."

"Okay, but in that context-"

"It wasn't really anything special. Dorothy walked up to me, sputtered something I didn't quite catch, and then threw some smoked salmon at me. I gave her a salted char the next day, and things just sort of went from there."

"...You know, that might have helped, if not for the fact that the first time I threw sashimi at him was out of spite."

Barrett shook his head and muttered something that Frey decided not to pay attention to. "...Well, in that case, all I can say is that you should spend some more time together, and odds are you'll figure it out. Worked for everyone I know, at least."

Right. And she'd have to hope Margaret didn't mention anything to anyone until then.

...Maybe she should try to convince the elf to take a weekend trip to Sharance. Just long enough to make her forget.

Chapter Text

Frey preferred the mornings when Vishnal didn't take it upon himself to wake her up, because it meant that nobody could stop her from eating whatever she wanted for breakfast. Not that she was generally in the habit of eating unhealthy foods, but sometimes she just wanted a wedge of cheese topped with a freshly-made scoop of strawberry ice cream. Mostly due to wondering what it tasted like.

Admittedly, it had been difficult to scoop the ice cream onto the cheese without the whole thing catching fire, as improvised meals were bound to do, but she'd managed it, and the failures were good for the soil either way, so it didn't really matter.

Well... so long as Creame didn't realize that her milk was being used for this, anyway.

It was a nice, sunny day. Leaves were falling, the lamp grass was growing, and Frey was pretty sure she had enough monster feed to last the rest of the year.

Not that she was going to test it, because it would be a bad idea not to keep growing feed when having monsters was the only reason the fields stayed clear, but maybe she could make a bit more space for carrots or something. As it was, the tomato vines were all clustered in one place, and she didn't feel like going out and fighting more ghosts for seeds, particularly when she kept getting the feeling that something bad would happen as soon as she left town.

Still, it was too early in the morning to be worrying about that stuff, when the daily shipments hadn't even gone out yet.

So, instead, Frey tapped on the side of the barn, and her monsters all gathered in front of her. "Okay. So, by now you should all know what your jobs are. Be extra careful with the tomato plants- the store still won't sell me seeds, so I have no idea when we can get more of them- and the ironleaf I'll be planting, because I'm assured that it'd hurt to step on it. Creame, you might be fine, but we're still not taking any chances, got it?"

The monsters responded with actions that seemed to be vaguely in the affirmative, and she let them set off to do whatever it was they did when they tended the fields.

Like she'd said- they knew what they were doing.

It turned out that one could not walk down the streets of Selphia carrying a crowbar, a shovel, and various acids without attracting some sort of attention. Probably for good reason, and she was honestly surprised that nobody had tried to question her earlier.

"...Frey, what are you doing?"

"Hey, Dylas. I'm trying to help Clorica get a pound cake out of the castle wall. Or, if we can't do that, just get rid of it so it doesn't attract not-Sushi Ants. One or the other."

"...Have you been eating Leon's mushroom soup?"

"...No, and now that you've said that, I don't plan to. Come on, I'll show you."

Just as she'd said, there was, in fact, a pound cake worked into the brickwork of the castle's west wing. Dylas blinked. "How did that even get there?"

Frey shrugged. "I'll tell you if I ever figure it out. It definitely wasn't there yesterday, and I'm going to have to forge a new hoe, after I tried getting it out with the last one."

That explained the splinters on the carpet. And why Clorica seemed to be silently musing on what to do with an oddly-shaped lump of bronze. Dylas assumed that, the next time Frey tilled her fields, it would be with something made of silver. It seemed to be her style.

"Normally, when this sort of thing happens, we ask Mr. Volkanon for help," Vishnal admitted. "But he's a bit... busy now."

"He's making sure nobody tries offering Venti poisoned pancakes," Frey explained. "...And as someone who doesn't have claws that will puncture the syrup bottle, but if anyone asks, it's the first one."

That did explain the crowd leading out of the dragon room with covered dishes. And why so many people had been asking for pancake recipes. Sort of.

...Honestly, the smart thing to do would probably be to avoid the castle for the next few days. Just until... whatever this was... either went away, or it became obvious that it wasn't going to. Preferably the first one.

Several people, when asked to picture a high-quality fishing pole, did not imaging a ball of yarn made from Chipsqueek fur dangling from a blue insect's horn with a few patterns etched on in silver.

Frey thought that these people were terribly unimaginative. Sure, anyone could put something together with a stick and a spider's thread, but it took skill to work together such conflicting ingredients into something of use, let alone one that got such good results.

And her other option had been to replace the fishing line with squid tentacles, which would be great if she were planning on entering a contest purely to catch squid, but not so much if she was planning on using it semi-regularly to catch other things.

Also lying around her forge were a variety of farm tools involving similarly creative ingredients, as well as a sickle she'd made just to round out the set, which would be sold because she found her sword a much more agreeable cutting implement.

Of course, the best way to prove that she had the best equipment was to test it, which she would do first thing in the morning. Right then, she'd exhausted herself, and after the work she'd put in for the day, she clearly deserved a good night's sleep.

Maybe, tomorrow morning, she'd actually eat a decent breakfast.

Chapter Text

Frey wasn’t sure whether people would be able to call her organized. On one hand, materials tended to get scattered everywhere whenever she sat down to work on something for more than a few minutes, and crops in the field generally just went wherever they would fit.

On the other hand, the shelves of her refrigerator were meticulously stocked with items sorted by category, as well as along the lines of any particular temperature needs, and she made sure to mark her calendar with any even semi-important dates coming up so that she wouldn’t forget them.

Of course, the first of those things might have just been because cooking was easily one of Frey’s most dangerous pastimes.

Frey kept her kitchen as clean as she possibly could, because if she didn’t, the different types of ingredients could accidentally be thrown on the wrong workstation, and whatever she was doing would quite literally go up in flames. She had no idea what made food so flammable, particularly when she was just trying to use a knife, but that was just how things worked, so she’d adapted to it.

Not that there were never mishaps. “Wait, don’t-!” She cried, futilely reaching out for the falling strawberry. It landed into rice, and the whole thing caught fire.

Sighing, she put on some thicker, fireproof gloves, quickly knocked the burning mess to the much-less-flammable floor before the fire could spread over her makeshift kitchen, and let it burn itself out as she moved the remaining fruits somewhere a bit more stable.

More specifically, back in the refrigerator. She was getting good at stabilizing dishes so they didn’t blow up in her face when she improvised, but that didn’t matter when it was just going to ignite when her back was turned.

...Maybe she should have stuck to sashimi.

Yokmir Forest was a nice, peaceful place in a land of eternal summer. There was a river that ran through part of it, with a shimmering waterfall, only able to be safely crossed at one particular point. This river was a common gathering place for monsters, with the section near the crossing and the waterfall being used mainly by Orcs.

Well. Most of the time. At the moment, the Orcs were keeping their distance, because the last half dozen had made their approach, only to be sent back to the Forest of Beginnings by a bolt of lightning, and the remaining ones did not wish to follow their example.

WIth all the monsters gone, it was now safe to use the waterfall area as a fishing spot.

Well, all things considered, it would probably be safe anyway. Orc Archers had notoriously bad aim. But it was always best to be safe.

Besides, Amber was grounded at the moment, and the best way to not worry about monsters while still having them around had always been to have her threaten them with heavy objects.

After double-checking to make sure that absolutely no more monsters were in the area, Frey sat down and pulled a blackened lump out of her bag.

“...What is that?” Dylas asked.

“It used to be rice and a strawberry.” She didn’t think she had to explain further. He worked in a restaurant, he had to know about the explosive nature of food items.

“And what are you doing with it?”

“Using it as bait.” Honestly, given that she was working it onto a fishhook, she thought it seemed obvious.

“...You know, this is probably why you never catch anything.” He might have had a point, but the fish weren’t exactly the end goal here.

So she just shrugged at set out the line anyway. “Probably.”

“Which means you shouldn’t be putting it in the river.”

“It’ll be fine. Something always bites eventually.” Which was probably concerning in its own way, but Frey wasn’t going to dwell on that right now. “Besides, reeling in fish cuts into my relaxation time.”

Thinking about it, there was probably a good reason for Dylas to cast his line on the other side of the bridge.

Despite her… unorthodox choice of bait, Frey still managed to reel in a few fish. There was also an oddly-smooth rock that had fallen onto her lap as soon as she got it out of the water, which she thought she could have used for something, but that was… less important.

Honestly, how did she keep pulling up inanimate objects? This rock didn’t even have any cracks or anything for the hook to grab onto!

“One of these days, I’m going to find a way to stop this…” She muttered, though she did keep the rock. She could probably use it for better boots or something. The not rubber kind.

Honestly, she had no idea who kept buying all the garbage she stuffed in the shipping bin, and given the kinds of people she’d met, maybe it was better she didn’t know. The only thing she knew for certain was that she never saw any of those boots again- at least, she hoped she didn’t.

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise her entirely if someone was using all their spare money to mess with her, except that the one person she knew who would do that was Leon, and he hadn’t even been on the same plane of existence as her when this started happening.

“Did you try using actual bait?” Dylas suggested. Frey wondered if shoving him into the river would be a bad idea, and concluded that it would.

“I’m not sure that would make much difference, actually…” It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She’d just kept pulling up cans. “And it’s not like I was ever going to win any contests.”

