"Duly noted. You don't have to come with me, you realize."

"One of us is somewhat known as an adventurer, and it ain't you. Were you going to walk up to the sign up sheet for sellswords to defend Ishgard and mime at them?"

"Well if it's a sign up sheet, presumably I'd just -"

"There is not a sign up sheet. Adventuring's all interpersonal, who you know and whatnot. 'Til you get a decent rep going, it's all fetch quests and skepticism as far as the eye can see, and nobody paying any decent amount of coin to defend a wagon, let alone Ishgard's most key defense."

"I was planning to offer a discount."

"Don't. There is nothing more suspicious than a cheap sellsword, especially to a bunch of jumpy Ishgardians. They expect you to be dishonorable or whatever, and if you don't prove them a little bit right, they'll strip search you for heretic trinkets because they don't believe anyone 'cept for Ishgard knows shite about honor. You charge them through the nose to save them and you like it. ... Ma'am."

"... Also noted." She sighs. "Okay, it is admittedly a very dumb plan."

"That it is." Sigh. "And if I don't help you you're going to run off and do it anyway, 'cept even dumber. You didn't tell anyone else this was your plan, did you. Just me, 'cause I'd absolutely be able to find you armor on short notice."

"I can't rightly tell anyone, can I, they'd all fall over themselves to help and also do the very dumb thing with me. Like you're doing. Right now. Except with Ishgard's protections sabotaged, they're all on high heretic alert, and a crowd of well armed randoms all in concealing hats would scream 'Hello, we are here to sabotage the place.'"

"And one helmeted mute can more easily slip through the cracks, I get it. But why's it you, instead of, I dunno. Drawing straws, send the one with the short straw. Or long straw, I guess."

"Out with it, or I throw the helmet off a cliff and make you go play fetch quest to get any chance of doing your dumb plan."

"They think I did it!"

"Pardon?"

"They think I sabotaged the wards! Lacking any other ideas about who could have possibly pulled off the stunt, they picked the most famous heretic leader that specializes in sabotage and theft, and guess who that is."

".... So it's for your paladin honor or whatever?"

"No! It's because I'm pissed, and if I don't get to stab something over it I will go mad, and find an even worse, less useful idea to do with my anger!"

"So, basically, yes." Sigh. "It's my head if you get caught, too, you know."

"You don't have to come with me."

"I know I don't! So, plan is, I go first to scout, then I come and get you if I think you can get past the checks. That armor not being glamoured will help. And you will not talk even a little bit. If I hear so much as a grumble out of you, I will be the first to point at you and cry heretic, got it?"

"Yes, Cynric," says Vethrione. The stated threat is completely toothless, of course, but she doesn't want to get herself and her friend caught and tortured to death either, so she'll take it in the spirit it was given.

"Good. Fine. Here."

He (grumpily) hands her the helmet, and then it's off to go do a very dumb thing. Hooray.

Honestly Ishgard was not expecting an assault of this scale so the checks are... not amazing.

Not that "amazing" is a word one could've ever applied to them, anyway, although usually the way in which they are terrible is by just assuming everyone is a heretic until proven otherwise which would not help Cynric's case.

But today in particular they are sort of taking all the help that they can get, from sellswords and Scions and the like, and if they can die at the front lines and spare the more expensive and useful knights from the same fate then all the better.

There is one person who could recognise him anyway, though. One person who is currently not actually standing out, one more dragoon amidst many, casually leaning against a wall, only distinguishable by the azure tint to her armour and the emerald orb attached to her shoulder. And if she has spotted Cynric from a mile out and has been tracking his movements as he figures out what to do, she hasn't mentioned it to anyone.

...

You know what, she seemed pretty laid back the last time he talked to her, and clearly everybody here is taking what help they get, so. He'll go say hi.

"Hey," he says, with a little wave, "if I have a hedge knight that's very touchy about keeping her helmet on, would you be willing to..." he waves his hand vaguely. "Azure Dragoon at anyone that disagrees? I don't know all the particulars of the why, but her help's conditional, and uh. Kinda seems like you need all the help you can get."

The Azure Dragoon turns glacially to look at Cynric and lifts her visor just to show how far up her left eyebrow is going. "Hmm. We do, it's true. But hedge knights are not very well trusted. You should really keep an eye on her, too."

Cynric has a perfectly straight face and a downright earnest expression. No funny business here, no sir and/or ma’am and/or polite gender neutral pronoun of your choice.

“Yeah, I was going to play escort mission and then be the first to cry foul if she seemed too sketchy, it’s only fair if I’m bringing her aboard,” he agrees, nodding. “‘Kay, thank you, ma’am.”

Visor back down. "Good. ...the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are here, too, and they are comparatively more tolerant of hedge knights that they have never met and have no reason to distrust. So that's an idea of where you could go to help."

"Oh, they are? That's very helpful, thank you."

"Mmhm. So do make sure to not give them reason to distrust you. Or her."

"We're just folks offering a helping hand to those in need," he agrees solemnly. "A lot of innocent people will die if the Dravanians break through. Nobody wants that."

"...the Dravanians seem to want that."

Oh boy, they're having a subtext conversation while having an actual conversation that other people can listen to and read into. Well, more than they were already doing, anyway. Except this is talking about topics that might get someone to point at him and go 'heretic' if he gets it wrong. This needs to be navigated very carefully.

"Nidhogg and his brood are a bunch of crazy murderous blighters, so who cares what they want," he sniffs, with all of the air of a proper disgusted Ishgardian. "They get to die for being murderous fucks. Speaking of, we're all about to be very busy, yeah?"

"Yes, we are," she says, her half-smile visible through the gap of her helmet.

Phew. Freedom.

... To sneak Lady Iceheart into the Ishgardian defense line in the middle of a Dravanian siege. That everybody thinks she is responsible for. Why is he doing this again? Sweet Halone, he is absolutely going to die, and if he's lucky it'll be to the damned dragons.

But he said he would do it, so. He'll do it. He guesses.

He makes it to the Lady Iceheart in question. She is, by this point, properly helmeted and has had her talking privileges revoked, to the point where she's wearing a small charm usually reserved for loud prisoners who are suffering the tender mercies of inquisitors that silences her voice entirely. So. That'll help. Probably.

