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To Faye, Alm is home. He’s the slip of the wet grass under her feet and the beetles crawling through her hair as she laughs. He’s the ring of her mother’s bell for dinner and the scent of apple pie floating through the village.On the outskirts of Ram Village, everything seems too big and too vast. The man in red had ushered Alm away with too much haste and all Faye could do was follow, because Alm was home, and she couldn’t leave her home.The new girl’s name is Clair. She’s far from home. She’s stuffy gatherings and asphyxiating corsets and perfect nails and she’s nothing like Faye. She’s not what Alm needs. Oh, but they talk, they talk like there’s no tomorrow and Faye has to grip at the apron of her dress to remind herself that, no, Alm would never.There’s a bitter sort of sadness that pings in Faye’s chest when she sees the redhead fleeing the castle. She hadn’t known Celica well while she was at Ram and she hadn’t known Celica well when she ran away from Alm in tears. Maybe if she had, she’d have helped Celica. But, no, she couldn’t leave her home, couldn’t leave the soft voices and tear stained cheeks.It’s only on their second meeting that Faye really sees how far from home Berkut is. He’s worse than Clair, and it makes her sad, really. If he’s far from home to her, how far must he be from his home? When Rigel is cold, full of warriors and travelers, what is Zofia? Lulling, full of lust and lechery?With a twisted smile, Faye realized what’s so familiar about Tatiana. It’s not homeliness, certainly not. It’s Faye herself. The way Tatiana’s eyes widen and her shoulders sway as she talks about Zeke, as her fists clench and eyebrows furrow as she describes his cruel superior. Faye wonders then, how similar she must look when she talks about Alm. She wonders then, if that’s a bad thing.Celica’s figure is pale and ghostly, near astral, and beautiful beyond compare. Faye catches only a glimpse before the image flickers away and it near takes her breath with. It’s the first real sight she’s gotten of Celica, ever since her castle flight; the years have treated her gently, sharpening her delicate eyes and in them lighting a quiet flame. She’s like beauty incarnate, Faye thinks wistfully, and the very definition of home for Alm. For Alm.Alm dons the new cape and armor beautifully, Mila’s bounty decorating him in all his grace and glory. The statue of the goddess itself seems to shine down upon him. He isn’t quite her home then, he’s taken on his own mantle as the leader of the Rigel invasion; still, he’s a place to return to. When he swings the Royal Sword at a Rigelian, he’s swinging a stick and playing knight saving Princess Faye, and when she heals his wounds it’s just the same as her wrapping bandages around his cuts as a girl. I’ll always come back to Alm, Faye thinks.In the last standing Rigelian fortress is Slayde, hair in a mange and eyes buck wild. Faye remembers the ice in her bones from when she’d first met him, when he’d grabbed her by the pigtail and pushed his poleaxe against her throat. That time, too, Alm had saved her. It was that day when Faye truly realized what Alm was to her. He would always be there for her, because he was home, and she would always come back to her home, just like he would always welcome her back.She tells Alm, one day, about her parents frustrations with her letters. They want to know what’s happening with me, not you. But they don’t understand that I AM writing about myself! Or at least I’m writing about what matters to me… It’s true, every word she says. Writing about Alm is her stress reliever, because for her it’s like writing about home. All the comforts and joys of her parents, the village, her Nana’s hand knit dresses.Faye doesn’t bother trying to understand the what little she hears of the late Emperor Rudolf’s plan. Instead, she pays attention to Alm. He’s quiet. In her mind her mother bustles around the house as Alm and Faye sit together eating chicken noodle soup.He’s not just any king, she thinks indigiantly, he’s her king. And he’s not a king to be, he’s already her king and he has been since the day they met in Ram all those years ago.She looks into burning eyes and she sees love. So much love and compassion that it burned her. Faye feels something like pity for Lady Rinea. Someone trying to make a home out of a wasteland. As the Nosferatu magic flows from her fingertips, Faye feels something like pity for the fiery cadaver and the wilting Berkut next to her. She gives a small wave as they fade away together to find their home. Or maybe, really, they are home.Only when Alm walks alone into the royal vault does Faye begin to consider-- is he really home? Of course he is, shoots back eighteen years of dreaming. It's only a consideration then, a dancing idea she dares not dwell on. There are, after all, dragons to kill.
This world belongs to Alm. To all of us. There's plenty of room for hope in it... but there's no room in it for you!
Ram Village is quiet when she returns. Her family is overjoyed, of course, and there's a warm welcome throughout the village for her, a cacophony of quiet joy. The village changed during the war, just as all of Zofia had. Tobin and Gray work hard as knights of the One Kingdom. Kliff vanished quickly, off to apparently study magic in a far off continent. And Alm, well... he's long gone now, sitting pretty on the One Kingdom throne with Celica. Faye wasn't expecting him to be there for her anymore, yet it still hurt. The realization dawns on her slowly, about a week after her return to Ram. The village was no longer her home. It never had been. Alm was her home, and now Alm was gone, off to higher places.Faye finds solace in a young man with blue eyes. One of the boys who used to chase her with sticks, apparently. He's matured enough to ask for her hand and she's old enough to know she'll never find a better home than Alm.Sometimes, she'll go out alone for days at a time, with only her horse and her satchel. She visits the One Kingdom's castle, formerly Zofia Castle. She doesn't have the courage to go in. She only looks. She looks at the pristine walls and the fluttering banners, staunchly marching guards she sometimes recognizes and maybe, just maybe, a messy head of green. The shops surrounding the castle offer pretty trinkets for her children and parchment for her to pen letters she’ll never send.Home away from home.Faye becomes a permanent fixture of Ram Village, even after the tourists start coming, even after her sons grow up to become knights of the One Kingdom. She isn't present for when they graduate from the academy. Instead she rocks in her chair, brushing at her daughter's hair and singing a song taught to her by a blue haired priestess. Her husband dies quietly, without shame or remorse. She mourns. Her sons stop by. Their mother sits silently at the kitchen table, black veil pulled over her face and silent tears falling to the floor.Alm dies peacefully, his old age catching up to him but not before his achievements are spread through the continent and maybe a couple over. When the news spreads to Ram she collapses in shock, her daughter holding her arm in a panic. Faye’s home was gone. What could she do without a home?Her days are numbered and her strength is weakening but still she pushes on, her bag bumping on the horse’s side. Faye needs one last glance at One Kingdom Castle before she leaves. Faye dies on the outskirts of the castle grounds, a homeless woman to the end.The queen recognizes her in mortified shock. After informing Faye’s known family, the queen lays her to rest in the graveyard where her husband is, the one reserved for the original members of the Deliverance. Silently, the queen wonders if Faye had known about the graveyard, if Faye would have liked the headstone with carved flowers and an engraving she’d written herself.Here lies Faye. Home, to her, was this world, and she would do anything to protect it, even if it meant putting her life and love on the line.