"Come on Alfonse, hurry up!"

"Sharena, why are you coming out here and why did you feel the need to drag me along?"

"just be quiet and follow me. I don't want to be late," she said with a wide grin.

"Late for what?" But she didn't answer him. He sighed and followed her lead as they made their way through the forest outside the castle. For some reason she didn't follow the actual path, she just ran through the trees about twenty feet off the path. Alfonse kept looking down to make sure he didn't trip over and roots or animals or anything on the forest floor and, because he was distracted, he nearly collided with Sharena when she stopped running. Fortunately he was able to stop himself in time. He started to ask her what this was about but she shushed him and pointed forward. He followed the direction of her finger and saw that they were at the edge of a clearing where two people were standing.

"Why are we spying on Kiran and Fjorm?" He whispered.

"Shh. I want to hear them," she whispered back. He sighed. He knew he wasn't going to get anything else out of her so he decided he might as well join her in eavesdropping on their tactician and their newest ally in the Order of Heroes.

"—something I've been wanting to talk to you about, Kiran," said Fjorm, rubbing her hands together nervously.

"What is it? Is something bothering you? You look like something's bothering you," said Kiran.

"Huh? Oh, no, no, it's not that, there's just...something that's been on my mind for a while," she said.

"Oh, okay. Then what did you want to talk about?"

"Well, see, the thing is...umm...well...back in my homeland...in Nifl, we have a custom. According to our custom, if someone saves you from an avalanche, you know, because it's a kingdom full of ice and snow, you...you owe them a great debt."

"Oh is that—I mean you've told me that before and you know, you don't owe me anything, Fjorm." He rubbed his neck and his face started to turn red.

"Don't mess this up, Kiran," Sharena whispered.

"Mess what up?" asked Alfonse.

"Shush." Alfonse rubbed his temples and decided he was going to stay quiet.

"Yes I do," she said a little forcefully, "you...you saved me. I owe you a great debt. Please allow me to repay it by continuing to fight by your side."

"Listen, I appreciate the sentiment, really, I do. And you've already done so much fighting for us already. But I know I've said this before—you don't need to feel like you're indebted to me. If you want to keep fighting for the Order then we're happy to have you, but I don't want you to think that you owe me."

"But I do! I try to repay you by fighting for you but then you're so kind and you support me so much that...that I feel as though my debt just keeps growing." She looked down at her feet. Kiran put a hand on her shoulder, then quickly withdrew it with a small hiss. "Oh! I'm sorry. I think I must be very cold because I've been told that touching me is...is like touching ice."

"No, no, it's okay. It was just unexpected." He slowly reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder again. She noticed that he grimaced at the feeling, but he didn't pull back. "Fjorm, I understand that this is important to you. I just...I would prefer you not think of me like a...I don't know, a master. We...I...saved you because you needed help, not because I wanted to make you serve me." She suddenly snapped her head back up to look at him.

"I know! Of course I know that! You've been so kind to me that I couldn't possibly think badly of you. That's why I'm so set on this. I want to repay the kindness you've shown me."

"Well then I guess I can't deny you that. And we're certainly not going to turn you away from the order."

"Come on, Kiran, don't you see what she's trying to tell you?"

"Sharena, he'll hear you."

"At this point I almost want him to so I can tell him to get on with it." But she fell silent.

"I'm glad...but I...well...I...you see..." She couldn't seem to get the words out.

"What's the matter?"

"I...that is to say...when I say I want to fight for you...see...that is...I...I don't mean...the Order...I...I mean I want to fight for...for...for..." Kiran waited for her to finish, but she didn't. She just twiddled her fingers, shuffled her feet, and looked away. Kiran felt confused. He wasn't sure what it was she was trying to say or what was causing her so much trouble.

"Um...Fjorm...is something wrong?" She turned back to look at him and he saw that she was blushing fiercely.

"I...I want to fight just for you, Kiran. I...I want to be by your side and just yours!" She looked away again, clearly embarrassed. The light bulb in Kiran's mind finally sparked itself to life and he understood.

"Oh—oh that's—that's what you mean." He understood, but that didn't mean he could answer without stammering.

"Yes," she said in a very small voice. "I...when you saved me and I knew that I owed you a debt...I hoped that you would be...would be easy to serve while I repaid you."

"Umm...was I?" He suddenly felt very embarrassed himself.

"You were!" She said, raising her voice. "You were more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. It made me so happy that the man who rescued me was so selfless and kind and...and...and handsome. So I couldn't help but...but...that is I mean that...there was no other possible result than that I would...would...f-fall for you." She turned away again and covered her face with one hand.