She tilts her head when Cynric returns.

"Yeah," he sighs. "So, the Scions are here, and our best bet is probably hanging out with them. Still sure about this, Vanya?"

He doesn't put any kind of stress on the name she'll be going by. It is, as far as he's concerned, her name while she's got that helmet on.

...

Stoic nod.

"Okay, don't blame me if everyone else isn't impressed with the silent treatment."

To the Scions! The irony does not escape him, but he is not going to be thinking about it right now.

The Scions are easy to find as the most colourful bunch.

Literally; Ishgardians favour body-covering armour of dour dark colours, but the Warrior of Light himself is a tall blond raen au ra wearing green poofy trousers and a green hoodie that only covers as far down as his chest and leaves most of his torso entirely exposed to the elements, and the other Scions are similar flavours of much-gaudier-than-normal.

...

At least they're easy to find. Even if he does not at all understand their fashion choices.

"Uh, hey. Are you guys the Scions of the Seventh Dawn?" he asks, politely, because just because he knows they are doesn't mean he shouldn't open with clarifying it.

"That would be us," says the au ra, turning around to look at him.

"Oh, good, um. Do you happen to have space for a couple of adventurers going spare? Her rep," he tilts his head at her, "is nonexistent, and she's mute to boot. She's decent with her sword and board and unwilling to take her helmet off, but from what I've learned she's really mad at some dragons. I figured playing face for her would get us one more person against the hordes, which is worth it, so. Hi. I'm Cynric, the best name I've gotten out of her was Vanya."

Helmeted elezen lady waves. Stoically.

"Well, more swords against the Dravanians is better than fewer. What's your spec, and are either of you any good with cannons?"

"Fast and stabby, occasionally with acrobatics. I volunteer as tribute to be a cannon guy, I'm decent enough with them. Ishgardian, you know. Dravanians showing up from the skies twice a month."

Helmeted lady crosses her arms, then shakes her head. She taps the shield on her back.

"I have places for both of you, then. Come with me." He nods to the person he had been idly chatting to and leads the way.

Off they go!

(This is still the dumbest thing he's ever done! AAA!)

The Warrior of Light seems reasonably gullible willing to trust Cynric anyway. Here's a cannon, there's already someone there but they're sent off to do something else when he arrives. These cannons have aetherial charges meant to go through thick Dravanian hides plus a stun setting that should be able to subdue even Nidhogg himself but completely drains it of charge and needs careful aiming.

"Oh, I know this type. Expensive. The steps get the nice stuff, don't they. Guess they need it. Do you want to see me fire off some practice shots before you leave me alone with it, prove I know which end goes in which direction?"

"I think I'd rather not waste the shots. You seem to know what you're doing more than the last guy anyway."

"I'd understand if you didn't trust my word, and verifying a decent shot's worth the ammo if it saves on misses later, but. Appreciate it. I won't waste 'em."

"Now you, frontline or backline?" he asks the mute knight.

She considers, then holds up a single finger. That probably means frontline.

"Then come with me."

A little wave to Cynric and he starts leading the way again.

"Kill lots of beasties," says Cynric, waving back.

Vanya follows, of course. But she does give Cynric a wave first.

Here's the frontline. Scions (or, well, non-Ishgardians) seem to be disproportionately represented, here, and Otohiko himself will be there, too. They're past many layers of wards and many rows of cannons and seem... actually surprisingly well-prepared for this.

What they are not, however, is well-staffed. But the adventurers and warriors the Scions have managed to collect all carry themselves with the weight and poise of veterans, and their familiarity with the Warrior of Light as he passes by them bespeaks martial prowess that may yet overcome their low numbers. The other three city-states—Ul'dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa—have sent help as well, but they seem to be merely token contingents, more for show than anything else. The ones in charge of the various small groups scattered around seem to uniformly be unaffiliated adventurers that came with the Scions rather than Ishgardians or anyone from the other local powers.

Hm. This is interesting, and not unexpected. Of course the Ishgardians would have the foreigners do the really risky business.

They were absolutely missing someone of her expertise, though. Someone who specializes in getting enemy attention and keeping it focused on them is a bit of a rare thing, especially with adventurers, what with how phenomenally stupid it tends to be.

Vanya turns out to be surprisingly bossy, for a mute woman. She walks right up to anyone that is in a spot she doesn’t like, and she taps them on the shoulder and points where they should go. These are all talented people, it’s quite obvious, but so is the fact that they are not all used to working as a unit. The mute adventurer going spare even turns out to have paper and a graphite stick stashed, and starts writing out little instructional slips for people, using her left arm as a base to write on. Orders such as, ’Watch for stragglers attacking support,’ and ’Prioritize slows and snares over direct damage,’ and ‘Get behind them and push them towards me’ and ’Biggest explosion maker, focus on big groups and let others handle stragglers’ are handed out when it looks like they’re needed.

Probably she should lie low or something, but screw that nonsense. Clearly she’s needed, and so she will help. If it gets her killed after all of the fighting is done, for being suspiciously too competent, then so be it. She will have saved a lot of lives with her horrible death by Holy See.

Otohiko keeps an eye on her for a bit, from a distance, but he's needed five places at once so when he's satisfied she is appropriately competent he runs off.

She is absolutely competent, and even tells adventurers to go switch their little paper assignments with each other if they think this isn't playing to their strengths properly. She's not particularly attached to these specific people doing these specific jobs. Just that the jobs need to get done.

Do they get some kind of windup before all hell breaks loose, or does it just break loose out of nowhere? She's so excited to find out.

It is absolutely out of nowhere! Except for the sudden deafening cry of hundreds of dragons all at once, but that's sufficiently awful it may well be considered as an opening salvo.

The dragons attack from all directions, with both physical and magical shots, trying to overwhelm the wards with sheer force. The wards hold up, of course; Ishgard would not have lasted as long as it has if the wards could be breached this easily. Still, it is more sustained fire than they have had to deal with in the thousand years this war has lasted, and they're unlikely to hold forever.

But the bands of surrounding dragons are not the main strategy, here. The Steps of Faith themselves seem to be the target of the principal Dravanian force, at least if one judges by the five stories tall (on all fours) dragon that lands with an earth-quaking thud and starts marching towards the city.

