No Longer Alone


Hum… I've been under increasing amounts of stress from schoolwork lately… Add that to four ongoing multichapter stories (and whatever oneshots my mind churns out during that time) on this site alone, and man, my update times are going to go to pot.

Oh well. Next chapter's up. Enjoy, I hope.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


"Hey." Franz heard his brother's call and nodded in acknowledgment. With a sigh, he let the satchel he had strapped to his side fall to the dirt ground and joined his brother by the campfire.

"We've got all of Fort Rigwald, and Ephraim leaves it to the Grado soldiers." Forde snorted in a mixture of amusement and incredulity. "And we, the brave soldiers of Frelia and Renais, will spend the night in tents and sleeping bags."

"Can't be helped." Franz chuckled. "We're not here to win only on the battlefield – we've got to convince Grado that we're not after them – we just want Emperor Vigarde to surrender, end the war, and help us with the restoration."

"Hm. Can't say there hasn't been grumbling about it, though."

Franz shook his head. "Of all the people here, us Renaitians are the ones who should feel the most bitter against Grado – Prince Ephraim included. If we can do it without complaint… well, so should they."

"Perhaps." Franz noticed that Forde was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "And just why do you feel so altruistic towards Grado all of a sudden?" Forde's eyes twinkled. "Might it have something to do with that young girl you saved from the bloodshed?"

"Come off it." Franz said shortly. Forde caught the tone in Franz's voice and wisely decided to back down for now.

A long moment of silence passed in between the both of them, where they merely sat staring at the fire. Finally, Franz sighed, cleared his throat, and spoke up again.

"But, you know… I just… Back there, it…" He grimaced, unable to properly articulate what he was feeling. Forde raised and eyebrow.

"Is it about that girl?"

"Her name's Amelia," Franz sighed and shook his head. "And yes, it is. Kind of."

"Kind of." Forde bit into the strip of meat he had been holding into his hand. "Always the best way to start off when asking for advice."

"You know… earlier today, when I… well, 'fought' isn't exactly the correct word, but when I faced her… and I spared her… I, well, I found something odd within myself." Then Franz's eyes narrowed. "And if you make allusions to anything involving 'love', 'crushes', or 'romance', I reserve the right to punch you in the face without fear of retaliation."

"Duly noted." Forde said dryly. "And what's so strange? You have a tendency for sparing any of you enemy's lives if you can help it."

"Well, yes, but… I always incapacitate them to ensure that they won't cause trouble for me later. With Amelia, it was… different. I didn't think at all of hurting her. It was more like… I don't know… like I wanted to protect her. To get her away from all this messy fighting."

"…" Forde was silent for several seconds. "Are you sure you don't want me to draw any parallels to the romantic side of things?"

"Quite." Franz snapped in an annoyed tone. "There was just something… different about her. Different from the other soldiers."

"Huh. Well, I wasn't privy to much of whatever it was she did, so unless you can articulate things better I'm not going to be able to help you out on this."

"I know. It's just…" Frustrated, the young knight ran a hand through his hair as he pondered the issue.

The two brothers sat together for several minutes, one chewing away hungrily at his snack, the other with eyes half closed as he turned his dilemma over in his mind.

"Resolve." He finally spoke up. "It was resolve. The other soldiers we fought… they were resigned to their duty – they may not have liked it, but they were committed to accomplishing it. Amelia… she was terrified. I just… I don't think I could have done anything to her without hating myself next morning. I mean, I actually helped her with an injured arm!"

Forde chuckled lightly. "All's well that ends well, brother. I don't think I'd have had the heart to strike someone like her down either."


Franz turned away temporarily from Amelia. There was still plenty of fighting to be done, and she should be safe with the rest of the group.

"Stay here, okay?" He asked, aware how foolish it was to be saying something like this to an enemy prisoner, but still, he just got the feeling she wasn't going to try anything rash. "I can't guarantee your safety if you wander off somewhere."

He got two steps before she called back to him. "Wait!"

Pausing, he turned back to face her. "Yes?"

She swallowed hard, glancing uncertainly from side to side. In the back of his mind, he wondered if she was equally hesitant about everything in her life. Then he dismissed that thought. Being taken a prisoner, and especially in the manner she had just been through, would probably be a confusing and disorienting experience for anyone. "Yes?" He repeated, trying to make it sound gentler.

Finally, she looked up into his eyes, and for the first time he saw a hint of resolve in her eyes – something she believed was right and worth doing; something she was committed to.

"There's – there's a prisoner here. A Pegasus knight. If you want, I could… I can lead you to her."

His brow furrowed, Franz pondered mentally. A Pegasus knight taken prisoner? Surely word should have spread through the camp by now if one had been taken… And of course, once the fighting started, a single warrior being captured and taken wouldn't be of much significance.

