Well stuff has happened in the past few days!

Actually playing Fire emblem is LOADS of fun, and I finally recruited Guy!

All I gotta say is. . .
You're on the list buddy.

"What list" you say?

The list of characters that I DESTROYPEOPLE WITH. (Next to Hector, Oswin, Lucius, and Marcus)
I LOVE that critical rate!
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!

Bah, so far I'm up to "False Friends", which is pretty good progress considering how often I actually play XD
(I would be further, but I am NOT talking to Eliwood and Hector; they've been bad boys and keep dying by stupid causes. Hector. HECTOR!)

But no matter! This is a fluffball chapter, riddled with happy sunny meadows and killer lords behaving like little children! (NO! SPOILERS!)
Next chapter will probably be less Florina-centric. And I've noticed with certain situations (Like Florina's sleepover) I prefer to have the viewpoint be a little more omnipresent, or whatever. But most of the time I'll focus just on Hector or just on Florina.

Happy reading!

Florina was very confused. Sometimes she'd feel lonely, sometimes she'd feel perfectly normal, and other times she'd feel all fuzzy and strange. She decided to sort out what she knew.
She'd feel weird if she was in close proximity to Hector, but it had to be very close. If she was just talking to him or standing near him, she wouldn't notice thing. But if he did something like pat her on the head, she'd feel it. What was odd was that it wasn't a bad sensation; it was unfamiliar and foreign, but it didn't have any negative feel to it.
She felt normal when with her friends or closer comrades . . . that was really the only time though. When she was working, her mind wandered. Though Florina was a very introspective girl, she was almost always able to keep her mind on the task she was performing. But now whenever she was working, she felt rather lonesome. She didn't understand that at all, because not a day ago she wanted all the privacy she could get.
And speaking of which . . . Florina's mind was wandering again. Kent was giving his horse a bath, so she was supposed to be mucking out the stall. She shook her head free of thoughts and got to work. She tried to concentrate, but she felt as if she did the job half-hearted. She eventually finished up, but found herself staring at the ground for a whole ten minutes. In that time Kent had already put his horse back and left, and yet Florina hadn't even noticed.

"Florina? Florina? Hello?"

"Hm . . ." Florina mumbled.

"Hector to Florina! Do you read me?" She felt a gentle rap on her head. She looked up to see Hector smiling at her.

"Oh!" She jumped. "H-hello Hector." Her loneliness melted away, but now the weird feeling was back.

"Good! You're back in Elibe! We missed you!" He chuckled.

"Uh . . .?" Florina wasn't quite sure what he meant.

"Never mind, I'm just messing with that little head of yours." He brushed it off. "So what are you up to? Anything interesting happened since I last saw you?" He leaned on the stall door, but eyed the hinge carefully.

"N-not that comes to mind . . ." She mumbled. "Oh! I'm s-sorry Lyn was yelling at you earlier." She sighed. "S-she really doesn't mean any harm, I promise."

"Aw don't worry about me; I'm made of rugged stuff!" he banged a fist on his armour. "Lyn can try all she wants, but she's never going to knock me down."

"Okay . . . I just don't like to see her angry at you." Florina looked up at him with her hand to her mouth.

Gods she was so cute.

"That's nice of you to look out for me, though." He chuckled lightly. "Not many people do that."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you doing naughty things behind everyone's backs?" Hector spoke with a teasing tone in his voice. "Because guilty people apologize less often than you." He poked her lightly on the arm. Florina rubbed her arm and blinked up at him.

"S-so . . . how are you?" she asked shyly.

"I'm okay." He gave a stretch. "A little bored, but I'm okay."

"D-did you want to do something? Because I'm done with work." She asked as her turquoise eyes glanced up at him timidly.

"Sure, that sounds like fun!" He smiled.

Florina found herself sitting in that sunny field again. But this time Hector was lying down next to her. She felt so awkward, so out of place.

"Hey Florina?" She nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Y-yes?" She stuttered.

". . . TAG! YOU'RE IT!" He tapped her arm and darted away from her as fast as he could. Florina sighed as she got up; was everyone certain that Hector was seventeen? Because he certainly acted like a six-year-old sometimes. No matter, she didn't want to know what'd happen if she refused to go along.
Florina was not letting him get away like that though. The one mistake Hector made was forgetting that even though Florina was small, she was much quicker than him. In no time she had tagged him back and was sprinting away. "Hey! No fair!" he came to a screeching halt and spun around.

"You know that's fair!" She called over her shoulder. There was no way he was going to catch her, and that gave her confidence.

