A quick character study/emotional fic.

Spoilers through Chapter 9 of FE Awakening. While this features the Avatar and Frederick, it's not explicitly romantic. Even if you don't ship it, I believe you can still enjoy (even if you do ship it, I believe you can still enjoy). Characters belong to Nintendo.

Please read, enjoy, and review.

.:Ashes to Ashes:.

She found him late that night, when the fires were burning low and a solemn silence had settled over the makeshift camp. Stars pricked the sky, but they seemed distant and cold now, and the air was moist and unpleasant from the rain earlier in the day. Frederick was sitting by himself next to one of the guard fires - either too wound up or simply too exhausted to fall asleep. He must have come out here to make himself feel useful, she thought. He seemed so helpless when he didn't have a job to do.

She sniffed quietly and wiped her eyes before stepping into the light; she'd been with Lissa and Chrom earlier, naively thinking that she could help, but their grief for their sister had been too personal, and she'd quickly excused herself, leaving them to weep in private. Frederick had known the Exalt as well, she knew, and she didn't think he would much appreciate the tears of a stranger.

But as for company...That, at least, seemed acceptable. They were almost-friends, perhaps.

"Hello," she said, startled by the raspiness in her own voice, caused by swallowing back tears she felt she didn't have much right to. She had only known the Exalt for a few weeks, after all.

"Hello," Frederick replied softly. He prodded a log into the fire with his boot and looked mildly surprised when she was still there. "...Would you like to sit down?"

"Yes." She didn't so much as sit as fall onto the bench, her legs having apparently decided that they had done more than enough work today. Frederick didn't catch her, just scooted a little to the side so she was buffered by his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked, and she hated how she was jealous of him for keeping his voice so steady. Surely he was feeling too, she thought, he just wasn't showing it.

"I will be," she answered, staring into the depths of the fire. She felt that it was mildly rude to keep leaning on him as she was, but she couldn't bring herself to move.

Frederick - who always seemed to cool and unshakeable to her - was warm and solid through his tunic, although she was conscious of how much more slender he seemed without his armor on. It seemed like tonight he, like everyone else, was feeling a little too burdened to handle any extra weight.

"...I'm sorry," she heard herself whispering, barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

"What for?" Frederick murmured, seemingly just as observant of their reverent silence.

"It was my strategy. If I had done something differently-"

"Not even you could have predicted the Risen," Frederick said matter-of-factly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, face illuminated in stark contract from the flames. "If there is anyone to blame it is me."

"No," she chided. "You did everything you could."

"So did you," he said. "But we both failed."

"Yes," she whispered, feeling the tears start to burn behind her eyes again. "Yes, we did. We all failed today."

Frederick sighed, shoulders curling inwards as she cried silently, biting her lip so she wouldn't make a sound. It just seemed so unfair. She had planned everything. She had thought of everything. And yet...

"I don't understand it either," Frederick said, startling her out of her thoughts.

"What?" she choked, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"It seems unjust. I just don't know what else we could have done," he whispered. "Do you?"

"No."

"But there must have been something."

"Yes, there must have been," she said faintly.

"What do we do now?"

It took her a moment to realize that he was actually waiting for an answer, and she tipped her head up, blinking until she could see him clearly. He looked suddenly young to her - far too young to have seen what he had. The man who had refused to trust her in the beginning was now looking at her earnestly, longing for her words to give him direction.

"Well..." she stumbled, because there were a thousand different answers, and she didn't know which one to say or which one he wanted to hear.

"Well," she tried again, focusing on the embers of the fire instead of his face. "We take a deep breath..." She heard him inhale slowly, but didn't look to see if it was coincidence or obedience. "And..." It bothered her suddenly that he'd obeyed. She didn't need another soldier now. "And..." She didn't need another pawn - someone else to depend on her for commands, she needed - "...And..."

"And?" Frederick pressed, almost desperately. She swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat wasn't going away.

"I don't know," she admitted in a gasp. "I don't know what we do."

He sat up, and before she had time to think much he'd pulled her against his shoulder, wrapping both arms around her back.

"Is it alright to do nothing?" she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and clinging to his shirt, drowning in the wash of battle-born emotions that came with touching another human being - someone warm and clean from the dirt and blood of war; someone whose pulse she could feel under her hands, whose breath tickled her cheek as he breathed softly, steadily. Someone alive. Not an enemy.

A friend.

An ally.

She needed that desperately right now.

.:.

"Yes," he said at length. "Tonight, I think, it is perfectly acceptable to do nothing. You've done enough for today." He rubbed large, soothing circles against her back, and she was struck by how much their roles had reversed in just a few moments. She hugged him tighter, wanting him to understand that just because he was bigger didn't mean he had to stand on his own.

"Let tomorrow worry about itself," he said quietly, ducking a little in her embrace. It felt like he may have squeezed a little tighter as well.

They sat like that for a little longer, until the fire burned away into embers and they both felt like they might be able to don their armor again in the morning. But they didn't move. Neither one said a word until the first light of dawn, but they stayed together, watching the ashes scatter into the night.

I empathized a great deal with Frederick in the first eight chapters, even though he seems a bit unpopular for his social awkwardness. Playing Awakening has been so much fun: I am genuinely attached to everyone. It's also the first FE game I've ever played seriously, so that's been a fun experience as well.

For those of you who remember me from my SSBB days-hi, I'm not dead. I'm not sure if this means I'm back (a year-long hiatus is a bit hard to shake off), but I'm finally writing fanfiction again. If you want to know what's up with me, please feel free to drop a PM. :)

Please review! My first fanfiction in a reaaally long time: I hope I'm not too rusty.