Not five seconds later, the newly-reconstructed crystal starts glowing, and a flash of light deposits the Azure Dragoon at its feet. "A very multidisciplinary man, our Warrior of Light is," she says.

"I'm an arcanist by formation, as you well know."

Another flash and the Lord Commander of the Ishgard Temple Knights joins their little reunion. He smiles warmly at Otohiko. "I had faith in your success."

The over-six-feet-tall au ra grins at him. "We have more people coming, yes?"

"Yes. I believe your friend Alphinaud and a few Temple Knights are coming. You will heal?"

The Warrior of Light grabs the ornamented book at his hip, opens it, and starts writing on it with the pen attached to his hair. The process lasts less than three seconds, and once he's close to done the air around him glows, three translucent spheres rotating around him as he finalises the diagram, and a final infusion of aether into the book and a gesture causes a small fairy with green-golden butterfly wings to spring into existence there. "Count on it."

More flashes of light herald more arrivals—another five people in total—and then at Lord Aymeric's signal they advance. They need to find the Lady Iceheart and their only advantage is that they are fewer in number than the band of heretics she is leading in this retreat.

The sound of voices echos down the icy passage.

"—provisions first, we can't very well eat the crystals."

"No, but they'd sell better."

"To whom? The Ishgardians will be at every—" the female voice stops. ".... Nevermind. Damn it. Damn it, we're out of time, how did they—? Run."

"... Ma'am—"

"Did I stutter? Go. I've a plan. I'll catch up."

The last part is certainly a lie, but the part about having a plan is only about... half of one. She has half of a plan. It counts, right? Right.

"It's been an honor serving with you, ma'am—"

"Waste time on sentimentals and so help me I will forcibly feed you my greatsword before the fanatics get the chance."

"I, uh. Y-yes ma'am. Running now."

They reach her.

Lord Aymeric had something clever and gallant to say when he finally encountered Iceheart in person for the first time, sitting artfully atop the crates of crystals like they didn't just bust her unexpectedly. Instead, what he says is "—you? You were dead!"

Lady Iceheart—or Vethrione Laivane, once-paladin of Falcon's Nest—sits artfully atop her stolen crates of aether crystals. She looks to all the world like she was expecting them, though the haphazard way the crates are arranged gives away her surprise. Her greatsword rests easily in her armor-clad hands, bladed edge resting on the floor, evoking the Ishgardian statues of yore.

"Only left for it, thank you. You." Her cool gaze turns upon the present Scions. "You're responsible for this nonsense, aren't you. The fanatics are never this crafty."

...oh shit why is she hot.

    Alphinaud was momentarily taken aback by Aymeric's outburst but he recovers quickly enough. "Lady Iceheart! Stop what you're doing! Primals are not the answer!"

Otohiko for his part has his book ready. He manages to make it look way more impressive than it should by rights look.

"Taking that as a yes. Congratulations, fanatics, your fools find your lies sweet indeed. Scions must make such lovely pets."

Then her mask of icy assurance evaporates like mist in the midday sun, and all that's left is pure incandescent fury.

"You have no idea what you're doing. Any of you. You'd fuel the fires of another thousand years of a very stupid war in ignorance and blind faith and the arrogance that you know what my plan even is. You should not have come here. I was just going to take my people and go, it's not like crystals are portable. But—fine."

"You want to back the scary heretic into a corner? Fine. Let's see the bed you've made for yourself."

The power of the crystals starts swirling around her, and she smiles pleasantly at her guests. Yeah that does not look like someone that is going to stop what she is doing.

...Otohiko adopts a very weary look for a split second before steeling himself, and when Alphinaud catches a glimpse of his face he pales, too.

This will be a hard one.

He starts casting—

But the Azure Dragoon is faster, and an infusion of aether to her feet makes her jump twenty feet into the air and towards Iceheart, lance at the ready—

Swirls of icy wind send them flying back before they can interfere, and frozen crystals begin to form at the Lady Iceheart's feet. A vicious blizzard begins to form around her, stopping all attempts to interrupt her summoning.

"We whom gods and men have forsaken shall be the instruments of our own deliverance," she says, standing and looking towards the heavens. And now for the really crazy part. "Partake of my flesh—fill this vessel with your light! Walk among your brothers and sisters once more!"

The ice crystals around her rise past her feet and begin to envelop her.

"O Saint Shiva, still the hatred within our hearts, and bless us," she is swallowed by a great icicle, but her voice echoes all the same, "with eternal grace!"