... Ah.

Well, at least this will be interesting.

If it were flying, this would be a job for artillery and dragoons, but since it's on the ground, it's her problem. A flying dragon is both less vulnerable and more vulnerable, what with having delicate wings that keep them aloft that are easily torn open by sharp pointy things. A grounded dragon, meanwhile, is a dragon that gives up mobility for getting to use all of its teeth and claws and whatnot without having to worry about dodging critical hits. With a dragon this big, it is not getting back into the sky mid-battle, not without some kind of miracle. It needs time and everyone politely giving appropriate space to take off. Maybe a running start, or jumping off a cliff. It is fairly safe to assume that it won't be getting it in the middle of combat, though it admittedly might make a play for breaking through the wards on the side of the steps to dive into the depths below. But that would be risky, and the creature might not be able to halt its momentum before it hits the Sea of Chaos below and gets summarily ripped to pieces. A desperate last resort.

Ultimately, this is now a game of slowing the big dragon as long as possible, while not getting too close to its sharp bits.

So nobody wants to be anywhere near that dragon's front, obviously. Fire and teeth and death and so forth. There is not really much anyone can do about that except stay the hell away from it and blast it from afar with cannons and magic. The tail is almost as dangerous, especially if it manages to pick up any kind of momentum, so too far behind it is a dangerous place to be, too. Not that there's any non-dangerous place to be, here, just places that are more or less off limits. Also super off limits is anywhere the dragon can stomp with its feet. Under the dragon itself is better, but if too many high value targets get concentrated there, the dragon can in fact just slam its body into the ground to kill everything beneath it. It at least has the benefit of making the dragon slow down a little. Better, though, is to bait a slam and then get everyone out from under it before it does any real damage. About the only place that one can reasonably pull this off is near the hind legs, since they are less dexterous than the fore legs, and further from the head, where the dragon sees and hears what's actually going on.

Which is to say, she will be conducting this entire fight from almost directly under the dragon's ass. Because everything is going to be trying to kill her first, and it'd be nice if the everything would instead be some of the ones to get squished by the giant dragon. Make the dragons conduct friendly fire, and all that. In theory, one could fight the little dragons away from the big dragon, but that's splitting forces and firepower, and her job is to slow this monster down as much as possible. All of this might not be obvious to someone who isn't a native Ishgardian, so. Don't worry everyone, 'Vanya' will be here to show you how this is done.

Hopefully this dragon isn't one of the ones that's rude enough to pee during battle. Probably not, the extra weight of urine and excrement during a flight isn't worth the potential hit to morale, really. But. It would suck.

She slams the pommel of her sword into her shield twice, to get the attention of anyone who doesn't know what to do or is too busy shitting themselves, and then charges. Hey everybody, she's one of the anchor points of this magic shield they've got over everyone. Come try and kill her!

Dragons have been fighting humans for long enough to know how tanks work. Attacking basically anyone other than the tanks will be useless, the stupid magic shield covering them will make it pretty ineffective, so: here's a handful of dragons and drakes coming after each of the tanks around! The non-Dravanians are entirely outnumbered, of course.

'Vanya' is a little rusty with her paladin abilities, which makes sense. It's been years since she's used a sword and shield. While she's not actually incompetent, and all of her tactics are up to par, anyone who has enough attention to be able to judge her abilities can probably tell. Fortunately, she never really forgot. It was all still there, just buried under how she prefers the reach of a greatsword and the draconic method of channeling emotions into magic. It's muscle memory, she just needs to practice it again. Being in the middle of a battle is admittedly not the best time to be practicing rusty paladin skills, but, well. It's certainly quick to inform her when she fucks up, and the old memories are coming back nice and quick. At first it's just a badly remembered copy of Vethrione, the baby paladin, right before the Seventh Umbral Calamity. Perfectly acceptable, but probably not anything special.

Except, that's not really who she is anymore, is it?

She is more knowledgeable, more experienced, tougher, stronger, and much more willing to commit to her actions than she had been. Being filled with some anger issues and a touch of insanity also probably helps. Once she gets enough of a handle on her old paladin skills to leverage them effectively, she starts rapidly improving. Not quite to her actual skill level if she were allowed to use a greatsword and magics considered heretic, but definitely pretty good. ... Also pretty angry. She doesn't like Nidhogg or any of his brood, and she is annoyed about having been scapegoated for this fiasco. Her plan was to stab things until she felt better and this involves stabbing things with great prejudice. Cynric's backstory about how she was really mad at some dragons rings so true. Honestly, it'd make any watching Ishgardian proud.

That's not to say she goes full berserker rage or anything. Anger with a purpose, and her purpose is ultimately to protect. She can just protect very angrily, and be sure to keep everything trying to kill her, because damn if she's not trying to kill them right back.

Her focus on the aetherial shield does mean that she can't focus so much on offence, but that is itself pretty fucking irritating to the dragon, when it has to mostly ignore the people who are actually stabbing it, cutting it, punching it, shooting it, or setting it on fire to instead go after these tanks. Of course, that irritation is also part of the strategy, and if the dragons waste some frustrated shots at protected damage-dealers, all the better for everyone.

The adventurers and non-adventurers around do pick up on the way she seems to actually be pretty damn competent for a complete unknown, and the fact that the Warrior of Light seemed to approve of her convinces anyone who wasn't convinced by that alone, so she finds herself in charge of one of the small bands of fighters. Despite many of these people not being used to working as a unit per se, it is common knowledge that you follow the tank, and after it becomes clear Vanya has a reason to be standing somewhere that looks at first glance dangerous, well, they'll be hitting some dragons.

That's all anyone here really wants to be doing. Being (kind of) in charge when she can't actually talk is a tricky problem, but mostly she can just let everyone do their own thing. They're competent, and she did what she could with splitting the work beforehand, so. Hopefully they'll get the hang of it. Though, some faster than others, she supposes. She does need to grab one lancer (not dragoon, a proper dragoon would know better) by the scruff of his neck and drag him out of the path of the big dragon's back foot. Well. Toss him. She tosses him a little. He's fine. It's better than what the dragon would have done. But otherwise, yes, these people are delightfully competent, and on the whole bring more interesting weaponry to the table than the standard Ishgardian fare. Lots of neat magic is flying around.

