Author's Note: I know that I have not written fic in a long while! But rest assured, I'm still a huge Rune Factory fan! And as such, inspiration always strikes again, which is obvious, because here I am, writing a fic! But this fic was inspired by more than the charming characters and setting of Rune Factory. You see, I first began lurking in fandom… I suppose in 2000 and 2001, when I was 12 and 13. Fanfic culture was somewhat different then. There were more long multi-chapter fics, for one thing. And I do love oneshots, but I also sometimes miss how things were back then. So consider this my love-letter to the sprawling fic I grew up with. It will not be as long as some of the fics I used to read (I have it outlined at seven chapters, not counting the preamble and epilogue), but I'm striving to capture the storytelling and dramatic feel that I loved about so many fics from that era.

Oh, so you wanted to know about the fic itself? Well. You see, I've always liked Russell and Sabrina as a pairing. I do not know why, but something about them works. Also, many people have complained about Cecilia in RF2, and how she didn't stay with Nicholas. Now, put those two things together, and it starts to make sense, doesn't it! I'm not saying it's the most canonically likely reason, but it's certainly a plausible one, or at least I think so. So, what can you expect from this fic? Lots of very conflicted CeciliaxNicholas, lots of RussellxSabrina as well, drama, sweetness, and TEEN ANGST. To clarify some things: Cecilia and Nicholas are around 13-14 in this fic, and RFF is treated as canon, so some characters HAVE moved away, and I'm interested in writing a bit about that as well.

Warnings: Russell has been through… Unpleasant things. There IS mention of step-sibling incest, but it is in the context of two characters experiencing puppy love and then finding out that their parents are marrying, so I'm not sure if it counts.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Rune Factory, though this would be a fun storyline event, wouldn't it? ;)

Preamble: That Heavy Dark Something

All stories begin long before they seem to, and this one, the story of a young elven girl and what happened that summer, is no exception. At very earliest, it can be said to have begun on a battlefield, in dirty tents, in field hospitals. In the beginning, it was the story of a bright, quiet young man and his terrible nightmares, though it soon grew to encompass several others. For our stories are never truly our own, at least not for very long.

Within his unit, Russell wasn't exactly unpopular. Invisible might be a more proper word for it. He had little to say to anyone else, and not much interest in the noisy, somewhat desperately escapist displays of bravado that his peers took part in while not engaged in active combat. In the beginning, they asked him to join in from time to time, but he always responded with a shake of the head, a wistful glance in to the distance, and, in time, he seemed to fade from their consciousness. If asked, and given a gentle prompt, a reminder that such a person existed among them, they could usually correctly identify him, but it didn't really go further than that. He was known for not saying much, always bringing a book with him to the mess tent, and being, even Russell himself would admit, somewhat sickly and accident prone. His superiors, and a few of the more astute among his ranks, would note that he was an excellent archer and promising strategist.

Not that this mattered all that much to him. From the outset, Russell's only concern was emerging on the other side, relatively intact if possible. While a few young men had a good laugh over his having fallen face first in to a damp trench, Russell sat up, covered in freezing mud, and tried to daydream about something other than impending death. He thought of a story he'd been reading the night before, about an explorer scrabbling through a deep, winding cave, filled with lava and poison and monsters, all so he could face down the mighty dragon in a gamble for the safety of his village. Russell thought of this young man, clambering around in the dark, his small, flimsy human form squared off against an ancient being of scale and muscle and hot breath. That, he thought, is the kind of warrior I wouldn't mind being. Fighting of his own free will, with nothing but darkness and monsters to contend with. It didn't matter that he wasn't exactly what most people would call courageous or physically blessed, It would be easy, he assumed, because it wasn't this. No crouching in the mud, no arrows constantly whizzing past his head, no dark, smelly field hospitals, no sitting around with his rain-soaked clothes and hair clinging to his frozen body. And he wasn't sure, but he felt he had reason to believe that it wouldn't come with this terrible, terrible sadness.

