The Girl and the Dragon Gay

People screaming elicits a different reaction among militias than the general public. Agni was almost trampled by others joining her in running toward the sound. She pulled her weapon and the red gem at her hip flung itself onto the blade’s handle, readied for battle. And battle came fast. 

From the direction of the Peaks came a series of explosions. They were in quick succession and announced the Imperial’s arrival long before the bards’ horns sounded an emergency. There weren’t orders being issued over linkpearl, meaning either the frequencies were jammed or the leadership was already engaging the enemy. Given where they came it, it seemed both options were equally likely. Leadership met in the tents across the river. 

Agni decided her best way to cross the pond between Charvi’s tent and the fighting was to throw out a chain of energy and literally drag herself at breakneck speed across the water, which cast a spray up behind her. But she arrived, sword first, and took down an Imperial soldier with her rapier buried in his back. She pulled the weapon free and spun, sending an arc of lightning across the Reach to strike at a Magitek Reaper. 

Last time she had come head-to-head with invading Garleans, they had slaughtered a team of expert thaumaturges. Her lightning had barely been enough to hold them back. She was stronger now, though. She had learned and trained and overcome since then. And her lightning still wasn’t enough. 

A barrier came up behind her just in time to stop a bullet from piercing her chest, but it was already flickering as the conjurer strained to focus on keeping so many shields up at once. Time wasn’t on her side, and more troops poured into the Reach by the second. 

And that was when something entirely unexpected happened. Aether around Agni burst into sudden, intense fire. She dropped to the ground and rolled away, burning her coat but near none of her flesh as she escaped the flame. They’d brought conscripts. Worse, though, they’d brought Skulls. 

She really didn’t have time to say “I told you so” to all the people in the Reach who were unwilling to attack their fellow Mhigans. She’d made that mistake once, and had to be set right - the minute you refuse to attack your kin, the enemy puts your kin as human shields in every operation. Skulls were worse - they were human swords. Or, in this case, flamethrowers. 

What she did have time to do was shoot a bolt of unaspected energy at the Skull’s feet. It exploded around him, knocking him on his ass. She used her rapier as a cane to help her to her feet, and swung it in a wide arc in front of her. A wave of wind rushed out from the action, throwing more of the enemy off their feet. 

“Agni! Watch yourssssself!” cried her Ananta friend. And then a hail of bullets raced across the ember-soaked air. 

The barrier cast around her hardened to stop most of the impacts, but a pair broke through that screen and struck her in the left arm. She wailed in agony. Her right arm drove the tip of her rapier into the ground and giant, glowing swords rose into the air around her, flying in all directions as a counterattack. 

She didn’t really register what happened next until she hit the ground again. She felt her face burning. Then the events connected into a reasonable order in her brain - a Legionnaire had hot her across the face with his short blade. The cut was what felt like hell, and that combined with the shock she’d already endured from the gunshot knocked her back. 

An arrow sailed through her field of vision as she laid on the ground, striking the Garlean soldier in the heart. Charvi. Had to be. 

She struggled to rise a second time, this time unarmed and it was even harder to stand. She heard someone shout “Fire!” and Resistance cannons rang out, striking down advancing Reapers, but the waves of people just weren’t stopping. 

Her vision was blurry. Blood ran down her cheek and arm. She smelled death, blood and burning flesh on the air. Some of those smells he’d caused. She couldn’t reach her rapier, but she could see it. Garleans advanced on her position, and she waited as long as she could before pushing everything she could into the gem on it’s handle.

Lighting filled a sphere around it, and undirected Verthunder zapping the troops before another six blades of light went in all directions and took the twitching Garleans to the ground. And then, Agni fell face-first into the dirt. 

From there out, things were just a muddle of events and senses. Gunpowder. Cannon fire. Something about the Warrior of Light arriving. She had one clear vision of the person she presumed the leader of the attack - Fordola rem Lupis, the traitorous head of the Skulls. And blackness. And cold. And the din of battle.

And so history repeated itself, she thought. And so another group committed to liberation was slaughtered. At least, mercifully, she’d die with her people this time. At least she wouldn’t survive another massacre. She wouldn’t carry that weight again. There was a grim comfort in that.  Her year had come full-circle, in the darkest and most hopeless possible of ways.

Except Kvasir wasn’t here to save her this time. 

She remembered Charvi’s face. She remembered hearing people cry in pain. She remembered darkness. 

There were more muddled words. Flashes of something. A bed. A tent. A few people in medical attire. A blinding light. The afterlife? The Mothercrystal? The Lifestream? She didn’t know, but she felt drawn to it. And it felt painful to her. She screamed as the light blinded her. And, for the second time in a year, magic pulled Garlean bullets from her skin. That was never going to not hurt like hell, she figured. Still, she couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening. 

“It’ll be a few weeks before she’ll be able to leave the infirmary,” said a man’s voice. “I’m going to keep her under until the magics have finished their work. Weaving muscle together isn’t something you should be woken for.” Agni couldn’t see him. She couldn’t open her eyes. “But the bullet missed anything major and the sword missed her eye. I’d say she’ll be fine, but I got her records from the Flames. She’s taken beatings like this before. I’m not sure how much longer her body will be able to bounce back.”

“Sssssshould you move her to Casssssstrum Orienssssss?” asked Charvi.

There was a pause while the man made some affirmative or negative head motion, she figured. And then a serpentine hand touched her burning cheek. 

“Be sssssssssafe, my dearesssst friend. Get well.”

