#don't worry about matCHING LENGTH sry marco

[alasforyou]

♘ a place to call home.

Though he’d only been in Hive City for a few days—or perhaps, because of it—Frederick found himself feeling rather homesick.

It was a rather nostalgic feeling, one he hadn��t quite felt for years now. He’d suffered from it frequently when he was but a young soldier, just one amongst many in Ylisse’s royal army. But as he grew older and spent increasing amounts of time away from home, securing the kingdom’s borders and accompanying Chrom outside the castle in whatever endeavors he found just, he found himself able to appreciate the slightly different cultures and the variety of topography he came across in his travels. Home, he’d learnt, was not only in the barracks of the castle and the safety of his room; home was, indeed, where the heart was.

And his heart, undeniably, remained with his lord and his fellow Shepherds. It belonged in each grassy terrain within Ylissean territory, each mountainous region, and each thick forest. It belonged in the tents set up under the stars, the inns in the smallest and largest of villages, and in the never-ending stretch of roads that traveled all across Ylisse.

But he was not in Ylisse, not even close, and… here, in Hive City, he was useless. He could not serve neither Chrom nor Lissa in ways that he had back in their world, and he felt utterly exhausted from the absolute lack of work to do. There were no weapons to sort, no campfires to start, no training sessions to lead, and no war to win. Here, he felt absolutely out of place, like a sorry knight who only remained one in name, and that tired him. Still, he was not one to give up hope; at the very least, he knew that his comrades were safe, wherever they were within the confines of this city. And was that truly not enough cause for joy and relief? They would find a way home eventually; he was certain of it. That was why, depressing as it was, he found it good to feel homesick. Feeling homesick meant he had no attachment to this strange experimental place, and that he still kept a part of Ylisse in his heart. 

Thus, he refused to simply lounge around and pace aimlessly. (Lissa would have been proud; he’d spent much of his day wasting time that he hardly knew what to do with himself.) Grabbing his wooden sword, Frederick left his temporary housing to find a small, grassy field, identified by a nearby sign as a park. And there, even alone, he trained, honing his skills and trying to recall the pains of wounds he would have gotten in battle if he’d made a mistake.