It's not really much of a surprise that she starts having fun. Ah, sweet simplicity. It's been a while since she had this. Her life has been very complicated and with lots of shades of grey, lately, what with rebelling against the country's government and often needing to fight people that don't deserve to die. Now she can actually just kill some things that deserve it! It'd be better if she had her greatsword, but this is tolerable.

The unreasonably massive dragon continues its advance despite the punishment it's receiving. A true believer, or maybe it just knows it has actually no way to run away now given its size so it had better press on and hope it gets healed at the end. Either way, it moves.

It moves right into the range of the first set of cannons.

Well, at least there's not much danger of missing. Time to blow that thing into the abyss.

The cannons do a lot of damage, which is great. Unfortunately, it's all against a very large and very angry dragon. It's going to take a lot to take this thing down, and meanwhile, it's getting closer. And closer. And closer. That cone of horrible death directly in front of the dragon's face is getting uncomfortably friendly.

He notes midway through attempting to blow it into the abyss that it's going to reach him and the other cannons before he runs out of ammunition. That's... bad. It seems a shame to destroy such a nice toy, but if his options are 'let the nice toy be destroyed by dragons' and 'destroy the nice toy in a final bid to hurt the dragons as much as possible,' well. Option two is the one that's more likely to be useful. He waits as long as is sensible—a bit longer, actually, some of the more intelligent cannoneers have already started to retreat—and then disables every single safety on the cannon, breaks the capacitor that regulates the fuel output, lights the fuse, and runs.

The ensuing explosive blast actually manages to stagger the thing, which is very satisfying.

One Ishgardian knight who was particularly slow is almost caught in the blast and throws Cynric a (helmeted) stink look but opts to keep running for now. There are more cannons closer to the city to be manned and fired.

The Warrior of Light catches Cynric's eye and offers him a thumbs up of encouragement, too, after the explosion. Clearly it was noticed, and the staggering of the beast, however short it may have been, is an opportunity to further damage the creature. It might be optimistic, but despite the low numbers the elite adventurers around seem to actually be whittling the big dragon down at a very encouraging pace. This might work after all.

He'll need to find that guy later and apologize, maybe buy him a beer.

But at least they're making progress. That's something.

Will anyone let him at another cannon since his explosion trick, or does he have to go stab the big beastie's ankles or something? He doesn't particularly want to stab the big beastie's ankles.

There are more cannons than people available to use them so he can actually fairly easily find one, although that one knight (and presumably friends they've talked to) is giving him a wide berth.

Cynric is totally fine with this. He will give everyone else a wide berth too, since he might end up blowing up another cannon. He doesn't want to blow up another cannon, but, well. He didn't want to be here at all, and yet here he is.

The battle proceeds.

There are forays and retreats, from both sides. For the most part, Vanya doesn't participate in them any more than she needs to. As far as she's concerned, her job is to stand still. Or, well, be reliably in the same spot in reference to the really big dragon. Which means moving at a predictable pace. She is becoming very familiar with this particular dragon's ass, and she can't say she sees the appeal. Hraesvelgr is not as big as this dragon, but she nonetheless has a lot of questions for Saint Shiva if she ever happens to summon her soul back into her body again. As she understands it, their love was neither platonic, nor celibate. So it'd start with, 'No, seriously, how?'

Is this relevant to the current situation? No, not really. But it's better than being vaguely annoyed that she doesn't actually know this dragon's name, when she's putting all of this work into killing him. Or noting that, yes, this dragon is definitely a male dragon. Or dragging that fucking lancer out of the line of fire again, because somebody seems to have some kind of death wish.

Eventually, though, it starts to become rather obvious which way this battle is going to go. The big dragon is looking, as some might say it, 'a little rough.' This is beginning to reach the point where she'd expect her job to be a lot less about sarcastic commentary on the proclivities of dead people, and more about dealing with whatever crazy shit this dragon's about to pull. Because if he (the dragon, it just seems polite to use the appropriate pronouns at this point) doesn't do anything, he is certainly going to die here. And if there's anything she knows, it's that when you are faced with certain death, you do all kinds of crazy things to get out of it.

The dragon has been moving slowly but surely. Most of its efforts have been focused on being inexorable and, occasionally, destructive. In particular destructive of each further layer of the sabotaged Ishgardian wards, which assaulted from all directions like they are usually only need a single powerful attack by the big dragon to fall. And there have absolutely been casualties on the Ishgardian side, too, though actually fewer than dragon casualties for once; mostly only the smaller or earthbound ones were the ones killed, but still, it is a rare victory when they don't lose five people for each Dravanian downed.

To say it was all for naught would be perhaps overstating the point. The Ishgardians did not actually expect the adventurers brought by the Scions to be as competent as they were, and you will find no true knight admit that each of those elite people were as effective as fifty of the Holy See's truest, but it was nevertheless the case. Vanya herself played no small part in this, and there are probably hundreds of people who now unknowingly owe her their lives.

So faced with such fierce and unexpected opposition, the Dravanians... lose.

It's hard to point to what exactly the last straw was, the thing that finally convinced their gargantuan assailant that actually he was going to die if he kept to the plan. Maybe it was the diminished song of his siblings, their number greatly reduced by the defence. Maybe it was one too many wounds, one too many scars, one too many cuts. Maybe it was when he tried to break one more layer of the magical barriers protecting the city-state and failed. Whatever it was, he... gave up.

Dragons don't see life the same way mortals do. They are, in certain ways, both more and less individualistic. Dragons live in their Song, they live in their enormous family and the nearly-a-hivemind of understanding each other's innermost thoughts and feelings through magically enforced empathy. But they also live for very, very long. Forever, if they're not killed. Some, like the father of all dragons Midgardsormr, live on even after they've been killed. It's hard to compare the experiences of beings whose existence spans eons to those of people who are gone in mere decades. Each life lost is mourned in the Song, felt by all of dragonkind, a star gone from the sky. But what is one life in the face of the Song, of moving as one with your family, with other dragons that have spent centuries by your side? Would you not gladly give it, for them?

