The standard disclaimers apply.

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The first thing I learned while traveling on the Outer Continent was to be very careful around cactuars. Not only were they very difficult to hit, but they had an annoying habit of spraying needles at anyone who got too close. In spite of that, I was somehow not surprised when Quina devoured one.

Zidane laughed as I was needled for the third time. "You're turning into a pincushion there, Jason. You sure you're up to this?"

I shot him a brief glare. "Watch your mouth, Zidane, or you will soon regret it," I said coldly, finishing a pair of the cactus creatures with a Gushing Magma attack. "Remember that I don't need to be in Dragoon form to cast spells."

"I remember." He grinned. "Just be careful. There's a lot more cactuars where they came from."

Does he never shut up? "I am well aware of that, Zidane. I don't lecture you about thievery, you don't lecture me about fighting monsters, got that?"

The thief's grin faltered, just slightly. "Okay, okay, whatever you say." He held up his hands.

Skirt-chasing lunatic. Despite our occasional disagreements, I had actually come to think of Zidane as a friend. True, he made a pass at just about every girl he met (only once with Dari, though; she made him regret it), but he was also brave, an excellent fighter, and unfailingly loyal. That was more than enough to make up for his…peculiarities.

Zack was having his own problems. He and Laura had admitted to their…relationship the day before, and Zidane still hadn't stopped teasing them. Somehow, the young prince couldn't intimidate our thieving friend the way I could.

To this day I can't help grinning over an incident from our second night there. Zack and Laura were sitting together near the campfire, talking quietly, when Zidane came up behind them. "Talk about star-crossed lovers," he said with a grin, apparently referring to the star-gazing obsession so prevalent in Laura's native Tiberoa.

Zack shot to his feet, turned bright red, tried to speak, failed, and settled for giving Zidane a death glare and waving his spear threateningly.

Predictably, the young thief was unfazed. "Careful where you point that thing, Your Highness. You could hurt someone." He laughed and turned away, leaving the Crown Prince to his incoherent sputterings.

I grinned when Zack turned his glare on me, then went back to my reading. The same book that had provided me with instructions for those special weapons was proving to be quite a fount of information. Some history of the Dragon Campaign, with some footnotes by my grandmother, who had apparently fought in that ancient war, on the human's side (hardly a surprise, that; Winglies tend to live for a very long time).

"Jason, can I ask you something?"

I glanced at the princess. "Sure. What's on your mind?"

"What did you say to Zidane in Lindblum? It sounded nasty."

"That's one way of putting it." I chuckled. "I called him the spawn of a Virage, said that he looked more monkey than human, and followed up with some things that I will not repeat."

"Because it was incredibly obscene." Dari laughed and sat down next to me. "When he starts talking like that, you'd better get out of the way, or you're going to get hurt."

"You exaggerate." I smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist. "What I said was actually fairly mild, compared to what you'll hear from a typical soldier, and it's when I start sounding even colder than usual that you've got to watch out."

She rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. "Maybe." I wasn't sure she believed me, but it didn't matter.

For a long moment I gazed at her, wondering how I'd gotten myself into this. In retrospect, Albert's choosing me to lead the new Dragoons was probably inevitable, but falling in love with a teammate was something else. I guess it's true that you never know until it happens.

Dari's resemblance to Rose was truly uncanny. Beautiful by virtually any standard, yes, but it went beyond mere physical appearance. There was something at the core, something that simply refused to accept fate; I guess you could call it determination. The fighting style was, of course, to be expected; anyone who trained under Rose would be a formidable opponent indeed.

Dari blinked once and looked up at me. "What are you looking at?"

I managed to keep myself from blushing, at least.

She smiled and kissed me on the lips. "Don't worry. If it's you, I don't mind, as long as you're not too obvious about it."

"That's a relief." I wasn't kidding; getting on the Dark Dragoon's bad side was a quick way to a messy end. I've been called many things, but even Derrick never accused me of being suicidal. Sighing, I leaned back and fell asleep almost at once.

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The next morning found us near Conde Petie, the village of the dwarves. I'd become familiar with some unusual architecture in my travels, but this one was beyond my experience. The place was built on two gigantic rails that straddled a pair of cliffs. An intricate framework provided additional support, as well as keeping the village from falling between the huge rails.

