#Arthur and Dylas were easy

[hiddenbysuccubi]

I took a break before hitting act 3 of DOS2 to run through Rune Factory 4.

[kindlystrawberry]

...arug and 37 (number of songs on my arug playlist. what do you mean this is cheating to artificially boost our arug fic numbers, i would *Never*)

Spotify Wrapped Inbox Prompt: Accepting! 37. Why am I like this? by Lee Da Yeon

Arthur is having a problem.

“No, seriously dude,” Doug says from where he’s walking in front of him, guiding him down the busy sidewalk with ease. Doug wasn’t born here, either, but he moved here when he was still a kid, whereas Arthur moved here, well… Actually, exactly a year ago. 

“You’ve been here, what, a year, almost?” Doug continues, in a nearly frighteningly exact mimic of Arthur’s own internal dialogue. “And you haven’t tried one of the street sticks? You’re kidding me.”

“Forgive me,” Arthur replies, a little blithely. Despite the absolute turmoil going on inside of him right now, he at the very least has practice keeping up an air of polite everything-is-totally-fine-ness. “When I moved here, I failed to read up on something called ‘street sticks’ being one of the local delicacies.” 

“Heh,” Doug snorts. “I like it when you’re a little bit mean, you know that?”

Arthur opens his mouth, probably to protest, or maybe to apologize, but he’s cut off by the sound of distant rumbling storm clouds becoming less and less distant, as the first few drops of rain start to fall around them.

“Hey, do you—” Doug stops suddenly in his tracks and spins around, making him and Arthur briefly crash into each other. The busy street moves on around them, but Doug shoots out a hand to grasp Arthur’s wrist and steady him. “Woah— sorry, didn’t realize how close behind me you were.”

“No it’s, it’s quite alright,” Arthur replies, ignoring the pulse thundering in his own ears.

And that is exactly his problem. Though he didn’t expect it when coming here, he’s somehow made a plethora of friends in the city of Norad. Best friends, really. People that make him feel more accepted and loved than he ever has. 

“What I was gonna ask was, did you bring an umbrella?”

Arthur blinks, the question unexpected despite the fact that it’s a perfectly logical one. “I don’t. Do you?”

Doug grins, a little sheepishly. “Uhhh, nope! Guess we’re gonna have to run then. Ready?”

“Wha—”

“Go!” Doug grabs him by the wrist and starts, as he just said he would, running down the street. Arthur is helpless but to follow, but his attention is barely on the direction they’re going in, nor the crowd they’re haph-hazardly weaving through. It’s on the warm, pleasantly callused grip of Doug’s hand around his wrist.

Arthur didn’t expect to make such close friends. And what he expected even less than that was… well, this. 

He’s not sure exactly how, he’s not sure exactly when, but somewhere over the past year, he’s not only gotten close to the young man around his age who works at the grocery store a few blocks off of Selphia University campus, not only become very dear friends with him, but fallen in love with him.

And he’s only just realized it now.

Suddenly, a million tiny things make sense. The weird aching feeling he’s had in his chest whenever the two of them say goodbye to each other, the odd feeling of time stopping around them whenever he looks at Doug’s silver-gray eyes, the easy feeling of belonging that comes from hearing Doug laugh, or laughing along with him…

Arthur’s not sure how he hadn’t put it together sooner.

When they finally come to a stop, they’re both breathing heavily. Arthur’s lungs ache and his leg muscles strain (maybe Dylas is right, he really should exercise more), but he still takes the time to take in their surroundings. They’re still outside, and the rain is only getting stronger. But now they’re in front of a robust-looking food truck. It’s large, and the menu has all of three items on it. One of which is the apparently coveted ‘street stick.’

The truck also has a very small awning in front of the order window.

Gently, Arthur puts his hand on Doug’s shoulders and pulls them both under the awning. Droplets of water dribble off the tips of his hair as Doug looks up at him, and it only serves to make his eyes look even lighter than normal.

“It’s not good to stay in the rain,” Arthur murmurs, as a way of explanation. “You’ll get sick.” He’s a little bit distracted by the wet mop of dark red hair plastered around Doug’s face, and by the giant, excited grin on his face. “Pffff,” Doug snickers. “Nah, I never get sick. Don’t worry. Now, get ready to have your little rich boy mind blown.” On his heel he turns to face the order window. To the cashier, he says, “Four street sticks, please.”

“Four?”

Doug shrugs, immediately pulling out the exact change he needs to pay. “Trust me, you’ll want two each.” He hands the money to the cashier, and they duck back into the depths of the mobile kitchen. Doug then turns back to face Arthur again, hands in his pockets as he leans back against the wall of the truck. “You might even want three, because of how mind-blowingly good they are. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be nice enough to give you one of mine.” 

Arthur feels a small, amused smile tug on his lips. “That’s very magnanimous of you.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

And maybe it’s because he’s still a little out of it, or maybe because he knows they're close enough that he doesn’t always have to be 100% polite, or maybe it’s just because earlier Doug said that he likes when Arthur’s a little mean— but Arthur decides to, just as a treat, not suppress the teasing comment that immediately springs to mind. “Do you know what that word means?”

“Uh… ‘fucking awesome?’”

A shocked laugh barks its way out of Arthur, which makes Doug’s eyes positively glow. The sound of the rain around them gets louder, and somehow Arthur doesn’t mind in the slightest that the back of his coat is getting wet.

“Close enough,” he replies, with barely restrained affection.

Doug only grins wider. Then the cashier pops back out the window, hands them the ‘street sticks’ and ducks back into the truck. Thankfully, no one else is in line, so they don’t quite have to leave the tight but dry confines of the awning.

“Cheers.” Doug hands Arthur his share of the sticks (which true to their word, are an assortment of food on a stick), and immediately taps theirs together.

“Cheers,” Arthur responds, curiosity piqued.

They’re not any kind of shish kebabs or other skewers that he’s seen before. The assortment seems almost random, and he can barely tell what the grey lumps of food (presumably, food) are. They look, vaguely, like tiny corn dogs, of which he only tried for the first time two weeks ago.

But Doug is happily munching away, nearly done with his first stick, so Arthur takes a bite. An explosion of flavor goes off in his mouth, tangy and savory all at once. 

Arthur’s eyes must widen in shock before he takes another bite, because he hears Doug laugh.

“So, didn’t I tell you? Aren’t they good?”

Taking a brief moment to swallow his bite before speaking, Arthur glances down at Doug. Doug, sopping wet and smiling. Doug, bringing him here just because he found out Arthur hadn’t tried this local food yet. Doug, passionate, and kind, and so un-like Arthur in many ways, but so like him in others.

“Mhm,” Arthur replies, easily, the affection in his heart growing tenfold. “They’re ‘fucking awesome.’” And Doug’s responding laugh, loud and vibrant, drowns out the sound of the rain just a few inches from them.

[killing-your-favorite-characters]

I’ve started a new game in RF4 special, because I love Clorica but I had to finish the second arc first before I could marry her, and I somehow managed to trigger the Get it Together special event really soon. Like, I haven’t saved Dylas yet, but I just got it.

[benichi]

Hi Beni :D first of all thank you so much for your RF4 guides. I used them when I was playing on 3ds. But I have a bit of a problem triggering the events now. Do you know what might be the problem?

Hey you :) it’s no problem!

And you’re in luck, I was actually just about to update my Walkthrough post because this time the event system hit me full force lol.

When I played the game years ago I never really understood why people were talking about events so much because (in retrospect) I somehow got very lucky and triggered all the necessary events you need for the Bachelors without problem. I assume because it took me longer to get to that point of the story back when I played for the first time, so naturally since more time had passed I’d also seen more events.

However this time I knew exactly what I was doing and where to go, so I finished the requirements for each Bachelor more quickly and hence haven’t seen that many events yet. Which is why I also struggled this time (just spent 2 hours trying to trigger Kiel’s event y i k e s)

Anyways first and foremost: before you can even get close to triggering the proposal events you need to have seen so called “sub-events” with the Bachelor first. Here is what they’re called

Leon: A Day in Leon's LifeDylas: Smile PracticeArthur: Don't forget your physical! & Eyeglass ManiaKiel: The Knight's Steed & A Part-time job!Vishnal: Don’t fall for it, Vishnal!Doug: Doug's Secret & Shiny Memories

However these in particular can be tricky (as I’ve learned the hard way now lol) because those events are essentially competing with all the other town events that can potentially happen. And there are A LOT. So if you’ve finished rather quickly or simply want to get married early you’re likely in a position where you haven’t seen a lot of events yet. While there is a chance that you might get to see the event you need, realistically there’s an even higher chance you’ll see one of the many other events.