As much as he tried to let things drift by, tried to treat what his life had become as some sort of far-away, passing dream, Russell was, indeed, terribly sad. He tried to hold it back, tried to scrape it back down in to what he imagined as a dark, decayed hole in the center of his being, but he soon found that this wasn't always possible. There was undeniably something new inside of him, something aching and dark. He didn't feel it all the time, but it always made itself known some way or another, often at night. He'd lie in his tent, on the hard ground, and suddenly feel the weight of this thing, whatever it was. It was terribly heavy, and now and then, he'd spend whole days trying to break free of it, keep it from dragging him down, a task he would soon find futile. All he could do was make sure it stayed as small as possible, coexist with it, and, above all else, ignore it, which proved a problem in itself. All of this denial made him feel hollow, like there was a yawning pit in the center of his chest. In which, coincidentally, the aching, heavy darkness fit perfectly. Corroding the edges, widening the hollow. By then, he'd given up. He barely felt like a real person anymore, which was just fine by him, because the things he was living and doing weren't fit for real people. Finally, he was able to drift through, like nothing could hurt him. Then the dreams started.

They were easy to shake off at first. After all, a few bad dreams were just part of life, and it wasn't like he didn't have real problems. But before long, they took over everything, to the point where he had to start making critical decisions. Would trying to function be harder on no sleep, or after the terrible nightly onslaught? This, of course, meant nothing in the end, because before long, Russell was terrified of sleeping. And fighting, and talking, and the opposition, and the rest of his unit, and nearly everything else. Maybe the real fear, the dark, tangled roots of countless others, was that the empty darkness inside of him would soon take over, completely and forever. This had occurred to him, of course, but he didn't think much of it. He was just biding his time, patiently waiting for whatever was going to happen to him to happen, so he could finally hurry up and die and be done with all of this. Bleeding and killing and hiding and waking up terrified if he even slept at all and reading the same paragraph over and over again. Russell had finally lost the thing most dear to him: his ability to lose himself in books. Stories didn't grab him, facts didn't take, words became meaningless scratches. His late-night hobby of cataloging feathers and plants from the different camps had long fallen by the wayside. This, he figured, was the end. All he had left to do was wait for the day that he'd make a careless mistake, or give out from exhaustion, or finally take matters in to his own hands and overdose on something or other.

And he realized that, suddenly, people were starting to take notice of him again. But this time, it wasn't for his inordinate bookishness, his trudging off to the medic again, his few areas of improbable skill. Now it was the screams in the night, the strange lack of focus, the endless dark nothing behind the eyes, the silence and the lashing out. Russell, everyone had sadly and correctly figured, was probably losing his mind, and something would surely be done about it before long. Several of them were already long-gone, declared unfit for combat and sent out in to the world, broken and unsteady. Russell was, they assumed, just the next in line. Russell himself had no assumptions either way about this, being set on dying one way or another, but that didn't change the course of things: having seen it a number of times before, the lost boys of the unit were correct. Russell himself was not told about this. Rather, he had to overhear it.

"Just finish his treatment, get him back on his feet, and send him off. The kid's done."

"Right. I was just going to say the same thing."

"It's a shame, really. He has a good head on his shoulders, and a hell of an aim. But you know how it is. Some of them just go crazy after a while."

Russell took note of the fact that the medic and the squad leader were talking like he wasn't there. In a sense, he wasn't. He'd been having a particularly bad week. Almost no sleep, a tiny flutter of a nightmare every time he kept his eyes closed for longer than a blink, a few too-close calls. He was no longer sure whether he was drifting in and out of reality or intentionally leaving himself open to attack. In truth, both were likely at play. Increasingly, Russell found himself slipping backward in to warm, sun-drenched memories, so deep yet so airy and unreal that he questioned whether or not they could have happened. Had the sun shining through the leaves of the trees in his hometown really created such a deep green glow as he ran down a sun-dappled path and in to the forest. Did the gold embossing on the books on the shelves of his father's study, and the gold rims of his father's glasses, really catch and reflect the yellow sun so richly? Could those mornings and sunsets really have been so hazy and mystical and green and gold? Could so many flowers really bloom at once? Were the wooden floors of the library so lustrous? Was water ever that shining, cool stuff of his memories? Could he ever really have felt so wistful and excited and fascinated and utterly safe?

Whether it was ever real or not, he welcomed the fantasy, only surfacing occasionally to check if he was finally dead. And each time, he found himself back in the cold, grimy, bloody, eternally sleepless present, the terrible world he found himself in between basking in his sunny half-familiar fantasies and, he hoped, being pulled down by the current of an aqueous, cool, restful darkness. And eventually, he was sure he felt that darkness claiming him at last, finally able to lie down, finally finished. He saw stars, and then darkness at the edges of his vision, felt his legs buckle. Someone was running towards him and shouting something, possibly his name, but he couldn't hear so well anymore. His ears were ringing, and he was thinking about the shining golden study and the shining golden paths and the freezing slippery trenches. The voice echoed through his head, and the wet ground was so cold under his cheek. And then all was dark. Finally.