When people think of dwarves, they tend to think of humanlike beings, usually short and stocky, bearded, with a talent for digging and blacksmith work. These dwarves, however, did not fit that mold. True, they were short ("tall dwarf" being an oxymoron), and yes, stocky, but I saw no evidence of digging beyond some fairly basic gardening work. Blacksmithing, now, that's another story; I saw some very well-made armor and weaponry at the local shop.

Getting in proved tricky. Three dwarves greeted us at the gate. (When transcribing conversations with the locals, I won't be telling what they said verbatim, but rather an approximation of it; their accent makes them difficult to understand.)

One dwarf approached me. "Rally-ho!"

Say what? I blinked in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Rally-ho!" the dwarf repeated. "That's our sacred greeting."

"If you don't say rally-ho, you can't enter Conde Petie, the village of the dwarves," another said. (At least, that's what I think he said.)

I rolled my eyes. "Rally-ho." The other Dragoons echoed me, though Zack wore the expression of a man who has just bitten something sour and desperately wants to spit it out.

The dwarf seemed oblivious to my disgusted tone. "Rally-ho! Ye can pass!"

Thanks, I though sardonically, brushing past. I'd been in Conde Petie for all of three minutes, and already the dwarves were getting on my nerves. I wasn't the only one, either; I distinctly heard Indora mutter something vile under his breath. That gave me pause, inasmuch as angering a Giganto is one of the stupidest things possible. When the Giganto in question is a Dragoon, the danger is multiplied by at least five.

For the moment, though, Indora had himself under control, so I ignored him, choosing instead to give the locals a closer inspection. If you got past their speech patterns and utterly ridiculous greeting, the dwarves were actually a decent lot. One managed to get in Dari's good graces by praising the craftsmanship of her sword.

"What a crazy place," Zack muttered, grimacing. "All they do is talk, trade, and eat. And why is the northwest path guarded? Are they afraid of invasion from a completely uninhabited part of the continent?" The prince's question was rhetorical, stemming from his increasingly bad mood; he knew as well as anyone that taboos are almost always strange to outsiders.

Before I could point that out, however, I turned a corner and almost collided with a Black Mage. There was no mistaking it for anything else, not after I'd fought so many in Burmecia and Cleyra. The dark blue cloak, the pointed yellow hat, the black face with glowing yellow eyes, all were easily recognizable. At the moment, it wasn't even looking in my direction, being occupied with selling some goods of indeterminate origin.

The grocer laid some coins on the counter. "Rally-ho! Your goods are always welcome here."

Zidane chose that moment to arrive from the direction of the weapon shop. "Hey, what's---whoa!" He'd noticed the Black Mage.

Startled, the mage took one look at us and tore off as if a demon was chasing him. Zidane, Vivi, and I followed, but the mage was out of sight in minutes. One thing was clear immediately: that Black Mage was no automaton. Rather, he was as aware as any of us, proving that Vivi wasn't the only mage who could think for himself.

One of the dwarf greeters spoke up. "Do you know them?"

Zidane jumped. "There's more? Do they live near here?"

The dwarf nodded. "They come around from time to time, usually to trade."

"Where can we find them?" I asked, already weighing possibilities.

"They live in the southeast forest, but it's not easy to get there," the dwarf responded. "You have to go around a cliff first, and I hear they live so deep in the forest that even owls don't find them."

"It's a start, at least," Dagger said.

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It was actually more than a start. This particular group of Black Mages seemed a bit unclear on the concept of secrecy. True, they had built their village deep in a forest, but then they had promptly destroyed that advantage by posting a series of signposts along the way. All we had to do was check the signs and go "where there are no owls".

Not that I was complaining, mind, it just seemed rather odd.

As it turned out, the mages weren't as careless as we'd initially thought. We reached the village, certainly, but if it wasn't for the fact that a Black Mage was just arriving, we'd never have gotten inside. The mages had made good use of their magic, specifically by creating a false image of more trees. The guy we were shadowing was kind enough to open a path, though he obviously didn't know it.

"This is like back home," Seria said.

Dagger glanced at her. "What do you mean?"

"The Forest of Winglies has only one entrance," Seria explained. "Unless you know what to look for, and how to get through, it just looks like a dead end in the Evergreen Forest."

"Don't I know it," Dari said feelingly. "I remember the first time you invited me over. Took me three hours to find it."

The first thing I saw on entering the village was a pair of Black Mages. As we had all come to suspect, they were definitely more than mere automatons. They might have looked like Brahne's golems at first glance, but a closer inspection revealed this to be superficial. It's in their eyes; an intelligent gaze instead of a blank stare.

