Burn; hc_bingo
Title: Burn
Fandom: Rune Factory (4)
Prompt: Strapped to a Moving Vehicle
Medium: Fic
Wordcount: 2039
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers to the plot of the first and second arc of Rune Factory 4.
Summary: Frey pushed herself to finish everything.
AN: I was trying to do this thing where the moving vehicle is life... and it sorta worked out? (Also I totally didn't get my title from Hamilton. Well, I did, but the song definitely doesn't match this.)
Frey didn’t know what to say when she was told she was the prince (not princess, but prince) the town was expecting. She got manhandled into taking on the responsibilities of the prince, and she found herself farming on a land ravaged by time and disuse.
She was ordered to investigate Yokmir Forest, and she found a monster that transformed into a girl after she defeated it. A few days later, Venti tasked her with investigating the Water Ruins and the mysterious voice that came from it.
Frey prepared herself for the trek into the ruins and at the end, found a horse monster that turned into a man. He was unlike the girl-Amber, who was bubbly and naïve-but he became a close friend of hers.
A ghost then came to collect her, and then dragged her to Obsidian Mansion. She followed warily, only to enter a haunted area with ghosts and monsters stronger than she expected. But Frey managed to reach the end-the theater-and she defeated the boss for Pico, the ghost.
The ghost revealed to her that Venti was going to die, and Frey pushed herself harder to save Venti from death. She chased a Chipsqueek into Yokmir Forest only to find herself falling into a pit.
She traversed through the cave and arrived at the end of Yokmir Forest, right in front of the entrance to the room where she fought Ambrosia. She didn’t think the Chipsqueek went out of Yokmir Forest, so Frey entered the room, expecting to fight Ambrosia again.
Instead, Dead Tree was awaiting, and Frey managed to defeat it. The Chipsqueek then appeared and knocked the Rune Sphere away from her. It landed on the ground where Ambrosia was resting, and there was an overflow of Runeys.
Returning back to the town, Frey collapsed on the bed and slept. The next day, she was going to the Water Ruins, again, to retrieve the Rune Sphere she stumbled upon while trying to reach Thunderbolt.
She fought against Chimera and managed to scrape a win. Frey gathered the Rune Sphere, and she made her way to the room where Thunderbolt was. She placed it in the center of the room, and Runeys filled that room.
Frey then left, and she started asking around if anyone knew of where to find a Rune Sphere. Her search led her to a traveler in Lin Fa’s inn, and he told her that she needed to go west to find the blue stone he lost to a monster.
Volkanon built her a bridge to connect her to the land west of Selphia, and she found herself in a new area called Autumn Road. She then found the Delirium Lava Ruin, and it took her a few days, but Frey managed to reach the end, only to be forced to fight Rafflesia.
She retrieved the Rune Sphere from there, and then she made her way to where she fought Marionetta. Like Thunderbolt’s and Ambrosia’s rooms, it had an overflow of Runeys when she placed the Rune Sphere in the location of Marionetta.
‘Venti needs this!’ Frey told herself as she pushed herself to find the last Rune Sphere.
When she allowed herself time to rest, she found that she was completely overwhelmed by everything-the farm that she needed to take care of, the places she needed to explore to save Venti, and the people themselves-but she pushed that aside and went with the flow.
Frey didn’t take a break when she returned from the Forest of Beginnings. She continued to farm because Venti said she needed to, she didn’t stop sending monsters back to the Forest of Beginnings because the town needed her to do so. She barely got a moment of solitude.
And then the Sechs’ Empire struck.
Frey was forced to go fight against the Sechs' Empire, even when all she wanted was a brief break from saving Ventuswill. But she also didn't want Venti to suffer, so she forced herself to go to Idra Cave. She entered a new area (Sercerezo Hill), and she found new monsters that could kill her if she to let her guard down. But she eventually made it to the entrance of Idra Cave, where two soldiers were talking about their plans.
She followed them in, and she found the soldiers and their leader talking about their plans. Frey confronted them, and he summoned a clone of Terrable. Frey had no choice but to fight the clone-or die.
She won, and Frey made her way back to Selphia to rest for a bit before going out to Maya Road to continue chase. She was temporarily unable to continue when a soldier destroyed the bridge. Frey had to ask Arthur to drop her off through using the airship, and she easily landed right before the entrance to Maya Road.
She pushed her way through, recruiting a Heracles to help her out with the stronger monsters, and Frey managed to reach the soldiers she was chasing, again. They summoned a Fiersome clone, and Frey had to resort to magic to defeat it. With Heracles, she managed to win against it.
It led to the Sechs Territory, which she managed to go through. She defeated the three soldiers, only to nearly die at Ethelberd’s hand. He then told her give him chase if she wanted to retrieve the Rune Spheres.
At the end of the Sechs Territory, Ethelberd stood with a Rune Sphere. He fused a Little Dragon with a Legendary Scale to create a clone of Aquaticus. It was harder to fight because it moved around too much, but she managed to bring it down.