It's hard to point to what exactly the last straw was, but there was one, and the gargantuan dragon whose name will be remembered only by his siblings turns around, slowly, ponderously, and falls down the side of the Steps of Faith.

It's not suicide, or not meant to be. He tries, really tries to fly. There is enough space down the ravine, down the unfathomable aether-filled abyss, for him to open his wings and flap them and hope to catch a current, a magical current even, to take flight.

He might have succeeded, even, were it not for a single dragoon jumping down like an arrow, lance pointing directly at him and through his wings. A well-aimed rip of the fleshy membrane is all the Azure Dragoon needs to make sure this particular dragon will never see light of day anymore, and another jump from him up towards the ravine walls and then further back up to where the battle had been happening only moments prior is what ensures she'll stay alive. She does not need flight to stay alive; the dragon does, and she robs him of it, and so he does not live for much longer.

There is an absence of sound. Maybe they expected something, maybe the mortals and the dragons were holding their breaths for a final thud as the gigantic body hit the ground. But the sound never comes; that same abyss that stretches down far enough for the ground to be invisible through the aether-infused mist swallows all that comes to it, even sound itself, and leaves naught to tell its story.

But the Dravanians know, anyway. They can feel when one more of their siblings has left the Song forever, and if there is no final thud there is still the cry of retreat and the noises of hundreds of pairs of wings hastening away from the city.

And while some people still try to launch a few last hopeful shots, take down one or two more foes, the overwhelming rest has only one emotion: overjoyed relief. They cheer, they clap, they bang their swords against their shields and their lances against the ground, and soon the sound of the retreating dragons is more than drowned out by the hurrahs of victory from the Ishgardians.

The most intense and potentially catastrophic siege of the city-state by the dragons in centuries has been survived, and with much fewer casualties than there could have been. They even managed to substantially thin out the numbers of the Horde.

There is substantial cause for celebration.

See, lancer, that's how a proper dragoon does things. Get in when there's an opening, hit hard, and then get out before you get hurt. This is a dumb thing to be thinking about at a time like this, she's going to stop, everyone was young and dumb and inexperienced once.

Any cheers or sounds she makes are muffled by her silencing charm. So if she whispers a soft prayer to the fallen dragon, a regretful end to a long song that could have maybe gone on if it things had been different, well. No one will know, will they? She looks over the edge towards where the dragon fell, cleaning the gore off her (too small) blade. To everyone in the world she can just be another dragonslayer, verifying a kill, or maybe awed by the Azure Dragoon's competence.

("May your voice be fondly remembered in the Chorus forevermore by those that loved you. May your brothers and sisters choose something more meaningful than another pointless refrain for vengeance in your name. May this be the beginning of the end, so we can all be free, and your end not be in vain.")

And then it's on to the living. She sheathes her sword and immediately gets to triage. Healing has never been her strong suit, and there are more competent healers than she, but she can find and stabilize anyone that needs it. Cheering and celebration is for when there isn't anymore work to do, and in her experience, that is 'never.' It's a mercy that Dravanians don't tend to leave their wounded behind. Knowing each other's minds, they are quicker to support each other, and quicker still to cover each other's retreat. It's one of the many things that makes fighting them so damned annoying. And it also means that she doesn't have to be confronted with the wounded of the other side and get the chance to maybe choose something heretical.

Amongst the more competent healers than she is the Warrior of Light himself, multitasking with his fairy-shaped aether construct. Magical healing mostly involves enhancing the body's own regeneration and, in the case of Otohiko's specialisation, creating temporary aetherial barriers so that the wounds can have the chance to regenerate in peace without being assaulted during battle. The latter skill is less useful when the battle is over, but still not no useful; there are pathogens that cause infection that he can also keep out. The nature of magical healing does mean that there are things beyond it; lost limbs cannot grow back, scars will still exist, more severe wounds and trauma will still need rest and time for a full recovery.

But now that the dragons are gone, there is time for this one Ishgardian knight to point at Cynric and cry, "HERETIC!"

He doesn't realize it's for him, at first. His first thought is Oh Halone what the fuck did she do, because obviously Vethrione did something, she is in the habit of doing things, it's kind of what makes her famous. He looks around in confusion, because he thought she wasn't anywhere near him. Then realization hits. Wait, he's the one that did something? What did he even do??

"... I'm sorry, what?" he says, dumbly.

Of course a cry of 'heretic' is one of the most likely things to draw the attention of Ishgardians, so several others are now looking in their direction.

"He sabotaged the cannons to make them explode!" the knight continues.

        "—he did it on purpose?" asks another knight. "I saw him but—"

    "It's true!" cries a third knight. "It happened more than once, it cannot be a coincidence!"

Wait, that is what gets him in trouble? That? That was probably the most useful thing he did in this entire fight!

"After using them as long as I could. The cannons were about to be overrun," he says, and for some reason he's more offended than terrified. "So yes, I detonated the last of their charge rather than letting it be wasted? Did you not see the damage it did, by the Fury, I even made the big one stagger!"

"What a convenient excuse," says the first one, and, wait, that armour, is that the same one that nearly got caught in the blast? "And if the blast happened to catch some of us unawares and send us flying down the ravine it would be just fine for your Dravanian masters, would it not?"

"... And no one was caught in the blast? I stuck away from everyone so if I blew myself up, it'd just be me? Admittedly I was a bit clumsy with it the first time, and it only occurred to me as something to do before it was taken. I think you almost got caught in it? And, mate, for that I am well and truly sorry, I owe you a beer, I can be a bit of a dumbass, but. Not a heretic."

Not for that reason, anyway.

Vanya has, by this point, noticed the commotion. She heard the cries of 'Heretic,' but was studiously pretending to have no idea what was going on in favor of doing things that are definitely not heretical. It didn't seem to be aimed at her, so it wasn't really her problem, was it? If the fanatics want to pointlessly rip each other apart calling each other heretics after having risked their lives to fight dragons, well. That's on them.

Except now she has noticed who it is aimed at.

She... doesn't know what to do, actually. With her heart in her throat, she watches and tries to figure out how to help. The problem is, she's less well known and trustworthy than Cynric. Maybe she could write a clever argument, but who's going to bother to wait for her to write a long essay on why they're being stupid? And can she actually make an argument without coming off with her usual aggressively heretical rhetoric? A bad defense would be worse than none at all, and if anyone demands she take her helmet off, they are well and truly fucked.