One of them spotted us and froze briefly, then started backing away. "Hu…humans. Humans, run!" His companion glanced over his shoulder to confirm our presence, then tore off in another direction.

Vivi, for his part, was ecstatic. "There are others like me!" He vanished after the first mage. Quina and Dagger followed.

"Skittish, aren't they?" Zack commented.

"Can you blame them?" I countered. "How would you feel if you suddenly woke up, to find that some maniac has been using you to wreak havoc across a whole continent? Face it, Zack, these people have every reason to be wary of us. And don't count on my Wingly blood to make a difference, either. Anyone who looks at me without knowing my background is going to assume that I'm completely human."

"Point," he conceded.

I glanced around, spotting what I was looking for almost at once: a Moogle. He looked up as I approached. "Can I help you, kupo?"

Kupo? I shrugged it off. "We're here looking for information. You know of the recent wars on the Mist Continent?"

"Yes." The Moogle shivered. "Very scary, kupo. Black Mages being used to kill. Lots of them woke up, and when they realized what they were doing, they ran."

I frowned. "But why so far? Even for Gaia, this is pretty out of the way."

"They wanted to find a place that had no humans, kupo." The "kupo" repetition was starting to annoy me. "So they came here and built a village in the woods."

That makes sense. "I see." I nodded thoughtfully. "My friends and I are here to put a stop to this insanity. We recently learned that a man named Kuja is behind the wars. If we can take him out, the Mages will be able to live in peace." I shook my head. "Not that I blame them for hiding."

"Don't worry, kupo." The Moogle smiled. "I'll tell the Mages why you're here. Maybe they'll help."

"Thanks." If the Black Mages were willing to help, it would make our job an order of magnitude easier. Not in terms of combat capability, as we were more than a match for anything we had encountered to date, but information. They knew far more about the Outer Continent than we did, which could prove very useful indeed.

The Black Mages quickly realized we meant them no harm, and were eager to help once we explained our mission. It turned out that Cid had been right about Kuja's location; one of the mages had seen a silver dragon coming from an uninhabited part of the continent, northwest of Conde Petie. After spending the night in the village, we thanked them and started off for Conde Petie.

"Enjoy you stay, Vivi?" Chris asked.

The young mage nodded. "Just knowing that there are others like me helps, even if they do have short lives."

"Don't let that get you, Vivi," I said, slashing a griffin in half. "Such a fate is only unavoidable if you let it control you." Another griffin fell to my blade. "We are the third generation of Dragoons," I said, waving at my team. "You might say that defying fate is part of the job."

"He's right," Dari said, then let out a startled sounding curse.

I spun, transforming by reflex, and it was as well I did. Facing us was a monster I had thought had become extinct nearly twenty years earlier: a Virage. Not just any Virage, either, but a Super Virage, with all the enhanced power that implies.

"Dragoons, transform, now!" I risked quick glance at the princess. "Dagger, cast Shell on everyone! When a Super Virage is mortally wounded, it unleashes a massive blast of magic!" Then, to the Jade Dragoon: "Zack, hurry!"

"Shell!"

"Rose Storm!"

"Thunderstorm!" Zidane had never used such a spell in anger before, but it worked.

"Thunder God Attack!"

The S.V. tried to blast Chris after that one, but caught an arrow in what passed for its eye, followed by a strike from Indora's axe that chopped its arm off.

"Thundaga!" I hadn't known Vivi had magic that powerful, but I wasn't about to complain.

"Diamond Dust!"

"Judgment Bolt!" I'd completely forgotten about Dagger's summon power. I wouldn't forget again, not after Ramuh the thunder god delivered such a pounding.

"Mighty Guard!"

"Thanks, Quina!" Muttering a curse under my breath, I readied a spell of my own. "Prepare to burn! Final Burst!!!"

That was enough. The Super Virage released the anticipated energy blast, then simply disintegrated. Thanks to Dagger, Zack, and Quina, its deathblow didn't do anywhere near enough damage to seriously harm us. I really hope that's the last one.

Dagger took care of our minor wounds with a healing spell. "Have you fought those before?"

I shook my head. "Dart told me about them. The Winglies used them during the Dragon Campaign, to counter humanity's alliance with the Dragons. I thought they all died when the Moon was destroyed, but evidently I was wrong." I carefully stood. "Let's go."

