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Chapter Text

He was at the door of the manor. He didn’t know how tall it was, but he could smell the lacquer on the wood and hear guards shuffling around mere feet to his back. They didn’t see him. It was nighttime, with only Sword and a dim lacrima for light, and he was being careful to be sneaky.

And it was there, as he snuffled around for an opening, where he felt a final shred of doubt. His mother wouldn’t want him to be doing this. He shouldn’t be here. He wasn’t a thief. He was a kid.

Then he felt his heart vibrate faster as he flicked his ears towards the door. Someone was coming. The nearby hedges were plenty big enough to cover him completely, so he dived into them and hid. He couldn’t really see, but that didn’t matter.

The doors were pushed open with a quiet creaking noise. A person ran stomping out, and he heard the rustle of paper and the swish of a quill. It was a man, and he was muttering something: “It’s coming, it’s coming… will they be there? I need to be there…”

He didn’t care. The door was open. Nobody saw him, the same color as the stones of the cobblestone path, as he scurried silently into the carpeted hallway.

“I dare you,” they’d said. “You’re no man. Too scared. Scaredy-cat.”

And he’d believed them. Proving himself wrong was exhilarating.

When he finally emerged, it wasn’t even sunrise, and he dragged with him the proof of his success. A thin golden disk he’d found swinging on one of the hallway doors, inscribed with a beautiful swirly design. He’d done it, and every word they’d ever said faded away. He’d done it.

But in his haste to get away, he didn’t notice that Sword had disappeared from the sky. Only the light of the stars and the lacrimas along the streets were there to guide him home, where he snuck into their basement window, stashed his prize in the old cabinet, and fell asleep in his spot on his family’s couch, shivering against the drafty air of winter.

Chapter Text

“Blast,” Erin muttered. Somehow, he’d run out of notebooks.

His arm was buried up to his elbow in his bag, rummaging around his meticulously organized compartments and accidentally causing his shirts to fall out of their pile and crumple in a heap on the floor. He would have to refold them.

Erin usually went through notebooks fairly quickly, but this was unprecedented. Three whole books full of his carefully cramped text and sketches hadn’t lasted him more than four weeks with so much to think about. Kendal, the Storm, the Dragon, Alinua and Life, Tess, his father – he shouldn’t have been surprised. Even his backup notebook was gone, given to Alinua so that she could record any new developments involving Life. He could bear the loss of a notebook if it meant they learned more about the Primordial.

Falst looked at him, tail swishing as he lounged on his back on a nearby branch. “What? What’s ‘blast’?” Erin was half-sure that he’d gotten Alinua to grow him the perfect snoozing spot, considering how precisely placed it was to catch the last rays of the day. It was almost sunset now, but Falst was happily lying, his hands tucked behind his head.

“I’m out of notebooks.” It was no use – he really was out. Grudgingly, he began to fold his clothes. “I’ll just have to buy more, I suppose.” Unfortunately, the Farridon Woods were completely deserted, and the nearest town was over a day’s walk in the wrong direction. Since they couldn’t afford to go so far out of their way, it would be a few days until he could replenish his supply once they arrived in Alodona.

“Seriously?” Falst rolled his eyes, his catlike pupils glinting in the light of the sunset. “You? Out of notebooks? Didn’t you have, like, six of them?”

Erin gave him a look. “Three. Your point?” Finishing his clean-up, he snapped the clasp shut and set it inside his makeshift stone tent. He’d already set up his bed, but there was a notable lack of pillows – Tess kept stealing his.

“Shush.” Kendal was sitting on a stone bench that Erin had set up by the fire. He had his eyes closed in concentration. Accompanied by the now-familiar shink of metal-on-metal, he unsheathed the sword in a single smooth swing, stopping it a hair’s breadth from the ground. His raw strength was on par with that of a strong human variant, but the minute control he had over every muscle was unparallelled, as far as Erin knew. The sword – over three feet of gleaming, polished starmetal that probably weighed more than your average elf – had gone from sheathed to frozen an inch above the ground in less than the time it took to blink.

