Defeating the Lady of the Vortex is a brutal endeavour, and not just because of the work it takes to get to her.
Neither Cid nor Alphinaud were blessed with the Echo, so you had resigned yourself to winning this battle alone. As Ishgard schemed against itself, you learned the value of a true name: there was nothing quite like calling Ifrit's fire to intimidate the denizens of the north.
So you tucked Blast around your neck to counter the cold and bore the weight of the inquisitors' scrutiny. You called Nugget's armour against knights and dragons alike, keeping his bulk as a safeguard between you and Witchdrop's abyss. And when you returned to Camp Dragonhead, its commander's gratitude on your side, there were friends waiting to greet you.
(You are not alone.)
Aki is an Ishgardian citizen - exactly how she managed that, you have no idea, given her physical attributes - and convinced her High House employer to protect Rhetioeya when they ran from Vesper Bay. The Elezen with them is Fleurie, an astrologian from the Athenaeum, newly come into her Echo and unused to the irreverence of adventurers. It wasn't ideal, but it would work.
Since, as Aki put it, the party consisted of three mages and a Raen with a gun, none of you were built to take hits. You had an idea, though, and pulled the earth from your heart as Dravanians roared down from the sky, holding their attention the best you could in the face of fangs and flame and Isgebind's frozen fury.
But after the Stone Vigil, there was the Howling Eye, and it was the most terrifying fight of your career.
Garuda's will was tangible in the air, imperious and all-consuming even before the battle began. The Ixal sang a battle hymn as she shrieked in laughter, their chorus echoing the faith that kept their goddess alive.
Instead of flinging corrosion from the relative safety of the back lines, you cloaked yourself in Earthen Armour and dived into the fray; staccato musket fire set a stronger rhythm in tandem with the healer's chants, forcing back the storm and giving you the space to hold your own.
Garuda was a nightmarish reflection of heavenly grace, slashing gales and sharpened feathers staining your robes a darker shade of red. The sheer size of her nearly forced you to balk, as the pillars shattered into dust and her claws lunged for your throat, but the twin spirits in you pushed your courage to the fore, driving you to drag a Starstorm out of the sky and bring the Lady of the Vortex to her knees.
She tried to temper you after rising unbroken from the onslaught, a verdant tornado spiralling high: the echo of laughter swept down your left arm, shaping wings where there were none, and you ripped what you needed from the storm of her aether as a brilliant crystal clattered to the ground.
(Aki roared her defiance and Rhetioeya stood tall and firm, one steady hand laid on Fleurie's shoulder when she braced for the empty impact. You were a hero, but so were they.)
But the angel falls for a final time, Ifrit and Titan called forth by van Baelsar to share in her grisly demise. Even from the Enterprise, you felt their essence burst and be swallowed; the Ultima Weapon took more than you could ever hope to handle, drinking deep of the same primals whose deaths stain your aether.
The thought of battle as you were, bloodied and running on empty, was enough to convince you to retreat instead of claiming revenge. Someone has cleaned the Waking Sands of gore - one of the priests, maybe, or an altruistic neighbour - but the scattered, looming memories chase you away to Gridania before any thorough inspections can be made.
In the ruins of Nym, where air-aspected stone keeps the ruins aloft, a cackling current flowed down from your shoulder and through the spaces between your bones. The stolen essence was incandescent, whirling around your arm and swelling higher with every attack, billowing up into your throat with a twisted, blood-filled glee.
All roads trace back to the Ascians, in the end. Thancred's capture was revealed and the lost Scions saved, Operation Archon's inception heralding a sea of military chaos; Tristan's guilt and despair led him to a twisted deal, the power of a forgotten god made his to claim at last.
Belias was not a power you could claim from Tristan's death, as egi do not release the essence of their primal progenitors upon destruction. But between Blast's blaze and Nuggets's defences and the new power swirling out from your marrow, there was enough strength in your grimoire for the battles to come.
The detour to the Singing Shards was your only break from war preparations, serving to end one smaller story before the larger reaches its climax. Y'mhitra's gift of a green doublet proved the final piece of your attire, the hardened wings matching the leather of your boots.
Razor - named for the way her storms sliced foes to ribbons - loved the thing, the breeze that normally feathered your arm twisting up to pool in your back. It was akin to stories of phantom limbs, the way her essence stretched out in an echo of Garuda's wings.
The egi herself is as whimsical as her element, shifting from delighted to furious with nary a change in the tone of her laughter. During quiet moments, she likes to perch on your left shoulder: she would fold up her streamlined form into a blob of glowing green, looking for all the world like some sort of enchanted parrot.
The wind was female, the earth was male: Razor's wings and Nugget's fists, Llymlaen's infinite breath and Oschon's endless footsteps. Was it a coincidence, or did egi always share certain immutable characteristics?
(Did Tristan feel his Ifrit-Egi just as Blast lies in your gut? In the darkness of his broken, grieving mind, did he have an inner fire to see him through the lonely cold?)
If Y'mhitra's plans to revitalise the art come to light, then maybe you will find an answer. For now, you had a war to win, your aether stained a rainbow as bright as Ultima's glow. You made your choice, and it was time to stick to it; red fire bursting out into an inferno, seeds in golden earth sprouting up to bloom, green wind whipping around and around into a vortex that could swallow gods whole.