The ice rises around her more, and the blizzard strengthens. A bolt of lightning crashes out of the sky to tear Iceheart's frozen prison asunder.

And out of the shattered ice rises Shiva. Titan and Garuda invoked the humanoid form, but neither did so quite so well. Pale blue skin and a crown of icicles decorate the lovely fae creature that floats gracefully above them, and both the blizzard and the dissipating aether of the crystals swirl around her as she spins and lets out a little joyous laugh.

The Dragoon picks herself up from being thrown off with a mid-air twist and a lancefirst landing onto the ground, but once she's down she has to hold onto said lance for stability against the magical gales.

Aymeric is standing in front of the rest of the party, his shield magically enhancing the protective ward he's holding over the others, and he withstands the onslaught of wind and ice and aether. "Saint Shiva...?!"

    "You fool," gasps Alphinaud in surprise before summoning an aether construct in the form of a small quadruped to start casting.

Otohiko's fairy, meanwhile, twirls in the air and breathes a magical wind that increases everyone's natural regeneration. They'll need it for this fight.

The laughter darkens to an ominous cackle, and the primal spins in the air to face them. Her head tilts, and she smiles at them. For a second, it seems like she plans to just peacefully float there. Then her burning blue eyes slide towards Aymeric, and her smile becomes a cruel smirk. She descends, and reaches for Iceheart's abandoned greatsword from where it was stabbed into the floor. As her hands reach the hilt, ice swallows the blade and hilt of the sword, and forms a new sword of ice around it, to make it a bit more appropriately sized for her new primal form.

She sweeps across the amphitheatre with a flying slash from her icy greatsword, and the battle begins in earnest.

It's like fighting a force of nature. Every slash of her greatsword brings with it an impossibly cold chill, and she sends frigid gales of ice-aspected aether to ensnare and slow her enemies. A wave of her hand makes ice shards rain from the sky, and a click of her heel against the floor ices over their arena with something far too slippery to be real ice. It's like fighting an actual knight, with training and experience and at least some measure of intellect. She takes advantage of the iced over arena to swoop over to an edge and break the ice over her sword to send a rain of shards at her foes with more accuracy than her weather summoning seems to have. Before they recover from the volley, she summons a shield of ice and switches to a stance more befitting of a proper paladin, blocking their blows with a casual ease. She is beautiful and terrifying, unprecedented and powerful, and—

—and—

—and it's not enough. Not to beat the greatest warriors of Ishgard and the Scions, not all at once, not working together. Not with only a couple of stolen shipments of aether crystals to power her. Not with complete inexperience at using her new form, at not knowing the extent of her powers or her own weaknesses. Not with the confusion and fear and pain that swirls through her mind like the blizzard swirls around her. Her shield shatters under their barrage, and she snarls and switches back to a greatsword and leaps with incredibly speed at their healers, Otohiko first. The power she brings to bear is enough to break through her enemy's protective magical shielding, but this doesn't make it past the extra shielding underneath it, courtesy of Otohiko. None of her clever tricks are working. The Warrior of Light knows what she's going to do before she does it, and is always one step ahead, each and every time. The Lord Commander is a talented paladin in his own right, able to take her beating without losing his head or flinching in the face of her primal wrath. The Azure Dragoon is there every single time there's an opening, stabbing her with that goddamned lance of hers. The primal is outmatched.

She lets out a scream of fury and pain when the realization hits. It freezes them solid, but leaves them alive. She does not have the power to kill them.

And then, quite unexpectedly, she speaks.

"FOOLS, you have no idea what crimes have been committed against those you call the villains—!" she roars, snarling with rage and agony from the blows they've landed against her. She floats high above, raising her sword and charging it with power to see if a massive aetherial strike while they're frozen and vulnerable will be enough to finally kill them.

Then she stops.

"... no," she murmurs, to the wind. The blizzard fades, and she floats delicately to the ground. "Walk the same path and reach the same destination. No." She raises her her sword and looks at it thoughtfully. "Every new breath, a victory." Then she smiles, and plunges the sword into her own chest.

"I win, fanatics and fools," she hisses, in clear and obvious agony as she carves out her own heart. As she carves out, most importantly, the vessel inside. She raises the frozen Elezen woman's body in her palm, and she ices a protective barrier for it. Then, with the last of her strength, she throws it and the precious cargo inside like a lance, fast and far away.

"I... win..." murmurs Shiva, as she crumples to the ground, dissipating into aether. The ice trapping them disappears with her.