Unfortunately what we can’t change is that the events are completely random. No amount of affection or anything can help you there. However, we can make the grind more easy...

In my desperation I stumbled upon a post by Karin18 on Gamefaqs (link will be in reblog cause otherwise tumblr won’t tag this post) which is an absolute blessing. It’s best if you have a look at it, but I’ll also summarize. Essentially there are certain days when an event WILL trigger. It may not initially be the event you need, but it can be turned into just that. What you’ll do is that you save your game, go to bed and then stake out that “event day”. Which means getting up in the morning, running around while keeping your eyes open if anything “unusual” is happening (more on that in the linked post) and if you stumbled upon a event you’ll REMEMBER THE DATE (write it down if you have to), close the game WITHOUT SAVING and load you initial save. Here’s the example of how I finally succeeded:

I saved my game on Spring 28 and went to bed. I also added Kiel and Doug to my party because they have more than 7 Hearts (which means they don’t leave my party over night) and both of them are part of the event I wanted to trigger (A Part-time Job!). So from Spring 28 - Summer 2 nothing out of the ordinary happens. On Summer 3 however, Doug leaves the party in the morning (which means he’s part of an event). Unfortunately Kiel stays so it’s not the event I need, however I have found the next event day: Summer 3!

(Short notice that you shouldn’t solely depend on the characters in your party. While one of them leaving definitely means that an event must be happening that day, you may miss an event day by not looking around/speaking with other characters because it may well be that an event is happening that the characters in your party aren’t involved with)

Now that I know that Summer 3 is my next event day I exit the game, reload my save from Spring 28 and play normally until Summer 2. On the evening of Summer 2 (it’s said to save before 16pm because apparently that’s when a “new day” starts) you save and go to bed. On the next Day, Summer 3rd, you KNOW that an event MUST be happening. So go out and search for it. If it’s the one you needed - great - proceed as normal. If it’s not the one you need exit your game, reload the save from the day before and (pray lol) redo that morning until you stumble upon your desired event. Rinse and repeat till you get what you need.

I know this is still not ideal but honestly it’s better than spending y e a r s trying to trigger one event. All credit for this method goes to Karin18, I simply tested the method and made my own experiences.

If there are any questions feels free to send another ask :) and good luck for getting that event!

[the-elusive-libbin]

Stuffing canons for Vishnal, Arthur and Dylas - Rune Factoy 4

I was asked to do some of these a while back when I didn’t have anonymous asks on and the person who asked for them wished to remain anonymous. So here they finally are, ready to share with you guys.

Vishnal:

-Vishnal rarely overeats. As one of the three butlers in the castle, he must be formal, courteous and proper at all times; everything is set to a tight schedule with each job or chore in its rightful place. This includes of course breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

-He eats regularly at set times and rarely misses out, however I do think that the butlers, when in polite company must eat after the guests and do so without complaint. Oftentimes, the company stays at the castle rather late and the butlers must clear away the table before they themselves eat leaving Vishnal to daydream about the wonderful meal he’ll be able to enjoy after a hard day’s work.

-His stomach will moan quietly to itself as he thinks and often Vishnal will daydream so much that he makes a clumsy mistake and falters. Yes this earns a scolding from Volkanon but the poor thing is hungry so he’s let off, he dreams of being happily full on fancy food.

-Luckily the butlers of the castle are not treated like slaves and do indeed want to be there. This means that their meals will also be nutritious and filling. Vishnal often only eats until his belly feels weighted and comfortably full as it means he does not have to sit through the post meal consequences of overindulgence and will in fact be able to continue with his tasks without his belly weighing him down. This of course is un-ideal.

-When comfortably full, Vishnal will rarely belch and his stomach will be settled. Although I picture him having a weaker tummy I do not see it being very gassy when fed the correct amount, for which the young butler is grateful. Overindulgence is a different matter however.

-On the odd occasion where he does overeat it will be when the food is too delectable to stop in his feasting. Perhaps he loses track or simply just cannot get enough of the food put before him. He realizes how much he has eaten only after his uniform begins to pinch at his middle and the butler looks dumbfounded at his rounded belly; blushing at his lapse of refinement, even when alone in the room.

-Vishnal’s belly cannot hold as much as some of the game’s other bachelors but when bloated, becomes obvious due to his skinny body and tight uniform. It rounds at the base and becomes taut to the touch. 

-He will voluntarily overeat on three occasions: 1. If he gets involved in the eating contest, which he canonically does each year in the game. 2. If his S/0 were involved. For example if they had a kink for it or they made him a ton of home cooked food that needn’t go to waste and he desperately wanted to impress them. 3. If he were to be demanded to overeat by a higher up. The poor butler would have to comply whether he’d like it or not.

-When stuffed Vishnal’s stomach becomes rather loud and quick to complain, full of gas and susceptible to random, embarrassing belches. The butler cannot belch loudly at all and in fact is embarrassed by how stifled and struggled they sound when stuffed...then again, he only really belches at all when his belly feels like a rock on his lap. Imagine Kiel and Arthur being able to belch louder than you! Unimpressive to say the least.

-The skin on his belly is sensitive to the touch and moving a finger gently around his swollen abdomen in circles will make him shudder and recoil in secret delight. Not many people know of this.

-He likes belly rubs from his s/o and will often lie on his back in the bedroom in a way that seems as though he is begging for them, pleading eyes and all. Sometimes he’ll gently push his tummy out to meet the hand of his s/o for the rubs. Vishnal is submissive mostly and allows his s/o to snuggle and lay on top of his stomach but will blush like mad when they accidentally push up some of that contained gas as a belch.

Arthur:  

-Arthur usually forgets to eat because he’s so invested in his work all of the damn time. Maybe this has had an effect in shrinking his poor, neglected stomach? This may be the case but I personally like to think that Arthur’s tum can stretch a little to accommodate more food.

-He rarely overeats but has been known to do so. Like with Vishnal and the other boys he does enter the annual eating competition despite knowing that he can’t eat as much as some of the other contestants. 

-Other times when Arthur overeats its because he’s being forcibly stuffed by Porcoline as a punishment for forgetting to eat and possibly wasting good food. I’m pretty sure there’s a scene where Porco is chasing the poor prince to get him to take a break, for some reason my mind always goes back to the idea of the chef stuffing him to the brim. You know Porcoline wouldn’t stop until Arthur is fit to burst.

-Another reason that the prince will stuff himself to bursting is when he has forgotten to eat for a fairly long time and he’s so famished and weak that he must eat something now. He’s been in his office working away for days and consequently been missing all of his meals. Even Dylas’ incessant knocking on his door with food platters hadn’t roused him. In this instance, the prince will wander into the restaurant in the next room and order a lot of anything. Eating rapidly, though in a refined manner will see to filling his stomach properly. In a trance he would eat until his belly feels bloated, sore and very heavy. Luckily his robes aren’t too tight and so his gut isn’t noticeable to anyone but himself...and Porcoline who watches intently, a smug smirk planted across his face.

-Arthur hates being stuffed because it interferes with his work plans, all he wants to do is sleep and rest his large, uncomfortable belly as he wills it to digest away. He cannot work on a full belly and due to it making him sleepy he cannot pull one of his usual workaholic all nighters.

-Often the prince finds that a couple of large onigiri are enough to fill his belly, or at least quieten it down and therefore, the prince assumes that he is full. Onigiri are some of his favorites because they are quick and easy to eat and I quote that they are “best eaten on an empty stomach.”

-The prince is positively ashamed of the roundness of his gut after he overindulges and removes those robes. Oh my....Maybe it’s a little bigger and rounder than he initially thought. He moves his hands around the bloated mass, framing the orb in dismay. How had he eaten so much? Arthur’s skinny frame would do nothing but enhance the protruding gut too. How humiliating. Even alone, his cheeks would flush and his glasses would steam.

-Arthur’s stomach is well behaved when full and doesn’t make too much noise when digesting a large meal but his belches are loud and un-princely which humiliates him to no end. His belly is not well behaved however when hungry, all it does is yell and make it known that he is starved throughout his daily workload with loud, echoing rumbles that can be heard throughout the restaurant.

-With his s/o Arthur is still very reluctant to overeat and will only do so for them should they insist. He is very embarrassed at first about letting them lay their head atop his digesting belly but will become more allowing of it over time, evidently becoming less embarrassed by the sounds.

-The prince has been known to accidentally tease and flirt in the game in a very smooth way. He is actually very suave and gentlemanly which shocked me as I expected him to be hoity-toity and snooty, if not very shy. I was very pleased to find out that my assumption was wrong.