After the defeat, Ethelberd summoned a ship, and he taunted her. She returned to Selphia for one more request-to borrow the airship to land on Ethelberd’s Floating Empire. Arthur dropped her off, and Frey immediately went to the southern section of the Floating Empire. It took a while, but she managed to find a switch that seemed to affect something elsewhere.
She teleported back to the entrance, and then she made her way east. On the way there, she saw that the switch had lowered one of the barriers that barred her from going north, and so she assumed the two other barriers would be lowered by switches east and west of that room.
The eastern part of the Floating Empire was full of pillars with switches she needed to find. After struggling a bit, Frey managed to stumble upon the boss of this area. The Sechs Tank had many attacks that required dashing around it, but she brought it down with her spear.
She then teleported back to the entrance to go west, and she found the area full of teleporters. Frey found it a bit tedious, but she found the correct path to the boss of the west area. The Sechs Golem guarded the room with the switch, but she defeated it with magic.
It was time to face Ethelberd for the last time.
Frey walked up the stairs to find Ethelberd with a Rune Sphere. He talked about how he was defeated by an Earthmate and how he would have his revenge. It took everything she had, but she managed to survive against Ethelberd, only to be blown away by his power when combined with the Rune Sphere.
If it hadn’t been for Arthur and Doug, and then Ventuswill showing up, she would’ve died at Ethelberd’s hand.
She thought he was defeated when he used the Rune Sphere to call Venti to him and they fused together. It was Venti’s body, but Ethelberd had complete control over it. Frey had thought she was going to die when Venti’s charm started to heat up and glow.
She could feel everyone’s prayer, and it gave her the strength to stand up against Ethelberd for one last fight. Frey survived and won, and she rode on Venti’s back to Selphia. Everyone ran up to her and congratulated her on winning before going to visit Ventuswill.
This culminated to a party at Porcoline’s, but she had to go and get Venti before they started. She reached Venti only to see her fading away.
Frey saw everything she was working for slipping through her fingers. Every sacrifice she made, everything she pushed through, was useless because Ventuswill was still dying. They couldn’t save her because her body was gone.
Everyone else came rushing in.
The party was canceled. No one wanted to celebrated, not with Ventuswill going back to the Forest of Beginnings.
Frey laid in her bed, staring at the ceiling, and she couldn’t fall asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about how they worked to save Ventuswill only to lose her in the end. It just seemed surreal.
For a few days, Frey wandered around town absently, doing her chores through muscle memory. The third day, it really hit her that Ventuswill would never return, and the thought hurt more than she expected.
She buried her face into her pillow to muffle her sobs that night. It hurt. It hurt. Everything she had done-from seeing transmutations of humans with monsters to seeing her friend fade-hurt. Her body had the reminders of everything she had done.
There was a scar running down her arm that would never fully heal. She could sometimes feel the claws and fangs of monsters digging into her skin-phantom pains that came from constantly being attacked by animalistic monsters.
But she could deal with that. Frey knew how to ignore the physical pain, to push past it. She didn’t know how to deal with the pain of losing Venti. She ignored it until it was impossible. And now it felt like this emotional pain would drown her.
She fell asleep, clinging to her pillow. When Vishnal came to wake her the next morning, he paused when he saw how disheveled she looked. She looked terrible-emotionally wrecked.
“Princess?” he asked.
Frey blinked a few times before focusing on him. “Vishnal?” She flushed dark red. It was embarrassing being caught crying about something that happened days ago.
He looked at her with concern for a few moments. “Are you okay, Princess?”
She took a long look at him before saying, “I will be.”
‘I have to be,’ she added mentally, ‘for Venti.’
Vishnal stared at her for a moment before saying, “If there’s anything bothering you, you can come to me, Princess.”
She smiled weakly, and murmured, “Thank you, Vishnal, for your offer, but I’m fine.”
Frey watched him leave before she sighed. It would be a long time until she was fine but hearing Vishnal’s concern for her made it easier to accept that her sacrifice didn’t save Ventuswill-it saved everyone else in Selphia.
It reminded her that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t the only one trying to save Venti from leaving Selphia. Everyone had tried to save her in some way, and their contributions had helped her in the final battle against Ethelberd and saved Ventuswill from being his mindless puppet to control.
Frey promised herself that she would move on, that she would enjoy life leisurely in Selphia unlike before, and that she would take better care of herself. She sometimes would wake up with aches and pains when pursuing Ethelberd and the Sechs, so she had to take things slowly or she would aggravate her old wounds.
Maybe she would take Vishnal up on his offer one day, telling him about all that she had seen and done to save Venti. But she couldn’t, not now. It was too fresh in her mind to even consider bringing it up.
But she would spend time with the people in the town, learn everything she could about them, and become their friends. She would take them with her on trips, if they were willing, and she would fight alongside them.
Maybe she would even fall in love. There were a few guys she could date and fall in love with, but that wasn’t a main concern. For now, Frey would strengthen her relationship with the town’s people before even considering a romantic relationship.
And maybe, one day, she could see Ventuswill again.