But the Warrior of Light notices her noticing it and blinks when he realises what's going on. He walks over there and while he's not as attention-grabbing (to an Ishgardian at least) as cries of heretics, he's still a six-something tall lizard man.

"What's going on?" he asks in a barely-not-authoritative voice.

    "This man tried to blow us all up with the cannons!" says Knight #3.

"...did he."

"Did you not hear what I just said! It was either use the rest of the cannons' charge before it fell, or let it fall and be wasted. If we had more cannoneers, I could see your argument if we managed to retake the embankment, but our major problem was that we had too many cannons and not enough people to fire them. So I'd rather blow one up to stagger the big one than let it go unused while good men die to preserve fancy equipment."

"Oh! I saw you doing that. That was very good, stopped the beastie for a good almost ten seconds there, it was very useful."

    "Of course you'd say that," spits Knight #1 shrilly. "Just another heretic!"

...okaaaaay now Knights #2 and #3 are starting to look rather uncertain. Otohiko himself is just staring, though, looking entirely dumbfounded.

    Knight #1 presses on. "These outsiders will let anyone in, and none of you are godly Halone-fearing knights! And, and who would be wearing so little in this cold but someone who befriends dragons! You've even the scales and tail!"

"... Mate," says Cynric, feeling deeply uncomfortable with this blatant racism and much more inclined to defend someone else over himself. "He's the Warrior of Light. Scion of the Seventh Dawn, helped make the last Umbral Age a minor hiccup instead of hundreds of years of doom and gloom and whatnot. If you want to drag me off to the Inquisitors, fine," well, not fine, distinctly not fine, that would be quite a bad time, "but. Pointing fingers at a guy who helped organize a defense for a country that isn't even his just for his clothes is, uh." Racist? It's racist. "... Daft."

(Of course he'd defend someone else with more competence than he defends himself. That is a very Cynric thing to do. Ugh. She wants to smack him.

It's probably fine, though, the Warrior of Light seems to be handling things. She's even more glad she didn't kill him while she was high on aether and dead saints, along with all of those other reasons like 'it would have been wrong' and 'her goal had only been to stall for time anyway.')

"Haven't you heard of glamours?" is the first thing Otohiko manages to sigh resignedly to that, because he's been around Ishgardians and he knows that they mostly haven't and it took him forever to understand why they were always so uncomfortable around him. He's even glamoured more clothes than the last time he was around Coerthas!

Knight #1 clearly... did not realise that man was the Warrior of Light, and is taking a few seconds to recover his stride.

A few seconds that give the Azure Dragoon time to arrive and say, with no preamble, "What is the excuse you are going to use to accuse me of being a heretic?"

    "...m-ma'am?" Clearly he does recognise her, what Ishgardian doesn't?

"You see, if we're just throwing accusations wildly left and right at anyone who might defend the guy who slightly spooked you I just found it expedient to get my turn out of the way." After a couple of seconds of no further reply, she continues: "Because you see, this adventurer here with his crazy little stunt with the cannons has probably done twenty times more for today's defence than you did. I would know, I was watching."

She turns to glance at Cynric again before adding, "And of course he's absolutely right about the Warrior of Light, and I'll vouch for both of them. So, if you want to add the Azure Dragoon to your little tantrum, get on with it. And if you don't, stop wasting our time with pointless infighting when we've just scored the biggest military victory of the century."

Cynric is the one to break the silence after that declaration. He does it with a cough.

"Thank you, ma'am," he says, to his shoes.

Knight #1 has nothing to say other than a mumble and a hasty retreat, and the other onlookers decide the secondhand embarrassment right now is a great reason for them to leave, too.

She pulls her visor open to look at Cynric properly. "Credit where credit is due. You and your mute friend have earned much much more than whatever we're paying you. You should be proud."

"Seriously, why has no one in this country heard of a glamour? I never managed to ask."

Clearly the Warrior of Light is still on a processing loop, here. Being accused of being a heretic—well, it happened the once, a while ago, right, but then he helped clear the dragons out of a couple of castles and exposed a conspiracy around a traitor who killed lots of innocents and, you know, after that, he got a lot more goodwill, so he sort of got used to it.

"Never caught on here. Anyone could be a heretic hiding behind a glamour after all."

...he pulses a flash of targeted aether to reveal what he's actually wearing—a thick woollen coat, snow mask, and sturdy snow boots—before switching back to the glamoured version. "It just feels very itchy against my scales."

"That sounds uncomfortable, mate, I'm sorry. I don't think a lot of our clothes are really made with au ra sensibilities in mind..." says Cynric, and then he's been sniped because now he wants to solve a problem. "Any materials that itch less than the others, or maybe are outright comfortable?"

He is totally going to thank the Warrior of Light by finding him new clothes. This is how he says thank you. He... will need to figure out how to be helpful to the Azure Dragoon, too, but that prospect is a lot scarier.

Of course.

She silently snorts to herself, and goes back to what she'd been doing. Though it's... mostly done. She's kind of extraneous at this point. Most everyone that can be stabilized has been, or has more competent healers handling things. Now all of the wounded are being taken to various medical stations with chirurgeons to heal them with actual knowledge and skill instead of 'Throw healing aether at it and hope for the best.' Which is approximately what she'd been doing. If they were short staffed or overwhelmed, she might step in and help more, but with the way this battle has gone, actually.... they're okay. She'd just be getting in the way with her incompetence.

"I... don't think I've tried to find stuff that feels better systematically. Back in the village we didn't usually wear much at all? I guess things that are lighter and don't rub so much against my scales would be better but I think I'm... unusually sensitive."

"Just go naked and scandalise some Ishgardian prudes, the faces they'd make..."

"I feel like I arrive at a bad time," says the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights, walking over to them and shadowed by his trusty right-hand woman Lucia.

"I suppose how bad it is depends on what you think of the idea of our dear Warrior of Light wearing even fewer clothes than he already does."

"Making friends in typical Jacqueline fashion, I see," he says, because he is absolutely refusing to entertain this mental image she just suggested right there.