-Going by the above comment then I would assume Arthur is the type to tease his S/o should he find out their attraction to the stomach area. He will comment more on the empty rumbles of his stomach, asking if they heard or complaining about how exhausted his stomach is. “It appears my stomach would agree with me this time. I am famished.” When he is full he may take his s/o’s hand and place it atop his stomach, commenting about the hungry sounds stopping and showing them just how much of a dent the food made in his gut.

Dylas:

-Of the three bachelors suggested to me in this ask, Dylas is the one that can eat the most and the one that most frequently stuffs his gut to bursting. The horse man has quite the strong and sturdy stomach and can eat quite a lot. His capacity I would say is possibly twice as much as Vishnal, of course Doug would have a similar capacity as his rival. I secretly like to believe that he can eat the second most of all 6 bachelors with Doug coming third and Leon coming first; thereby humiliating the rival duo.

-Dylas is canonically competitive and like all of the other guys enters the annual eating competition where he aims to not only win, but more importantly beat Doug! We luckily get a stomach growl from Dylas in this event before the contest which proves that he has been preparing to eat a whole lot by going hungry for a while before. Of course he denies preparing for the competition until his belly gives him away and he becomes embarrassed, quickly ending the conversation. Typical tsundere.

-Of course Dylas pushes himself to be better than Doug with whom he has a healthy rivalry, which unknowingly brings him out of his shell little by little. He will likely eat very quickly and constantly during this competition, glancing at his rival’s belly and comparing the increasing size with his own in secret.

-He realizes that he’s at his limit when swallowing food becomes a chore and eventually pains him. His stomach moans and churns as it unwillingly accepts more and more of the oncoming meal. Dylas knows he’s nearing his limit.  Sweat drops appear on his face as he struggles. He undoes his belt to allow his belly to surge forward, gas pooling and flooding upwards and escaping from his mouth in a long, low “BuuuuOOOooooOoooARrrrP!” The horse man blushes and winces but continues, he has to win!

-Dylas can belch the alphabet but is too embarrassed to do so. He often stifles his belches as best as he can with them being so deep and powerful as he sees them as rude. He will however belch softly in compliment after a big meal provided by his s/o or Porco. Should his s/o enjoy his belches, he will not stifle them though this may occur later on in their relationship. When competing with Doug he is not afraid to attempt to belch louder than him...which he can.

-By the end of his needless stuffing, Dylas’ belly is swollen out like a globe on his lap and he leans back, groaning and clutching his belly. He’d secretly wish for stomach rubs and curse inwardly at himself for being so stupid. He bought this upon himself after all. this is the only time I can see him overindulging this much willingly.

-Dylas has a very disruptive stomach in general. It’s not sensitive but it is very loud due to its strength. His digestion is loud and grumbly and embarrassingly enough, his hunger rumbles are even louder. But Dylas can digest almost anything, is not very susceptible to food poisoning or stomach bugs and can eat things that most of the other can not.

-The horse man does not like being overly stuffed and would prefer to eat a reasonable amount, if not just a little bit overly full. He can’t move with a huge, protruding belly and cannot focus on an empty, growling stomach. May as well eat enough to keep himself going for a while right?

-He finds satisfaction in filling himself up on the fish he catches as it feels like he is living off the land and providing for himself in the process. He also secretly loves the roundness of a comfortably full belly. It makes him realize how grateful he is to be in such a welcoming town and not out hungry somewhere.

-Like Arthur, Dylas is often stuffed by porco but nowhere near as much. Dylas actually eats when it is meal time after all. 

-He is easily embarrassed by his growling stomach and full stomach respectively apart from when in an eating contest/endurance contest with Doug. In cases of his rivalry, he is proud of his belly and how he is able to stand against the dwarf....that is until he returns home and the nausea kicks in and he is left feeling a little less like the champion he originally felt like.

-The waiter will end a conversation or leave the room if his belly is growling too loudly or if he is being teased about the bloating or lack there of in his stomach.

-In regards to a s/o that has a belly kink, Dylas would take time opening up and would allow them to do things at a very slow pace. Maybe he starts with letting them listen carefully to the groans and rumbles. Maybe then he moves onto letting them touch his belly and finally he’ll allow for belly rubs and placing their head upon his stuffed gut. It will always embarrass him but eventually it won’t fluster him so much and in the end he may even start teasing his s/o about his belly on his own accord.

[kirinda-ondo]

So I have some thoughts and feelings about Vishnal Rune Factory

I am aware that approximately two other people besides me care about this, but literally when has it ever stopped me from rambling at length

So basically, I love Vishnal from Rune Factory 4. Like, a lot. I never commit to anyone in farm sims but boy howdy, he managed to hit literally all the criteria I have to be considered a Favorite Character™. He did it so well, in fact, he’s earned a spot alongside characters like Cobalt or Lydia. But like those characters, while there are people who like him, I feel as though he doesn’t get enough credit. The complaints I’ve seen tend to be that he’s boring and that he has the worst proposal event. Hell, one of the first few results from googling him is a thread asking if he’s supposed to be a joke character. While I can see where this sentiment might come from, I’d like to explain the appeal in a lot of the things people find fault in him for (at least for me), and maybe offer a bit of a different perspective, I guess.

If I had to guess where a lot of these problems that people have with him come from, it’s probably the fact that he doesn’t have a lot of lore behind him. To be honest, Vishnal doesn’t really have a whole lot of plot significance. He doesn’t have any direct connection to the capitol of Norad like Arthur or Kiel (via his sister Forte), he’s got nothing to do with the Sechs empire like Doug, and he’s not a guardian like Dylas and Leon. Vishnal, despite working in a castle and serving Ventuswill (who we shall henceforth refer to as Venti), a literal dragon god, is an everyman by comparison. He’s just a guy trying to do his job the best he can.

Similarly, he also doesn’t have a whole lot of mystery or drama behind him either. With pretty much every other bachelor, there’s usually some kind of dark secret from their past that comes up and has to be dealt with, either through the main plot or through their proposal events. To just give you an idea of the kind of things we’re dealing with here, let’s do a rundown.

Doug’s entire tribe was killed by Sechs soldiers, but the empire fed him propaganda to make him believe that Venti was responsible so that he would work undercover for them in order to kill her and take the Rune Spheres.

Arthur was an illegitimate child of Norad’s king and believes that his mother hated him so much she had to take off her glasses so that she didn’t have to look at him, causing him to have severe trust issues (as well as a glasses fetish? Have fun with that, Freud).

Kiel (and by extension, his sister) is trapped in a well-meaning, but incredibly fucked up family dynamic that forced him to be incredibly sheltered while Forte took on the duties of a knight in a heavily male dominated society to protect him. However, since both of their parents are dead, they have no idea that they’re allowed to free themselves and become their own people.

Dylas sacrificed himself to become a guardian, fusing with a monster in order to act as a living life support to help keep Venti alive, but when he’s finally free, he’s hundreds of years into the future, where everything he knows is gone. It’s also implied that before he became a guardian, he was suicidal.

Leon, like Dylas, also sacrificed himself to become a guardian and was flung far into the future. However, he also has the added guilt of believing he left his childhood friend to live the rest of her life emotionally stunted because when he was younger, he made a promise to marry her if she stopped crying so much, but didn’t take it seriously as she did, and couldn’t have kept it even if he did.

Meanwhile, Vishnal has had an utterly average life. In order to help people, he wanted to become a doctor like his father, but felt he wasn’t smart enough, so when he met a butler named Sebastian, he was so impressed he decided to become a butler himself. Though he was worried his father wouldn’t approve of this way of helping people, he was ultimately supportive, helping him train and, through a friend’s connections, getting him to Selphia to work under Volkanon.

Vishnal is basically Clark from Connecticut in terms of how average he is by comparison. However, I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing. Even dealing with one of these traumatic backstories is a lot, let alone trying to harem them all (and don’t even get me started on the main plot’s drama). A lot of the resolutions to these character arcs are followed up by a proposal, and maybe it’s just my age and personal experiences (or the fact that I’m aroace), but when that happens, I don’t get the feeling of “YES, TAKE ME NOW!” I just think “…You literally just found out the thing that’s been screwing you up your entire life was a giant misunderstanding. I get that you’re happy but like, maybe take some time to sort yourself out? See a therapist maybe???”

But Vishnal, for all of his faults (of which there are many and I will get to that later), generally has his shit together. I respect that and find it a breath of fresh air compared to the cavalcade of angst in everyone else’s lives. Not to say that he doesn’t have any problems at all, because then that would be boring, but they tend to be more focused in the present, and are a bit more grounded in reality and less… spectacular. But like I said, we’ll get to that.

