{-Sharena-}

She'd walked back to the castle alone, since it wasn't that far and Alfonse wanted to stay at the royal castle. Sharena made her way to where she knew Anna and Fauna where waiting.

"Where's your brother?" Anna looked over at Sharena

"Alfonse wanted to do some reading," Sharena answered simply, shrugging. "And I wanted to come back here."

"So you walked here alone and unarmed."

"Yup."

Sharena had a feeling, however, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd brought her lance or not.

Their latest adventure had brought a few changes with them. Lasting for about two months, it started with reports of missing people and ended with them all back in Askr after a while in a world of "nightmares" (it was supposed to be full of nightmares, but the only thing she'd only came across them in the one form they were always in: dreams, while she was asleep, like normal). In the last day they were there, they (kind of) met a boy named Natheniel—someone who knew them all by name and even had a photo of them. Sharena, having been given the wonderful curse of the gods that she still didn't have an explanation to, had had nightmares since the beginning, that apparently did have to do with their quest, and she'd heard the voices of all the people the nightmares had taken away. She still heard them occasionally, even though none of the others knew it, when she'd pass the place Anna had put the "heart" of the beast (which actually turned out to be a blob that really did not like water). And though she was mainly over it now, Anna was still treating her like she still wasn't well enough to take care of herself. Or maybe she was back to treating her like normal; generally the line of concern and babying got blurred pretty easily.

Along with that, the Order was kept busy in trying to find Natheniel. With rumors going around about a young adult sharing his exact appearance, Anna kept everyone on high alert. From what Sharena gathered, Emblian activity had gone down as well—although she didn't really think anything had changed.

"Your orders?" Fauna prompted gently. "The cookies should be done soon and I'd really rather they not burn…"

"I second that!" Sharena agreed, nodding. Mmm, warm cookies…slightly better than normal cookies.

Anna sighed. "Well, by all means, don't let me stop you," she said, unamused. She nodded the two of them off. "We're going to be waiting a while anyway."

…

Sharena had never questioned how many people could comfortably fit in the meeting room at once. It was big, sure, but the large table in the center—with the whole map of Askr with a little bit of the Emblian border—took up a lot of room, too. She eventually lost count of how many Heroes came in. But she recognized them all, despite not actually knowing all of their names. Fauna greeted each of them, spending a couple minutes on trying to figure out the names of a few. Sharena wondered if she should be doing that.

"Listen up." Anna's voice cut through the idle chatter. Everyone turned their attention to the commander. "Twenty of you are going out scouting. That kid's still at large, and it sounds like he's getting closer to here. Your mission would be to find him before he finds us and figure out what he wants. Four of you are going to try and see if you can get any kind of lead on Embla's plans. They've been too quiet and the border's being carefully guarded—more so than usual. That being said, if there's not a safe way in then come back. The rest of you are in charge of training up the new recruits. Fauna will go make more cookies or something." She waited for everyone to share a collective nod. "Anyone have any preferences before I assign a job for you?"

Anna usually gave the Heroes different options; they weren't guaranteed the role they wanted if more than the amount of people she was sending out offered, but it gave a sense of "you've got a choice" which was, from what Sharena guessed, an important part of getting people to listen to you. Not like much people really listened to Sharena no matter if she gave them choices or not; normally she was answered with "no" even if that wasn't an option.

As the others talked to Anna, Sharena stayed silent and where she was. She knew Anna probably already had something in mind for her to do anyway, so placing in the suggestion for something else would be practically useless.

After a couple minutes, Anna called out who was doing what. Each Hero left once they were given their instructions. But of course she used their full titles (why? Why did there need to be both Lucina: Glorious Archer and Lucina: Brave Princess here?) so it took longer. Not to mention Sharena was last on that list—even Fauna got to leave before her. Did Anna know she wanted another cookie? Was she trying to keep her from them so then she won't possibly maybe eat them all?

When just the two of them were in the room, Anna dropped her serious tone. "I'm guessing I don't have to call you Princess Sharena for you to know I'm talking to you."

Sharena nodded. She began walking out the door.

"I'm still not done with you."

She couldn't stop herself from moaning. "All the cookies are gonna be gone by the time I get there!"

Anna didn't look amused. "You know that at least half of everything in that pantry is stuff to make cookies, right? With, like, another fourth devoted completely to cupcakes."

"But Fauna worked so hard on them," Sharena pointed out. She probably shouldn't be pressing her luck, but she was anyway. "It'll be a shame if I only get one."

Immediately she realized she probably shouldn't have said that. Anna definitely was not in the mood for jokes. "Just tell me what the hell Alfonse thinks he's doing and you can go back to eat all the damn cookies you want." Anna must really not be happy if she was cursing directly at Sharena.

"Alright, alright!" She took a deep breath. Anna wasn't going to like this. "I don't know." All she knew was that it had something to do with the letters he'd been placing at that tree, but that was more of a guess since he never really answered her. And from the way he told her to keep it between the two of them, that little detail wasn't something he wanted Anna to know.

"Fine," Anna sighed. She gestured towards the door. "If you eat more than six cookies you aren't having any more from the next three batches."

Sharena smiled and went out the door.

(A/N: wow, Anna is...not happy. Then again if I were her in what should really be called "Screw You, Anna: The Kind-of-Series" then I'd probably be, too... I mean, have you read how often they ignore her?

I'm practically dissing my own story at this point. But I do pull out an explanation for it later so I guess it's all good?)