"It was not!" he shouted back. She let a giggle escape. Hector ran as hard as he could to catch her, but she was just too fast for him. He eventually had to stop and catch his second wind.

"Not . . . fair . . . You know . . . you're faster . . . than me . . ." Hector huffed.

"You know that too!" She called from a distance.

"C'mon! Just let me tag you!" He whined.

"I thought you just said I wasn't being fair!" Florina hollered. Hector's cheeks puffed out a bit and his eyes glinted at her. Florina tried so hard to hold it in, but a laugh escaped. She slapped her hands over her mouth; all her confidence drained away.

"What's so funny?" He muttered.

"S-sorry," She looked down and scuffed her boot against the ground. "W-when you're mad, y-you look kinda. . ." Oh darn it! Florina needed the right word! The same word for when he was asleep in the quarantine tent! Not cute . . . but . . . what was it? "Funny" would either hurt his feelings or make him really angry, and Florina didn't want that. ". . . I . . . I l-like how you look." She decided to play it safe. In all honesty he looked completely benign, for a moment she forgot it was Hector she was laughing at. Hector held the pouty look for a moment more before he cocked his head and blinked at her.

"I thought you said I was scary when I was mad." Florina shrugged a bit. Had she the courage, she'd tell him that he looked far from menacing when he had a mopey look on his face. Hector collapsed to the ground and let out a breath.
"I'm tired." He mumbled. Florina came a bit closer, but kept her distance. "You know, you can come closer to me Florina, I'm not going to eat you." He sighed. Florina sat down next to him, still a little cautious. His chest rose up and down as he took heavy breaths.

"D-did I run you t-too hard?" Florina asked, drawing her hands up to her mouth.

"It's okay, I need the exercise." He put his hands behind his head. "I'm getting out of shape."

"Y-you took out that b-bandit yesterday." Florina pointed out. She wished she hadn't, for she had been reminded of how frightening he was when he was truly infuriated.

"Well I was pretty upset. No one messes with you if I can help it." He softly punched her arm. She was shocked at how gentle a touch it was; just a light tap. She had seen him play-punch Eliwood much harder, and he could give a real punch that had his enemies counting stars. She instinctively rubbed her arm, even though it didn't actually hurt.

"T-thank you Hector." She blushed a bit.

"Not a problem." He smiled. Florina twisted her fingers into the grass around them. Since the field was unkempt, the grass grew long. It wasn't like walking through a brush due to the fact that horses grazed on it often enough to wear down the turf's growth, but the blades still grew somewhat tall. Florina found herself braiding the green shoots together. Her fingers weaved quickly through the blades as her mind wandered off. Hector looked over at her and sat up.

"What are you doing?" He chuckled; the grass blades almost looked like Guy's ponytail, the way she braided them together.

"Um . . . J-just playing with the g-grass." She stuttered. Hector's smile seemed to grow.

"You do that when you're bored?"

"W-well . . ." She trailed off. "I-I used to braid Huey's m-mane and tail when I was bored." She mumbled.

"Ah." He nodded. That stupid horse had to be gone for a week now. How long would it take before the dumb animal came back? Florina undid her grass-braid and looked across the meadow. Soon she spotted some red and white flowers growing a few feet away. She got up and inspected them. Their stems were the right length and thick enough. She picked a few of them and began to weave them together in a wreath. Hector now had a piece of grass in his mouth, chewing the end of it lightly. Florina finished her wreath and looked it over.

"Pretty good." Hector took out the grass blade for a moment.

"T-thanks . . ." She looked up at him.

"Is that your secret talent?"

"I . . . I guess . . ." she mumbled. Florina didn't think of herself as very good at much. Of what she was good at, it was normally mandatory that she be good at it. She had to be good at riding, she had to know how to use a spear, and she had to know how to care for her Pegasus. Braiding was just sheer luck. She was generally clumsy with her hands, but she had taught herself how to braid to pass time. Whether it was a secret talent or not, she didn't really know. "D-do you have one? . . . A-a secret talent . . . I mean." She stuttered.

"Me?" Hector pointed at himself. "Nah, I'm kind of a faulty person. Kit only keeps me around because I'm durable, and Eliwood would skin her alive if she got rid of me." Florina felt a little sympathetic; didn't he care? He was treated like a stupid, rough-housing, insensitive jerk and he was okay with it? It didn't matter how petrified Florina was of him, he wasn't made up purely of flaws. Florina couldn't think of anything to say to that, she could only look at him with dismayed eyes. Didn't anyone think about how it might hurt him? "What's with the puppy-eyes?" He cocked his head.