What he lacks in terms of dramatic backstory, he makes up for in personality. He’s very… intense, to put it mildly. While not completely hyper, he’s very high energy and it doesn’t take much to get him psyched up. He’s the type of person to put at least 110% effort in everything he does, and nearly everything he does goes towards his goal of becoming the world’s best butler. Unfortunately, as a result, he’s considered one-note. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say he doesn’t talk about butler things all the time, because he absolutely does, but for me, as someone who also tends to get super into things and talk about them endlessly (hence this entire ramble), I find him pretty endearing, if not a tad relatable in that regard. However, for all his single-mindedness, he is still a decently multifaceted character.

Probably the most important thing to note here is that he is a very good person, like “too good for this sinful earth” kind of good. He has a natural drive to help others and doesn’t have a mean word to say about anyone (though even he engages in the ultimate Selphian pastime of Teasing Doug™ on occasion). He’s also honest to a fault. It’s incredibly easy to tell if he’s trying to cover something up because he’s usually pretty much an open book and wears his heart on his sleeve. He seems to expect others to be the same way, as he has a bad habit of taking what people say at face value even if they’ve repeatedly shown not to be trustworthy. This often leads him to be the butt of many a joke or the victim of scams. Other times, lighthearted teasing falls flat as he takes it seriously and winds up getting his feelings hurt. But ever the optimist, he doesn’t let setbacks get him down for long.

He very much believes in the power of hard work overcoming any obstacle, and it seems in his mind, literally anything is possible if you train hard enough, and he’s constantly trying to prepare himself to master every possible scenario, from protecting important secrets by staying silent to becoming invincible to the common cold by constantly being soaked with water. It generally winds up doing him more harm than good, and even Doug worries about him a little bit because Vishnal will do pretty much anything if you tell him it’s special training (though this does not even remotely stop Doug from having a field day with it). Were this not a very “anime” kind of game, it would honestly be amazing if he hadn’t died from any of his training attempts.

Though it may come across as though he has no idea what is actually possible for a human to achieve, he actually seems to have quite a few hangups about his own limitations. He has a massive perfectionist complex and is incredibly hard on himself. He tends to beat himself up quite a bit when he makes mistakes (I mean the man looks utterly devastated every time he screws up lunch) and outright warns the player (who we shall henceforth refer to as Frey) that he may cause her trouble. However, he’s not quite as terrible as he might imply. While he is gullible and very much a klutz, he’s got a wide variety of skills and knowledge he rarely gives himself credit for. For instance, he’s not exactly street smart by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s well-read to a degree that he can actually read things from Arthur’s library (which says a lot because Arthur is a colossal nerd), and he’s knowledgeable on a number of subjects from farming to geography. On the lake date (when it’s not summer), you have the option to ask him more about the kind of training he would do, and he rattles off a list of insane skills (I.e. making tea so good as to become its own singularity…singularitea, if you will) like it’s no big deal. Mind you, given what someone like Volkanon is capable of, that may just be par for the course as far as butlers go in this universe, but for your average person, that’s honestly impressive, if not a bit terrifying.

His confidence (or lack thereof), however, tends to reflect in the quality of his work. In a small example, every so often, he offers Frey his attempt at curry rice. It’s hot garbage, but if she tells him it’s good, he admits he wasn’t very confident in it. However, we see in his prerequisite event (which is a much more overt example) that when he’s more confident in himself, he’s not only able to make actual food, but is downright hypercompetent in his job. For context, he is conned into buying an overpriced statue that, according to blacksmith and Professional Vishnal Scammer™ Bado, will allegedly make him an expert overnight. Wholly believing in this thing, he’s suddenly amazing… until he accidentally knocks it over and breaks it. Utterly devastated and unconvinced that his improved performance came from within, he’s suddenly infinitely worse than he was when he started. Things of course balance themselves out, but we come away realizing that if he had as much self-confidence as he did pure determination, he could easily reach a point where he’d be absolutely unstoppable.

We also see this lack of confidence manifest itself in regards to Frey. If she pursues a relationship, we get quite a bit of evidence that he doesn’t think he’s good enough for her. Before he formally asks her out, he lists all the things he does wrong; all the ways he’s a novice, essentially warning her of what she may have to deal with. However, if Frey’s conquered the RNG and made it this far, then it’s safe to say that she’s prepared to take the risk. On the airship date, he outright says once he becomes an expert, he’ll finally be the perfect man for her. Even during his own damn proposal event, he tells her he’s unreliable. This is incredibly far from the case, as even if he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, he’s doing everything he can to make this work. He works himself even harder to maximize his time with her, he buys (phony) charms from Bado to keep them together, he asks other bachelors for advice (as poor is it may be at times), he literally asks the entire town for date spot reviews, as well as just straight up reading up on how to be the best possible boyfriend.

Eventually, should the RNG gods be smiling, this brings us to the proposal event. Now, one might imagine that this event might follow the thread we’ve been building up here into him learning maybe not to beat himself up so much or becoming a little more self-confident, but no. While this sort of thing happens for a number of other bachelors/bachelorettes, where their prerequisite events foreshadow what’s to come in their proposal events, that isn’t quite the case here. While that development does occur to a degree, it’s a bit more subtle and is not really the focus of this event.

His proposal event instead mainly forces him to consider his priorities. So for some context, a butler judge has come, and if Vishnal does well, he may finally earn his first star and be one step closer to being the ultimate butler. In fact, his abilities are already recognized as worthy of the title, but there’s just once teensy little problem. You see, in butlerdom, your master and your partner being one in the same is a bit of a taboo. Dating your boss creates a whole host of problems, after all; not just for you, but your reputation. And so this is where the conundrum comes in. We already know he’s incredibly dedicated to this career choice to the point that if he doesn’t succeed, he will literally die trying, but he’s now just as dedicated to Frey. Being that this is a proposal event though, you pretty much already know how this is going to end, but just hear me out.

This is currently the biggest decision he’s ever made in his life, and is essentially the emotional equivalent of having to choose between losing your right hand or your left. He obviously doesn’t want to throw away years of hard work, but he’s also not the type to just leave someone behind in pursuit of his own interests. Frey ultimately saves him from waffling back and forth about it forever by breaking things off so he can pursue his dreams, but literally no one is happy with this. Even the judge feels bad and he’s the one who started it. But with this little problem out of the way, Vishnal is free to accept his new rank. Except he doesn’t. After a dramatic, heartfelt speech pointing out that this actually puts him in a better position to serve Frey, and how reputations shouldn’t matter more than protecting the person you’re entrusted to, he whisks her away and proposes. Before she can properly answer though, he’s called back to the castle. In the end, the judge is moved by his dedication, and so Vishnal can now have his cake and eat it too. Short, sweet, and to the point.

It’s probably about half the length of the other bachelors’ events, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It’s actually a pretty nice contrast between the other proposals. Leon, Arthur, and Kiel have the common thread of having to sort out baggage from their past before they decide to marry. Doug and Dylas, while their events are more lighthearted, are a bit more focused on a lack of communication and resulting misunderstandings that come from trying to surprise Frey with a ring. However, because Vishnal’s life isn’t a veritable conga line of angst and trauma, his obstacle to marriage is entirely in the present, and because he’s so open about his feelings, he and Frey actually have a chance to sit down and discuss where to go from here, so there’s no communication issues. Plus, his situation, while a bit dramatically handled because anime, is actually kind of relatable. Having to choose between a career and a relationship is a situation that happens to a pretty good number of people, and it’s rarely an easy decision. It’s a logical conflict for such a work focused character.

While it doesn’t really overtly follow up on the initial thread that seemed to have been laid out of him learning to be more confident in himself, the transition is definitely there, at least in regards to Frey. It’s just not quite as spelled out in events. Even in his proposal, he’s still self-deprecating, but it’s a far cry from the absolute list of faults he gave initially asking her out. Not to mention, it absolutely takes a whole lot of courage to one, choose love over your life’s dream, and two, to do it in the incredibly dramatic and utterly obliterating manner that he did. The relationship also changes some post-marriage. Post-marriage Vishnal is a much different beast than pre-marriage Vishnal. As we’ve discussed, in the dating phase, he’s a lot less sure of how boyfriend things work, and resorts to asking others for advice and outright studying. Now that he’s married, he’s less reliant on others and is much more forward. He actually tends to be the one to initiate romantic gestures, from goodnight kisses to using his own sappy lines as opposed to borrowing them from Leon, among other things. Truly a far cry from the days where he would agonize over whether or not to even hold Frey’s hand. Sadly, while date dialogue doesn’t really change (with the exception of the room date, where he literally states he’s past being shy and awkward), there’s definitely a more visible shift in the focus of his other dialogue from being even good enough for Frey to being more protective. Jury’s still out on how much this development has affected his work performance, as there’s no real new mentions of it after the fact (though after marriage he is finally capable of making edible curry rice…sometimes!), but at least some degree of his self-esteem is improving.

