A/N: I thought it might be appropriate if I dealt with the game's other bachelor Ray as well. So I'm also including a series of stories centered around the relationship of Ray of Yue, but from Alicia's perspective. There's not much RayxYue in this one, it's more of the set-up for all of it.

Merry Christmas everyone :D :D :D

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In Which Alicia is a Good Sister 1: Shattered Normalcy

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In all honesty, everyone saw it coming. But that didn't make it any less hard. Any less…wrong.

Any less…

Alicia grabbed the pillow off her bed and screamed into the mass of wool as loud and long as her lungs would hold out. Her carefully manicured nails nearly tore a hole through thin fabric she gripped it so hard, and all about the room were strewn blankets, cushions, and anything else unfortunate enough to get caught in her warpath.

She had half a mind to descend on Kyle's farm like a pyroclastic cloud and just burn the whole thing to the ground. Preferably with Kyle and Rosalind inside.

It was only what they deserved for the scene they caused just earlier that morning.

Everyone knew that Rosalind's affections had steadily turned from Ray to Kyle over the course of the past few years. And Kyle's own feelings seemed obvious to just about everyone but himself. Eventually the uppidty De Sainte-Coquille girl had sought to force Kyle to make a move and returned to her first love with an optimistic smile from Ray and a skeptic eyeroll from Alicia. She loathed the other woman all the more for using her brother in such a shameless manner, but she kept her mouth clamped shut for Ray's sake, secretly holding out a single string of hope that she was wrong.

But of course she wasn't, she was a fortune teller after all, so she could never be wrong. Alicia was never fooled either. Every dinner Rosalind spent at their home she gazed off into space more than bothered to make any discussion. Unless Kyle's name was mentioned, naturally. Ray had tried. Oh how he tried to win her back. Even going so far as to propose marriage despite many warnings from their mother and scoldings from herself. But even days before the wedding even he had to see that her heart just wasn't in it.

It took wedding bells for Kyle to figure out his own feelings. Alicia would have thought he'd have the decency to just realize it was too late. But no. No, he had to go and make an even more horrible scene of what was already a very tragic charade. She couldn't even remember seeing them leave the church, she could only see her little brother alone at the altar. He looked so…defeated. Not a single emotion crossed his face as he wavered on his feet, despite Gordon's failed attempt to bring some levity to a wedding ceremony that had fallen as silent as a mortuary. The rest of the De Sainte-Coquille family had the decorum to not say a word as they followed Rosalind out.

Alicia and the rest of the guests were snapped from their own stupor as Natalie practically teleported to her son's side before he collapsed completely. The doctor only had to glance at her oldest child for Alicia to join them, and the two women whisked him away, the chatter of village gossip only rising once the church doors closed behind them.

Hours had passed sense them. Alicia did not know, nor care how the rest of the day went for everyone else. Ray had locked himself in his room, she had followed suit shortly after, and their mother had been rearranging vials of medicine since her children had disappeared.

The lonely silence, however, was finally becoming too much. Alicia's restlessness would destroy her furniture if she didn't do something soon. So with a rough slam of her bedroom door, she marched downstairs. Her mother paused at the sight of her, both bearing matching expressions of pent-up frustration and hurt.

"This. What can I do with this," Alicia demanded as she picked up her mother's mortar and pestle.

Natalie wordlessly pulled a bundle of dried herbs that were hanging above the window and spread them on the surface of a nearby counter, and watched as Alicia promptly began grinding them into a fine powder.

"That actually looks very therapeutic," the doctor sighed after a moment, finding another mortar and pestle stashed in her cupboards and joining her daughter's side along the counter.

"I don't suppose these weeds are poisonous," Alicia muttered, dumping some of the powder into a jar.

Natalie smiled ruefully, "Those are hardly fitting thoughts for a doctor to have, Alicia."

"But I'm not a doctor, so I can think whatever I please."

There was a knock at the locked office door, but Natalie didn't look up as she called, "Is there a problem?"

"Special delivery for the doctor!" Yue's much to cheery voice hurt Alicia's ears, but her mother politely went to the door and invited the young merchant inside. To her credit, Yue's smile was less saleswoman and more…human than Alicia was used to seeing it as she set her wares out on the front counter for Natalie to inspect. Alicia wandered into the doorway between the medicine room and the front lobby as a thought occurred to her.

"A few weeks ago you mentioned some new medical practices in some of the villages along your route."

Yue grinned, "That would be correct."

"Next time you visit those places, would you ask the physicians there to give us some of their notes," she swallowed the lump in her throat, "Ray needs some more reading material."

Yue glanced at the staircase and gave a curt nod, "Not a problem. I'll write to the other doctors straight away so that the literature will be ready for pick-up."

Alicia caught her mother giving her a small smile before she turned to address their guest, "That would be lovely. I'll be happy to pay you for your trouble."

Yue tilted her head to the side, glancing at the stairs again, "I'll only charge for the delivery. About 30 gold should cover it."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, I'm not actually doing the work on this one," she grinned, "Though if other doctors start to get a similar idea, who knows, I may make a business out of it…in that case consider this your free sample."

Alicia rolled her eyes as Natalie paid for the wares she had ordered and graciously shook the merchant's hand, "Thank you for your help, as always. Do you need any more medicine for your travels?"

"Now that you mention it—"

And for a moment, as Natalie and Yue haggled over the worth of medicinal herbs and ointments, there was a glimpse of normal life again.