"We shouldn't be watching this, Sharena. This is a private moment." At least Alfonse had finally understood why she had dragged him out here. She'd been trying to get Kiran and Fjorm to talk alone like this since they had met Fjorm several weeks earlier.

It had been so obvious to her from the beginning that they needed this.

"Shh. We've been here this long, I want to see if he's actually smart enough to see what's in front of him." Alfonse shook his head but didn't answer. He also didn't leave. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he wanted to see this too.

"Wow...I...wow." Kiran pulled his hand back from her shoulder and started rubbing his chin. It made his face cold. "Umm...wow."

"Is...is there something wrong?" Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear it.

"N-no. This is just...it's a lot to process. This wasn't at all what I was expecting when you told me you wanted to talk to me."

"Oh." She looked crestfallen. "I understand. I'm sorry."

"You're—no, hang on. That's not what I mean. Fjorm, I just...I needed a moment." He took her hands in his. "I...I feel the same way about you. When you talked about repaying your debt I was worried that...that maybe you thought I was somehow above you or something. That if I ever said anything you might for some reason think that you...owed me. And I didn't want you to think that. And then I was worried that maybe repaying your debt was the only reason you spent any time with me and then you asked me to talk and I got worried that maybe you were going to say that you considered your debt paid and that you wanted to move on with your life and then you started talking about this and I just got very surprised to hear you say how you felt because I never thought that's what you were going to say so I'm sorry if I made you think that I don't accept your feelings you know what I mean?" He cursed himself for rambling so much. Still, from the look on her face he could see that he'd made his point.

"Oh gods he's like a little kid."

"Sharena please, be quiet." Alfonse couldn't look away.

"You...you really do feel the same way about me?"

"I do. I just never thought you would feel that way and I didn't want you to think you were obligated to agree. I want us to be on equal footing." She looked down at her hands and then up into his eyes and smiled.

"Kindness like that-always thinking about others ahead of yourself-is what made me feel this way about you." He smiled back and she thought she might melt.

"And your dedication and your gentleness and your devotion to your family and your homeland is what made me...made me fall for you." He brought her hands up to his mouth and kissed the back of each one, then pressed his cheek against them. They were ice cold, but he didn't care. The only thing that mattered was the woman in front of him. They stood in silence for a time, simply gazing at one another. Both were thinking the same sentence but neither could bring themselves to say it even if it was only three short words.

They might have gone the entire day in that position but their reverie was broken when they heard a voice from off to one side.

"Gah, just kiss already!" Both of them immediately turned towards the source of the voice and their hands suddenly snapped back to their sides.

"Sharena?" asked Kiran. She stepped out from the woods with a sheepish grin. Alfonse stepped out right behind her. He had the good sense to look ashamed. "Alfonse? You too?" He nodded and looked away.

"I am sorry, Kiran. At first I protested but then I...let my curiosity get the better of me," he said.

"Sorry Kiran, I just couldn't help myself," said Sharena. "You two have just been tiptoeing around this for so long and I finally got her to go and talk to you about it so I wanted to see what happened." Kiran glanced and Fjorm and back to Sharena.

"She told you to do this?" Fjorm blushed.

"Umm...she said that I should talk to you alone. She said that I should tell you my feelings. That it...that it would be the right thing." Kiran's brief feeling of anger subsided.

"Well I guess she was right."

"Does that mean you're not mad at me, Kiran?" asked Sharena with a look of fake innocence.

"Oh, I'm mad at you for eavesdropping and I'm very disappointed with Alfonse for not stopping you...but I can't get too heated." He took Fjorm's hand again. "After all, I have someone cooling me off."

"Wow," said Sharena, "that was really lame."

"Yep," said Kiran cheerfully. He turned to Fjorm. "Do you want to go take a walk?" He glared at the Askran prince and princess before looking back. "Alone?" She giggled and he thought he might melt. What he of course didn't realize was that Fjorm, as the princess of an ice kingdom, was at a much greater risk of that.

"I would love to." They waved, turned, and walked away without another word, just looking at each other. Then Kiran tripped on a hole in the path and almost fell over. They shared a laugh and kept going. Sharena turned to her brother and grinned.

"I think that went well, don't you?" To her surprise he actually smiled back.

"I do."

A/N: At the time of writing, Fjorm had been in the game for a grand total of about 22 hours. I already love her because she's super adorable so I'm angling to be the first person to put out a story about her and the Summoner. Seriously, read her quotes. She's clearly fallen hard for the guy.

Heck, when I was publishing this I realized that I'm so far ahead of the curve that you can't even tag Fjorm yet.