Dylas, it should be noted, did not contest that fact. “That doesn’t mean you can’t try.”

“I’d be more likely to believe that if I didn’t know you just wanted competition.” With that, she cast her line out again. “It’s certainly too late for my dignity…”

“Oh, Forte!” Frey greeted the knight on her patrol. “How are things going?”

“My brother has not made any sort of attempts to contact Margaret. Is there any particular reason you have told me to keep them separated?”

Frey simply nodded.

“...May I ask what that reason is?”

“No. No, you may not.”

Chapter Text

Frey was not particularly used to being awake in the middle of the night. The way she handled her duties involved rising with the sun, and the best way to avoid fatigue was to go to sleep when she no longer had anything important to do. She was assured that most people had different sleep schedules, but so long as she spent more hours of the day awake than Clorica, she felt she was handling everything pretty well.

There were exceptions, of course. Some festivals required staying out later, or sometimes she had an idea that would slip away if she let it wait, or there was something urgent enough to require spending as much time on it as possible.

And then, of course, there were the times when her best friend snuck into the castle in order to wake her up. “...Amber? Is something wrong?”

It actually took her a few moments to get a response. “Um… not really, but… do you know where I can find an oven?” She was woken up… long after the sun had gone down… for this?

“Can’t this wait until morning?” She grumbled, collapsing back on her pillow.

Amber furiously shook her head. “No! It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and I haven’t made any cookies! Lumie stuffed the oven full of dirty dishes again…”

Frey sighed. Acting princess or not, she was pretty sure this wasn’t her job. “Well, I don’t have one, so I don’t know if I can help you. The only person that I know for sure does is…” She blinked, before pulling out her keychain. “...Well. That’s a lot simpler than I thought it’d be.”

This was not the first time Frey had been in Porcoline’s Kitchen outside of normal business hours. Odds were it wouldn’t be the last, either, so long as she didn’t let Amber burn the place down or anything. It was, however, her first time sneaking in in the middle of the night.

Hopefully, Amber actually knew how to make cookies. Otherwise, this could only end in disaster.

“You have all the ingredients we’ll need, right?” She checked, quietly, so she didn’t wake up any of the people who were supposed to be here.

Amber nodded. “Yep!” And then she pulled out the ingredients. Frey couldn’t remember ever making cookies before, but she didn’t think they’d need that much even if they were baking for literally everyone in Selphia.

“And you have the instructions?” Because that seemed like it would be pretty important.

Those, too, ended up on the counter, draped on top of the bag of flour. Not that this had ever been the most important thing to consider.

No, the biggest problem was clearly that neither of them had ever tried using an oven before. “At least we’ve got the whole night to practice…” Assuming they didn’t just fall asleep in some of the chairs and let everything catch fire. But Frey thought they could avoid that, if only because she had tomatoes on hand and those were supposed to help with staying awake, right?

It didn’t really come as any surprise that they got caught. It wasn’t like they’d been particularly quiet or anything.

“Might I ask what you’re doing here?” Arthur leaned against the doorway, looking for all the world like he hadn’t slept in a week.

Maybe he hadn’t. Frey didn’t know, she wasn’t about to go memorize the entire town’s sleep schedules.

“We’re making Valentine’s cookies!” Amber chirped, brandishing a jar of honey that was probably going to be gulped down before they could add it to the cookies. “But we don’t have ovens we can use, so we have to use yours. That’s okay, right?”

Arthur glanced warily at Frey. “...She talked me into it. And if you didn’t want me coming in at all hours of the night and day, you shouldn’t have let Dylas give me a key.”

“I’m positive you kept breaking in either way.” Which, well, it was true, but she’d never come in long enough to do anything like start cooking before. And she hadn’t really planned to ever do so, but apparently Amber had other ideas.

Still, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with this today. Or ever, come to that. “So maybe I did. But… look. Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll clean up before we leave. It’ll be like we were never here. ...Or, if you have any cookies already made-”

“They’ve been sold out for the past week.” Yeah. Okay. She’d almost expected that.

“All right. Then how about you get some sleep? You look like you’re about to pass out.” Frey snatched away the glass that the sleepy prince was reaching for. “No, you may not have my tomato juice.”

If anything, the biggest surprise was that they didn’t manage to burn down the restaurant.

Porcoline may or may not have been sleep-cooking again.

Dylas wasn’t fully sure, because the kindly glutton hadn’t been in the kitchen in the morning, and there wasn’t much sign of anything being eaten, but the rubbish bin was definitely a lot more full than it had been the previous day.

There were eggshells, old bags that used to contain flour, empty packets of sweet powder… and, for some reason, peelings from potatoes and leaves from at least one daikon radish.

But he didn’t think much of it, because everything still worked fine, and nobody said anything about missing ingredients, and he was honestly more worried about the fact that Arthur was probably going to pass out at his desk in the next day or so, and Margaret was starting to consider slipping wine into his food to make it happen sooner.

“Add it to his tomato juice instead,” Porco recommended. “Otherwise, he’ll just use it to keep himself awake.”

It should probably have been a bit strange that they were plotting to sedate a prince for the sake of his health, but Dylas was still considering the possibility that, at some point in the past couple centuries, the world had just gone insane. It would certainly explain… well, not everything, but still a lot.

Maybe conventional logic would be a bit more useful later.

People around town seemed excited, for some reason. Dylas could vaguely recall it being some sort of holiday, but nothing about it really stuck out to him, so he decided it didn’t matter.

Amber didn’t really clarify things at all, she just flew around throwing flower-shaped cookies at everyone who would take them. He tried to avoid being in Amber’s path. It wasn’t hard, she certainly wasn’t making any special effort to be quiet or anything.

Frey, meanwhile, was impossible to avoid. Like she could always tell where everyone was. She, too, carried a cookie, though this one was so clumsily-shaped Dylas couldn’t tell what it was originally supposed to be.

“I know you don’t really like sweets,” She started, shivering a little as a cold breeze swept through the area. “But it… felt like something I should do, since- actually, never mind the reason. Just… just take the cookie.”

So maybe the way that Frey was acting was the weirdest part of the day. As much as weirdness could be quantified in a town that could possibly have gone collectively insane at some point.

The cookie wasn’t all that sweet, actually. In fact, it tasted more like… daikon radish and potato.

...Well. At least one thing made sense now.

Chapter Text

Festivals, in Frey’s opinion, were a mixed bag.

On one hand, the people living in Selphia just wouldn’t shut up about them when it was almost time for one. Yes, she had a fully functional calendar, she knew full well what events were coming up, she organized them. She didn’t need reminders from the entire populace.

On the other hand, there were usually fun events. Friendly competitions that Frey would inevitably end up taking far too seriously, but she did enjoy winning. And she won, a lot.

There was exactly one exception. Or, rather, one category of them.

Frey had never been all that great at fishing. And she’d accepted that, she really had, but the contests just highlighted it, time and time again. And being second to Dylas wouldn’t be so bad, except that not even that was a sure thing.

Third place. She put in as much effort as she possibly could, and still, consistently, third place.

“As long as you can keep catching things, you should be fine.” Margaret waived off her concerns as if they didn’t even matter. “No matter how many anyone catches, all that matters is the variety, and it’s not like you can control that. You’re stuck with just as many types of fish as everyone else.”

Frey got an idea. She wasn’t sure how good it was, but even her terrible ideas tended to turn out well enough, recently. “Right… All I have to do is catch as many kinds of fish as I can during the contest, right?”

The elf nodded. “Yeah… It’s too bad we couldn’t have had this while it was warmer out. There’d be a lot more different kinds of fish then.”

“...I see.” The fishing ponds were relatively safe, right? And the amount of time it would take to direct an airship between them… She had her strategy.

“So, what do you think?”

“Well, the rules do allow it…” Ventuswill admitted. “Technically. Then again, you could probably convince the whole town to wear swimsuits while it’s freezing out if you wanted to…”

Frey blinked. “That’s a very specific example.”

“The princess before you had some very… interesting ideas,” The dragon stated. “Not that she could ever get the support she needed for them. And then she vanished after a year or so.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do not follow her example.”

“...The swimsuit part, or the running away part?”

“Both!”

Okay, but at least she didn’t have any major objections about the fishing plan. And that, to Frey, was the most important part.

“All right, then.” Honestly, if Venti hadn’t brought it up, she would never have even considered the possibility. So she could discard it without thinking about it too much. “I wasn’t really considering it, anyway. Either of them. One would probably make everyone hate me, and the other…” Where else would she go? All she knew of the world outside Selphia came from other people. “It’s just not an option. Besides, leaving town would mean missing all the festivals.” And she’d put effort into some of those festivals.

As a matter of fact, she was in the middle of planning to put more effort into a festival than it really warranted, but that was a minor detail.

“Yes, we all know how much you love the festivals. Particularly with the effort you go to in order to win them.” Frey winced. It seemed they were back on that subject again. “Though I guess with this kind of contest, it’s a bit more understandable… Though you don’t need to jump through all those hoops just to impress Dylas.”

“...Have you been talking to Margaret?” It came to mind that maybe she should have just asked Forte to stop anyone from interacting ever, but she didn’t think she had enough cake for that.