Russell was almost disappointed to find that it was not quite so final after all. He woke only a few hours later on a scratchy infirmary mattress. His head felt hollow yet somehow heavy, and breathing was harder than he remembered it being. A medic soon realized that he was awake, and came to stand over his bed.

"How are you feeling?"

He certainly wasn't well, but he didn't really remember how he was supposed to feel anymore, so he couldn't think of anything to say. He figured it wasn't important, because the medic moved ahead in the conversation regardless.

"…Well. Whether you feel it or not, you're not doing so well. Looks like you have a chest infection. We'll do what we can to clean out your lungs and hope for the best."

Russell nodded slightly, and turned to face the wall. He didn't really care about where he was or what was wrong or what they were doing to fix it. He didn't really care about anything, besides getting back to sleep, and possibly the idea that lying on a cot and feeling feverish and short of breath for however long would at least keep him out of the action for a while. Or, of course, the dying and all that. Maybe this was the something that he had been waiting on.

So when he overheard that he might get to escape after all, Russell wasn't quite sure how to react. For too long, he'd only known of two possible futures: fighting and running and empty inside, or nothing at all; dead. Learning that he might be returned to normal life only served to remind him that he no longer knew how to be a person as such. Indeed, he found that where there had once been the various constituents of who he was, -his curiosity, his preference for quiet, his occasional but deliciously sharp pangs of loneliness- he now found little to speak of. A blank hollow, utterly still but for cold, heavy breaths of despair. As his body began to mend, the idea of discharge seemed ever more real, and Russell began to wonder what in the world he would do with himself now. Surely, he couldn't really return, could he? Could someone so hollow and, at times, so unpredictable, so fearful, really return to peaceful civilian life? Could his inner life ever pick up where it had left off? He supposed these thoughts should give him hope, that he should be grateful for being handed the release he had longed for without the finality of death. Instead, he found himself, as always, terribly frightened of whatever would come next.

Eventually, he recovered enough to start taking short walks around the encampment. Or at least by his own measure. Russell knew well that he was supposed to spend a least a few more days resting, but the two weeks of bed rest had left him with an insatiable hunger for life and movement. So, after everyone else was asleep, he'd quietly slip out of bed and spend an hour or two shuffling around, pacing at the boundaries of the camp, in circles that seemed to widen every night. It occurred to him that he might be making himself a target, but by the time he realized this, it was already something he needed, a nightly ritual as natural as breathing. He tried to focus on the cold wind on his face, on the damp, heavy smell of the earth under his feet, but something, of course, was always off. The scent was corrupted by distant blood and smoke and gunpowder, a scent of terrible familiarity. My god, what have I done? This was a question he had asked himself all too many times, but it had never quite broken through to the center like this. Because it really was a terrible smell, a smell of countless lives ending, a smell he had, to his horror, learned to produce all too carelessly. That was when he finally decided that he really had gone too far. He knew the terrible truth, that killing was easy and dying was easier and that being dead might not be as awful as everyone seemed to think. He decided that he could never go back. Not to his old world… And not to the war.

It occurred to him that just turning around and walking away might not have been the best choice. He still had a cough, still got tired easily, but it didn't seem to be setting him back, and he didn't feel signs of relapse. So he decided to press on, out in to the darkness, towards the light on the rim of the sky and a terribly uncertain future. In a way, Russell liked not knowing what was going to happen to him. For the first time in over a year, he felt the familiar stirrings of his old curiosity. Maybe he could remake himself after all. Whoever he was to become now would, he was sure, be in many ways an entirely new creature, but he was sure for the first time that the new would be built on the bones of the old. Whoever that might have been.

As the sun crept up, above the hills and under a thick pall of clouds, Russell came upon a small village, its crumbling stone walls and charred straw roofs dark and forbidding against the lightening grey of the sky. As the shadows faded, Russell finally found the source of the terrible smell. Bodies, at least a dozen of them. Some run through with arrows, some with great stains of dried blood surrounding vicious stab wounds, some dry and blackened, too slow to flee their burning homes. Russell remembered drawing back on bowstrings, brandishing swords, setting fires. In the heat of battle, it had seemed like survival, or, heaven forbid, a job. But here and now, so still in the morning light, he saw it for what it really was. These were people, and something horrible had been done to them. In that instant, eyes glassy, heart racing, he knew where the terrible black hollowness in his chest had come from. This, he thought, is the very meaning of cruelty. To kill, and to be forced to kill against one's own better judgment. Russell found himself unable to move, and stood, perfectly still, in one spot, for several minutes, until he was stunned by a small sound.