She wasn't about to lead him into a trap, was he?

He gazed at her uncertainly. After a moment, she broke his gaze and looked down to the floor. He could see the beginning of a blush spreading across her cheeks.

Hoping that he wasn't about to say something he was going to regret later, he opened his mouth. "Alright, then. Lead the way."


Amelia ran her tongue over dry lips as she hurried through the corridors of the fortress. Behind her, the Renais knight – Franz – kept a steady pace behind her.

Once in a while they ran into fighting between the invaders and the defenders, and after ensuring that she wasn't going to be entangled in the fighting, Franz would draw his sword and enter the melee as well.

She would huddle by the sidelines, unhappily aware of the fact that she had no weapon, and moreso, that having one wouldn't have made much difference. So all she could do was watch him.

After a while, she began to notice that he almost never killed an opponent if it was feasible for him to do so. Of course, there were several times where there had been no other choice, and blood coated his sword once again (and she winced whenever that happened), but she could tell he found no delight in doing so.

Finally, she led him to the gates of the prison holding area – only to find three Frelian soldiers fending off twice as many Grado knights.

Franz merely paused to give her a look – obeying silently, she took a step backwards – before he ran forward to throw himself into the combat.

One unprepared knight fell, suffering a wound to his thigh. As he clutched at it, screaming in pain, Fran shifted his attention to two more that were giving a lance-wielding Frelian trouble. Quickly, he diverted the attention of one of them, but even as he did so, the remaining Grado knight knocked aside the Frelian's spear, thrusting his own weapon into the Frelian's midsection.

She saw Franz utter a silent curse, shifting tactics to deal with the second foe as both concentrated their attacks on him.

Blades and spears rose and fell in a deadly dance.



Finally, the skirmish ended, and aside from a tiny wound to his hip (one quickly amended by a vulnerary), Franz was untouched, along with the two remaining Frelian knights.

"Franz?" He heard Amelia's voice. "This is the place."

"Right, thanks." He nodded in gratitude and stepped forward to nudge open the door.

One swordswielder, leaning against the wall and looking rather bored. He obviously hadn't heard the sounds of battle from outside – either that or he was simply hoping to wait out the battle until he ended.

"Okay, I guess I'll head in. Can you two help me stand guard?" The taller of the two soldiers nodded.

"Good. Amelia, you stay here with them, okay? I'll come back after-"

"Huh? But…" She interrupted, a troubled expression on her face. "But I thought…"

"Is there something wrong?"


She nodded, miserable, not trusting herself to speak.

How could she explain that of all the soldiers here, she felt safe with him – and only him?

The officers in Grado had told her about the cruelty and brutality of both Renais and Frelia. Franz obviously was nothing like that, but… but she couldn't be sure about the others. And what about their leader… that Prince Ephraim? She shook her head.

"Let me…" She said softly, almost in a pleading tone. "Let me go in with you. I can help… I could keep him off guard…"

Even as she spoke she could see the incredulity on the faces of the Frelian soldiers. But Franz merely nodded, his expression strangely blank.

"If you say so."


Franz let Amelia step ahead of her, trying her best to act as if she had just managed to take a prisoner. Meanwhile, Franz kept his head low, trying to look defeated, his hands clasped at the small of his back. Of course they weren't bound, but provided he didn't mess this up, the guard would have no way of telling so until it was too late.

The swordsman glanced up from his post, his hand shifting to his sword as the two entered. Once he saw the emblem of Grado on Amelia's scarlet armour, he let it fall to his side again.

"What's it now?" He mumbled.

"Uh… I, uh, got a prisoner!"

The swordsman snorted. "Shoulda just killed him and saved me the trouble." Pulling himself into a more upright position, he snagged the keyring hanging around his belt and pulled open the door to an empty cell. "Over here." He yawned.

Franz walked forward, with Amelia following suit, as the young cavalier resisted the urge to roll his eyes. To any observant individual, the two of them had raised at least three glaring red flags that signified something was clearly odd about the 'prisoner' and his 'captor'.

"Hurry up, I haven't got all day-"

Franz swung his arm up and about, slamming a fist into the back of the swordsman's head. The man's eyes rolled upwards and he collapsed heavily on the dirt floor.

Franz stooped to retrieve the keys. "Alright, so which cell was it?"

"I – I'm not sure. I only know she was taken here…" Amelia glanced hesitantly around.

"Alright…" Franz sighed as he wandered around, checking the rows of cells. He noted some discarded boxes with a fair amount of stuff in several of them – Colm would likely have a field day here later. "Maybe you could describe the prisoner to me?"