“Amber, actually.” How did Amber know? Frey’s confusion must have shown on her face, because Venti continued. “She couldn’t seem to decide if you were trying to be subtle about it or not. I told her you were probably just oblivious and asked if she wanted me to leave the two of you on an island someplace until you sorted things out, but she said no.”

Somehow, Frey didn’t think that would have helped at all. Odds were it would have turned into an extended fishing trip while she continually tried to get whatever soil there was to support onions, carrots, and strawberries.

“Y-yeah, maybe don’t do that.” Would there be a good way to swear her to silence that didn’t involve pancakes? Probably not. She’d just have to hope Venti never told anyone.

Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d be able to think of something after the contest.

There was very little that could not be found on the Selphia Plains. Ores were scattered about, colored grasses grew everywhere, and just about any kind of monster was available if one looked long and far enough.

And, of course, there was water. Ponds and lakes, wide rivers, the moat placed just outside the gates to ward off wall-climbing monsters… water deep enough to fish in was never more than a brisk jog away.

Frey didn’t have any intention of sticking to a brisk jog today. She was fishing on a time limit, after all. And besides, why go to the trouble of learning to fly an airship if she wasn’t going to use it?

...Of course, even this strategy would only work when the fish were actually biting. And when she wasn’t getting tangled up in her fishing line, trying to grab the bait from the jar she knocked over before it ran away, or trying to keep monsters away from her current fishing spot of choice.

At least she was far enough from town that she didn’t have to worry too much about litter.

“That’s it. I give up.” Frey sat down on the stairs next to Dylas, who had stopped fishing for exactly as long as it took for the results to be announced, and not a second more. “You win. Forever.”

“You didn’t do that badly…” Well, yes. She’d actually managed to make second place this time. But at a certain point, she had to accept that was the best she was ever going to get. And Frey had honestly reached that point a while ago.

“Maybe not, but… I don’t know. I mean, I like these contests as much as anyone. It’s just that not all of us became fishing masters in order to feed a growing addiction to sashimi. Speaking of which...” She was getting better at this. She’d actually remembered to keep her dish of choice at the top of her bag this time.

Frey wondered if it meant something that, despite how many times they’d done this, Dylas’ eyes still lit up every time she offered him food.

“That’s… rainbow trout, right?”

She nodded. “Eat at your own risk, of course. I managed not to set it on fire, but given how I got instructions from Leon, I’m not sure all the poison was removed.” Which was why she was eating a fruit sandwich instead. The only way she’d poison herself with that was if things had gone very wrong somewhere.

“...Wouldn’t be the first time.” Was she supposed to find that concerning? She probably was. But he was eating it, and she considered that to be a good sign. “Thanks.”

Yeah. Definitely a good sign.

There was something else she would have liked to say, but… it didn’t seem to matter, right then. So, instead, she remained sitting there with him and watched the fish shadows dart around beneath the water.

Chapter Text

It was, Frey realized, a good thing she’d decided to dedicate the day to crafting. Partly because she currently had a large variety of potential material to use in her endeavors, but mostly because there was currently a typhoon raging outside the castle walls.

It wasn’t even entirely a surprise. They’d been overdue for a storm, sort of, in the sense that it hadn’t really rained since the last one finally cleared up. Still, if she wasn’t lucky, this was probably going to kill off the rest of her tomatoes.

She wasn’t going to let that get to her, though. She sat by her crafting spaces, preparing to create a masterpiece the likes of which Selphia had never seen before. ...Well, probably. How many other people would be able to claim the same kinds of inspiration, let alone the ability to pull it into reality?

She winced as a loud crack indicated yet another large branch had been set against the castle wall by the wind. Yet again, the branch lost.

Understandably, Frey did not expect to be seeing anyone today, aside from maybe one of her overly-dedicated butlers. She wasn’t fully sure how this storm compared to the last one, but it was enough that going anywhere near the castle fields was probably a bad idea.

So she settled down, fully intending on getting lost in her work. The Handicraft Contest was fast approaching, and she refused to present anything less than her best.

A metal base would work nicely, she thought. A basic silver pendant, full of potential to become anything and still worked into a shape all its own, able to turn into something else but at the cost of everything that had made it special.

It would be a significance the likes of which nobody would ever see, because of course they wouldn’t know the thoughts she had put into it. And she couldn’t even be sure how it would turn out, because of course she hadn’t started yet. But it was a good point to begin with.

She settled down with her breakfast and began the arduous task of picking out the perfect piece of silver.

There were several things Dylas could be sure he knew about Frey.

The first, and most obvious, was that she probably had some sort of repressed anger issues. Nobody in their right mind would spend six hours ensuring hard-grown ingredients were varying degrees of scorched before going out and catapulting them at defenseless Cluckadoodles, after all. Or decide that the best pastime for an afternoon was running through a massive cavern after an imaginary Chipsqueek. And he had his suspicions about the rumors drifting around Selphia about tiny bird attacks, but that bit, at least, had never been confirmed.

It probably would be. Frey was many things, but subtle had never exactly been one of them.

Of course, nobody ever said anything about it. She was the princess, and she’d, for the most part, figured out to limit the ways she worked out her aggression to the monsters. And it wasn’t like Dylas had never enjoyed watching a water-aligned monster spell out their own downfall just because they never realized a human who controlled lightning could actually exist. Or lightning magic in general, it wasn’t common in Norad. But that wasn’t the point.

The second thing was that there were only two things that could keep her from running around and greeting everyone in town: inclement weather and crafting projects. Both of which were entirely likely to be the reason he hadn’t seen her that day, and he wouldn’t be overly surprised to learn that the first one, most of the time, turned into the other within an hour.

The third, and currently the most important, was that when Frey was in the middle of one of her big projects, she would only snap out of it if she was hungry or it was time to sleep. And she had a lot of big projects, because of course she’d never stand for the gear she used to fight monsters being anything but the best.

Or the gear for Dylas, or Amber, and of course they all had to be different, and she’d come out of the castle a week later exhausted but bearing gifts of varied accessories, boots, and hats. Almost exactly a week. They marked their calendars with it and everything.

Frey wasn’t going to be coming out of whatever her next project was- and of course there was a project, just a slight mention of the Handicraft Contest was enough for her eyes to actually start sparkling- until… actually, until probably the day of the upcoming event.

That was a long time to go without seeing Frey. Not when she normally ran around town, talking to anyone and everyone she came across, doing favors for people, and just being a visible presence in Selphia. It made people worry.

If anyone were to ask, Dylas would deny that was why he was sorting out kinds of fish that could go together without blowing up. He would be lying.

“I don’t think anyone here ordered a seafood gratin,” Margaret commented, drifting over from the piano. Which was true. There were exactly no customers at the moment. Amber and Kiel had dropped in for a bit earlier- the only reason nobody thought they were dating was because, if they were, it would be over the whole town by now- but the place was, once again, deserted. Probably because everyone had the sense not to go outside in this weather. “...Please don’t feed it to Porco.”

Of course not. He knew better than that. Porcoline already ate enough for the rest of Selphia. “I’m not letting him anywhere near it.” Or near the pancakes that were cooling down nearby.

Porcoline, for those wondering, was currently in the back of the kitchen eating the entire stock of grilled seafood. And not-so-grilled. It’d be slightly worrying if he didn’t have the same resistance to food poisoning as Leon did. Which was, admittedly, still worrying, but in a very different way.

“All right then.” Hearing that, he made the mistake of letting his guard down. “...So, it’s for Frey, then?”

It was a testament to Dylas’ composure and self control that the general restaurant area did not explode into flames. “What makes you think that?”

“Because there’s only five people you actually approach outside of work, and most of them are in this building?” It was actually a bit more than that, but now didn’t seem like a good time to argue with her.

Particularly not when it seemed like she was winning.

Crafting was difficult.

Frey knew not everyone would agree with her on that. They’d talk about how she made it look easy, just how much she managed to produce. In return, she would have wanted to point out that she spent more time trying to bring new equipment into shape than she spent in her fields. Because she had standards, and would not stop working until she’d met them.

That her standards were significantly higher than most would have never crossed her mind. She loved working with difficult materials. How else would she be able to give her products their unique properties?

She knew she had to take breaks, of course. Often, Vishnal or Clorica would come by with food, right when she’d finished with a particularly finicky piece and could use a bite to eat. She had no idea how they knew she needed it, but decided to attribute it to Volkanon. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d done something that should have been impossible… or the second… Or any point before she’d stopped counting. There were some things she just didn’t need to know.

Today, however, the butlers were nowhere in sight. Probably because of the weather. Even going through the dragon room meant getting soaked to the bone, despite Venti’s best attempts to shield any would-be visitors.

Frey didn’t expect company. What she expected was to be left alone, to figure out just what of the vegetables lining her fridge went well enough together to eat, and maybe to go to bed early while dreading the fate of her poor crops and hoping her monsters had the sense to stay inside.

After all, if the impatient knocking at the entrance to her wing of the castle was anything to go by, at least one person around her didn’t.

“I hope you have a good reason for being out in this weather.” Really, last time it had taken a week for the plaza to start flooding, and that was without wind. It just didn’t seem safe to be outside at the moment. “And don’t say you were fishing. I know you know better than that.”