So basically, to summarize, Vishnal isn’t a bad character. He’s just handled differently than the other bachelors. He’s a bit more grounded in reality as far as his backstory and conflicts are concerned. His development also tends to happen outside of his events rather than being the feature, making it a bit more subtle, and thus a bit harder to spot from a glance, but it’s there. For as much fun as he is as a character, I admit he’s definitely very tame compared to the other bachelor options, even despite the localizers’ attempts to make him spicier, so he’s not for everyone. I can see why others might prefer someone a little more exciting or mysterious, like Leon (who seems to be like, god tier as far as RF4 bachelors go), but I hope I’ve at least adequately explained why Vishnal might be appealing to some and has more merit than just a joke character. After all, vanilla is a flavor too, and plenty of people like that.

Anyhoo, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[arthurfreyfanfic]

Chapter 1

This is my first time writing a fanfic... I’ll try my best! 

I am writing this while severely sleep deprived and I’m sure this will need tons of editing when I wake up. Yeah!

--------------

While Arthur certainly enjoyed Frey’s company, the last thing he wanted to suspect was that she harbored feelings for him. He didn’t assume she did. In fact it was one of the last things he assumed anyone felt about him. Of course he had plenty of clients express feelings for him but not once could he bring himself to believe them. 

Again, he didn’t assume Frey would fall for him. Just hoped that she didn’t. That desire extended to everyone in town but, for reasons he wasn’t sure of, he hoped that this would not happen with Frey especially. Possibly because she had such a great work ethic. Immediately jumping in to take over his prince duties as well as tending the field behind the castle. And taking requests from everyone in town. Investigating all the problems with the nearby dungeons. Constantly promoting Selphia. She was just relentless.  

Professional relationships were comforting. There was a correct way to interact with one another and as long as both parties stuck to that code, the relationship was sure to proceed smoothly. He did genuinely enjoy living with Porcoline and Dylas. Having Margaret made it a fun family, at least for them, and Arthur was grateful for that. However, it was never enough to completely pull him away from work and he always found himself going back into its comfort. 

On the topic of comfort, he had recently started importing a blanket stuffed with the wool of a special type of wooly, making the blanket exceptionally light and still warm. As they were approaching winter, he thought of asking Porcoline and Dylas to test out some of the blankets and give him some feedback to use as material for when he pitched the product. 

He wandered into the restaurant side of the building hoping to find the two of them. Instead of Porcoline, Frey was there giving Dylas and Margaret some juice she had made using the produce from her farm. Margaret was smiling as Dylas glared at the bottle. 

“Thanks, Frey! I can’t wait to try it!” 

Frey smiled back at Margaret. “No problem! I hope you like it!” 

Dylas was glaring at the bottle, “The hell am I supposed to do with this?” Frey looked immediately apologetic.

“Sorry, do you not like this kind of stuff? I can get something else.” 

As Frey was reaching out for the bottle, Dylas snatched it back and started to toss the bottle into the air with one hand. It seemed like his ears were red. “I mean! I’ll drink it! Since you went through all the trouble of making it and bringing it here! Even though I don’t like this kind of stuff.” 

“...If you want, I can bring you a fresh royal carrot next time.” 

“I’M NOT A FUCKING HORSE.” 

Dylas was fuming as Margaret laughed over at the piano. Frey had just noticed Arthur and walked up to him, holding out the same bottle Dylas and Margaret were holding. 

“Here, Arthur! I have one for you too. It’s juice I’ve been making from the fruit trees on the farm.” 

“Oh! Thank you very much, Frey.” Arthur looked at the bottle with the “Selphia Farms” logo on it. “Are you planning on selling these as well?” 

“Uh-huh! I’m hoping the blend I picked will make it stand out. I hope you like it.” 

“No worries. Unlike Dylas, I am fine with this type of product.” 

Dylas glared at Arthur. “So now you’re picking on me too?” 

“Unlike you, Arthur knows how to be a gentleman when accepting a gift,” Margaret said with a grin. 

The two of them began arguing as Frey turned back to Arthur. “What sort of food do you enjoy eating?” 

“Me? Oh, you don’t have to worry about me.” Frey continued to look straight into his eyes that Arthur couldn’t help but feel obligated to answer. “I like things that are easy to eat, usually. So I can continue to work without stopping.” 

“Oh, I see…” Frey looked contemplative before a sudden realization came to her face. “Ah! Arthur! I forgot. I wanted to check out your trade items today! And the harvest report!” 

“Of course. Let’s head back to my office then.” Arthur held the door open for Frey to the office and gave one last glance at Dylas and Margaret arguing. He smiled to himself. He really was extremely thankful for having ended up where he was. 

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 32

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Pico, Amber, Dylas, Leon, Frey, Arthur, Margaret, Forte Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: Sorry for the extra delay, though this chapter could be up a few hours earlier if it wasn’t because of the lights out for the ISP in my area... Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 32 – Bad News, Good News

It was already late at night, but the actual prince of Selphia was still sitting on his desk, holding an unrolled scroll in his hands. The letter was short, but the content it held made the blond prince fix his glasses a few times to make sure that he was reading it correctly. A knock on the door prompted him to put the scroll down and turned his attention to the green-haired Earthmate coming into his office.

“Sorry for the intrusion, Lord… I mean, Arthur…” Frey gave him a slight bow as she walked towards Arthur’s desk, noticing the symbol of the Sechs on the scroll, “I see you’ve got the news already. This should save me some time to explain a few things.”

“I have the feeling you would say that,” Arthur rose from his seat, “You can take all the time you need to explain while we have some tea.”

“I can’t say everything just yet,” Frey added, “I need to confirm a few things and I believe Kiel might have looked up on it before. And I need to tell something to Lest too, because all of this has something to do with our family.”

“That’s quite unfortunate,” Arthur looked at Frey with a frown, “I might be able to call Lest here, but I doubt I can get Kiel at this hour. Forte has been keeping him from staying up too late after he almost collapsed trying to help us previously.”

“I… see…” Frey lowered her head in disappointment, “But… I think I’ll let you know a little about my assumptions. I think it’s the only thing I can do for now.”

“Very well,” Arthur nodded as he and Frey approached the chairs, “Please have a seat.”

It was early in the morning and Lest got his wake up call from the slight shaking on his bed. There was an empty spot beside him where his wife had slept and a barely-awake Pico at the other side of the bed. Judging from how the spot beside him was still warm and the fact that the bedroom door was slightly open, he could tell that Dolce was still nearby and had to go somewhere in a hurry.

“Hey, Pico?” a big yawn was the only answer he got, “Uh… are you okay?”

“I was woken up a few hours ago…” Pico replied with another tired yawn, “Milady had been going in and out of the bathroom for a while… More often than yesterday morning, I think…”

The door creaked open to reveal the woman in question still in her night gown with a pale face, “Dolly, are you doing okay? You don’t look so good…”

“Sweetie, I’m…” Dolce quickly covered her mouth as the nausea came back and quickly ran out the door once more.

Pico let out a sigh, “I don’t think milady is fine with her going back and forth to and out of the bathroom, but I can’t persuade her to see Jones…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll try and talk to her,” Lest turned to Pico, “It was weird enough that yesterday she wanted to eat all kinds of vegetable dishes… salads included…”

The young couple was watching the two medics in the clinic as they did their thing once they had examined Dolce. The female Guardian was looking a bit better after Jones had given her some liquid medicine to drink and was sitting on the examination bed while holding Lest’s hand. The time Jones and Nancy took to discuss the result was long enough for Lest to start worrying over his wife’s condition, which got worse once he saw the seriousness on Jones’ face.

“Listen carefully, you two,” Jones spoke up in a serious tone. Lest and Dolce looked at the doctor nervously until a smile formed on his lips, “Congratulations, parents-to-be!”

“Congratulations, Dolly!” it was Nancy’s turn to smile as she ran over to Dolce, giving her a hug.

“S-So you’re saying…” Lest slowly caught on.

“I… We… are going to have a child…?” Dolce finished Lest’s sentence as Nancy nodded.

“While I’m certain that the two of you are happy with an additional member to your family, I think Nancy is the most excited when we found out after the examination,” Jones added with a smile.

“Of course I am!” Nancy replied excitedly, “Dolly is about to become a mother!” the smile on Nancy’s face turned into a stern look as she looked at Lest, “Being a mother is going to be tough, so I expect you to take a better care of her, okay?”

Lest nodded confidently, “You can count on me!”