Otohiko lands on his knees and immediately summons a protective barrier on the ground around them to soften their landings and to... protect against something that never comes. He looks confused, then massively relieved for a second when whatever it is he was afraid of doesn't happen.

The Azure Dragoon... doesn't need it. As soon as she's free, she falls onto the hard ground with her spear, and then she pulls it out and jumps, all the way atop one of the fading ice pillars. "I'm going after her," she says, and jumps again an instant before it fades to nothing and into the distance.

"...does she always do that?"

"More often than would be any good for morale," replies Aymeric, straightening up and dusting himself. "Is everyone here alive?"

    Alphinaud lets out a squeak of a reply, then clears his throat and says, "Hale and healthy, milord."

But just to be sure, Otohiko's fairy moves from party member to party member, dropping a little bit of healing here and there on them all. "Well. That fight as a whole was... unexpected. And easier than I thought." The au ra stands up straight, too, and looks at Alphinaud. "That, summoning a primal into her own body, that shouldn't have been possible. Should it?"

    The elezen boy clears his throat again to meet Otohiko's gaze. "It's hard to say. I don't think I've heard of anything like it before, though, no."

    "If the Scions haven't, we haven't," says one of the Temple Knights that came with them—the other healer in the group, who's casting a few more active spells to ensure everyone is fine.

"There could be something about it in the church archives..."

    "Urianger would know about it, if it had ever happened," declares Alphinaud with a confidence he does not quite feel. "I'll return to the Waking Sands and inform him of this fight."

"I should... probably come with you," agrees Otohiko, somewhat reluctantly.

Aymeric turns to them and bows in the Ishgardian fashion. "Good travels, and I hope next time we see each other will be in less tense circumstances."

Alphinaud starts floating in the air as he casts teleport, and Otohiko follows suit. After five seconds they both disappear.

And since most people who are not the Warrior of Light and his friends do not have enough anima to teleport everywhere all willy-nilly like that, the Temple Knights have to walk.

Chasing down a single giant icicle in a snowy mountain range is not precisely easy. But the Azure Dragoon has the trajectory, and it's not like Shiva was aiming for subtle when she threw Iceheart away. It's difficult, but possible, to find the crater where the shattered remains of the Elezen's icy protection lie.

But Jacqueline is not the first to find it.

A hyur man sits in the crater, muttering expletives to himself as he stubbornly chips away at the remains of the lady's icicle with a dagger. Clearly, he means to free her. Lady Iceheart, for her part, looks quite unconscious.

"'I have a plan,' she says, 'I'll catch up,' she says. Could have blightin' told me your plan was the far side of crazy," mutters the hyur, as he continues to work.

The chasing elezen does indeed not have trouble finding the crater, and she drops from a particularly cool jump that the hyur would absolutely have admired had he noticed it was happening. As it is, though, she was silent enough, so she should probably arrive mostly by surprise there.

"I could have, you know. Set up a tarp or something. For the landing." Chip chip chip. "Halone, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud."

He's got no idea that he's got company.

She withdraws her helmet and sinks her lance on the icy ground, deep enough that it can hold her weight as she leans against it with one shin crossed over the other. "She probably did not plan that far ahead."

"Shrivelled blue dragon balls—" he swears, jumping. Then he adjusts the grip of the dagger in his hand, and draws a second one, and he's between Jacqueline and Iceheart and trying (and... mostly failing...) at looking protective and menacing.

"Where did you come from?"

The Azure Dragoon points up with her right index finger, smirking a bit.

“.... Right.” He summons up his courage and tries to look tough. “Well, just. Just sprout some wings and go back, then, there is nothing to see here.”

"Really? Girls trapped in icicles a common sight for you heretics?"

“Yep, sacrifice them to our dragon god twice a week, they’re particularly popular in the summer months when it gets all toasty.”

"Dragon god?" She taps the big emerald orb attached to her armour on her upper left arm. "I wasn't aware you were at the point of calling Nidhogg a god."

His eyes slide to the eye and he swallows.

“Nah, bit of heretic humor for you. Nidhogg’s still kind of just a flying shite that breathes fire.”

"He's also a pain to listen to. All day, yap yap, revenge this, revenge that. Never shuts up." She straightens up and pulls her spear from the ground like it's nothing. "Let's get your friend out of the ice, then, shall we?"

“Uh. No, no, we’re. We’re fine, thank you, she. Sleeps like that. Iceheart, you know. Gotta keep to theme. Uh, listen, Miss uh, Azure Dragoon, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We’re really in the middle of some things right now, could you just, uh. Make an appointment for heretic hunting later? I bet we could pencil you in next week.”