“...I brought food?” Dylas offered, as if that in any way made up for the water still dripping from his ears. Even if it was, arguably, less dangerous than fighting some of the monsters they’d come across…

She sighed, taking in the covered dish he was carrying. “I suppose it is about time I ate something…” Even if it didn’t excuse going out in what would probably be the worst storm of the season, if not the year. “Hold still, I’ll get you a towel.” She knew it wouldn’t completely dry him off, but it was better than leaving a trail of water all over the floor.

Besides, it’d make him less likely to try leaving in this weather, and given that the wind seemed to be trying its hardest to uproot Frey’s entire orchard… It was for the best, really.

It wouldn’t be too distracting. The next adjustments she planned on making were so simple she could do them with her eyes closed.

After a couple more hours, during which Dylas had been given a few mugs of hot milk and told to sit by Frey’s crafting area, the princess’ attention had apparently moved from whatever she was doing with the pendant, which now had a blue webbing across the face, to one of the paper maps of Selphia that Blossom liked to hand out to tourists.

“It might be faster if I started from there, actually…” Dylas had no idea where she’d gotten a crayon from, but that probably wasn’t the thing to ask about.

“What are you…?”

“I’m trying to figure out the fastest way to gather the last of the materials I need. I shouldn’t have to go farther than the mansion, but it’s not exactly the work of a day.” Somehow, she seemed to be more concerned about this than the fact that she’d probably have to replant her whole field.

A lot of the circles she was drawing appeared to be centered around Yokmir Forest. In fact, Dylas knew they’d walked that distance several times. “...Why not just start from the town?”

“That… I guess it’d work, but…” The section of the map where the gate was had been scribbled on so thoroughly as to be unrecognizable. “...Actually, yeah, I guess it’s as good an idea as any.” This didn’t appear to calm her down much at all. “...Is something wrong?”

“...No. No, it’s fine. I’m just going to walk out of the town gate tomorrow… and everything will be just fine.

Everything was not ‘just fine.’

Chapter Text

Late in the evening, Frey smiled, holding her latest masterpiece up to catch the moonlight. Under it, the silver almost glowed, even broken up as it was by pale blue strands and the occasional gemstone. The chain links were made of alternating types of metal, though there was still more silver than anything else.

It was the night before the festival, the night before she would be subjecting this piece to everyone else, to see what they thought of it, to be judged in comparison to everyone else’s work, and she was finally satisfied that this was the best that she could create.

This was also the point where she realized how tired she was. She’d been working on this for so long, she’d started to run out of food. And, of course, she’d been putting off sleep so she could have everything absolutely perfect.

The shape had been the hardest part. It still wasn’t quite what she’d wanted at the start of it, but she’d managed to make it look like something other than a perfect circle, and that, she felt, was a good start.

Slipping the pendant into her bag, where it would stay until it was time to present her entry for the contest, Frey decided that now would be as good a time as any to go to sleep.

It probably said something about how long she’d been working that she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Victory, supposedly, tasted like Prelude to Love.

Or, rather, it would if Frey showed any interest in actually consuming her prize. “This sort of thing sells for a lot, right?”

Dylas thought back to the price he’d seen on the restaurant’s menu the one time Porcoline had managed to make some of it and not gulp it down immediately after. There weren’t as many zeroes involved as some of the flowers he’d seen in the shop, but as far as fruit drinks went... “You’d sell it either way, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” She agreed. “It’s just nice to know where all of my money comes from. Can’t do that without some sort of price tag.”

“...You know, most people eat the stuff they get from these things.” In response, Frey brandished a half-eaten loaf of Accessory Bread. “...Do you really need more of that?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. I guess it depends on if Idra Cave actually does have gold in it or not. I’m running out of things to make with silver.” Like those creations themselves hadn’t already proven themselves extraordinary, contest or no contest.

Or maybe it was just the person who made them. Even her weapons, creations of necessity more than anything else, just had something about them that set them apart, more than even the vines that wrapped around them or the fangs lining the edges.

“I’m sure you could think of something.” The shop she ran during festivals was more than just a food stall, even if most of what Dylas heard about it was that there were really good sandwiches.

He hadn’t visited it himself. It would have been too awkward.

“And that gets even easier when I have Accessory Bread!” Frey finished, ripping off another bite-sized portion of her current loaf. “...Oh, and speaking of accessories…” She fumbled about with her bag for a few moments, before withdrawing her hand with the pendant that had won the contest. “Look! What do you think?”

The object sparkled in the sunlight, holding more colors than anyone would have expected to see, if they’d been told what the base was. If Dylas hadn’t known Frey was even less capable with most kinds of magic than he was, he would have been certain it was enchanted. As it was, he still had yet to discard the possibility.

There wasn’t really any way for him to describe it. “...It’s nice, I guess.” She brightened up immediately, so it was clearly the right answer.

“Oh, good! I’m glad you like it.” And then she was handing it over to him, for some reason. “I want you to have it.” Okay, that was a reason. And it was far from the first time she’d said that sort of thing to him.

It was just that, most of the time, the things she gave him were simpler. Food, boots bound together with string from various sources, a charm that he kept in his pocket. Not what was currently the most celebrated pendant in all of Selphia.

“You… really?” Surely she had to have a better idea of what to do with it than to just give it to him.

Frey nodded. “Of course! I made it for you, after all.”

This, also, was not an unusual response to hear from Frey. While her crafts could have easily supplemented whatever she made by farming- not that it would ever be necessary, with all the ingredients Porcoline needed- most of her creations ended up being given away to other people.

Mostly him and Amber. While her creations were never obviously magical, they certainly did something to assist on the field of battle, even as Amber walked around with an oddly-shaped lump of metal that let her smack monsters into walls.

But that still didn’t change that this was easily the fanciest gift Dylas could remember ever receiving. Frey was not an extravagant person, he was seventy-five percent sure she was the one running around attacking people with birds, and the only reason it wasn’t a hundred percent was because there were a lot of people who came through Selphia. Things like this just didn’t happen.

“Isn’t this… a bit much?” He’d never had anything like this before.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as being too safe. Come on, take it. It’ll be a waste of materials otherwise, this stuff’s rare.” He couldn’t even argue with that. Not when he had a very good idea of where the electric-blue thread webbing the pendant’s surface came from, even if he didn’t know how she’d still had any of it on hand.

His theory was confirmed the second his hands made contact with the pendant, a slight tingle as the lightning in his veins recognized a piece of its source. “Thanks… I guess. Still don’t get why you’d be giving me something this nice, but...”

“It’s because I love you.” For the most part, the square fell silent. If Dylas had cared to listen, he would have heard Illuminata saying something along the lines of “Finally!” as money started to be exchanged. Frey, meanwhile, was doing an excellent job of copying the little sapphires dotting the edges of the pendant. “I… said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Y-yeah. You did.” Even if he still wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, because that was something he’d never expected to hear from anyone. “Do you really…?” He didn’t really need to finish the question. He could get a pretty good answer just from how much she was blushing.

“Y-you don’t have to say anything. I mean, this is… probably really sudden, and maybe it’s not the best time for this, and- I have to sort out my shipping bin! I’ll see you later!” And then she grabbed her stuff and ran into the castle, door loudly slamming shut behind her.

...So. That happened.

Kiel blinked. “...You mean they aren’t together already?”

Amber shook her head. “No, but I’m sure they will be! Dunno how this didn’t happen sooner, they’re not exactly hiding that they like each other.” Really, she’d figured it out back when they were exploring the Delirium Lava Ruins, what took them so long?

Chapter Text

“Why did I do that!?”

Frey was aware that anyone who saw her at the moment would probably be concerned, what with how she was attacking her bed with a sword, but she had reasons that also probably wouldn’t reassure them- her bed was incredibly sturdy, and this wasn’t her best sword.

“Just… just go say it straight out, why don’t you? Out in public. And then just run away, because why not? Stupid!”

“Um… Princess?”

Frey paused in her impromptu sword practice. “Vishnal? Is something wrong?” She wasn’t sure if he’d been in the square earlier, but even if he hadn’t, Volkanon would have to have told him something by now, if no one else did. This was a town filled with horrible gossips.

“I… feel like I should be asking you that question.” She couldn’t tell what emotion it was on his face, but he was clearly feeling something. “We’re all worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” She lied, still eying the seeming-indestructible piece of furniture. Would Vishnal have a problem with her stabbing it in front of him? Probably.

“...I’m not sure you’re fine,” He replied. “...Clorica told me about what happened earlier.”

Of course. Because it was impossible to keep anything a secret in this town. Between Kiel, Illuminata, and Ventuswill, every piece of juicy information was circulated around in an instant. It was honestly pretty impressive, when it wasn’t being turned against her. “Does everyone in town know?”

She didn’t really need an answer. There was only one thing it could be.

“...Lady Ventuswill hasn’t woken up today?” Vishnal sounded uncertain about this. Why did he sound uncertain about this? “...At least, I don’t think she has…”

She probably hadn’t. Frey couldn’t imagine her keeping quiet about this. “You’re not helping.”

“...Would you like me to see if we have any tea somewhere?”

“...That’d be nice.”

When Vishnal returned, he brought Clorica with him, as well as enough tea for the three of them. It was easy for Frey to tell which one was hers- she’d had breakfast with the butlers enough times to know what everyone’s preferences were.

Honestly, even if this had been the first time, she was pretty sure she would have been able to make a good guess who the apple tea belonged to. Clorica was predictable like that.