He was communing with Vash, presumably. Erin hoped it would give them some good news – right now, he sorely needed some. He watched with anticipation as Kendal’s face stayed unbearably neutral.

Finally, he couldn’t take it. “Kendal? Is Vash saying anything?”

Kendal opened his eyes, their strange shine quickly fading back to their normal blue color. He frowned at the sword. “I think…” He looked sullenly at the ground. “I don’t know. It’s faint. But he keeps sending me memories…”

“What do you mean?” Erin said, moving to sit next to him. "What memories?"

“His emissaries,” Kendal said. “The kids. Vash would teach them, take them around the city, show them everything. He loved seeing them grow, watching them explore, turn into someone that just…” He trailed off. He spoke with a kind of mourning – of course he did. They were his emissaries. What kind of loss and rage would a god feel if all their emissaries – all their people – died, all at once?

Erin placed a comforting hand on Kendal’s leg. “I… I’m sorry.” What could he even say? “It sounded like Vash cared for his emissaries much more than most gods do.”

Kendal shook his head. “No, I know that. But... it feels like there’s something more. There’s something else.”

“What?” Erin asked. “Another message?”

He put his head in his hands, leaning over. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe you could try dreaming at him again,” Falst called from his perch. “Couldn’t hurt to get some rest either way.”

As if on cue, Kendal yawned. Erin raised an impressed eyebrow at Falst, who shrugged nonchalantly.

"Maybe you should sleep," Erin agreed. "You've been awake since last time, so that's nearly another five days. Take the opportunity to be rested and ready for the trip across the plains."

Kendal, shockingly, didn't protest immediately. Instead, he just looked at Erin, speaking quietly. “Do you think he’s going to push me away again?”

That was a difficult question. Kendal was obviously going to want to stay with Vash, but judging from what he had experienced the last time he communicated with the god, it wouldn’t be worth anything for Kendal to try and help. As far as Erin knew, he wouldn’t even be able to do anything in a dream at all.

But they needed as much information as they could gather. If Vash was cooperating, they couldn’t waste this chance. The literal survival of the planet might depend on it.

“...No,” Erin finally replied. “I think he’ll do what’s best for you.” It wasn’t really a lie, after all. Just a twist of the truth.

Kendal nodded wearily, agreeing to sleep. After Erin had formed a crude stone tent, he went back to his bag and retrieved his backup set of sheets. As they set up the bed (Erin had been forced to further deplete his supply of pillows), the sun finally disappeared over the horizon. The others still weren’t back yet; that was worrying. They’d gone off over an hour ago, when Tess had decided to explore the woods and Dainix and Alinua had gotten dragged along.

He brushed it off. It was probably nothing. They were perfectly capable of handling any kind of danger the average forest could throw at them. Still, pushing back his sleeve, he released his wind tattoo, calling a swirl of purple light into his palm.

“Send to Tess Ruunaser,” he said, speaking into the wind spirit. “Message follows: Where are you? It’s getting dark - get back to camp.” He paused, trying to predict what Tess would have done. “If you’re lost, send us a signal, and we’ll show you where we are.”

Holding up his hand, the bird spirit coalesced, flying deftly through the thick tree canopy and disappearing from view. He watched it go. He was worried, but was there any reason to be? Taking a few deep breaths, he wished he had a notebook to write all of this down. Instead, he watched the fire flicker, thinking about all the problems he had yet to solve.

Chapter Text

So, Tess had been feeling like she needed some adventure - since Zuurith, nothing had really been happening, despite Erin being his usual hilarious self (shocker). So she’d gone off, Dainix and Alinua opting to go with her. She hadn’t minded, since even though it meant she couldn’t use her magic to go faster, it was nice to have company as she trudged through the woods. Weaving through pine trees, oak trees, and lots of other trees Tess didn’t know the names of, she kept her eyes out for anything interesting.

Dainix smacked his shoulder, leaving another mosquito smear on his skin. “These things are worse than dune vipers, I swear-”

“Hey, it’s summer,” Tess said, shrugging. “They like it when it’s hot. They’re really not that bad.”