She looks affronted. "I'm not here to hunt," she says, and then in the next blink she's in the air and the following blink she's sliced through the icicle from the top to the ground, not touching the Lady Iceheart or her hyur friend at all. "And the name's Jacqueline."

“... Cynric. Nice to, er, meet you?” He edges over to Iceheart’s unconscious form and industriously starts fussing over her. Still breathing? Yep, still breathing. “Sorry, ma’am, I just don’t know what else dragoons of various colors, uh, do. Besides hunt heretics.”

"We also hunt dragons," she points out. "And personally I like long walks on the, uh, ice, and companionable dinners in front of the... fireplace. Those are normal things for a girl to like, right?" She sinks the spear into the ground once more then also steps closer to the Lady Iceheart, dropping to one knee to check on her. "Halone, she's actually alive. Had 50/50 odds there."

“Sure, I don’t judge. Uh. Honestly those odds are not accurate at all, it was like 20/80 for alive and dead coming at it from anything even resembling logic - okay, look, what do you want. Because if it’s drag her off to face trial or whatever, then uh. No. No thank you.”

Jacqueline looks at Cynric with a bitter smile, then taps the eye of Nidhogg on her shoulder again. "Well, listening to this dragon all day every day isn't what I'd call a sweet deal but it hasn't left me short on empathy for the other side. Although I am somewhat surprised that the other side is just, ah..." She looks around at the distinct lack of other heretics. "Just the two of you."

“Oh, uh, no, no my mates are all. Hiding in the trees waiting for an ambush alright fine they all thought she was dead for sure and left already and I was the only one stupid enough to go check, there, happy.”

"Ha. No. No, not really. So you are not organised at all, are you?" She looks at Iceheart again. "The Lord Commander recognised her."

“Our major force for leadership just ate a saint and shat herself back out in a giant projectile icicle, yeah I think ‘not organized’ is accurate right now. And, uh. Wow. Guess he’s good with faces, probably comes with all of the politicking. Lots of practice.”

"If she was trying to keep her identity a secret she is probably not going to." Jacqueline stands up. "Did you have anywhere to take her? I am not particularly skilled at healing but maybe all she needs is water and a nap."

“It’s not a secret, I think she just didn’t want any awkward questions and doesn’t like to talk about it. Uh. There’s a dead end cave over thataway.” He points.

"Let's go, then." And she can quite easily carry the Lady Iceheart, whoever she is, bridal-style in the relevant direction.

Cynric looks affronted at having his charge carried off by someone else, but there’s not really much he can do about it, so he settles for awkwardly hovering nearby. He does put his daggers away, they don’t seem like they’ll do much good here.

There is, in fact, a cave! Cynric gets to setting up a bedroll to put her on. Jacqueline gets many suspicious glances while he’s doing it, like he’s afraid she’s going to run off with Iceheart, but he doesn’t look hostile.

She gently deposits Iceheart onto the bedroll, then stands up and says, "Back in a sec, I need to go grab my lance. Good time to run away if you're inclined to do so." And off she runs.

Well, that's just insulting!

He crosses his arms and huffs at this, then gets to obviously doing the precise opposite of running, which is digging a firepit and setting up camp. In this cave. They still need firewood, which he'll go gather, but he can't do that right now because he has to obviously be not running.

Jacqueline returns in less than a minute, lance attached to her back. "How is she?"

"Still breathing. Chillier than she should be, so we should get a fire going and see if warming her up helps."

"I can go gather firewood, if you want to stand watch here. Or I could stay and you could do that and maybe send word to your friends that she's alive after all."

"That..." he considers what would happen if the other heretics met the Azure Dragoon. That... sounds like it would pretty inevitably turn into a fight. "Uh. Maybe later. You gather firewood. You know how to find the stuff that doesn't give off a lot of smoke?"

"Yeah. Been there, done that." She turns back around and gives him a two-finger salute before flipping her helmet back down to cover her face and heading out.

"Okay. Thanks."

Bit of an overdramatic exit if anyone asked him, but no one did, so he doesn't comment.

By the time their charge stirs, they have a fire going, and a pot of stew in the middle of being made. It's made from a combination of hastily transported provisions and some local wildlife that met their end on the wrong end of a dragoon's lance.

"Ow," she declares, before even opening her eyes.

"Morning, sunshine."

This is going to be hilarious.

That sentence barely even registers before she's sitting up with a dagger in her hand looking ready to use it.

... Then she spots Cynric.

"Uh?"