"Well, she was a she… she had dark blue eyes, and this really long, thick cascade of luxurious dark blue hair…"

Franz halted in midstep. That had almost sounded like… "Princess Tana?" He blurted out. What was she-

"Ah!" The shout came from further in. "Here! I'm over here!"


Amelia still found it slightly difficult to believe a princess would have run off and got herself captured like that (she'd always had that mental image of them being rather… well, proper), but Franz seemed entirely satisfied with her claim that she was indeed royalty. Further, she'd vaguely recognized him as 'one of Eirika's knights', and that had been the end of that.

By the time they re-emerged from the prisons, the battle was all but over, and the majority of the soldiers congregated in the throne room.

Amelia had felt her stomach churn slightly as she saw the bloodstained throne that Gheb had occupied earlier on. Upon catching sight of the prince of Renais, Amelia's heart suddenly sped up, and she found herself edging back behind Franz. The knight stepped forward, the Frelian princess at his side, and after a few words between the Renaitian Prince and the Frelian Princess, the princess went to stand further away.

The prince began a speech about how this battle had been a difficult one, and how many of their comrades now lay dead. Amelia hadn't really been listening, until she picked up him saying something about how if any reports reached him about the Grado soldiers being mistreated, that Frelian or Renaitian in question was going to rue the day he was born or something along those lines. Amelia suspected that, being the only Grado soldier she could see in the room, she hadn't really been the target audience for those words.

Nevertheless she listened, wondering how on Magvel could have managed to peg the prince's personality so utterly wrong.


"Ahoy, folks!"

The cheerful call broke the reverie of the two Knights of Renais, and they both turned to behold a man walking up to them, carrying what appeared to be several parcels.

"A victory feast, lads!" The man proclaimed, handing both Forde and Franz a parcel each. "Special rations from the storehouses of Fort Rigwald!"

Forde quickly unwrapped his parcel and whistled appreciatively. "Wow. Salted meats, cold cuts of ham, bread that's actually still kinda soft and chewy, blocks of cheese…"

"And a stoup of wine each!" The man said with great relish as handed the two cavaliers a jug. Even in the dim firelight, Franz could see that it was filled almost to the brim with rich, dark liquid.

"Wow…" He mumbled. "Are the Grado soldiers really fed so much better than us?"

"They wish." Forde chuckled. "I heard there were three commandants in this camp, and one overall commander by the name of Gheb. Likely these four got all the fine grub, and the Grads got the same gruel as most of us."

"'Slikely as not to be true." The delivery boy chuckled. "A night of revels, eh? Happy eating!" Having said so, he turned away, intent of handing out more parcels of food to others.

"You know, what happened to that line about 'winning the hearts and minds of the Grado soldiers'?"

"I guess even that has its limits." Forde grinned. "Plus, I think it'll help shut the rank and file up some." He bit into a piece of meat. "Mm. Quality stuff here. Wonder where they got their cooks."

Meanwhile, Franz likewise unwrapped his bundle, staring at the plethora of food laid out before him – certainly a better meal than he'd ever had for a long time. Hesitantly, he dipped his hand towards a cut of meat – then withdrew it again, empty handed. Then he reached down towards a hunk of cheese – and stopped just short of actually grabbing the piece of food.

He sat there for several long moments as his brother continued polishing off his own share. Finally, he sighed, rewrapped the bundle, grabbed his wine jug, and stood up.

"Don't wait up." He said briefly to his brother before heading off in the direction of the fortress.


Amelia sat on her bed, her back leaning against the wall. The room was suffused with a dim orange glow, courtesy of several candles on the tables.

The victorious army had treated them prisoners well – or at least as well as could be expected. Instead of shutting them up in the dank and rather filthy dungeons, they had simply assigned the soldiers to individual rooms of the fortress – after checking to ensure that no weapons remained to be used by the Grado soldiers, of course. Frankly, though, they needn't have bothered. For every Grado soldier awash with nationalistic fervour and determined to die for the homeland, there were ten that were simply glad that the fighting was over.

Whether by deliberate decision or simply luck of the draw, Amelia had ended up in one of the better rooms, entirely by herself. While by no means the most opulent or lavish of the available rooms, it was still more comfort than Amelia had, to the best of her memory, ever experienced.

It was simply too bad, then, that she wasn't enjoying any of it.

She felt lonely. More lonely than she had while walking through Grado's countryside, more lonely than the nights she had spent in various country inns, more lonely than she had felt as the only female recruit in Grado's barracks. She wasn't sure why, she just knew how it felt.

She felt lonely.

Silently, she pulled up her legs, hugging them close to her chest. Then she sighed.

A tiny grumble from her stomach reminded her that she should probably get started on the dinner that had been brought up to her. It was some kind of thin soup, but it would probably be no worse than anything else she'd eaten in the army.

A soft knock on the door startled her from her thoughts.