“You have metal skin!”

“Well, Falst told me they weren’t that bad.” She pushed up a low-hanging branch, allowing Dainix to walk underneath it before Tess followed behind him.

“I was ready for it to be cold,” Dainix grumbled. “I was ready for it to be really cold. I was not ready for all these damn bugs!”

The conversation seemingly over, Tess glanced to her sides. “Hey, where’d Alinua go?”

“Over here!” Alinua called out. “There’s a path!”

Following Alinua’s voice, Tess crunched through a wall of trees to their left. Sure enough, there was a cute little trail hiding in the woods that wound out of sight, covered with a thin layer of gravel and lined with loose rocks. Dainix emerged from the woods behind her, tugging his spear free of a branch. It was a pretty awesome spear, all things considered. It was a normal spear they’d bought at a town outside of Zuurith, but Erin had covered the shaft in a thin layer of dull copper to try and keep Dainix from burning through it every time he went nuts. It gave it this awesome, Ancient-y vibe to it, like it had been ripped straight out of a war machine.

“Huh,” he said. “But didn’t Erin say these woods were uninhabited?”

Alinua nodded, her elf ears bending a little bit with the motion. “Maybe this is just a way through it, then.”

Wandering over to the bend in the path, Tess peeked around the curve. Maybe there was something cool there - like a pretty river, or a skeleton, or something. Instead, what she found was some kind of handmade sign, with letters etched out of a wood panel and filled in with colorful, swirly rainbow wax. It looked like it had been made by a kid, with bits of wax splattered outside the etchings and the runes wonky and uneven. It read: Town of Ravenscrown: Coming up!

“Hey, guys! Check this out!” Lifting the sign from the tree, she displayed it to the others. “Looks like there actually is a town. Wanna check it out?”

Alinua blinked. “Wait, why would Erin say there was no one here, then?”

“Probably just his map,” Dainix replied as Tess replaced the sign. “If the town’s small enough, it’ll get passed over by the cartographers.”

Tess’s curiosity was simmering now. A mysterious village in the middle of the woods? It wouldn’t be a waste of time, at least. Unless there were spooky curses. Or evil life mages (now that had been a wild story. Tess had seen a few pretty bad chimeras, but to do it to so many animals and then sic everyone on Falst was unbelievably bitchy.)

“Come on!” she said, motioning for the others to walk with her down the path. “We’ll get to tell Erin he missed an opportunity to wave around his Magusness.”

Dainix shrugged. “Anything to get out of these woods.”

“You know there are still mosquitos in towns, right?” Alinua said. She glanced at the sky. “But anyway, it’s kind of getting dark. Maybe we should go back.”

Tess waved it away. “Ah, whatever. It’s not that dark. Plus, if it is that far, they’ll have a wind lacrima we can borrow to tell Erin we’re spending the night. It’ll be fine.”

Alinua protested more, but Tess used the tried-and-true tactic of I-can’t-hear-you, which of course had her grumpily following them in under thirty seconds. Dainix told Tess to stop. He still seemed curious, though, and the group crunched along the gravel path to find Rainbow Town.

Chapter Text

They didn’t have to walk very long before they hit the first sign that the town was probably not the only thing in the area. The path looked like it had been completely lit on fire. 

And completely was the right word. It was almost as though a mage had hit it with a blast of wind, with the gravel all having been blown out of the way, but the dirt was also scorched with soot. The trees around it looked completely blackened and burnt, looking naked without their leaves. 

“That… looks bad,” Dainix remarked. He was observant that way. “We should keep going. Whatever did that doesn’t look like it’s gone away.”

“Isn’t that a reason to not keep going?” Alinua said.

Tess scanned the ground. The impact looked like it had been strong, and probably from above, judging from the angle. Tree-dwelling fire mage? Guy with a war machine? Unnecessarily precise lacrima? “Let’s find out,” Tess muttered to herself.

“Hm?” Dainix asked.