“While it might be best for you to take it easy before the baby is born, do you still want to help out here?” Jones asked as Lest helped Dolce off the examination bed.

“Don’t worry, I can still handle it,” Dolce replied with a smile as she put a hand on her stomach, “I can take my day off whenever they needed me to rest.”

“Just let me know if you need to learn anything about being a mother, okay?” Nancy said with a smile, getting a nod from Dolce.

The older couple watched as Lest and Dolce left the clinic before Nancy turned to Jones, “Shouldn’t we tell them about that possibility too?”

“Oh, you mean about the child possibly being twins?” Jones turned his gaze away from Nancy and towards the door, “I would, but I don’t want to give them false hope. Even if Lest and Frey are twins, that isn’t a factor to increase the chance for them to have twins.”

“Oh well, but don’t you think it’s nice to have a mini Dolly and a mini Lest running around in Selphia?” Nancy asked with a smile.

“Er… maybe yes…”

“So our child will have a ghost for an aunt…” Dolce commented as she stared at Pico on the bed after sharing the news with her, “I guess that should be fine…”

“Don’t worry about it, Dolly! I’ll be a great aunt and take good care of them,” Pico responded with a smile, prompting Dolce to do so, though for a different reason.

“Maybe we should keep them away from you until they’re used to your presence. Isn’t that right, Sweetie?” Dolce turned to where she thought Lest was, only to see that he wasn’t there, “Sweetie… Oh!” A pair of arms was wrapped around her waist, catching her off guard, “W-What are you doing?”

“I’m saying my thanks,” Lest replied softly, “Is this okay with you?”

“W-Well…” a slight blush appeared on her face, “Just… don’t leave me alone, okay? I want to raise our child together with you…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t leave you,” Lest slightly tightened his embrace while putting his hand over Dolce’s, which was on her stomach, “This child will grow up with both of their parents right on their side. I promise you, Dolly.”

“Um…” a voice coming from the other side of the door was heard, “Are you still there, Lest?”

“Is… is that you, Frey?” Lest released Dolce from his arms before he went to open the door, “Didn’t you say that you were going back last night?”

“I was going to, but something came up,” Frey looked at her twin with a serious look, “I need to talk to you, but…” Frey looked over his shoulder and at Dolce in worry, “I think it’s best that she doesn’t know about this for now.”

“O-Okay. Let’s head down and talk there instead,” Frey nodded at Lest’s suggestion.

“I’ll go and get Arthur and Kiel too. They had figured something out for us,” Frey left ahead as Lest excused himself out of the room.

“So… what is this all about?” Lest looked around at Frey, Kiel, and Arthur, who looked anxiously at him while sitting around the dining table.

“This letter,” Arthur unrolled a scroll in front of Lest, “was delivered to me last night. For some reason, Emperor Halwell went missing shortly after Kane went back to the empire.”

“W-Wait…” Lest read the letter in disbelief, “I thought that he was still unconscious!”

“He was,” Frey replied shortly, getting Lest’s attention, “He had never actually been conscious for a while, to be exact. Well, for almost a year I think.”

“A year…?” Lest leaned back on his seat, “A year ago… that’s… that’s around the time I fought Ethelberd!”

“Sadly, that’s not the end of it,” Kiel added as he opened a book he had, “I found something disturbing in this book… and what happened that time might be exactly what’s written in this book.”

Lest took the book as Kiel gave him, looking at the opened pages, “Living runes… A soul from the Forest of Beginnings which had fused with the runes…”

“A corrupt soul actually, if it’s actually Ethelberd,” Frey added before she flipped a few pages ahead and pointed a passage on one of the pages, “Here, it says that living runes can only occur because of a few factors and can take over a weak-willed person’s consciousness.”

“I… I thought he was already gone back then but…” Lest was speechless with all the facts given to him, “But what about the factors? Is there a clue somewhere in the book about what might cause Ethelberd’s soul to fuse with the runes?”

“I’ve tried reading it through to the end, but there’s no mention about the factors there,” Kiel replied with a frown, “The book only tells us about what happened with the souls and the runes, but not the reasons for the living runes’ occurrence…”

“I can assume it’s most likely to be greed for power or the fact that he had used the rune spheres himself,” Frey added, “They’re the most possible reasons and I think I might be able to give a solution for this,” Frey pointed at Lest, “You, Lest, and your charm…”

“My… charm…?” Lest looked at Frey in surprise until he remembered that Frey had given him a charm when they first met, “Is it that charm that you gave me before?”

“That was just a replica… and that was actually mine,” Frey pulled the charm she was wearing around her neck, “This one is the real one, which holds the key to solving this once and for all.”

“Frey, are you sure about this?” Arthur asked Frey with a stern look, “If it is as you told me last night, then…”

Frey paused for a moment as her face softened, “To be honest, I don’t know…” Frey looked at Lest once more, “This charm responds to me, but it will respond better to you. It’s the very reason why you’re the one who have to do it, despite how risky it is.”

“You… never told me there was more about those charms…” Lest slowly spoke up as he took the original charm from Frey, “You hardly say anything about our family is supposed to do now, even after Venti is saved.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Frey lowered her head in guilt as her reply came with shaky voice, “We’re twins, yet we’re born with great difference in strength and abilities… We had different roles in our family and I… I don’t want to lose another family…”

“I… I still don’t get it…” Lest turned to Arthur, pleading for more answers.

“I may have heard about your family a long time ago,” Arthur responded, “There was a special family of Earthmates with the power to purify evil. Unfortunately, only a select few could actually purify an evil soul with a big cost.”

“Yes…” Frey added in a whisper, “One can purify a soul, at the cost of that person’s life…”

“H-Huh? Does that mean…?” Kiel came to realization.

“You need me to purify Ethelberd’s soul, at the cost of mine. Is that what you’re saying?” Lest looked at Frey in a serious look, getting a nod from Frey.

“That’s why… I don’t know what to do anymore…” Frey added with a frown, “Especially after what I heard from Nancy a while ago…”

“Is this the only way to save Halwell?” Lest turned to Kiel and Arthur.

“Unfortunately, this is the only solution we found,” Arthur replied sadly, “I shall offer you my deepest apology.”

“Any other books and ancient scrolls I read led me to this point too,” Kiel replied with a frown, “Sorry I can’t be much of help…”

“Lest,” Frey spoke calmly, “I can try and do what I can to help you purify him, but I’m not sure how much I can take your burden for the purification.”

Lest looked around at the people on the table once more before taking a deep breath, “I want to help, to be honest. I don’t know much about the new emperor and I don’t even remember my family’s mission. But I fought Ethelberd once before, so I think I should go and finish the job. It’s… my responsibility.”

“What about Dolce?” Arthur asked, “I hardly know about marriage, but I am quite aware that the wound from a broken bond cannot heal easily.”

“Don’t tell her,” Lest shortly replied, “There should still be a chance of survival, as small as it is, so I don’t want her to worry about the future which might not even come true.”

Arthur paused for a moment before nodding, “Very well, if that is your wish.”

“I won’t tell either,” Kiel added, “I’ll do my best to keep a secret.”

“Thanks you two,” Lest gave them a small smile, knowing that his secret would probably be safe.

Little did he know that there weren’t just four people present in the main room as two other figures had listened in to their whole conversation. Dolce and Pico had been standing around the stairs near the main room, but the distance was close enough for them to hear everything. The female Guardian froze in her place, with her ghost friend worrying over the shock from the sudden news.

“Dolly…? Are you… going to be fine…?”

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 35

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Pico, Amber, Dylas, Leon, Frey, Arthur, Margaret, Forte Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: Another late night update... And the end is near!

Chapter 35 – Forgotten Memories

“I’m… just like him…” Frey’s voice turned into a whisper as both of them looked at Ethelberd, “Just like Ethelberd, I’m a living rune too…”

“You never told me,” Lest responded sternly, “Why didn’t you say that you’re already dead?”

“Because I know you very well,” Frey replied in a shaky voice, “We’ve witnessed our own mother murdered right in front of us. Haven’t you considered that kind of trauma? To know that the family you’re looking for is also dead?”

Lest only gave a silent respond, knowing the truth in her words. If he knew that he already been on his own, he would have reverted to his old self when he first arrived in Selphia. He would return to being a lost child, not knowing who he was or where he had come from, but eventually ended up in a place filled with warm people. A new family he could call his own.

“But I have to admit, I was wrong about one thing,” Frey let out a smile, “You were never alone, which was proven when you can handle being a prince without me to help you all the time. Now I understand when you said you didn’t need me anymore back then.”

“I… said that?” Lest looked at Frey in confusion as she showed him her palm.

