{-Alfonse-}

They, of course, found nothing. It seemed like nothing was where it was supposed to be, lost somewhere amidst the chaos of the last few weeks of the world. There wasn't so much as a piece of a report mentioning the heart. They debated sending a team to the royal castle too (being the next probable place of anything useful), but Eir warned against it; she said that it was more likely that Líf and Thrasir were there, given that several of their lost subjects were there as well.

The next morning, they got their pairs for the day: Alfonse and Fauna, Sharena and Veronica, and Anna and Eir. Each group was given a different part of the castle to search and sent on their way, meeting at the same spot at the end of the day.

Alfonse waited to start after everyone else left. "How have you put up with our crap this long?"

"You're going to have to be a lot more specific," Fauna remarked. "Generally speaking or specifically about what we've been doing for the past couple of months?"

"All of it," he sighed. "I'm getting tired of it and I've dealt with it for the past five years. Except it keeps getting worse and the root of that problem has you right in the middle of it."

"It's not so bad, once I got used to everything."

"That doesn't help anything."

"This isn't the first time I had this conversation, you know," she remarked. "After what happened with… Zacharias, Sharena did it for a while. You two were really the only ones to ask, even if I wondered if you hated me at first."

"I…"

"I know you didn't really mean it. You lost someone really close to you and you wanted to save yourself the heartache of going through that again. I don't blame you. Even though I never really knew what you were like before, it's nice to see you open up a little more." She smiled. "You actually hold a casual conversation with a Hero that isn't Lucy now."

He worked up the courage to say what he actually wanted to ask her. "Do you ever miss your own world?"

"Not really… not once I actually made friends here, anyway. I never thought I'd be anyone significant. I mean, everywhere I went I heard stories about the exalt and his tactician stopping an evil dragon god. How was a servant girl like me supposed to do anything that even vaguely compared to that? I was comfortable where I was, in my little unchangeable corner of the world." She was quiet but her smile didn't fade. "Then I was summoned here. I was terrified. Everything was new and suddenly I was actually important. Worst yet I could feel the kind of loss you had experienced before I came. In some ways I knew that I was supposed to fix it. But eventually it didn't feel so unfamiliar anymore. I made friends with the three of you and I haven't really thought of going back since. Now I've actually met Chrom and Robin, more than just seeing a glimpse of a picture. Robin even promised to teach me magic soon. Maybe then I can actually do something instead of just standing there."

Alfonse couldn't help but smile a bit too, however weak it was. "You don't have to worry about not doing anything. Trust me, your presence is enough."

"You can say it as it is. I'm what little is keeping the three of you together."

"You shouldn't have to be," he sighed. "We should be able to solve our own problems without involving other people."

"I don't mind. It sounds like the alternative was a lot worse."

He didn't say anything else about it. Anything more and he'd either end up arguing with her or go into a nervous ramble, neither of which he particularly wanted to do.

They searched most of it in silence, occasionally drawing the other's attention to something that might be useful. The final room they were supposed to check was jammed; Alfonse simply brute-forced it open. He knew the place couldn't be in that poor of a condition, so someone had to have blocked it. And if someone felt the need to block it, then there was something worthwhile on the other side.

Sure enough there was something. It was just a piece of paper with instructions on it, along with some seemingly random nonsense, but it was better with nothing. Hopefully the others had found something as well and they could piece together where the heart might be.

On their way to meet back with the others, Fauna asked a question of her own. "Was the king ever… close to the two of you before you joined the Order?"

"I can barely remember a time when the four of us could really be considered a family," he explained. "Sharena definitely wouldn't remember; she was two, maybe three. I don't know what sparked the change if there was any reason for it at all, but after that… we just kept drifting from there."

((A/N: Now we all know that Fauna comes from the World of Awakening! This, the fact Lucy is also Marth-Lucina (as my friend and I call her), and Líf kind of quoting something Lucina said in-game, should tell you that my first Fire Emblem game was Awakening. I mean technically I downloaded Hereos either the previous night or the morning before we actually bought Awakening, but that probably shouldn't count since it's an app.

What Alfonse did not want Fauna to notice when he brute-forced the door open was that he actually almost struggled. He isn't a dangerous adversary because he has raw strength; he's observant and knows where to hit where it counts. Sharena makes up for her own lack of strength by being quick and tiring out the enemy so then someone else can kill them. Anna and Zacharias, on the other hand, both heavily rely on their strength (which is comparatively a lot more than either of the siblings') as their only battle strategy.))