Summoning her lightning, she pulled her signature move. When she blasted the ground below her with lightning while simultaneously charging her own body, the result was an epic burst of force that catapulted her upwards with a resounding CRACK. Flying upwards in a cocoon of yellow energy, she felt the pit of her stomach drop as she overshot the branch she had been aiming for. Shit.

Crashing through the canopy, Tess found herself floating in the open sky. It was kind of peaceful. Unfortunately, the moment only lasted a second before gravity started to do its thing and she started to plummet towards the ground. Flailing wildly, she grabbed onto the nearest solid object: the top of a tallish tree, which swayed in a very concerning way, but unbelievably didn’t break under her weight. 

“TESS!” Alinua shrieked from the forest floor. “Give us some warning next time!”

“Sorry!” Tess called back. But on the bright side, she had a pretty good view of the forest. Scanning the tops of the trees, she searched for signs of Rainbow Town. Smoke from chimneys or wind spirits was what she usually looked for, but at this point it was probably dark enough for her to spot lights. Turning around (which she did kind of clumsily, she was on the top of a tree after all), she wanted to make sure that she at least glanced in a full circle before coming down.

Tess’s stomach did another nosedive. That was not Rainbow Town.

A huge swath of trees had been completely burned to the ground. It stuck out jarringly in the greens of the forest - a huge black rectangle that looked like it stretched almost a mile in every direction. Lines of smoke meandered into the sky, but for the most part, everything just looked withered and dead. She could see a few other burnt patches scattered around like the one they’d run into, but they were nothing compared to the mama patch. 

Dainix’s voice sounded muffled. “See anything?” 

“Yeah…” Tess paused, trying to figure out how to explain what she was seeing in a sentence or less. “It’s not good, though.” 

“Not good? What do you mean, not good?” 

“I mean not good! What else would I mean?”

“Just tell us down here, Tess.” Alinua sounded like she was tired of their shit.

After a clumsy(ish) landing, Tess explained to the others what she’d seen. Dainix dramatically unsheathed his spear, declaring something about something (Tess hadn’t really been listening, since she’d been distracted by how much his reddish hair swished around when he talked). Alinua, on the other hand, went completely pale almost instantly, which, with her purple skin, meant more like her face faded into a kind of crushed lavender color. Whispering a word Tess didn’t quite catch (again, distracted) she took off running at full speed. It took Tess and Dainix a second to register that Alinua was the one being headstrong in this situation. Weird.

They both started running after Alinua, but she’d rapidly disappeared in the thick woods and they were forced to follow the sound of her sprinting. Dainix quickly outpaced Tess, since Metal-caste were not known for their speed or agility. Tess blasted herself forward, but it wasn’t very helpful. It really only worked when you could go for at least a few feet in a straight line, but a windy, curvy path in a forest blanketed by trees meant that she kept bonking her head into stuff when she tried to turbo boost. 

She smelled it before she saw it. It was simultaneously totally normal and really weird. It had the normal burning-wood smell, but there was something acrid and disgusting about it that she couldn’t quite place. 

Abruptly, Alinua appeared from behind one of the bends in the path, looking shaken. She put her finger silently to her lips and motioned for them to follow her. The message was pretty clear. 

Tess inhaled as they approached it. Mama patch was even bigger than she’d realized. Scattered soot-covered tree trunks dotted an otherwise barren landscape - even the grass had been torched, leaving only blackened dirt. The black stuff even stuck to Tess’s shoes, and it was weirdly oily and greasy: definitely not normal. A few embers burned near their feet, the only color in an otherwise completely gray and brown palette. It was getting darker now, but there was still enough light to see that the damage stretched for almost a mile in every direction. 

There was also enough light to see that there was a very large black dragon sixty feet away, asleep in the ash. Very large as in the length of your average whale, and black as in rough, shriveled scales silhouetted by a red glow, like it had swallowed a lacrima. It was long and cylindrical, like a snake. It was obviously a dragon, but Tess couldn’t pinpoint what type it was. Maybe a weirdly stretchy fire dragon?