"I-I'm sorry." She shook the misty look from her eyes. "I . . . ah . . ." She rubbed her shoulder. Hector was a little confused. He just said it how it was and she gets all sensitive? Was she okay?

"Are you feeling alright?" He asked.

"No! . . . I mean, yes! I mean . . ." she let out a sigh. "D-d-doesn't anyone a-appreciate you?" Hector looked at her. She was getting all misty-eyed over that?

"Of course I'm appreciated." He chuckled. "You don't need to feel sorry for me." He rubbed her on the head briefly. Her pulse had to be going at least ten miles a minute.

"O-okay . . ." Florina blinked up at him. Even though he told her she didn't have to feel bad, she felt compelled to. She looked up at the sky; it was a perfect blue, dotted by clouds of strange shapes. She looked intently at them, she noticed that most of the clouds had a flat top, but were bumpy otherwise. "L-looks like it'll rain sometime today o-or tomorrow."

"Rain? Aw I hate rain." Hector grumbled.

"Probably n-not for s-several hours." She shrugged.

"How can you tell?" He looked over at her.

"The c-clouds. I-if they have a flat top, a s-storm is probably coming. . ." She pointed.

"Oh. Cool." He mumbled. He leaned back and pointed up.

"That one kinda looks like a cow." For someone with such a mature body, he was pretty childish.

"Y-yeah, it does." Florina nodded. He was right; the cloud had two spiraling loops twisting upward and a thick middle.

"And that one looks like Lyn!" . . . actually Florina didn't think it looked like anything at all. She stared at him, rather confused. ". . . Well it does." His eyebrows lifted. She shook her head and let out a breath. Now he was just being ridiculous.

"What do you think that one looks like?" She pointed at another.

"Hm . . . that looks like a cloud." He mumbled thoughtfully. She gave him what looked like a glare, but because it was Florina looking at him, it wasn't too harsh. "Oh." He chuckled. "That one looks like . . . a hammer . . . fish . . . dragon . . . potato . . . thingy . . ." He trailed off; he sat up and looked at it from a different angle. "Oh. Never mind, it's a tree." She let out a small giggle. "I like this; this is fun." Hector knocked his boots together.

"I-I'm glad." Florina glanced over at him.

"Are you having fun too?"

"S-sure. . ." She stuttered a bit.

"Good." Hector smiled. "Thanks for coming out here with me Florina; you're a good friend."
The world suddenly stopped for Florina. His friend? She was his friend? B-but . . . why? She didn't quite understand. Didn't he know she was afraid of him? He had to! She showed it, he had to have seen her shaking whenever he did so much as casually pat her on the head! It seemed as if she was thinking for hours, but not even a minute had passed by.

"Y-y-you're welcome . . ." She quivered. His smile grew a bit and he looked back up at the sky.

"How hard do you think it'll rain?" Florina studied the clouds again. She took off her glove and stuck her finger in her mouth, then lifted it into the air to test the wind.

"I-it's not a huge s-storm, b-but stronger than a d-drizzle. I-it's good that the plants get the water they need to grow." She put her glove back on. Hector had never really thought of it that way, but that made pretty good sense.

"How fast do you think it'll dry up?" he asked.

"W-well out here in the sun it'll be gone in at l-least a half-an-hour, but in the t-thicket it will probably n-need one or two hours to dry." She murmured thoughtfully.

"Cool." He stretched a bit. "You're smart Florina."

"T-t-thanks." She covered her face to hide the redness.

"You're welcome." He grinned.

"Young Master! Young Master!" A voice called. Hector's smile faded and now he bore an agitated look.

"What? Can't you see I'm busy?" He spun around and glared daggers at Matthew.

"Sorry, didn't know you were having alone time." Matthew folded his arms as he made his way to the Ostian Lord. "Oh, Florina's with you." Matthew waved to the Pegasus knight, who shyly waved back. "Anyways, that's not why I'm here. Hector, we'd like some help chopping up the fire wood."

"But Matthew-" Hector let out a whine.

"What are you, three years old? Come on, you can torment poor Florina some other time."

"Very funny." Hector huffed.

"Come on, you've got a better arm than I have for chopping wood."

"Fine." Hector sighed. "I've gotta go Florina, but we can hang out later, okay?"

"O-okay. . ." Florina waved as Hector got up and left.
It was odd; the weird feeling was no more, but now she felt lonesome and isolated.

So, I hope you liked it! Review if you liked it or want to help make it better (As you know, don't be mean, but don't be a happy-rainbow spew of compliments)

I work hard to make this good for you, but I'll go that extra mile if I need to!

Ta~