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We got to Conde Petie without further incident, only to hit a snag so irritating that I almost wished we could just fight another S.V.. The northwest path was guarded by a pair of dwarves, and there was only one way they would allow anyone through: Couples who had received the blessings of the sun (and isn't that idiotic) were allowed through to the Sanctuary. Newlyweds, in other words.

To my astonishment, Dagger actually suggested that she and Zidane go through the ceremony. Zidane agreed readily enough, after trying several times to make sure she knew what she was getting them into. Even so, the notion of going through what amounted to a sham marriage made me more than a little queasy.

"Now what?" Zack muttered darkly. "Are we supposed to do the same thing?"

"Forget it," I said, unable to keep the disgust out of my voice. "We're Dragoons. Let Zidane and Dagger pull their stunt; we'll fly over."

"Right," Dari said, shuddering.

The "wedding" went off without a hitch, except at the very end when Zidane wound up flat on his face. Occupied as they were with their local nonsense, none of the dwarves noticed seven winged figures hovering over the mountain path. Not that they could have done anything if they had noticed.

This is even crazier than I thought. Who in their right mind gets married just to get past a pair of dimwitted guards? I could only hope Zidane and Dagger knew what they were doing. If something goes wrong, they're in deep. I grinned as a sudden thought occurred to me. If Steiner was here, he'd be screaming bloody murder about now. Either that or he'd drop dead from sheer apoplexy.

Dari nudged me. "Jason, look."

I shifted my attention to the path, which was suddenly no longer guarded. The guards were busy chasing what I assumed was a pair of thieves, a Moogle and a human girl. "What in blazes is going on? That girl can't be older than five or six."

The incident proved helpful, as it happened. With the path unguarded, Vivi and Quina were able to slip past. They soon ran into the girl, who had gotten herself into a rather precarious position; specifically, she was hanging from a branch. This should be interesting.

"This is getting very weird," Zack said. "Look, Zidane's taking the girl with him. And…is that a horn!?"

The prince was right. The thief, who had taken Quina's place when the Qu departed, presumably in search of food, had a horn on her forehead, top center. "You're right. Why would a human have a horn?" Is she human?

Seria had spotted a more immediate problem. "Uh-oh, company!"

"What is that, some kind of ogre!?" Laura asked.

"Who cares!?" I snapped. "What matters is that our friends are in trouble!" I folded my wings and dove. "Death from above!" My sword cut a deep gash in the creature's arm.

"What the!? Who are you!?" the girl demanded.

"It's all right, Eiko, they're our friends!" Zidane yelled, stabbing twice.

"Oh, okay!" Her next move took even me by surprise. "Terrestrial Rage!"

"Holy fright!" Zack's exclamation suited me just fine. Whereas Ramuh had the form of an old man, the eidolon Fenrir looked more like a wolf than anything else. A crack opened in the ground, and a giant fist gave the monster an uppercut. It crashed headfirst to the ground, killed instantly.

With the danger gone (theoretically) I gave Eiko a closer look. Her short stature and general boisterousness confirmed my estimate of her age. The horn jutted up through locks of blue hair, which I'd never seen on a human before.

She smiled. "Sorry about earlier. I'm Eiko. Eiko Carol."

Remarkably articulate for a six-year-old. Is it because of her summoning power? "Jason Connell, and I'm sorry we dropped in on you like that."

"Don't worry about it." Eiko glanced at Vivi. "Hey, my home's the other way."

"Is that the Sanctuary?" Zidane asked.

"Oh, that's just what the dwarves call it." Eiko shrugged. "It's called the Iifa Tree."

Iifa Tree? Now why does that sound ominous? Is it because it sounds like the infamous Divine Tree from back home? I shook myself. Now is not the time. "Why don't we talk on the way, then? And," I smiled faintly, "I'll tell you about how my friends and I managed that little maneuver."

She grinned. "Great! Let's go!"

There's more to her than meets the eye, I thought. I think she'll play a bigger part than any of us can imagine. Shrugging mentally, I followed the others down the path.

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Author's note: Sorry I took so long. I had writer's block, plus I've been busy. Next up is Madain Sari.

YSYF, I know better than to give details, but I will say that for me anything above seventy degrees is stifling.

Lloyd will show up at some point; I haven't decided when as yet.

Thanks for reviewing. Comments and suggestions are welcome. In the unlikely event I receive flames, they will be ignored as beneath my notice.