Alinua looked helplessly at the landscape. “There’s no life here,” she murmured sadly. “Nothing. No seeds, no roots, nothing. It’s empty.”

“Okay,” Tess muttered, not really caring whether there were plants or not. “Run or fight?”

Dainix glared at both of them. “Don’t. Make. A sound-”

CLANK.

Something had bopped the back of Tess’s head: a wind spirit. 

Tess didn’t even have time to blink before Erin’s voice started playing at roughly the same volume as when Old Man Janko lost his slippers that one time. “Tess Ruunaser. Where are-”

Thinking quickly, Tess frantically clapped through the wind spirit, which gave one final squeak before cutting off. Unfortunately, the clap also made a pretty loud DONK noise (the downsides of metal hands). They all froze, waiting to see what would happen.

The dragon’s scales sputtered flames like the world’s meanest war machine. For something so big, it was surprisingly fast, giving none of them time to react. Its eyes flew open, and in a single smooth motion, it rose to its feet, spread its huge, spindly, batlike wings, threw its head back and roared. They all flinched at the sound, clapping their hands over their ears. 

“I guess we’re going with fight, then,” Dainix said, sizing up their new friend. “That is definitely not a sandwyrm.”

So much for the element of surprise. Tess had never needed it anyway. Opening herself up to the sky, she built up the energy inside herself, calling lightning to her body until she glowed with power. She felt her hands crackle, smelled ozone in the air. 

It was time to deep-fry some dragon. 

Chapter Text

It was Dainix who realized what the dragon was about to do. “SCATTER!”

New plan. As Dainix dove left, Tess redirected her boost at Alinua, tackling her to the ground just as the dragon flame-roasted the spot where they’d all been standing less than a second ago. The blast was big enough to engulf a horse.

Tess pushed herself off of Alinua, her hands flickering yellow as she summoned more lightning. “You okay?”

Alinua groaned, and Tess realized she maybe had used a little more force than she’d meant to. But Alinua would heal – Tess was more worried about the large, angry reptile that didn’t seem in the mood to make friends. Its head was bowed low, revealing rows of sharp teeth, as it wiggled towards them like a lizard. The motion was kind of funny if you didn’t contemplate how fast the dragon was rushing at them. 

Scooping up Alinua’s limp body, Tess ran. “Come on, come on, come on…” she muttered. She was slow, but maybe she could make it to the trees before the dragon reached them. 

“THE HEART!” Dainix bellowed from behind them. He was sprinting over from Tess’s left, trying to intercept their path. “GET IT IN THE CHEST!” 

Tess felt Alinua stir in her arms, mumbling softly. But they were barely to the tree line and the dragon was already just a few feet behind them, lifting its neck like a house-sized cobra as its scales burned higher. This was bad: she couldn’t summon too much lightning, since it might electrocute Alinua. Her best bet was to just tank the hit – fire wasn’t too dangerous for her; she usually had a few seconds of wiggle room before it really started to hurt. Curling herself as best she could around Alinua, she waited for the flame to hit her back.

It never came. Instead, Tess only felt a wave of heat pass over her head, singing her hair. 

Dainix was there, looking like a professional dragon hunter. His feet were firmly planted on the ground, his ponytail was swishing dramatically, and his spear was stabbed into the dragon’s chest, which was leaking some weird black liquid, like oil. The dragon was screeching, stomping the ground. Blood? Tess had never seen black blood before, but there was a first time for everything.

Oh, and it was steaming, in a very uninviting way. That was probably not a great sign.

Alinua pushed her way out of Tess’s arms, tumbling to the ground. The dragon seemed to have forgotten about them, completely focused on the guy who stabbed a spear through its chest (Tess could understand). It had to hold its head at an angle that looked kind of uncomfortable, but it managed to tilt its head down and envelop Dainix in its fire breath. Tess normally wouldn’t have been worried (he was an Ignan, after all), except for the fact that he instantly started screaming in obvious agony. 

Tess’s heartrate doubled. Thinking fast, she pulled lightning to her hand and catapulted a ball of energy at the dragon’s face. “Take that, you overgrown lizard!” 

