A little part of Faye has always known that Alm would never love her back, but the petals did not come until she fully gave up hope.
Her confession (maybe she's been reading him wrong. maybe his feelings for Celica and Clair and all the other girls infatuated by him are purely platonic. maybe he can love me back) was her last ditch attempt, her final chance to have her feelings reciprocated. It failed, just like all of her subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints had previously. Alm brushed her aside like he had countless others because he 'liked her, but not in that way'.
Hanahaki is a rare disease, only affecting a small number of the Valentian population, but Faye has always been unlucky - a fact which was proven when the first petal - small, soft and smooth, a stunning yellow as bright as the sun - landed in her palm later that night. Fear, panic or sorrow, the obvious reactions to such an event, did not arise in Faye. Instead she muttered a quiet "oh,", her tone dull and devoid of emotion.
Faye spent a lot of time in her mother's small garden back in Ram Village, helping to nurture and care for the flowers there. Thanks to this experience, she was quickly able to recognise the petal as that of a yellow tulip.
The next day, the Deliverance arrived in a simple town just over the Rigelian border, and Faye was ecstatic to discover an aged library tucked away in the town's corner. The army only spent a week in the town, but Faye read more books in that week than she had in her life in an attempt to learn more about her condition.
Hanahaki may be a rare occurrence in real life, but all know of its existence. Everyone has heard of a victim, whether they've met the unlucky soul or merely been told their story, and it is often used generously in fantastical romance and tragedy novels. The latter is becoming more and more clear to Faye, as the number of fictional stories involving Hanahaki far outweigh the factual information she needs, and she's left cursing constantly at all of the novels' authors. Due to the disease's rarity, Faye finds the little information she can gather contradicts with itself, leaving her more unsure and confused than when she began her research.
In the midst of her many failures, Faye manages one success when she unearths a faded book of flower meanings. Rushing through the pages to the ones dedicated to tulips, the words 'hopeless love' stare up at her tauntingly, firmly cementing the fact that Faye's love had, from the start, been a foregone conclusion.
Alm would never have loved her.
At this thought, a cough ripped its way from Faye, brutal and violent, and she doubled over. As she hacked and wheezed, a presence in the back of her throat caught her attention - another petal, she presumed. The mass was too big and obstructed her throat, causing her to cough even harder. It hurt, so much more than the first had, and her eyes watered.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the mass dislodged itself and the coughing ceased, and when Faye looked down she found two new petals resting in her palm.
Rigel was a cold country, both in nature and in temperature, but no-one seemed to be feeling the latter as strongly as Faye. Her body shivered uncontrollably in the cool air as she wondered, accustomed to the warmth of the southern Ram Village as she was, if her constant discomfort was caused by her home climate. This theory was disproven when she realised that Gray, Tobin, Kliff and especially Alm had adjusted with far more ease. Few commented on her newfound fondness for thick cloaks; fewer still expressed concern.
Of all people, Faye did not expect Silque to care the most.
Faye caught her staring one night as she piled on yet-another (stolen) cloak to her ever-growing mound of "blankets" in her corner of their shared tent. If Faye didn't know better, she'd have described Silque's expression as one of worry.
When she awoke coughing in the middle of the night, she was surprised to find another cloak in her pile that she was convinced hadn't been there earlier.
The next day, Silque marched cloakless.
All of the others from Ram Village had finalised their fighting techniques by now. Alm had always known his path, and carried his unique style like a flag of pride. Gray, who never stopped to consider things any more than he had to, had soon settled on the way of the sword. Kliff became a mage - nothing less could satisfy his constantly-working mind. Tobin chose the bow, keeping a distance from his enemies so that his chances of returning safely to his family increased.
Faye? She was, by far, the last to decide, and was easily the most surprised by where she ended up.
"You have to clear your mind," Silque had murmured, adjusting Faye's grip on the borrowed staff. She was warm, so warm, and where her hands brushed Faye's she felt warmer than she had in months. "Focus only on healing."
Faye had nodded, doing her best to concentrate, but Silque's aid - not requested, not wanted, but given freely nonetheless - left her confused and distracted.
She couldn't remember someone helping her so willingly before.
Faye had no love for killing, no love for war and suffering and death. Ram was peaceful, far removed from most of the dangers the surrounding world posed. Thrown, as suddenly as she was, into war, she struggled to adjust.
Each kill weighed on her mind, kept her up at night as she replayed the moment her sword pierced their flesh and robbed them of their life.
Silque's healing lessons, unprecedented though they were, freed her of that. She could focus on helping instead of hurting (not that she was strong enough to be of any use in combat anymore - her strikes had been weak and hollow for some time now).
She could sleep at night once more.
It was a miracle that Faye had managed to hide her illness from her tentmate for so long. Looking back, Faye couldn't help but wonder if Silque had known for longer than she'd let on - maybe from when Faye had started to flounder in battle, or perhaps from when Silque had sacrificed her cloak all those moons ago. It didn't matter now, anyway. She knew.
Faye had heard her approaching but, mid-coughing fit as she was, could do nothing but hack and wheeze and wait for Silque to discover her coated in petals and blood and tears.
When she inevitably did, she said nothing, merely wrapped one of Faye's many cloaks around her trembling shoulders and drew her into a tight (and warm) hug.
Faye was not ashamed to admit that she cried into Silque's shoulders.
She heard the way Alm talked about Celica. Everyone did. She knew, also, that Alm loved Celica, and always had. Never Faye.
"I miss her," she heard Alm admit to Gray one night, long after most had retired to their tents. "I miss her so much."
Faye had darted away, not wanting her resulting coughs to alert the two to her presence. To her surprise, as she ducked into her tent and collapsed atop her cloaks, after the briefest of fits and minimal struggle, only two petals surfaced.
Her eyes had locked with Silque's, both as surprised as each other. With a squeal of delight, Silque threw her arms around Faye and, despite everything, Faye could not help but laugh with relief.
By the time the final battle came, where Alm and Celica stood proudly at each other's sides at the front while Faye stood in the back lines with the other healers, she felt stronger than she had for what must have been a year now. Warmth had, bit by bit, seeped through her body, encouraged by Silque's constant presence like a guiding light in the middle of a desolate, abandoned forest of nothingness.
For the first time in an eternity, she felt alive again.
The war was over, the world saved, the countries united, and Faye was finally fully healthy, free from the Hanahaki that had plagued her for so long.
In that book of flower meanings Faye had read so long ago, there had been another definition alongside 'hopeless love' that she had, at the time, ignored. Looking at Silque now, Faye couldn't help but feel that the other meaning was now far more true.
Cheerful thoughts, and sunshine.