"Amelia? Are you there?" A familiar voice called to her, and she felt her heart flutter for the briefest second.

"Franz?"

The door creaked open, and he entered, clutching several packages in his arm. "I thought you might be lonely, plus…" He smiled. "I figured whatever rations doled out to the prisoners couldn't have been too appealing…" As he spoke, he dragged a chair to the bedside table and settled himself on it.

"What's this?" She said curiously as she shifted herself closer.

"Oh, several cuts of salted meat – there's some cold ham here. Some bread that appears to have been baked within the last three days and not a week ago like usual, and yeah, we've got some cheese. It's all from the storehouses of the fortress anyway."

Amelia found it rather difficult to keep from drooling. "And… this is for me?"

Franz chuckled. "Well, I was thinking we could share, but if you're that hungry…"

"Ah, no! No! I didn't mean- I'm sorry!" Amelia blurted out. How could she have been so greedy? And when he had been kind enough to bring this up for her too!

"No, don't worry about it. Here, go ahead, take what you want first." The young cavalier shifted his position so he could open another one of the bundles. "Do you drink?"

"You mean like wine?" Amelia shook her head. "No."

"Good, me neither. I used it to bribe the guards to turn a blind eye." Finally, he withdrew a roll of bandages. "Hold out your right hand."

Amelia glanced down at her sprained right hand, still bound in the cloth Franz had bandaged her with that morning. "Why?"

"Well, the work I did earlier was fine for a patch job in the middle of a battlefield, but now I have the time…" Franz shrugged. "I'd like to be more thorough."

"Oh… alright. Th- thanks." Amelia held out her right arm while she used her left to pick up a piece of bread.

As she ate, Franz carefully unwound the bandages already around the wrist, quickly but meticulously replacing it with a fresh dressing. Finishing up, he grabbed a vulnerary and splashed some of the curative mixture onto the bandage, letting it soak through the cloth and into her muscles.

"Should be better by tomorrow night." He remarked as he reached over for a piece of cheese. "Oh, yeah, and in lieu of the wine, I brought some milk." He held up a skin of the creamy liquid. "That okay with you?"

"Of course." Amelia paused, gazing at the hunk of bread she held in her hand. After a long while, she sighed. "Franz…?"

"Hm?"

"Why… why do all this for me? What makes me so special?"

Franz sat back, chewing thoughtfully. Finally, he shrugged. "No reason, I guess. Call me biased if you want." He grinned. "Although, if you want, consider it repayment for helping me out at the jail cells earlier today." Then his expression grew more serious. "Why do you ask? Do you feel uncomfortable or-"

"No! No, of course not." Amelia lowered her head, a half smile on her face. "It's just… it's been so long since anyone's treated me so nicely." She glanced up again. "Franz… thank you."

Franz nodded back. "You're welcome." He shifted his gaze, staring at the opposite wall.

The two of them didn't speak much after that. They merely sat, each enjoying the company of the other.


It was several hours later that Franz finally stood, stretching and yawning slightly.

"Well, I really should be going, Amelia." He said.

"Mm… I guess." His brow furrowed slightly as he noticed the shadow of discomfort that passed over Amelia's face.

"If you like, I could come again tomorrow." Her expression brightened considerably.

"Would you?"

"Why not?" The young knight shrugged. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, I won't be on duty for most of tomorrow, so I'm free to do as I see fit. And I like being with you."

She smiled. "Thank you… for doing that for me." She gazed downwards towards the stone floor. "I'm just a Grad prisoner, after all."

"Hey, hey. Don't say that." She shifted her gaze back to him, a curious look in her eye.
"You're Amelia, a soldier of Grado. You're a brave young girl who was willing to stand up and fight for what you believed in… and you're also a great friend."

She nodded, smiled. "Franz… thank you."

"Anytime."

He headed towards the door, pausing only to snuff out a candle along his way. Behind him, Amelia likewise doused the candles near her, plunging the room into darkness.

Silently, he shut the door behind him, head bowed in thought. Then he sighed.

"Prince Ephraim."

"…"

"How long have you been there, my lord?"

"Long enough." The future sovereign of Renais replied dryly. He glanced back at the room. "I assume that was the quarters assigned to that female Grado soldier who seemed to be your shadow for the majority of today's fighting?"

"Yes, sir."

Ephraim folded his arms. "You are aware that I specifically ordered that none of the Renaitians were to fraternize with the enemy?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you did so because…?"

Franz gazed back towards the oaken door. "Because she's not my enemy, sir. And she shouldn't be yours, either."


Back in the inky blackness of the room, Amelia sighed, letting the coolness of the night wash over her, soothing her tired body.

Softly, she slipped into slumber, her last words before she was lost to world a semi-coherent murmur.

"Mommy…"


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