The attack did its job: the dragon, although it didn’t look anything other than mildly annoyed, at least closed its mouth. Unfortunately, they had a new problem. Dainix did not look happy - you could tell because his arms were rapidly starting to crack like porcelain, revealing glowing magma instead of, well, arm. 

At this point, Alinua had taken everything in. “I’ll get him!” she promised. “Go!”

That, Tess could do. That dragon wasn’t going anywhere. “HEY!” she shouted, trying to get its attention. Her fists crackled with lightning. “QUIT TRYING TO KILL US!” 

The impact of her launch blew a circle of soot off of the ground, leaving it notably brown in a sea of black. The CRACK sounded like someone had broken the world’s biggest twig and it echoed across the forest. Lightning wreathed her body as she relished the wind in her face, flying upwards to deliver a satisfying punch to the bottom of the dragon’s jaw.

Its head snapped back instantly. Tess had purposely overshot (she was aiming to land on its snout) and she arced through the air, bracing herself to land. Unfortunately, the dragon had other ideas. As it thrashed around, it used its face as a baseball bat, whacking Tess with a surprising amount of force and sending her hurtling to the ground. She had been caught completely off-guard; she barely had enough time to squeeze her eyes shut before impact. 

WHAM. Her back hit the ground first, her shoulder blades absorbing most of the force of the fall. All things considered, it hadn’t been too bad, but she was definitely going to get Alinua to do a heal session on her when this was over. Gritting her teeth, she winced as she sat up and pain shivered down her spine. She didn’t have time to get up slowly, though. With Tess out of the way, the dragon had a new target. 

A few feet away from the dragon, Alinua knelt over Dainix’s unconscious body, her glowing hands shaking as she passed them over his chest. Even a dozen yards away, Tess could see that his skin was red and raw, the air around him shimmering with heat. At the dragon’s roar, she looked up, her strangely disturbed expression making way for a fighter’s desperation. She twisted, reaching her left hand towards the dragon’s chest, her eyes glowing brighter. 

Despite how dramatic she looked, nothing was actually happening. The dragon, thoroughly pissed, arched its neck in the same way as it had before: it was going to breathe fire, right on top of Alinua and Dainix, who were completely exposed. 

No. “ALINUA!” Tess shouted. She tried to charge another boost, thinking maybe she could push them out of the way again-

Alinua clenched her fist.

Huge roots thicker than Tess’s head erupted out of the ground. They shot upwards, piercing straight through the dragon’s wings and flailing like the tentacles of some giant octopus. The dragon screamed, revealing an unnecessary amount of very sharp-looking teeth. More black blood spilled everywhere, and wherever it touched, the plants began to wither and die, crumbling into the same black ash covering the ground. Tess did a fist pump. 

“Nice!” Tess cheered. Frustratingly, though, the thing wasn’t dead, even with a spear sticking out of its chest and wings with a bunch of (rapidly disintegrating) giant roots sticking through them. She started rushing towards the dragon, her mind frantically motoring through possible plans, trying to find an idea other than “hit it really hard.”

Alinua wasn’t stopping. Rising to her feet, her second hand thrust out to join the first. More roots shoved themselves out of the ground, entangling themselves around the dragon’s legs and climbing up its body. The dragon shot fire at the plants, which reduced them to the same oily ash that blanketed the ground around them, but the onslaught wasn’t slowing down. Soon the roots had reached the snout, squeezing around it and inflating so thick that Tess was skeptical the dragon could even see anything. Still, it was putting up a fight. There was blood everywhere around the dragon now, and the plants were dying quickly. Every time the dragon raised a leg, it ripped more roots out of the ground. 

“Kill it!” Alinua shouted at Tess. “Now!” 

Well, if she insisted. Tess broke into a sprint. What could she do without getting acid blood all over her? Dainix had said to go for the heart, but there was a spear in its chest-

“OOH!” Tess exclaimed. She grinned, feeling confident. She had a plan, and it might even work. “Let’s do this.”