"I mean, wear what you want," says Cynric, ignoring this and clinging desperately to his chosen helpful mission so he doesn't do something embarrassing, like squeak, "but if you're having a discomfort problem with your clothes because none of us read 'tailoring for au ra,' then I'd like to see if I can help."

(Hahahaha, is that the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights? Ohhhh man where should she go to get payment, actually does she even have to do that, can she just leave, she'd like to just leave.)

"I might take you up on that," says Otohiko to Cynric, electing to ignore Jacqueline's words. Clearly she was just making some sort of strange Ishgardian joke to the Lord Commander... right?

"Is everything here alright?"

"Absolutely. Had to put an overzealous rookie in his place but it's part of the job."

"You would be one to talk about excess of zeal, my friend. But I need to thank you all for your help. It was above and beyond what any of us could have hoped for, and Ishgard is beyond grateful. But speaking of gratitude, I see another adventurer who has also done more than her share of the work today," he says, spotting Vanya over there and raising a hand in greeting.

...oh man this is going to be hilarious.

("FUCK," she hisses. The silencing charm was a smart move.)

She... gives Aymeric a polite incline of her head. Yes. Yes that's. That's what she's doing. She is Cool And Collected, yes, that is what this adventurer known as Vanya is. Aloof, even. Disinterested. Yes.

Cynric is too distracted to try and save her, and besides, she brought this on herself. He has a sidequest!

Sidequest! Otohiko is down for new clothes. He does like his current ones but it might be useful to have something that doesn't cause Ishgardians to think he's a heretic.

(But then they're interrupted by a couple of knights who had the opposite impression from the previous ones and kinda want to learn how to do the explodey thing to the cannons. It was very useful and they have to abandon cannons way too often so turning them into bombs like that could come in real handy.)

Meanwhile Lord Aymeric walks over to Vanya, shadowed as always by Lucia. "I have heard great things about you, here, by multiple people. Even witnessed some of them. On behalf of Ishgard, I would thank you for your service."

(Jacqueline lowers her visor so it's less obvious if she accidentally cracks up while watching this.)

Okay, thanking her is fine, she can handle being thanked.

Aymeric gets another incline of her head, and a casual Ishgardian salute. Hey, she's already clearly a once-paladin, might as well own it, right?

Can they be done now. She would like very much to be done.

(Cynric, meanwhile, is well and truly distracted and unable to help. People... liked what he did?? And want to learn how to do it again later??? Squeak! He'll help but squeak.)

"And... this may be a bit too forward, but fortune favours the bold," he continues, "so I would like to formally extend an offer to join the Temple Knights." She is clearly Ishgardian, and given all the evidence he has right now his main hypothesis is that she is a retired knight or noble of some kind who wants to redeem herself from some political fallout or other. He has a number of candidates in mind for who she could be, even. "We could use talent like yours in this conflict."

SHE IS NOT GOING TO LAUGH SHE IS NOT GOING TO LAUGH EVEN THOUGH THIS IS OBJECTIVELY THE MOST HILARIOUS THING SHE IS NOT GOING TO LAUGH

help.

Fortunately she has to get out her paper in order to reply, so it's totally fine for her to take a few seconds to panic and also try not to laugh at, at. A recruitment pitch to Lady Iceheart! Oh Fury poor Aymeric, he has no idea. Okay, okay, yes, yes, writing a reply, coming off as Cool And Aloof, she can do this, it's fine. Everything is fine.

'I'm flattered, my lord, but retired.'

His face falls a bit, but it's clear he is not exactly surprised. "You're sure? I think you could save many lives with us."

And she thinks she can save more lives elsewhere. Like, for example, her own. Like that one.

She'll let the pretty boy that she did not have a crush on when she was a baby paladin, that would be silly down gently, though.

'Ishgard will always have my sword, but swords are not all that it needs. I think my talents are best leveraged elsewhere.'

Aymeric sighs but nods. "Very well. I hope to see your sword out there again, then, fighting the good fight. Thank you for your services. I'll make sure you get bonus compensation for it, too."

He bows deeply then turns around to leave.

She returns the bow, and then flees to go attempt to figure out... where... one gets payment. Cynric! Cynric help!!

Cynric is busy making friends! Honestly if they're going to make a habit of blowing up cannons before they're taken, they should probably find one of the designers of the cannons to talk to, so that what's left over is as salvageable as possible...

Yeah, no, she's not waiting, and this was never for money anyway. She'll just take the opportunity to walk off without any payment at all. She's lingered quite long enough. Besides, mysteriously leaving without payment will make the tale of Vanya all the more theatric, and she's a sucker for a good story.

Getting out is, fortunately for her, easier than getting in.

But after enough turns have been taken that she is entirely and safely out of sight of any meddling Ishgardians...

...there's one meddling Ishgardian waiting for her there, leaning against a rock, lance stuck to the ground, arms folded. She lifts her visor up as soon as she sees Vanya.

"So. 'Vanya', huh?"

...

This was, in retrospect, predictable.

She replies with another of her cool nods. It's so nice to not have to emote or worry about her facial expressions.

"No one else can see or hear us, here, my dear Vethrione Laivane, also known as Lady Iceheart. I checked."

Ugh.

Fine, she'll take the damn helmet off, just so she can give the Azure Dragoon a properly sardonic look. The silencing charm is attached to the helmet, so as soon as it's off she's free to speak.

"So is this a business meeting, or...?"

She laughs and shakes her head. "I recall you telling me I should get back to you when you were less 'recently spat out by a primal'."

"I suppose the best way to find me is to wait until I do something stupid and dramatic," she snorts, crossing her arms. "All right, well. Here I am. Less recently spat out by a primal."

She grins and unfolds her arms. "I think I just really want to get a better picture of this whole thing. You did not sabotage the wards—obviously, that rumour was absurd but it's not like I can explain to people how I know it's absurd. There's only so far being the Azure Dragoon can get you. What's the game, here, why are heretics helping the Dravanians like that even at the cost of the lives of their erstwhile friends? What does that accomplish?"