“I’m not sure… a lot of people have left the square yet,” The narcoleptic butler stated, taking a sip of her tea. “They’re all too interested in what happened earlier.”

Great. More reason for Frey not to leave her wing of the castle for at least the next century. “This isn’t making me feel any better, you know…”

“Is there anything that would make you feel better?” Vishnal asked.

If she thought about it? Mostly, she just wanted to bury herself underneath a rock and then never come out. Sadly, living beneath a rock would not be conducive to getting anything done as princess, so she was forced to give it up as a lost cause. Besides, that’d probably be really lonely. “...Could everyone just forget today ever happened?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Was it really that bad?” Clorica questioned. “Everyone seemed… more surprised, than anything. But not really. Most of us… saw it coming…” She yawned, and settled back a bit. Frey heavily suspected that she’d be sleepwalking out of the room.

“Dylas didn’t.” And that was the big, important thing. That she’d said it too early, before she was ready, ran away straight after, and probably ruined everything in the process.

“Princess, with all due respect, Dylas has the communication skills of a head of lettuce.”

“...If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working.” She knew he wasn’t the best person in the world at talking, that was why she’d planned never to say anything! They could have just spent the next year or so doing what they’d been doing, and maybe one day she would have either gotten over her crush, or actually figured something out.

“Please just… talk to him…” Clorica would definitely be sleepwalking out of the room later. Odds were that even locking the door wouldn’t stop her.

Frey would know. She had tried. At this point, it was safe to say that ‘checking to see if the person she’s talking to is still awake’ was a thing that was just going to keep happening.

Admittedly, at this point, it would have been kind of weird if it wasn’t.

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

“Please just talk to her…” Margaret groaned, slumping over against the piano. “I promise it won’t ruin everything.” That was easy for her to say. She wasn’t involved.

“You don’t know that.” Dylas knew he was no good with words. And yet, somehow, what pushed Frey away from him hadn’t been from his actions at all. “She… probably didn’t mean it like that, anyway…”

“...We’re talking about the same Frey, right?” The musician checked, a few more notes playing as she made the effort of looking up at him just enough to look unimpressed with him. “Earthmate? Princess of Selphia? A crush on you big enough you can see it from the Fenith Isles?”

Dylas had no idea where the Fenith Isles were. At the moment, he was fairly sure that he didn’t want to ask. “I- I don’t think-”

“She’s not wrong,” Arthur interjected. He was apparently trying to eat, work, and engage in conversation at the same time. It wasn’t going well. “Frey is clearly incredibly fond of you. If you ask anyone else in town, they’d say the same.”

Well, maybe everyone else in town was just seeing things. He had no clue what Frey could possibly see in him. She was Selphia’s beloved princess, with a kind word for everyone and more skills than most people would know what to do with. He was… just a guy who liked to fish and stumbled over his words a lot.

The music stopped. “Look, my sister liked a guy, once. She’d write to me about him all the time. And I always asked, ‘have you talked to him about it yet?’ And she always just brushed me off. So the guy started dating Raven, and Daria was over for a whole week sulking. I don’t think that’s a problem you’re going to have, but you could try and do better than her, because at least you know you have a chance in the first place.”

This was the most that Margaret had shared about her family ever. Usually, if it wasn’t in the most recent letter, it didn’t exist. As far as Dylas could tell, that was normal for people who had family out of Selphia. The only thing he’d heard about the de Sainte-Coquille family from Porcoline himself was that one of his nephews had recently decided he wanted to become an architect.

Apparently, the only things anyone discussed about their families was career prospects and romantic failures. Or maybe that just said more about Margaret and Porcoline. “Do I really?”

“You do as long as you’re not an idiot about it.” Considering the events of that afternoon, this was not reassuring. “And she already likes you, so it’ll be hard to be that much of an idiot about it. You just need to talk to her.”

…They were going to keep bothering him about it until it happened, weren’t they? “Do you guys have money on this, or something?”

“Not personally,” Arthur reassured him. “I am, however, aware of at least five separate betting pools.”

So no matter what happened, the whole town would know about it by the end of the week. Good to know.

In that case, there wasn’t much point in not trying. They’d be talking about it either way. That was as relieving as it was irritating.

At least that gave him a plan for tomorrow. It wasn’t like they’d be getting to Sercerezo Hill, let alone the depths of Idra Cave, with that hanging over their heads, anyway.

And even that assumed anyone intended on giving him the choice.

There was an open question of, after doing something embarrassing in public, how long it would take to be able to show her face again. Frey hadn’t considered it before. That was a worry for people who were more easily embarrassed.

Still, as a princess, she’d have to face the world regardless.

Including the fact that Dylas was standing right outside the door to her fields. If it was the front door, that would have been fine, she only used it half the time anyway. But of course he knew that, so of course he’d be waiting by the door she was guaranteed to pass through.

He was wearing the pendant she’d given him. She couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not.

Accepting defeat, she opened it. They spent a long moment just blinking at each other. The cold autumn breeze somehow made it more awkward. “Y-you should probably come inside,” She stammered out, as much from her nerves as the cold. “We should, um… we should talk.” Was this why Vishnal hadn’t woken her up this morning? Had he seen Dylas walking through the fields and left her to her fate?

“...Yeah. Margaret’s not letting me back in the restaurant otherwise.” It wasn’t any easier being inside with the door closed. But there was no wind to highlight how long they were taking, and that might have been an improvement somehow. “You might have noticed, I’m… not very good at talking to people.”

In this case, that didn’t seem to matter. Apparently, Frey wasn’t much better, or this would have been settled yesterday. “I know.” After this long, it would have been weirder if she didn’t notice.

“And I don’t know… how to talk about this.”

“You’re doing better than I was.” By virtue of not immediately turning and running away, but still.

Somehow, she still didn’t expect the next thing he said. “Did you mean it?”

“I did.” It had come out too easily, too simply to be anything else. Like it had been the only thing she could say.

“Even knowing that I- I stumble over words, and I can’t get out anything I want to say, and I keep charging ahead like- like some kind of reckless-” Okay so maybe he wasn’t that much better than her. The bar was just so low it didn’t matter.

“Even then. Maybe especially then.” She hadn’t exactly taken the time to add up all his qualities and how much she liked them individually. She just knew living in Selphia wouldn’t feel right without him there. “This… isn’t how I wanted any of this to go.”

“How did you want it to go?” Dylas asked.

If only she knew. At this point, Frey was certain she’d never done anything like this before Selphia, because even forgotten, it would have kept her from being so bad at this.

At the very least, she knew she couldn’t admit to never wanting to say anything. “I wouldn’t have said it in front of so many people. It would have been just the two of us.” Like it was right now. Like it could have been at any time, if she’d just made the effort. “That’s… about as far as I ever got. I wasn’t thinking about what came next.”

Apparently, what came next was a hug tighter than Amber would ever have the upper body strength for, no matter how hard she tried. “...Then… if you meant it… could you say it again?” It was the best answer he’d ever be able to give. That he’d reached out to touch her said more than his words ever could.

She thought she meant it a bit more than she had yesterday. It was, at least, a bit easier to say when it was muffled by his jacket. “I love you.”

She’d have to rework her entire plan for the day again. At least this time it was for a good thing.

Chapter Text

Thankfully, Amber did not need to beat either of her friends over the head with the fact that they were clearly in love. That was something she’d been worried she’d have to do for a while.

Ambrosia was sure it would have been funny. She might have been right, after enough time passed. Time they didn’t have, because if they were busy fumbling around romantically, they wouldn’t be able to help Ven.

Fun was less important than Ven. It always had been.

“So they did have feelings for each other! Another case solved!” Lumie declared, as if that had ever been any sort of a mystery.

Maybe it had been, to her. She liked being a great detective more that she liked listening to gossip. Even though that was the best way to learn things, and wasn’t that the point of being a detective? Or did she just like the style?

…It was, admittedly, a very nice style. “Have you ever been in love, Lumie?”

“Oh, a few times, here and there.” She was sorting through a drawer of seed bags. Somehow, they kept getting mixed up despite neither of them ever touching them. It couldn’t even be blamed on Frey’s inability to recognize flowers, because she always just stood at the counter and requested the seeds she wanted. “By the time you’re my age, you’ll know everything about the kinds of people you like.”

Technically, Amber was older than her. But thinking about that made her feel sad, so she didn’t think about it. “Really? Then why don’t you-?”

The drawer closed. “I said I liked them. I never said they liked me.” Oh. That made sense. “There’s so many people who owe me money about this…”

So this was back to Dylas and Frey. Except Lumie hadn’t been part of the girls’ betting pool. “Really? Who?”

“You probably wouldn’t know them, it’s just some of the people who live on the Way… unless you got your fortune told at any point? You’ve been down by the Water Ruins, right?”

She had. It hadn’t been her getting her fortune told, though. She thought the idea was fun, but hadn’t figured out anyone to do it with. Or who could do the reading, because she wasn’t sure it was worth the walk. Apparently the readings weren’t very consistent?

She’d worry about that later. Right now, she needed to tell everyone that Frey and Dylas had figured themselves out, and there was no need to set up any surprises to force the issue. And they definitely didn’t need to be stranded on any islands.

…She missed Ven.

Still, even if she couldn’t talk to Ven, she could talk to Clorica! Her room got some really nice sunlight at this time of day, and there would be plenty of apple pie.

