{-Alfonse-}

They quickly split into teams the next morning; Anna and Eir would search through any place reports might be, Sharena and Veronica would check the individual rooms, and Alfonse and Fauna would check around the first floor on the off chance it wasn't anywhere else. The former two teams left almost immediately, though the latter stayed in the dining hall a bit longer.

"I know I checked last night, but I want to look at your cut again," Fauna declared absently. "Does this kind of stuff always happen when you guys leave Askr?"

"We've had two of our only out-of-world campaigns in the past six months, this really isn't much to go off of," Alfonse sighed. "I suppose it's another one of the things we wrongfully dragged you into."

Fauna pulled out some clean bandages from her bag, setting them aside and beginning to role up his sleeve. "You say that as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me," she pointed out gently. "I mean, sure, this is…definitely not what I had in mind when I thought of what my life would be like in the future. But it's not a bad kind of unplanned. If I hadn't been brought here, then I wouldn't have met you or Sharena—and here, I'm able to talk face-to-face with people I didn't think I'd know outside of stories. Yes, I'm here to aid in a war and there's still a lot I don't know about this world, but it doesn't even seem like it most of the time. Everything's so unfamiliar here…honestly, it's made me realized how little I'd actually seen of my world."

She gave him a small smile and, despite himself, so did he.

"You know that she's never going to actually yell at you, right?" Alfonse asked, glancing at Fauna as she began unwrapping the bandages. "To her, this is just another thing she could've stopped if she'd only had the proper foresight; you're the person she wished we didn't need in order to retain a moderate sense of stability. She's always going to be making an effort to keep you in the Order."

"I guessed as much," Fauna remarked. "But I get it. I'll never know what happened between the three of you after he disappeared, though I'm certain it's not something anyone would want to experience again. Sharena told me I was kind of like the replacement—and honestly, I don't mind that. Even if I wish I could actually be told this kind of stuff directly, I can't blame any of you for it."

He felt like she was much more acceptant of this than he was. There was so much he wanted to point out, tell her that he was the prince and still knew barely anything about his kingdom. What sounded like it might be simple was far more complicated, bringing the words of Anna and Gustav to mind and wishing he knew of a way to explain it to her. She, of all people, should know what he did. Maybe that would be one less thing he wouldn't have to piece together on his own.

Alfonse's thoughts were interrupted when Fauna began redressing the wound (she'd muttered a few things, as well, but he wasn't able to make out what it was), causing him to wince.

She looked up for a moment, concern clear in her voice as she spoke. "You didn't do that before. Something wrong?"

"No, it's nothing." Despite this, he couldn't keep it from showing, eventually leaning back on the wall with a sigh. "When both your commander and your sister are staring at you like you could die at any second, it's best not to worry them further. This isn't the worst wound I've had—by now I just try to keep Sharena calm enough to continue following orders with a clear head. Making sure Anna isn't fussing over it is relatively new, though."

"On a 'paper cut to just barely not serious' scale, this is relatively bad," Fauna pointed out. "The worry's well-placed, and so are your intentions, but don't make me lecture you about hiding that kind of stuff. I know you don't mean to make it sound like you think that if you ignore it it'll go away, and I don't want to sound like I know more of what's better for you than you do, it's just really important that we all do that."

"Quite honestly, I'm not the one you need to be telling this to." They both had the same expression, knowing the statement was true though wishing it wasn't.

Fauna stepped back with a small nod. "All done. We should probably get going now, if not just to say we actually tried to help."

"Then let's get started. With any luck we can find something helpful and be back in our Askr in a few days." Alfonse got up, pulling his sleeve back down and grabbing his sword from his things.

"Is that really necessary..?" Fauna gestured to his sword, frowning. "You've got a lot to think about and fighting with a cut like that could just make things worse."

"Should we run into Líf or Thrasir, at least one of us would need to be able to fight back," was his simple reply. "And everyone else took theirs."

She just stared at him for a moment, then shook her head slowly. "You're right; better safe than sorry. I just hope you won't need it…"

"Neither of us do." He was more than aware of his slim chances of defeating Líf on his own—barely getting out of their confrontation at all—though that wasn't even considering if Thrasir was there as well or how he'd need to protect Fauna. In a way, Alfonse doubted they'd encounter their enemy, but he knew better than to completely rule out the option.

Fauna took that as her sign to grab her bag (being much smaller than the rest of theirs, it wasn't really a lot to need to carry around) and nodded. "Where should we look first? There's really not many places it could be down here. At least nowhere practical…"

Alfonse took the lead, knowing they weren't going to get much done there. "In case you haven't noticed yet, Heroes tend to get disorganized when there's a lot that needs to get done. It would be a miracle to find something that's sitting where it's supposed to be."

"True."

They stayed silent for a while after that, checking every room as they passed it. To both his confusion and concern, some of the closed doors wouldn't open; like something was on the other side of the door. He tried to convince himself the castle might not be in as good shape and it appeared from the outside and part of the floor above simply collapsed in—at least then he could pretend it wasn't like it was on purpose to keep them from finding what they needed. Though, if the latter had been the case, it couldn't have been something done the night before since either the person on watch or Fauna (who was just about the lightest sleeper any of them knew) would've heard it…but he didn't know if that information helped or just made it worse.

Eventually they reached the last room. Holding his breath, Alfonse opened the door after a bit of effort.

He knew this was the inner door to the supply room—there was another door leading to the courtyard, which was the one used the most. He didn't particularly know how to feel, however, when he saw it was completely empty.

Though the light was dimmed and likely coming from a hole in the wall instead of candles, it was definite that nothing was here. They still went in to see if there was something helpful, though.

Alfonse trailed much further behind Fauna, finding it hard to take everything in. Even when the Order was young and the multiple financial bumps they'd come across, this room always had something in it.

"Found something!" Fauna called, almost startling him. He quickly walked over to stand beside her.

Sitting on one of the shelves was a hastily-written note, though the exact author was unidentifiable by the handwriting alone. After a small moment of hesitance, he read what it said.

'One step forward, two steps back…really that's the best way to describe this situation. We only know a small bit more than we did when we started. The attempts to delay it by bringing in more Heroes isn't helping, and with the amount of living left and seemingly random victims, there can't be much more time until one of us joins the dead. We're running out of time…'

"Let's take this back to the others," Alfonse suggested. "With any luck, they found something a bit more useful."

((A/N: It's not a Serious Story(tm) until the author confirms one pairing as canon—Alfonse/Zacharias—yet gives you plenty of opportunities to ship literally anyone else. At this point I don't even know if I'm doing it on purpose or not.

Not shown: Veronica yelling at Sharena for knowing Lekra. Basically "Why the hell would you want that?" and a remark to how Sharena was going to regret it later; Sharena replies with how she probably wouldn't. I would've made it a story chapter but I had no ideas for it beyond that, without Veronica revealing too much that I only plan on her telling Alfonse later.))