At first, he assumed it was a bird, and honestly, that alone would have been enough to shake him out of his moribund, empty little reverie. Russell was aching to see something alive, and, in absence of a human companion, a bird would certainly do. But this, he realized, couldn't be the call of a bird. It was the call of something small, frightened, and human. Or something like it. Because when he finally managed to locate the sound, he saw that it came from a small child, with pale orange hair and pointed ears, screaming her heart out in a dark alley.

"Hey! Um… Little kid… There…"

She stopped in her tracks and fell silent in an instant, looking back at Russell with a look of utter terror. He realize that his uniform and raised voice must have frightened her.

"Hey… I'm not going to hurt you… C'mere…"

The small girl looked down at her feet, and then warily toddled over to him. Russell smiled, bent down, and lifted her over his right shoulder.

"There. See? All safe now. What's your name?'

As soon as the question left his lips, he wondered if there had been any point in asking. Russell was somewhat inexperienced with children, and wasn't sure whether or not this one was old enough to speak. Apparently she was, barely, because after a brief pause, she replied.

"Ce… Cilia. Ceci!"

"Alright, Ceci. Do you want to come with me? It's dangerous for you here…"

He felt her arms gently tighten around his neck, and, with a slight smile, began the walk out of the village, glad for whatever distraction and companionship traveling with a child could offer. But, as he walked past the house, he saw something that made his blood run cold: The charred body of a woman, with singed locks of pale orange hair. Wincing, he cradled the child's head, guiding it in to the collar of his coat.

"Ceci… Don't look. It's okay."

He had never felt like such a liar.

When Russell finally reached civilization, he had little choice but to fall in to the uncomfortable position of a beggar. He was surprised, and a little sad, to find that it fit him rather well. With his bony frame, matted hair, cracked and scuffed glasses, constant wet cough, and a child always squirming in his lap, he certainly looked the part. Most of his money went to food for Cecilia, and, if he was lucky, himself, but he was saving some of it, with plans to buy a ticket and ride a boat across the water, where he had heard that there were larger towns with more opportunities. He wasn't sure she really understood, but he liked telling his young charge about his plans.

"…And when we have enough money, we'll get on a big ship, and we'll float across the water, Ceci."

He leaned further back in to the straw. A kindly farmer had allowed them to sleep in his barn that night. Ceci, as she had taken to doing, buried her face in to the warmth under Russell's coat.

"…And you know what we're going to do? We're going to get a home of our own! And it's peaceful over there, Ceci. No more wars for us!"

He hoped in his heart that this was true, and, with that, turned on his side to sleep, and let out a weary cough. He hadn't been feeling well that day, and thought to himself, so much for not relapsing, before falling in to a black-velvet sleep, spangled with eerie fever dreams.

Finally, the day came when Russell sat counting his coins, and found that he finally had enough to depart. He could barely contain his excitement. He shook the bag of coins in front of Ceci's face.

"Jingle, jingle, Ceci! We can take the boat now!"

Still beaming, he stood up, coughed, gathered Cecilia in to his arms, and headed to the dock.

Russell hadn't been on a boat before, and was surprised by how he felt the motion of the water in his body. He hadn't been feeling particularly good before he boarded, and the rocking of the vessel had only made him worse. He felt dizzy and confused. Cecilia, on the other hand, seemed to take to it well, constantly standing on tip-toe on the hard cot, trying to peep out of the porthole, showing the sort of curious spirit that Russell admired. He decided to oblige her, in part because some air might do him good.

"It's kind of cramped in here, right? Let's go out on the deck."

The cool salt air felt wonderful on his burning face, but it didn't do much for the uncomfortable listing of his body. What's more, Cecilia seemed somewhat frightened of the dark water, now that she could see that it surrounded them on all sides.

"It's okay, Ceci. Look, the water's pretty, and I won't let you fall in, and… Please don't cry."

Her fussing and squalling was making his head ache, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Russell opened his eyes, turned away from the water. Someone was talking to him.