Besides, they both had plenty of reasons to want to talk about this. “I’m glad they worked it out.” Two plates were set down on the table, each holding a delicious slice of pie. “When she talked to me about it, she seemed convinced that she didn’t have a chance.”

That was weird. Amber always thought Frey was smart.

But then, she couldn’t identify flowers, either, despite being an Earthmate. So it wasn’t her worst blind spot. “Why would she think that?”

“I don’t… really know…” Clorica yawned even as she picked up her fork. “I think it’s just… the way it happened. In front of everyone.”

Coward, Ambrosia whispered. She wasn’t wrong, but Amber was choosing to ignore that.

Besides, that might not have been anything to do with Frey, really. Dylas wasn’t great with crowds, either. “That wouldn’t make him not like her, though.” And Frey was easy to like. She knew everyone in Selphia’s favorite foods, even if she wasn’t very good at making them. Even if she’d once somehow exhausted herself blending fruit.

Blending fruit was not a high energy task. Amber was pretty sure Clorica had done that in her sleep a few times. Frey, meanwhile, had looked like she was on the verge of collapse.

…It might have been a good idea for her to see someone about that. But suggesting that wasn’t anything Amber knew how to do. The last time one of her friends had persistent energy problems, her part in helping was agreeing to be fused with a caterpillar. It could not be understated just how little that applied here.

“I don’t think Frey knows how relationships work. She didn’t really know anything… when she got here…” Oh, right, the amnesia thing. Despite how they’d bonded over it, it was getting easier and easier to forget.

Maybe because it doesn’t apply to us anymore? Ambrosia suggested.

Maybe. But now Amber was going to be thinking about it all day. Possibly until Frey had the new equipment ready to take into Idra Cave.

…That just meant she needed to find other things to focus on! Kiel was good at learning all sorts of stuff, maybe he had an idea! She’d have to go ask him about it!

Just… once she was finished with this pie.

Ambrosia was convinced Kiel was going to talk his way into an early grave. “I guess the whole town knows by now?”

“They were going to, anyway. They all saw the festival.” He ran a finger along the tomes on his bookshelf. “What sort of things do you want to read?”

Amber shrugged. She was focused more on what she didn’t want to think about. “I guess… do you have any nice stories? They don’t make the books I used to like anymore.” She hadn’t minded, at first. She wasn’t a big reader.

But she was starting to forget the stories she’d grown up with, and she hadn’t found anything to remind her. Even if it wasn’t the same story, as long as there were stories, it’d be something, right?

“Do you like reading about knights?” She didn’t have an answer for that. “Some of them have princesses in them, too…”

“Princesses like Frey?”

Kiel shook his head. “If they were, those knights wouldn’t have a job. She’s sort of the opposite of what books made me think.”

So, if she was reading them, she probably wouldn’t be thinking of Frey, and anything that might have been wrong there. Or about Ven, and how when things went wrong, they did it so quickly there was only one option she could see. She could just read, and surround herself with pretty flowers, and eventually things would work out.

Probably in the form of Frey showing up with equipment covered in sapphires and menacing with monster claws, but she couldn’t have everything.

Chapter Text

When Frey was using the forge, she had to keep her window open. While the forge’s chimney would pump out most of the smoke, the heat left inside was enough it needed a cold breeze to counter it. She didn’t really mind, because it meant she could hear all the interesting things that happened right outside.

Like… whatever Amber and Clorica were doing with Doug. They were cheering, and marching away with a purpose, and hopefully it wasn’t going to end badly. Doug had just been released from the clinic. This wasn’t something where things needed to get worse.

If they did, she was sure she’d hear about it later. For now, she needed to focus on her forge, and what she wanted to make, and not turning these rare and valuable elemental crystals into scrap metal.

She was working with the wind element today. She’d found a large cache of the crystals while mining for emeralds, so it was convenient. The alternative was tracking down the right kind of Gate, and hoping the runes collapsed in exactly the right way, and that the resulting crystal was of reasonable size.

A fun adventure, if she had the free time. But she didn’t, so Wind Crystals it was.

Vishnal stopped by early on with breakfast. “Do you know what Clorica and the others were doing earlier?” She asked. “I saw them go off together, but…”

“They said something about being… the Get It Together Squad?” He sounded just as confused as she’d been. “I’m glad she’s found something where she wants to give it her all. It’s just… a shame that it was on her day to do the shipping.”

So he’d be right off to do that, then. “Well, if you see them, tell Amber I’ve got a new hat for her.” That part of things had been much simpler. She’d had a lot more chances to practice. “...The weapons might take another day or so.” The prospect of a wind-infused sword was taunting her.

The lightness, the ease of cutting through the air, the power to slice through earth-aligned monsters like butter… What more could a person want?

…Simplicity in creation, probably. Still, it’d be fine as long as she melted the crystals into the alloy for the blade, that was much easier than adding it on after the fact. Even if the image of the crystal spiraling around the blade was tempting-

No. She needed to do this quickly, because they needed to get into the field quickly. Cool embellishments could wait.

Dylas’ plan for the day was simple. The restaurant was going to take advantage of White Day, and how easy it was to burn cookies, by selling a large number of them on that day. His job was to bake those cookies, and maybe pocket one to give to Frey.

He also had to make sure Porcoline didn’t eat too much, and that Arthur remembered to eat something at all.

The second part of that was the simpler one. He just had to bake some onigiri and carry it over. He could put them in next to the cookies for a bit, and they’d turn out well enough.

When he brought them over, though, Arthur was actually looking up from his work. “Oh, Dylas. I just witnessed something… very interesting.”

Between the two of them, Arthur was better at describing things, not that this said very much. His being unable to describe this was concerning. “In what way?”

“It appears that some of our friends have formed a… Get It Together Squad.” This wasn’t quite the dumbest thing Dylas had ever heard, but he lived in the same town as Doug, so that said very little. “I’m not sure what it is they’re hoping to achieve, but they seem to be having fun with it.” Arthur adjusted his glasses and took the plate of rice balls. “They asked me for advice.”

“Advice about what?” Did he really want to go deeper into this?

Well, he’d said it, so he wasn’t getting out of it. “They weren’t very clear about that. I offered to teach them about economics, but they didn’t seem all that interested.”

It was nice to know that, even if he was having a quiet baking day, the rest of the town was as interesting as ever. Hopefully, when he went out the next day, nothing was going to be on fire.

It’d be hard to fish in a burning town, after all.

Amber was sure she’d set out that day intending to learn something. She couldn’t remember what it was, and neither could Ambrosia, but she definitely got the feeling that today was meant to involve some kind of accomplishment.

She… didn’t feel very accomplished.

“So.” Dolce leveled her gaze at the three of them, giving them her very best unimpressed look. “Have we learned anything today?”

Doug nodded, poking at the bloodstain forming on his pants. “Re-opening stitches hurts.”

“That is correct. And that is why you should not do that.” Pico darted towards them from the back of the clinic. Dolce took the offered bandages and backhanded her in a single breath. “Could anyone explain what happened here?”

“We were getting it together!” Amber offered. “Or… we were trying? It wasn’t going very well…” Dolce probably would have been the next most-together person they knew, so they would have gone to her next regardless.

“I can see that.”

“We would have been fine if he hadn’t fallen down the stairs,” Clorica added. “I don’t know… why he was running so fast…” She gave a big yawn. It was a good place for it. The beds were comfy. “He tripped over one of the little birds. You know… the little ones.”

If it hadn’t gotten him hurt, Amber would have been very impressed by it. Even she couldn’t catch those birds, and she could fly after them! As far as she could tell, the bird hadn’t even been hurt!

He might have been fine, if the soldiers who hurt Ven hadn’t hurt him, too, and left him with stitches to tear open. Another reason they needed to chase after them.

…Even the things she did for fun were reminding her of bad things. This sucked. Getting everything fixed couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter Text

There were all sorts of things that could be found in the wild, as long as one knew where to look. Edible grasses tucked away, material-quality wood and stone hidden among the rest. There was even a tree between the Obsidian Mansion and Leon Karnak that was surrounded by easily-transplanted fruit saplings.

New areas like Sercerezo Hill meant more of those kinds of new discoveries. Like seeds hidden away in a stump that sparkled like gemstones.

“Oh! Crystal flower seeds!” Amber grabbed a fistful of the sparkly clear seeds. “When they grow up, they look so pretty! I wonder how they’ll taste?”

“Expensive?” Frey suggested. “I know it’s way too late in the season for them to be grown in time, but I think just having them would mean you win the Harvest Festival. For reasons besides ‘Porco might not try to eat it.’” It was still ‘might,’ and not ‘will,’ but that was more than could be said for a lot of things people were growing.

Dylas poked the stump. “They’re that impressive?”

“They’re that hard to grow. They’re not really plants, just runes that grow like them. Even in the best conditions, it can take a whole season to stabilize the- Why are you two looking at me like that?”

Amber stuffed her seeds into her pocket. “Frey, you can’t always tell pink cats and charm blues apart. How is this the flower you know about?” She’d have been perfectly willing to answer that question if she knew the answer.

In a way, that could be an answer of its own. “I just know it. I guess that means I must have learned it before…”

“But not pink cats and charm blues?” In fairness, she’d been messing about with the chemistry table earlier that day. She had not been in her right mind.

