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Aurelle sat with her back to the wall she had taken her refuge against, watching the grass flutter in the wind and the clouds wheel across the sky between the limbs of the odd caelumtrees. But all too soon she heard familiar armoured footfalls striding her way.
"Done moping?" Estinien asked, unimpressed as ever.
She took a breath and then looked up to see that he was holding the remains of her abandoned meal in his hand, presenting it to her.
"You should finish your food. Strength for the battle ahead."
Wordlessly, she took the bowl from him, mixing the film that had developed over the top of her stew back into the rest of it and then obediently continuing to eat.
He stood silently to one side as she did, surveying the comings and goings of the camp. When she rose back to her feet upon finishing, his masked face turned to meet hers. "We need the Warrior of Light now, not the wilting flower."
She nodded mutely.
"Battle will do us both good. Come."
—
The Aery was swarming with hostile scalekin. Wings and teeth and tails and claws and magic, hissing and snarling and terrible roars. Rock and gale and the vicious arc of Estinien's spear. A pained cry through clenched teeth as something barrelled into her, wrenching her shoulder from its socket. Grasping desperately for the White until the pain faded once more, and then releasing the primed aether she was tapping into as an explosion once she was done, blasting all of her assailants back in a blinding flash of light. Sending bursts of essence and scattered prayers forward to the man wading through the fray with an increasingly manic smile on his face, as they closed in closer and closer upon his true prey.
Nidhogg.
The dragon's massive hulking form spat insults and flame as Estinien worked to cow him with the power of the Eye. Riling him instead into even greater rage, the two Elezen forced to perform ever more impossible feats just to survive against it. Leaping and shielding and healing and piercing with lance and with stone. Praying for Hydaelyn to restore the fullness of her Blessing and see her through this insanity. The now dog-eared letter Aymeric had written her many impossibilities ago calling from her pocket, beseeching Halone to see her safely... home.
And in the midst of the chaos and the danger, it was Ishgard she found her thoughts returning to as she held that word within her mind. As she considered all that she had fought for in recent months. All that she had come to love.
And this beast was not going to turn it all to ash while she yet drew breath.
"Oh no you don't," Estinien growled as the dragon tensed and made to take to the skies once more, seeming to have a preternatural awareness for the creature's every move and intention. Tensing for his own flight, he jumped from the ground, his prey shrieking in rage as his lance found its mark. Tussling in the clouds above while she remained stranded there on the ground. Readying herself to send a burst of healing Estinien's way as soon as she could reach him, aether flickering in the grip of her hand as she held it there. The dizziness behind her eyes growing with each passing moment as she crept closer and closer to the limits of her body.
Holding out just long enough to bathe him in a dazzling burst of White as he landed cleanly against the stonework, Nidhogg's second Eye impaled on the end of his lance, the great beast shrieking its last as it plummeted from view into the violent storm of aether it had coiled around its misbegotten nest.
Aurelle sank to the ground, shadows dancing in the corners of her vision. Estinien rose from his crouched landing position to make for her, looking none the worse for wear. Looking alive.
Her spotty vision narrowed on the shimmering yellow orb he was plucking from the tip of his spear. And then she pitched forward, her body convulsing as her hold on the present broke completely. Lost to an Echo of that which had come before.