"Yeah. I'm fine… I've just been a little sick lately."

"You do know this ship has a doctor, right?"

"I… No I didn't. Thanks."

"More than welcome. I'll walk you down the sick bay."

Russell nodded, and followed the stranger back in to the cabin.

The doctor was a severe but soft-spoken woman who wore a blue stone on a long golden chain around her neck. The stone fascinated Cecilia, who kept trying to grab it, hoping to get a good look. Russell was somewhat worried that she was annoying the doctor, who might end up getting frustrated and refusing to see him.

"Ceci, don't… I don't feel good and this nice lady is trying to find out what's wrong and fix it."

The doctor actually seemed somewhat amused by this stone-grabbing business, and it didn't seem to be getting in the way as she examined the back of Russell's throat before moving on to intently listening to his lungs.

"It's really alright. Curious little thing, isn't she? Are you her father?"

Russell had to think about this for a moment. It occurred to him that, indeed, he was.

"Yes."

"Well, then. Take good care of her, now. Anyway, back to business… Seems like you have an infection. We have some medicine to clear it up, so it looks like you'll be just fine."

Russell was stunned by her confidence. Back at the field hospital, they had basically said that they'd try, but there wasn't much to be done. For the first time, he felt like he really was headed for a better life.

"I'll… Really be alright?"

"I assume so… Just get some rest. And when you wake up, let me know if you want a book or something to pass the time."

Russell remembered that he always wanted a book. He hadn't been so happy since before he went off to war, and fell asleep with a smile.

Russell spent most of the voyage in the sick bay, and most of the time he spent in the sick bay, he spent with a book. He read histories, he read stories, he read tomes on the magics and sciences, he read fairy tales to Ceci, who looked up intently from the floor by the bed. Eventually, the doctor ran out of books to give him, and several passengers, having gotten word of the young man in the sick bay who read constantly, lent their own books to him. Russell had almost forgotten how deeply satisfying reading had been for him. When Cecilia felt like she wasn't getting enough attention, she'd grab the spine of her new father's book and pull down on it, looking him square in the face. Russell found this new habit endearing, even if it did take him out of his book for a few moments.

"Ceci, your daddy loves reading, doesn't he? He always has, ever since he was almost as little as you. But when he was in the war, he hardly got to read any books at all. Hard times, eh, Ceci?"

Cecilia thought about this, but didn't yet have the words for a proper reply.

"…Book!"

"Yes! And it's a good book! We're going to have to thank the nice lady who let me borrow it. And you know what I want to do when we find a place to live? I want to turn it in to a library. That way, I'll always have lots of books around, and other people who love books can borrow them, kind of like what I've been doing now."

That, of course, being Russell's favorite daydream of the moment.

After several days of this, rest and books and taking his medicine, Russell was given a clean bill of health, and was glad to be able to wander the deck as he pleased, enjoying the crisp sea air. On the final day, he stood near the bow of the ship, leaning on the railing and watching the strip of green on the horizon growing ever larger. He was excited, but he couldn't say for what, not being sure of what would be waiting for him on the shore. He noticed a woman who was also intently watching the green, growing ribbon, and decided to try asking her.

"Um… Hello there. Do you know what it's like where we're going?"

The woman thought for a moment.

"If you mean the port town… Well, there really isn't much. But Kardia is just a few miles down the path, and I think I've heard that they have an inn and a few vacant buildings, if you're asking about places to live."

"I guess I was. That helps a lot, thank… Ceci, looking at the water is fine, but you look like you're going to fall in and daddy doesn't want to have to jump in after you!"

The woman laughed.

"She's yours, eh?"

"Yes."

Cecilia looked back at Russell, who smiled at him. The woman couldn't help but be charmed by this sweet, if slightly mismatched pair.

"I was wondering! I mean, I didn't know why else you'd be traveling together, it's just that… Well… You don't really, you know… Look alike…"

The woman lightly flicked the rim of her ear. Russell sometimes forgot about the obvious difference between himself and Cecilia, whose sunset-orange hair was pulled behind her pointed ears.

"Ah, yes... She's adopted."

"Well, good for you, then! She's lovely. You two have a good day now!"

"I think we will."

He gave a nod, and the woman vanished in to the cabin. Alone with his daughter again, Russell turned back towards the water, eyes on the green patch of land once more, the warming sun and cooling sea spray on his face. Onward, to the bright future that lay before him.