She was still never going to live it down. “W-well, those aren’t interesting enough to study.”

She pocketed a few seeds herself, ready for the changing season. Wherever her knowledge of how to grow them came from, it’d be an interesting challenge.

If things went well, she’d be able to tell Venti all about it.

A bit closer to the cave, they found a certain ore merchant from Sharance carefully bandaging her own hands. “Raven? What happened?” Also, what was she doing outside Selphia, but she was from outside Selphia. Maybe this was her normal route.

…What direction was Sharance in, again?

“There’s a sand fishing spot over that way.” It took less than a second for Dylas to start peering in the direction indicated. Frey silently added it to the list of potential date spots. “I thought I’d try my hand at it.”

“You went hand fishing in sand?”

Raven looked down at the bandages. “...Yes. Yes, I did. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I didn’t think anyone would try,” Dylas admitted. “Is that a thing people do in Sharance?”

“Not really. The fishermen in the town… don’t like the desert. They sunburn too easily. And the people from the desert don’t know how to fish.” She adjusted her bag, which clinked in a way that said it was full of metal. “It doesn’t quite fit with either of them.”

“Well, you should be careful on your way back to town,” Frey advised her. “Do you think you’ll need your hands for anything?”

A small, controlled lick of flame trickled through her fingers, not even singeing the bandages. “...I’m not worried.” This wasn’t what she’d been concerned about, but… there wasn’t much point in worrying about anyone who could command fire like that.

The three of them watched Raven walk away, completely unworried by the monsters around her.

Amber kicked at a pebble on the ground. “Do you ever think Raven’s kinda weird?”

“I don’t think she’s any weirder than anyone in town,” Frey said. “I’m mostly wondering how she goes places, and that’s just because it doesn’t match the airship schedule.”

“Margaret probably knows.” Dylas was not looking away from the supposed sand fishing spot. They definitely needed to come back later. “Her sister lives in Sharance.”

Frey tried to imagine ever asking Margaret about her sister. She’d already heard a few things about Daria, and those were enough to not want to know any more. And this would definitely lead to talking about Daria.

Maybe some things were just better left as mysteries.

Sometimes, Amber’s wings shimmered.

Those times were a warning to anyone who knew her to step out of her immediate vicinity, because she was about to start shedding scales. Anyone who breathed those in would fall quickly asleep, and none of them had time to waste sleeping.

Sometimes, this happened at the worst possible moment. Such as when they were in a cave with no airflow.

It might have been a good thing Frey and Dylas started working through their feelings before they had to squeeze into the one safe corner of the room. If she thought about it, it could have been so much worse.

“When did she even learn to do that?” Dylas grumbled.

“I think she always could. Well, not always, but… you know.” It was possible to hold his hands despite the gauntlets. She just needed to go about it very carefully. “Forte spent the last bit of that fight asleep.” It made explaining how the unusual fairy had turned into a girl much more difficult than it needed to be. And it already needed to be pretty difficult since neither of them knew what a Guardian was.

There was a series of loud thuds that could only be Amber bludgeoning the poor helpless monsters with her metal baseball bat. “Was she doing that, too?”

“No, because she didn’t have a weapon.” If she did, she absolutely would have used it. “Sometimes I think she might be the most violent person here, and that terrifies me.” No one ever saw it coming when the attacker was short enough. Or cheery enough. Or spent most of summer napping in sunbeams.

“She’s definitely better at using that sort of thing…” Another thud, and another, and the cavern went quiet. “You done out there?”

“Yep!” The chamber was empty aside from a butterfly girl and a piece of sporting equipment that probably hadn’t been designed for the purpose it was being put to. It was, however, more effective than some actual hammers. “Come on, I hear something this way!”

What she heard was a Green desperately begging for her freedom and also some medical attention. So the trip would have to be cut short so they could do that.

At least they’d achieved something good today? Frey was going to keep telling herself that, at least.

Her next step would be to make something with an anti-sleep enchantment…

Chapter Text

Frey stepped out of the castle to see the ground covered in a light dusting of white. Specks of the same color were drifting down from the sky, carried on breezes with a sharp chill. Winter proper wouldn’t start for another few days, but it seemed like the weather had its own ideas.

She stared up at the falling snow for a bit, until she heard the door to the monster barn slide open. “Huh! So this is what winter looks like!” The Green from Sercerezo Hill had made herself at home on the castle farm, and was now getting her proper introduction to the colder seasons.

“Yeah… it is.” Semantics like human calendar systems probably didn’t matter to fairies. “It’s really pretty, isn’t it?”

“I guess…” She didn’t sound entirely convinced. “So, why do you look like you’ve never seen it before? That’s supposed to be my job!”

That… wasn’t really something she could explain. Sure, her amnesia wasn’t exactly a secret, but it was always weird bringing it up with someone new. As time went on, it felt less important to find a way to do so.

She closely inspected the soil. Maybe this would be a good year for noel grass… she’d just have to clear up a bit of snow first. “It’s the first time it’s snowed this year. I think a lot of people will be surprised to see it.”

Fortunately, the snow wouldn’t be a problem as long as she was growing hardy crops. In this field, that was most crops. They had to survive the Buffamoo that worked it, after all.

“...Okay.” She could feel the Green’s gaze on her as she left. Like she was judging her for being surprised by the weather.

It didn’t matter. They’d both forget about it by the next day. What did matter was that Clorica would probably want help with wiping the snow off Ventuswill. Leaving it on top of her couldn’t possibly be comfortable.

And, eventually, Frey would know everything that people usually learned over the course of their lives, and no one would be able to tell the difference.

Entering the dragon room felt worse every time.

It had been bad enough during the summer, when it was bright and warm and things mostly looked fine so long as it wasn’t raining. Now, with Venti unmoving beneath a layer of snow, it was more clear how desperate the situation was.

When Frey asked what she could do to help, Clorica offered her a broom. “The room drains well when it… when it rains… but snow takes longer. This will… make things faster… until Vishnal gets here.”

Okay. She could do that. “Does this happen every year?”

“We can cover the roof if it gets too bad. We might have to do that this year, because…” They both glanced at the dragon who was muttering in her sleep. “She usually handles most of it herself. And it’s nice… to let light in.” Another yawn.

She could already tell it was going to be a long, dark winter.

Later that morning, Volkanon brought out some ladders and a tarp to cover the roof of the dragon room, and Vishnal and Clorica were hard at work. Frey, seeing no need for her services in the immediate future, headed outside.

The snow, it seemed, had accumulated further. Forte was in the square, carefully cutting a snowbank to pieces with her sword. “Forte? Is there a reason you’re…?”

“It is practice for cooking.” The knight didn’t look up at all. “A knife and a sword are roughly the same utensil, just at different scales. Finesse with one should eventually translate to the other.”

Maybe if she’d been talking about a one-handed sword, it’d be easier to agree with her. Even then, Frey didn’t see it. “Are they? If you hold a knife like that, you’re just going to cut yourself.”

“The principles of a steady hand and a swift movement remain the same. I just need to cut evenly. One day, I may even be able to apply this to more than just vegetables.”

The fact that she’d failed to already do so perhaps disproved the point a little. Forte was very good with a sword, and this extended to making a competent salad. Her attempt at making sashimi for the cooking contest back in spring, however…

She’d said she’d made the attempt because they’d run out of vegetables for salad, and chosen an overly-ambitious fish for the project. Frey thought she might have done Selphia a favor if she’d just not entered.

The cuts in the snowbank didn’t look all that even, either. “How do you practice when it’s not snowing?”

“Tree branches.” That sounded equally unlikely to confer skill. “They are just as likely to splinter as fish bones, they just lack the… squishy inside bits.”

“...Forte, do you… not know how to gut a fish?” She already knew the answer. She just wished she didn’t.

The knight appointed to protect all of Selphia blinked at her. “...Gut?”

“You know… getting rid of the stuff that’s not meat?” Was this why the blackened husk of failed glitter sashimi still had eyes? “I’m sure the people at the fish market would be willing to explain it to you.” Or she could use a diagram, or maybe eat some bread. Maybe having knowledge of how fish worked magically implanted into her mind was the one thing that could save her.

Or maybe she’d still fail to grasp it, just because it wasn’t something she could do with a sword as long as she was tall. Recipe bread could be weird like that.

“That would explain the lack of bones when Kiel makes it…” Maybe this meant Forte was about to learn to make a second kind of food to the point of edibility. In that case, this was a massive step forward.

The moment of hope was ruined by Illuminata running past and trampling the snowbank, but that, at least, was entirely normal.

Chapter Text

The unfortunate thing about snow was that it made leaving town difficult. While the area outside the town gates was frozen in eternal summer, it would still be just as wet and hard to walk through. Staying inside was ideal.

As the snow continued falling outside, Dylas sat at a table with a mug of hot milk. Next to him, Frey was rolling a small green stone around the table. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

“It doesn’t really have a name. It’s just a small crystal.” Her voice was slightly muffled behind her electric-blue scarf, the edges pinned together by the charm she always wore. “It doesn’t happen enough for anyone to bother giving it a proper name.”

This definitely sounded like one of those things he wouldn’t understand even if a textbook on the subject was right in front of him. But she liked talking about things that interested her, and he liked the way her face lit up when she did so, and at this point he almost understood a quarter of the words she was saying. “This one of your crafting things?”