"So, there's a lot of variance, because the heretics are not a unified polity. A lot of recently made heretics feel some mix of anger and resentment, for obvious reasons, but I think more fundamentally, they don't have... anywhere to go. You go from," she motions with a hand in the direction of the city, "a systematically organized society, with everyone knowing their place and their purpose and feeling part of something larger and important, to. A person. In the wilderness. Everyone they know has to pretend they hate them, or risk getting made a pariah with them. There is no one, really, that you can talk to about your newfound crisis of faith, because Ishgardians will cry heretic and no one else will understand. Except, of course."

She holds up an index finger, and the name that comes out next is said with no small amount of hatred. "Nidhogg and his brood. Who, it turns out, have legitimate grievances. And a lot of built up, well worded anger towards Ishgard, including but not limited to feeling betrayed, and Ishgard's habit of not recognizing that dragons are not a unified polity either. Certainly not under Nidhogg."

"...huh. Are there any non-Nidhogg-allied Dravanians that still inhabit the areas in reach of Ishgard? I would have expected anyone who is not interested in the war to just go up Abalathia's Spine and never interact with an Ishgardian at all. I am going to be feeling very guilty if my early scouting missions included going after the dragon equivalent of villages of innocents."

"Yes. The non-Nidhogg allied Dravanians generally do try to avoid Ishgard as much as possible, mind, they'd be stupid not to. But dragons like having a lot of space to themselves, especially when they mature. They need space away from each other to sort out their thoughts. All dragons bundled up in Abalathia's Spine is suffocating. So... proportionally speaking it is the young dragons that accidentally find themselves in the line of fire."

"Oh."

"Quite. Thus why I have been absolutely merciless to anyone that wants to go dragon hunting for prestige. Nidhogg's brood stays away until they swoop in for an attack. Uninvolved young dragons, seeing no real mark of Ishgardian authority in the open Hinterlands, on the other hand..."

"...okay. And what's the plan to end this stupid war, then?"

"Unfortunately wars that have been waged for this long are rather hard to just... end. A good first step would be for Ishgard to acknowledge that not all dragons serve Nidhogg, and stop coming off as extremely racist and unreasonable. Because that's how Ishgardians come off to uninvolved Dravanians, they actually just think all Ishgardians are insane. Second, I'd like for the reasonable dragons to publicly acknowledge how insane Nidhogg is, to them. His brood, too, you don't understand the gravity of it, but his brood are all... Bundled up together in Song. It's unhealthy. There is no space for any of them to really think, because they know, really know, that getting away from their family is a death sentence. So they don't. And they just keep getting swept up in his madness. Because it's not actually safe for them to go be by themselves to figure things out."

"Is the Dravanian part of that plan as impossible as the Ishgardian part of that plan, because the Ishgardian part of that plan sounds very very impossible."

"Approximately! You see my problem!"

"I think... if there were dragons around being openly against Nidhogg it might be more politically feasible? Aymeric, that noble fool, I am sure he would want to help with that."

"Right, yes. Openly opposing Nidhogg where Ishgard can see, instead of all of the inter-dragon politics happening far away from them. That was why the whole plan to summon Shiva, because I have argued with Hraesvelgr to get involved in the interests of ending the violence, and it hasn't worked. So obviously my thought was, 'Well, Hraesvelgr loved a mortal that famously loved peace, maybe she could talk him around,' except we all see how well that went."

"...well maybe it was the situation. She did not seem very peaceloving there, though."

"For the record, I think that her anger issues were entirely mine," clarifies Vethrione. "It was... very confusing. To share a body with her. And unlike her, I like solving my problems by hitting things."

"Say, why did you decide to share a body with her rather than just... summon her... like other people do?"

"I did not think a half assed summon with a handful of aether crystals would buy my people enough time to escape. The Scions, the Lord Commander, and the Azure Dragoon, all against a brand new primal whose major known character traits are liking dragons and liking peace? Yeah, no. I thought I would be giving up my aether to summon her, maybe giving her some sword skills and knowledge of the situation very efficiently, not literally sharing a body. Certainly not living through the experience."

"...you thought you were going to die? That is some commitment to the cause."

"Do you know what sane heretics do? They leave, maybe go to Gridania. Build another life somewhere else without staying and trying to fix a country that hates them and wants them to die painfully. It'd be a kinder death than what the Inquisition would give me, and it'd be meaningful, to die to save others. Especially when the whole mess was my fault."

...this woman needs a hug.

"Well. An entire nation of crazy chocobos, that's us, I suppose. I wonder if I could find a way to provide Lord Aymeric with evidence for the Dravanians not being a unified force..."

"That'd help. I'll try to get the dragons to... obviously not be a unified force. Generally speaking most of what I do is trying to show dragons we're not all insane, that you can actually just talk to people instead of attacking them or fleeing. That, and scooping up stray heretics before they get swept up in Nidhogg's insanity."

"Well." She raises an imaginary glass up in the air. "To heresies. Cheers."

Vethrione snorts. "Cheers. It'll be terribly entertaining if the heretics end up saving Ishgard after all." Pause. "... I realize I'm hard to find by design, so uh. If you need to get my attention... hm. Do you know of the yaks native to the Coerthas Western Highlands?"

"Yeah?"

"The fluffy hide they've grown in the wake of the Calamity and the resulting chill is not only quite flammable, but the smoke it gives off is purple. I expect you can find sufficient excuse to make a smoke signal with it. I'm usually close enough to at least hear of something as notable as that, and come investigating." Her mouth twitches. "Probably as Vanya, since I went and made myself a second legend."

Jacqueline's lips also witch in amusement but she nods. "Duly noted. I will remember that. And if you need to find me, I'm sure you can leave a message with Cynric and I will eat my helmet if he can't find a way to get it to me."

"I'd be a fool to take that bet. I fully expect that Cynric will be able to somehow track down and get a message to the Warrior of Light himself by week's end," she agrees, amused. "But I'm also significantly harder to find than you are, what with having lots of incentive and no one clamoring to parade me in front of troops for morale."

"Well, Cynric and Otohiko were having a lot of fun together on the Steps just now."

"Precisely. If there's nothing else...?"

She lowers her visor and pulls her lance free. "I do not believe so. Until we meet again, Milady Iceheart."

She puts her own helmet back on, and gives a proper Ishgardian salute. Since she can no longer reply out loud.

And then she can resume her dramatic exit.