The dragon was frantically trying to get free of the plants, and it hadn’t seemed to put together that it was Alinua who was doing it. Still, it was disintegrating the plants at an impressive rate, faster than Alinua could grow them. There was no time to lose. 

Her arms crackled with energy as she pushed the lightning to blast her forward. The dragon, seeing the flash of light, roared in outrage. Tess watched the dragon’s head dive blindly at her, and she dashed out of the way. She was almost at her goal: the spear. Just ten more feet. She jumped, sailing towards the spear, over the splatters of blood on the ground. Five more feet. Two.

Time ground to a halt as Tess called on every atom of lightning in the area. In the back of her mind, she remembered watching Erin’s tutors, telling him to never use too much of one color of lightning; maybe that was why, when she grabbed onto the lightning around her, her palms glowed blue, the same shade as the ocean at noon. The glow became brighter and brighter, vibrating as she forced a lot of lightning into way too small a space. She felt her shoulder prickle uncomfortably as she channeled too much energy, but she kept going, holding it all in place, squishing it denser and denser. 

Somehow, Tess was registering everything around her, all at once, as if her mind had been electrified along with her body. She saw Alinua, trying to keep up her attack, her forehead beaded with tiny drops of sweat; the dragon’s shriveled, raisiny scales grotesquely contracting and expanding as it breathed; the sky, just dark enough to make out the light of the stars; and her, a single step away from release.

And then the world slammed back into motion. Letting out a cry, Tess’s hands latched onto the spear – the metal spear – and she let the lightning flow. 

The resulting light show was fantastic. The dragon screamed as lightning flooded its body with a sound like a thunderclap, stray bolts of blue lightning reaching outwards and illuminating the darkening sky. The spear glowed and shook with energy, but it thankfully didn’t break or melt. And Tess was the center of it all, her body shaking with exhilaration and catharsis. Her feet carved niches into the ground as she pushed against the sheer force of her attack. Whatever she was doing, it felt awesome.

And then after a few seconds, it was over. Every muscle in the dragon’s body froze completely. Keeling over, it quietly thumpedas it hit the ground, sending up a plume of black ash. Little mini arcs of blue lightning zipped along the length of its body, making its wingtips twitch. 

Tess let out a whoop. Dragons, 1; Tess, 2. 

Chapter Text

She climbed the final set of stairs to the southern gate one step at a time.

Her body was close to giving up on her. The one thing that she’d stayed for was gone, and she was empty. There wasn’t anything left here, not for her. Not anymore.

The wall stood high and imposing, trapping her in. It made her feel dizzy, as if she were locked in a box that was drifting out to sea. Still, she forced herself to take one final look back at the place she had lived for all fourteen years of her life. From the edge of the city, she could see everything – the temples, the marble columns, the weather lacrimas.

The view only confirmed that she wouldn’t miss anything when she left it all behind.

Approaching the gate, she stared at the huge stone slabs that would be the doorway to her escape. The guards looked bored. “Miss, gate’s closed ‘till morning. Come back then.”

“No.” She was surprised at the snarl that escaped her lips. It was uncomfortably cathartic. “Let me through.”

The guard didn’t blink. “Can’t, miss. Vash’s orders.”

Why was she suddenly so angry? It felt foreign. Her hands grew hot.

“Do as she says.” Someone spoke behind her. It was a girl, maybe a year or two younger than her, in fancy robes and a white cape that cast harsh shadows in the streetlights of the night. Her voice was soft, but it commanded attention. The girl strode forward, displaying to the guards a medallion resting in her open palm: the sigil of an emissary. “Open the gate.”

They obeyed unquestioningly. It made her feel even more tired – she knew she would have never been good enough for them. She wished it wasn’t a feeling she was so familiar with.

Turning to her, the girl’s golden eyes bored into her own. “You’re sure.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. 

The girl’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. For your loss, but also for what happened to you over all those years. It wasn’t your fault.”

She didn’t want to respond, because she wasn’t sure that was true.

The doors swung inward, unexpectedly silent. Beyond was the forest. A second chance.

“Farewell.”