“I wish. The runes are stable now, but with how many of them there are, and how tightly they’re packed together, you either expend all of them at once to fuel a powerful spell, or you lose a limb from the backlash. I’m not sure anyone’s skilled enough to be able to work with them. It’s basically the opposite problem to…”

The light faded. “To… to something.”

Throughout spring, and a good portion of summer, there had been things Dylas knew he knew, but hadn’t been able to put into words even in his head, mostly involving Venti. It had never given him issues in the middle of a sentence, because that would have required the subject to come up while he was already talking, and that would require being decent at talking, but he’d noticed. It was hard not to, when everything about the one thing he’d already been good at, except that he was good at it, was one of those things.

Frey’s memories had always been worse off than his, in the sense that she didn’t have any. It was something they never really talked about.

Something he still had no idea what to do with.

Fortunately, the conversation was diverted by a large crash from the kitchen. “Porco, at least wait for it to cool off, first!” Margaret cried.

“But it’s so tasty!”

“I’m… going to make sure we actually get lunch at some point.” That felt like a thing he could actually do. No point worrying about things he couldn’t change when he could be worrying about the state of their seafood pizza.

By the time he got back to the table, the crystal was completely out of sight.

Forte looked closely at the bag Frey was carrying. “You spent how much on crystals?”

“Just the money from the last harvest.” And maybe a few projects she’d put to the side and never found a use for, but it wasn’t like she was going to do anything else with that. “I don’t know. Lately, something about them’s just been calling to me.”

She would have liked to be able to explain what it was. There were so many things she should have known but didn’t, and where this feeling came from was one of them.

“Is it like with swords?” The two of them blinked at each other for a bit before Forte continued. “When I first started training as a knight, I wanted to learn every kind of weapon I could. My mother convinced me to limit myself to different types of blade. She was afraid I’d hurt myself. But until I’d settled on the longsword, I kept thinking about my other options.”

That… didn’t feel like that was it. Frey kicked absently at a snowbank, watching the powder puff away. It wasn’t that she currently wanted to use the crystals. Or to understand them. She already had that knowledge, even if she couldn’t say how.  She just… needed to have them.

They weren’t even her favorite material to craft with. They were too finicky for that.

Also expensive. Finding and selling one small crystal would be enough to feed a small family for weeks. That one, Frey had been proud to say she found by herself.

“I’m not sure you can compare crystals to weapons…” Use them to make weapons, sure, that was a well-established practice. But as far as interests went, they were two very different things. “Maybe I’ll ask Raven about it the next time she’s in town. She knows about this sort of thing.” And Forte did not, though she left that part unsaid.

Forte examined her sword. “Perhaps I’ll talk to her, as well. Bado brought up an interesting idea the other day.”

Bado didn’t have a lot of ideas Forte was interested in following up on. Frey was going to assume it was yet another ill-advised way to use a giant sword. One would think the list of those would run out eventually, but it seemed there was always something more.

Amber was going to win the Winter Harvest Festival. Ellie said it was a bit optimistic, since that was a whole season away, but Amber had a secret weapon!

…Sorta secret. Her friends were there when she found it. And if Frey got the same idea, victory was far from guaranteed. But it was a winning strategy!

Step one was already complete. She just had to wait for the seeds in her pocket to shift from red to white with the changing season. They weren’t the best seeds, she literally found them in a stump, and there wasn’t much naturally good soil that wasn’t already in use on the castle farm, but it was a great first step.

Besides, even if the soil quality wasn’t the best, it was nothing a good dose of fertilizer couldn’t solve! Or two! Or a whole season’s worth! She’d definitely saved up enough money for that, as long as she didn’t go crazy with the giantizer. Which she wouldn’t. There wasn’t enough space in the pot.

What there was was a small sparkly speck that was larger than it was yesterday. Something that, if she kept it by an open window, would be just cold enough to grow how it needed to… probably.

…Okay, so she’d never actually tried growing a flower like this before, but it couldn’t that hard! It was a seed, and with enough water and fertilizer, it would bloom! Maybe, by the time it was done, Frey would even remember to tell Amber how it worked.

…She wouldn’t. Frey’s memories were basically nonexistent. But it was fun to think about being able to share flowers with her friends.

Maybe… maybe Ven would be better by then, too. These flowers took a long time to grow, after all.

Maybe she could give one to her either way.

It at least couldn’t make things any worse.

Chapter Text

Their final trip to Idra Cave ended in a return that was… less than triumphant. All they really had to show for it was a bag of ash.

It was very high-quality ash, the sort of thing that would be an excellent material for the metallic part of a shield, but it wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Even if the story of how they’d gotten their hands on it was the sort of thing people would be talking about for years in a slightly less eventful town.

…They might still have talked about it for a while. Arthur, at least, sounded very interested. “A… copy of Terrable?”

“Well, that’s what he said he was going for. He didn’t do a very good job of it.” Even a mere imitation of a god should not have been so easily dethroned by the slightest hint of resistance and a touch of wind element. Or crying because its entire existence was pain. Really, it was sort of sad.

Amber nodded, holding up her bat. “I hit it a few times, and it just went poof!”

It had been really weird to see. The function of Tamitaya was one of those things Frey had taken as a given since she first learned about it. Apparently, it hadn’t seen the false Native Dragon as a real monster.

She couldn’t decide if this opened up any philosophical questions, or was just a sign of shoddy construction. Again, with how quickly it fell apart, there was plenty of reason to think it was the latter. Something to figure out if it ever happened again.

“Well, Terrable does live on another part of the border, so it’s not inconceivable he’d know what she looks like. Admittedly, she hasn’t been seen in decades, but…” Huh. She hadn’t thought much about what the other dragons did before.

“But in that case, you’d think it’d be made better.” Really, she was offended on the dragon’s behalf. Both of them. Nobody involved deserved any of this.

“Maybe he’s just that bad at it,” Dylas suggested. That… didn’t feel like it made anything better. That implied he could get better at it, and then they’d have a lot worse to deal with.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in speculating,” Arthur said. He was right, if only because the more Frey thought about it, the worse it got. “Perhaps you should all go rest up. You’ll want your energy for the Turnip Flurry tomorrow.”

Figures. Even when they had something a bit more urgent, the upcoming festival still managed to sneak its way into conversations.

The sun glimmered off of the surface of the mighty golden turnip.

It was, in fact, a real golden turnip. Frey wasn’t sure where Volkanon kept getting these things, it was probably a trade deal with the capital or something, but there was only ever one per event. All she knew was that she wasn’t being asked to grow them herself, and that they were more valuable than some pieces of furniture.

She did know why it was there- Venti loved golden veggies, and this was her way of having an excuse to eat them. Even today, they might have been able to drag her into consciousness long enough to eat, as long as it was something like this.

Even if it would be a bit bruised from being tossed around so much today. It lay innocently in a patch of snow, standing out much more than the other vegetables scattered around the area. Even the occasional pink turnip couldn’t compare to such a full color.

No one had moved towards it yet. The moment someone did, what was currently a friendly round of vegetable tossing would devolve into a total bloodbath.

But they kept looking. Considering. Lin Fa’s eyes were narrowed, Forte kept reaching for a sword that had been confiscated as soon as she declared her intention to participate, Leon took potshots at both of them while they were distracted.

They retaliated.

Frey saw her opening. She added the pink turnip in her hand to the barrage, before swiveling around and diving for the snowbank. She grabbed the turnip by the leaves and scrambled back to her feet as quickly as she could.

Now, everyone was looking at her.

That was fine. This sort of event was what she was best at. It relied on one of her main talents, after all. “Any of you think you can catch this?” She asked.

Leon foolishly raised his hand.

The golden turnip smacked him directly in the face.

“You know, maybe we shouldn’t use real turnips for this,” Frey mused once the main event was over. “There’d be less injuries that way.”

Leon was fine. Probably. Jones said he’d be okay, and Jones knew what he was doing, extreme hemophobia or not. So he’d be fine.

But it did make her think that perhaps there were better things to be throwing specificall at people than hard vegetables in winter. Something where they wouldn’t need to have a doctor on standby.

“It is tradition,” Volkanon said, like this wasn’t the first time this festival was being held in about ten years. Frey dug the approval forms out from a box in the basement. In hindsight, maybe this was the reason why. That part hadn’t been in the box.

She kicked at a falled turnip. It blended in with the snow almost perfectly. “...It’s because Venti would throw a fit if she didn’t get her veggies, isn’t it?”

“...I can neither confirm or deny that.” She was going to take that as a yes.

Still… Venti wasn’t in any condition to eat all these turnips. They could probably coax her awake for the golden one, she spoke about vegetables like that the way Arthur talked about his extensive glasses collection, but the rest would just be sitting around unless someone could think about something to do with them. And while some of them were battered enough to be worth not eating, others she’d feel bad if she couldn’t think of anything to do with them.

…Well… She could think of one thing they could do with them. “I’m going to go ask Porco if he knows any good recipes that use turnips. We… might be stuck with them for a while…” By the time spring rolled around, everyone was going to be sick of turnips.

That might have been another reason the approval form was hidden away in the castle basement.

Maybe she could store the leftovers away in the same place as that weird bag of not-Terrable ash.