“I’ll share you some memories of our time,” Frey’s palm started glowing as hers and Lest’s body started glowing slightly, “But this time, let the runes tell you the actual stories instead. They’ll tell you that we didn’t always get along as siblings.”

“Are you sure you’ve brought everything you need? Enough money? Water? Food?” Frey asked in worry as she went over Lest’s rucksack, making sure anything necessary was inside.

“I’ve asked around about the price yesterday, so the money should be enough,” Lest replied as he watched his sister looking into his belongings, “I don’t think I’ll need that much food or water for a short hike to the bazaar today. Well, it’s not like I plan on camping out in the wild…”

“Oh right, I think you forgot something,” Frey put the mess she had made on Lest’s things on the table as she left the room, making Lest groan in frustration.

“Come on, I need to leave quickly or we won’t have enough food for the next season!” Lest protested before seeing Frey coming back into the room with several pieces of gear in her hands, “What are those?”

“If you’re going out there, then there should be monsters as well,” Frey took a rusted shield and shoved it to Lest, “Use this to block their attacks,” Frey took a pair of dual blades and put them in his hand, “If you need to counterattack a fast enemy, use dual swords to your advantage,” Frey went through the other equipments before Lest stopped her by putting the ones he was holding back on the table, “Hey, you must carry that all the time! The world out there-”

“I know about the monsters, Frey,” Lest replied in annoyance as he unsheathed a little of his own sword, “See? I already have one with me. Besides, I can fend off monsters on my own after a bit of training. I don’t need you to be worried about me all the time!”

“I am your sister!” Frey raised her voice in anger, “I have all the right to be worried about my one and only brother! You still need me to look after you!”

“No, you know that’s not true,” Lest took back his belongings and started walking away, “I think it’s more like you need me to dote on like when we’re kids, but we’re already adults! I feel like a helpless little kid who needs a stalker-like sister…” Lest looked back at her, but had already calmed down from anger, “Just… leave me alone…”

“Lest…”

Lest stood still in his place, looking at Frey with guilt all over his face. Frey responded with a smile, “Don’t be like that. I know that it wasn’t right of me to treat you too much like a kid.”

“Yeah, but…” Lest started, “I feel like there are things I should say better to you back then… I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” Frey let out a sigh, “Besides, I really think I deserved it. Especially after I envy you for being better than me in many things…”

“Really? I feel like you’re a lot better in doing most things… except for cooking…”

“H-Hey!” Frey yelled out in annoyance as she blushed in embarrassment, “You did the cooking all the time, so I didn’t have the chance to actually do it myself!” Frey looked at the surprised Lest before calming herself down with a deep breath, “Well, I was never good at anything… That’s why I’ve always envied you… I didn’t like how people compared us, so the only thing I could do the best was trying to be a good sister to you…”

“So that’s how we got into that argument…” Lest felt guilty once more after remembering the memory.

“But… I guess I do recall myself being better than you at one thing…” the twins’ body started glowing once more, “Our mother was there too…”

“Okay kids, it’s time to learn more about the Earthscript!” a woman with long green hair called out to the younger versions of Lest and Frey, with Lest came running towards her in excitement as Frey simply walked while looking completely uninterested.

“Yay! I love Earthskip! Teach us, Mommy!” Lest called out in excitement, making his mother chuckle.

“Lest, it is called Earthscript, not Earthskip,” Sara turned to her other child, “Frey, don’t make that kind of face again. Can’t I see the beautiful smile of my little angel?”

Frey shot a smile, “Look, I’m smiling!” the smile soon disappeared from her face, replaced with a frown, “Can we go out and play now? Earthscript is too easy for me! It’s boring!”

“You know that’s not true, dear,” Sara walked over to her hesitant child and took her hand, “Both of you still need to study more because it looks like you still hardly know anything about Earthscript.”

“What about magic, Mommy?” Lest tugged on his mother’s clothes, “Frey told me that her fire magic is so good she made the backyard boom-boom!”

“Stupid Lest! It was supposed to be a secret!” Frey called out in panic, until she saw the anger in her mother’s eyes, “M-Mommy?”

Sara let out an irritated sigh, “That explains why the maids carried buckets of water to the backyard yesterday…” Frey closed her eyes in fear as Sara squatted down to her level, only to be given a pat on the head, “I know you’re very good at your magic, but you cannot use it whenever you like. People could get hurt because of your magic.”

“I… I’m sorry, Mommy…!” Frey buried her face in her mother’s arms as she let her tears out from the fear and guilt, “I-I promise… I won’t do it again…”

“Now that’s one problem settled,” Sara turned to Lest as she comforted the crying girl, “I wonder if the scratches on the hallway floor from the maids’ bathroom to the backyard had something to do with this as well…”

Lest looked at his mother with teary eyes, aware that his mother had already seen through his actions, “B-But… Frey is… a-and the fire is… the yard i-is too hot…”

“Lest was…!” Frey’s voice managed to get Sara’s attention, “Lest was… trying to… save me… when I was saving… a family of birdies…”

Sara was left with two crying kids in her arms and her attempt on giving them more lessons had to be postponed. She brought the two into a hug, “You did what you could to help so that the little birdies are safe now. And you two did well looking out for each other, but…” Sara turned to Frey with a smile, “This little princess of mischief needs an extra lesson today!”

“She was a kind mother, wasn’t she?” Frey asked Lest with a sad smile, “Even after my best magic managed to set the half of the backyard on fire, she still had that warm smile of hers to comfort me…”

“Yeah… I think I’m starting to remember a little more about her…” Lest responded with a sad smile before he noticed that both Frey and Ethelberd were starting to turn invisible, “Frey, your body!”

Frey gave him a nod, “I know,” she turned around to face the gate, “The rune sphere shard’s power is slowly fading after the amount of time I spent out here and the battles I’ve fought.”

“Can’t you just stay here? The people in Selphia are willing to take you in just like they did with me,” Lest looked at his twin, who stood there and completely unresponsive at his words.

“I wish I could…” Frey responded, “But I got into this situation because of myself, so it’s my responsibility to see the end of it,” the female Earthmate turned to look at Lest with a sad smile as tears rolled on her cheek, “There are lots of memories I want to share with you… Good memories… Bad memories… But this is all I can do for you…”

Frey’s body started disappearing along with Ethelberd, making Lest even more panicked, “W-Wait! DON’T GO!!!”

As soon as the two figures disappeared from his sight, a small ball of light in the spot where Frey used to be. The light shone brightly and completely covered the whole area, bathing the place in bright white light. As the light shone, a series of images came pouring into Lest’s head, giving him back the memories he had once lost. All the adventures he had with his sister, all the troubles they had caused together, and all the family memories with or without their mother. They were all his precious memories and they had already come back. A single tear left his eye as he remembered his past and the fact that the last of his blood relative was gone.

“I wish I could still go on more adventures with you… but this is how it’s supposed to end…”

Lest opened his eyes, finding himself standing at the foot of Leon Karnak with runes slowly coming out of the ground.

“… I’m sorry, Lest… for not being a good enough sister to you…”

“You already are a good one, Frey…” Lest looked up at the sky as more tears fell from his eyes before he collapsed on the hard ground.

As his consciousness was slipping away, he could hear a faint sound of metal objects falling near him and some footsteps.

“Sir Halwell… Lest… take… airship…”

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 34

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Pico, Amber, Dylas, Leon, Frey, Arthur, Margaret, Forte Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: Not an update as late as yesterday, but it’s still over midnight here... Anyways, enjoy the final showdown!

Chapter 34 – The Final Struggle

“Eat this!” Frey swung her hammer around, knocking any types of monsters coming her way.

Lest managed to send the monsters surrounding him with his dual blades, but the number of monsters around the Earthmates hadn’t reduced much. The monsters more powerful than their regular counterpart as the dark aura surrounded them and the dark forest they were all in. The dragons launched their elemental breath along with the fairies attacking the Earthmates using their magic, pitting them to a corner.

“There are too many of them!” Lest said quickly as he raised his shield to block incoming fireballs from the red dragons, “And they’re just too strong!”

“You don’t,” Frey caught one of the fairies and threw it against the pack of silver wolves, “need to tell me that again!”

Lest blocked a rider orc’s club as it rode on a wolf, only to have more orc riders storming towards him with their own wolves. The male Earthmate could only block the orc riders and wolves by his shield, though a pair managed to find a way to hit and bite him in the end. Before more of the monster armies came to him, a wave of stone spikes came out from the ground and pushed them back to give Lest some space.

Frey, in her tired state, ran to Lest side, “Cure All!”

The healing spell managed to heal their wounds, but it couldn’t erase the fatigue they had after battling monsters over and over again. It hadn’t been long since the two of the arrived, but the monsters there had already been waiting for them since their arrival. The regular sight of white nothingness with colorful leaves flying around had already been replaced by the view of a forest filled with dead trees and monsters.