And then, sleep retook her before she could even feel the hand pull away from her face. The night came, and lingered, and she was lost in it. There was so much she wanted to know. There were nightmares about the Massacre of Griever and about the Battle of Rhalgr’s Reach  There were dreams about Charvi and Kvasir. There were memories of the women she met in Eorzea - Eiai, Asuka, the team she raided a Castrum with. There were dreams that made her comforted. There were dreams that made her scream inside. 

“Hold,” someone approached, pointing a spear tip at Agni’s throat. It was a lovely introduction, all things considered. 

She tried to look taller, hoped Thanalan’s sun was keeping her tan. She was only Highlander on her mother’s side, but if she played it up, it could help. At least, it couldn’t hurt. “Easy, easy. I’m from Griever.” She held up both hands in a calming gesture, showing no magic foci or concealed weapons. 

“Birdshite.” 

Well, at least her little cell wasn’t totally forgotten then. And at least she didn’t have to break the news as to why it went quiet six moons ago. “Philosopher,” she said, gesturing to herself. Her cell had a strict policy about not using real names outside the cell. The less actual information a person had, the less could be forcefully extracted. “My grandfather was the leader of the Griever cell. Barich Folles.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was the granddaughter of a cell leader or if it was simply knowing a name, but she did get a reaction. It was, admittedly, less than stellar. The spearman whistled, and a few others came to his side, forming an armed escort and taking her into the camp. But hey, she wasn’t dead, so this counted as a good start, she figured. 

The spearmen left her by a tent and muttered a message to some runner who darted off to spread the word. She was pretty sure the runner was tasked with making sure an eye was on Agni the whole time she was in the Reach. That wasn’t unexpected, in truth. Even if they believed her, with how things had been going lately she could hardly fault them for being uneasy around people who had the reputation Griever had. 

Eikon summoners. 

After the summoning of Shinryu, the butchering of the Griffin’s flock and the horrible costs paid by the Resistance to win Castrum Oriens for the Alliance, of course her cell’s attempt to invoke Greiver was heretical. Hell, it was awful and dangerous and not well-liked among the Reach before the Griffin. 

As dusk approached, Agni made her way to a nearby campfire, and she felt the glances of everyone around her as she moved. Once she sat beside the flame, most people went back to ignoring her, trying to pretend the Philosopher hadn’t come back to the fold, muttering quietly about the mongrel who would call upon a Primal. It was actually relieving when they stopped staring, to be honest. 

One set of eyes didn’t leave her, however.

An Amanta came up alongside where Agni sat, and stood silent watch for a long, awkward time. She looked at the campfire, studying it as if there was some deep meaning in the flame before addressing Agni.

“They whissssper about you,” her hiss was actually soft, a delicate thing that seemed more comforting that the Hyur expected. 

Agni glanced up at the woman. “Yeah, I imagine I’m not all that popular around here, especially after what happened at the Wall.”

The Ananta looked down at Agni, curiously. “Not jusssst becaussse you invoke the Godssss,” she said, as if this should’ve been obvious to Agni. It wasn’t, and after a beat, she continued. “Ssssome talk of your mixed blood asss if thisss issss a curssssse you carry, sssssome do fear your connection to the Godsssss... mossssst wonder how you sssssurvived. The Impreialssss were proud of sssssstopping a Ssssssummoning and killing an entire resssssistance cell.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah. Well, I can’t so much say that I’m not used to the ‘halflander’ nonsense. ‘Philosopher’ came from an insult to my father’s people, the Sharlayans.”

“Why do you sssssmall thingssss care ssssso much about thisssss?” asked the serpent. 

That one she didn’t have an answer to. She shrugged. “Codename aside, I actually don’t know much about why people are how they are. My father would, probably. At a guess, though? It’s just how people enforce dominance,” it was as good an explanation as any. 

The serpent seemed to ponder this, turning her glance to the flame. “They call your grandfather ‘Barich Foolssss’, you know.”

She hadn’t known, but supposed it made sense. “Maybe they’re right,” it was her turn to look at the flame. “I barely made it out of our camp in the mountains. A lot of good people didn’t. Domans, Eorzeans, Ananta... not just the ‘true sons and daughters’ nonsense people like Griffin preached. And they laid their lives down with even less to show for it than the folk at the Wall.”

“Perhapssss,” conceded the Ananta. 

Agni shifted uncomfortable in the momentary silence that fell between them. She broke it, because it felt so oppressive. “Your leader still doesn’t know what to make of me, does he?” she asked, not sure she wanted the answer, but sure she didn’t want the quiet. 

“You are without a home or family on your sssssoil,” the woman said. Again, it was as if that should’ve been an answer onto itself, but Agni could’ve seen that statement going either way. A bit annoyed at how slow this ‘philosopher’ was, the ananta continued. “My sssssisters and I will not let you be forsssssaken. Conrad knowssss thisssss. He may not approve of your methodsssss, but he will empathissssse with your convictionsssss. We know thisssss. We will remind him.”

The terrorist lifted her eyebrow. “You make it sound like your the ones running the show here, not Conrad.”

She shook her head. “There are many who ‘run the ssssshow’, Philossssopher. I have my ssssstake, ssssso doesssss everyone elssssse.”

A chuckle escaped her, she couldn’t help it. She took her glasses off, and folded them on her lap. “Maybe call me Agni.” 

“Agni?” the serpent looked down at the hyur. “You can call me Charvi.”

“Good to meet you, Charvi.” Agni reached up, offering the ananta her hand. Charvi looked down at Agni as if she was looking at a particularly interesting problem, but took the woman’s hand in her own regardless, shaking it.