"That was mean," says Cynric, to Jacqueline. Then to the woman who just got startled awake, in a much more gentle tone: "Hey, hey, easy, it's okay. I've got no idea what she's about, but you're not in Ishgardian hands, she just. Showed up and wanted to help take care of you. It has been very confusing."

"Not... in Ishgardian hands," she repeats, slowly, sounding like just saying that sentence aloud is not enough to make her believe it. "In... a cave. With the Azure Dragoon. I. Why."

"Maybe I fell in love with you and wanted to come confess my feelings to you."

"What."

"Eat up," she says, gesturing towards the stew. "You probably need it."

"It's actually not ready yet," says Cynric, helpfully, "needs a bit longer for all of the meat to cook through."

"No, no, go back to that other thing, that. The words you said did not make sense but you sounded weirdly serious about them?"

Jacqueline shrugs. "Who knows. But you said lots of things, expecting them to fall on deaf ears, didn't you? Well, when you spend a decade listening to this monomaniacal dragon talk incessantly about revenge," she continues, tapping the crystallised eye attached to her shoulder a third time, "it doesn't take a genius to suspect that maybe the story the church feeds us is lies and maybe it was Ishgard that started this mess in the first place. I think that is the more important bit."

"... I don't. I don't have enough head for this right now. Ow." She flops back onto the bedroll and stares at the cave's ceiling. A little dazed, she says: "Come by again later, Vethrione's out of town for the week, can I take a message for when she returns."

"Did. She. Recruit you? Accidentally?" says Cynric, blinking.

"Oh, no, nothing that big, I still want to mount Nidhogg's head on a wall. ...a castle wall, probably. On the outside."

“Buuuuut you do not want to drag the both of us off to a cramped Ishgardian jail cell to await our execution for heresy?”

"I do not love the thing where we have killed maybe a few hundred dragons, total, and they've killed thousands upon thousands of us over the war and you're aiding them... but no, I don't. Not right now."

“We are not thrilled at the killing of thousands upon thousands of people either,” points out Cynric. “Especially when they’re innocent and uninvolved like most of them are.”

“Don’t you know heretics don’t need to work with the dragons, they just need to not work with the Holy See?” says Iceheart from her bedroll.

"That's news to me, actually."

“Don’t consort with dragons. Don’t acknowledge the intelligence and culture of dragons. Don’t acknowledge that dragons might have a point somewhere under all the murder. Don’t talk to dragons. Don’t look at dragons except if you are in the process of trying to kill them. Any thoughts that are even vaguely not anti-dragon, heretic, to the headsman with you.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” says Cynric.

“You try not to use exaggerated idiom when you feel like your head has been kicked in by a whole host of paladins.”

"I think the only paladin present was Lord Aymeric, actually. But your point is well taken."

“What do you want, hasn’t my day been terrible enough already.”

"I want to hear your pitch. And to behead Nidhogg but at this point that is mostly personal and nothing to do with the war."

“Well, that was stolen,” she says, pointing at the eye, “so my pitch is ‘please return that to dragons in general in a show of good faith,’ and then Ishgard and the not-Nidhogg dragons talk about their problems and grievances and try to negotiate a peace. Of literally any kind.“

"I think if I tried to give this back to Nidhogg he would eat my head for my trouble. And then he'd have enough of his power back to singlehandedly raze Ishgard to the ground."

“Did I say to Nidhogg? I did not. I said to dragons. They don’t all serve him, and many less would if it were demonstrated how unreasonable he’s being. His brother would be a better bet. That was why I wanted to summon Shiva.”

"—Hraesvelgr? They are not allied? Of course they aren't, there is no way Nidhogg would not have pressed an advantage centuries ago if he had had Hraesvelgr by his side." She shoots up to her feet and bows deeply. "This has been a most informative encounter, Milady Iceheart. I shall intrude no longer. I believe you will want to make contact with your allies without the Azure Dragoon nearby, and I think I have much research to conduct."

"... Sure. Okay. You're welcome."

"And thanks for not killing us or worse, it's much appreciated. You sure you don't want any stew to go before you go... hopping off into the distance?"

"I'm sure," she says with a smile.

Then the helmet is back on and she's out and jumping into the distance like an extremely overpowered rabbit.

"That was the weirdest conversation I've had in a long damn time."

"I'm not entirely convinced I'm not unconscious and dreaming, yes." She pauses. "Do you think she was serious about the 'in love with you' thing?"

"... You know, with that lady I really, really couldn't say."

"Hm. Indeed."

Because Vethrione does not think she was joking.