“The runes…” Frey looked around as the monsters slowly approached them once more, “It’s starting to corrupt everything… He is… corrupting everything…”

“Then we have to find him, and fast!” Lest replied as he stood ready with his short sword and shield, “We can’t beat all the monsters here at once, but we might be able to make a way through them, don’t you think?”

“It’s not going to be easy either way,” Frey curled her fist while holding her hammer on her left hand, “But making a way out of these guys is definitely a lot easier than beating them all.”

The twins switched places, with Lest on the left side to block the incoming attacks with his shield while Frey used her hammer to push the monster to the right and make a way. Little by little the strategy managed to lead them out of the monster crowd with little damage as they sped away from the rampaging monsters.

The maze-like forest managed to help their escape, but also make them lost their way as well. Lest and Frey looked at the trees around them, which looked completely identical in every direction. It was getting harder for them to tell where they had come from to reach the spacious clearing they were in.

“Not good,” Frey turned to Lest with serious look, “There’s no way out of this place. The corrupted runes are blocking my Escape magic.”

Lest closed his eyes for a moment, trying to activate the spell as well, “Yeah, I can’t use it either…”

“Oh, are you leaving so soon?” a voice echoed throughout the forest, surprising the two.

“I haven’t forgotten that voice…” Lest commented in a whisper as he held on to his sword and shield, “We’ve found who we’re looking for.”

“Yeah, I can sense those corrupted runes of his,” Frey replied as she held on to her hammer, “Ethelberd is here to greet us… from above!”

The two Earthmates quickly split as something hard had fallen on the ground they had been standing on. Once the dust had cleared, the figure revealed himself as the missing young emperor with his long hair a mix of the original teal color and light blue. His green eyes were glowing red as he turned to look at Lest and Frey with a wicked smile.

“Long time no see, my dear children,” the smile turned into a frown as he glared at them, “No, I refuse to acknowledge my great blood to run in your bodies with that cursed Earthmate’s blood!”

“You don’t have any right to talk bad about our mother!” Frey yelled in anger, “We don’t have a father like you! We never had any!”

“I don’t want to call you as my father too,” Lest spoke up as he glared at the emperor, “I don’t remember my own past, but I remember you and your empire trying to destroy Selphia! I remember you trying to take Venti away!”

“Huh? That sad excuse of a wind dragon?” Ethelberd looked at him in an amused look, “Well, at least that dragon still had some strength left that I could borrow…” Ethelberd’s form turned its color into pitch black before morphing into the familiar wind dragon, “Like this!”

Ethelberd flapped the strong wings he now had and a powerful gust managed to knock the Earthmates off the ground and towards the trees behind them. The emperor transformed back to his human form with dark aura around his body. The two Earthmates slowly got back to their feet, looking at Ethelberd in complete disbelief.

“That… that was Venti’s… power…” Lest spoke up as he winced from the pain on his back.

“H-How…?” Frey asked as she used her hammer for support, “You… you’re already a dead man!”

“Hah! Nonsense!” Ethelberd swung his arm to throw a dark ball towards Frey, pinning her against the tree, “I live on in that wretched place! I can fuse myself with any kinds of runes I want! I can be any god I want! I AM GREATER THAN ANY GOD!”

“You… greedy… monster… ugh…” the dark ball pinning her turned into wooden spikes coming from the dead tree, choking her.

“S-Stop it!” Lest cried out angrily, “I already beat you once, I can just easily beat you again!”

“Do you study about the Native Dragons, Earthmate?” Ethelberd turned his attention to Lest before he transformed into a big black dragon with burning wings, “Like the dragon god of destruction?!”

Lest quickly rolled out of the way as Ethelberd unleashed a big fireball at him, only to have the burning fireball curved in its path and hit Lest, “GAH!!!”

“I… I won’t let you… hurt him!” Frey pushed the spikes away before burning them with her fire magic to free herself.

“You cannot defeat me, Earthmates!” Ethelberd transformed into a big snake-like dragon, shooting water laser around the area to hit both Lest and Frey.

Frey fell on her stomach, barely conscious from all the strain and damage she had taken. As if her pain wasn’t enough, Ethelberd approached her as Lest laid helplessly to watch the emperor stomped his foot on his twin’s head. Her face was battered, but not a single drop of blood was spilled as Ethelberd stomped and kicked her around on the face.

“Huh, I guess there’s another like me in this world after all,” Ethelberd stopped his act as he looked at Frey’s motionless body in disgust, “An Earthmate version of myself… what a disgusting-”

A ball of light hit Ethelberd square in the face, but not with enough force to knock him away far enough. Frey slowly stood with her wounds slowly healing from the use of another healing spell, before she turned around to look at him with a cold stare. As Ethelberd was about to transform once more, Lest had come from behind him to strike him with a long slash on his back, stopping his transformation process.

“You…!” Ethelberd sent out a barrage of fireballs at Lest, slightly knocking him back, before he followed up with a small ball of light thrown at him.

“Get back!” Frey pushed Lest out of the way before escaping herself as the ball of light grew larger in size, creating a crater of blue light in the middle of the area.

With the huge crater dividing the area between the two Earthmates and Ethelberd, the three of them were only left with magic attacks which brought a disadvantage to Lest and Frey. Ethelberd soon transformed into Aquaticus and used his long body to reach and knock the Earthmates towards the trees helplessly.

The barrage of fireballs Lest and Frey had sent out to counterattack was absorbed as Ethelberd transformed into Fiersome, who then pulled them closer along with the burning branches around them. Just as they were getting closer to him, the transformed emperor spun around to knock them back once more.

Frey was thrown towards the tree once more, but the stinging pain all over her body had prevented her from getting up. Lest was thrown to the ground, but the fatigue from the battles against the monsters had caught up to him once more to prevent him from using any healing spell on the two of them. Frey let out a desperate and pained sigh as she reached out for her pocket, taking the rune sphere shard in her hand.

‘Please… make it work…’ Frey thought as she forced herself to crawl towards Lest, who noticed her coming, “Lest… It’s time…”

“The purification… huh…” Lest reached for his own pocket, taking out the white-fish like charm, “Our last… resort…”

“Resist all you can, but it won’t matter anymore,” Ethelberd spoke up as the twins slowly rose to their feet while leaning on each other for support, “Today… today will be the day I can annihilate all Earthmates left in this world! I will finally have my revenge!”

“Lest, listen to me,” Frey spoke up as she and Lest held the charm together, “You can just focus on giving me your purification energy. I’ll handle the rest.”

“I’ll try…” Lest’s hesitance in his voice got Frey’s attention, “But I don’t know how I can do it…”

“Just focus the way you usually do when you’re casting magic,” Frey replied, “That purification spell is also a type of magic.”

Lest nodded in understanding, “Got it.”

The two Earthmates closed their eyes as a ball of light formed around the charm, quickly swallowing anything in the area. Ethelberd looked at the Earthmates swallowed by the light before it soon covered the crater he had created as well. He tried running in panic, but the light grew faster before he could escape his fate. All of the dead trees, monsters, and the corrupted runes quickly disappeared into the light, restoring the forest into its original state.

Sensing the familiar surroundings, Lest opened his eyes to see that he was back into the empty space of the forest, but without the flying leaves. He was on his own as Frey was nowhere to be seen, but he found something unexpected as he looked around for her. It was something he never dreamed of actually seeing.

The black soul of Ethelberd, slowly being eaten by the light, was floating in the middle of the white space. The parts which had been eaten slowly turned into smaller leaves, flying towards a vortex of other colorful leaves behind Ethelberd. It was the same place Lest saw Frey, who looked at him with a sad smile as she approached him.

“The process is going to take a lot of time here, but not if I take him into the Forest of Beginnings through this gate,” Frey said as she looked at Ethelberd, “He did what he shouldn’t and his punishment will be having his soul perish in the forest.”

“Then let’s take him there,” Lest suggested, but was confused when Frey shook her head, “Why? You said that it’ll be faster-”

“I did,” Frey cut in, “But that’s not the reason why we shouldn’t take him there. Or to be exact, that’s not the reason why you shouldn’t take him to the Forest of Beginnings.”

“If it’s because the forest isn’t a place for living beings, doesn’t that apply to you too?” Lest asked in response.

Frey looked at him for a moment before she closed her eyes and smiled once more, “I see that those two their promises after all, if you know nothing about my condition.”

“Your… condition…?” Lest looked at her in confusion.

“Lest,” Frey opened her eyes and looked at him, “I… am no longer alive…”

“W… What…?”