Chapter 6 - Dragonslayers


"Thank Oum I went through Initiation at Beacon Academy..." Jaune groaned with a pout as he dusted himself off, pouting at his stunned friend as he did so. To her credit, Yang did have the decency to look sheepish at his words, and as she looked away with a flush he continued: "So, how'd you do that, anyway?"

"I don't know... I've never done that before..." Yang murmured in response, touching her throat in shock. It felt slightly raw, but she had suddenly let loose a primal shout with enough force to send a rather tall and muscular man flying a few dozen feet straight up, after almost dying to a dragon, so she felt like the ache was understandable. And speaking of almost dying...

"And what about you? How did you do that?" Yang countered, easily ignoring the pain. It was miniscule in comparison to her spine almost breaking, and definitely paled compared to the sensation of that warm, comforting light. "I thought you said your world doesn't have magic?"

"That wasn't magic... that was me just transferring my Aura to you..." Jaune defended, though his voice trailed away as he noticed the guards they'd run into had drawn closer. Presumably, they'd finally shaken the ringing from their ears and picked their jaws off the floor (or found their nerve; given the utter absurdity of that fight, Jaune could empathize).

Finally, one spoke, addressing Yang: "By the gods, I can't believe it! That was Shouting, what you just did! Must be. You're... Dragonborn..."

"Dragonborn? What do you mean?" Jaune spoke up before Yang could ask the guard to repeat his unbelievable words. The guard looked him up and down with pity, and he winced and quickly added: "I'm not really from around here, so..."

"Ah, that would explain it." The guard nodded in understanding. "It's a local legend. In the very oldest tales, back when there still were dragons in Skyrim, the Dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power."

Yang and Jaune peered back to where the dragon had died, and their eyes widened at the sight of the smoldering bare skeleton. They'd been occupied with dying and preventing their friend from dying respectively, and hadn't actually paid attention to it after it had fallen. Yang recalled the sudden instincts to roar in victory, and the Word that she had Shouted that had sent her friend flying away, and as the guards began loudly discussing stories of the Dragonborn, Yang excitedly turned to Jaune, and exclaimed: "Jaune! This is so awesome! I'm the legendary Dragonborn! Do you know what this means?"

"Yeah, it's so cool... like something out of a comic book..." Jaune's voice trailed away uncomfortably.

Yang picked up on his hesitation, and asked: "What's wrong?"

"Yang, don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you, but doesn't this seem all to convenient? You coincidentally arrive in Skyrim at the same time as the dragon attacks start, the first in millennia, and you get revealed to be a natural dragon slayer?"

"Well, yes? The gods have probably gifted me because there's a crisis coming, and someone needs to deal with it." Yang said matter-of-factly, recalling the stories of the Hero of Kvatch and the Eternal Champion, of individuals blessed by the Divines stepping forward in times of upheaval, and single-handedly changing the course of destiny. It certainly held appeal to her, the thought that she had been chosen for greatness by the Divines.

"And you don't see any problem with that?" Jaune, however, could only recall Pyrrha, and especially the last conversation they had, before the attack.

How she'd actually blown up at him, how the girl who'd told him to stop keeping things to himself and rely more on his team had been keeping things to herself, refusing to rely on her partner. Of the distress on her face, the way her mask of polite professionalism had slipped, as she'd been torn between what she felt she needed to do, and what she actually wanted to do.

It was all he could do, to keep his tone merely skeptical.

"With being a living legend? Nope." Yang shrugged, failing to see his point. "I mean, we handled ourselves pretty well against the dragon this time, didn't we?"

"... Yang, you almost died. We almost died! And we had a squad of soldiers led by the king's personal bodyguard backing us up!" Jaune hissed back, shocked by her callousness. "You would have died, and you want to do that again?!"

"... this is Tamriel, Vomit Boy. Death is just a part of everyday life." Yang pointed out, matter-of-factly, before a feral grin came over her fact, and she added: "Besides, can you deny that was the most exciting fight you've ever been in?"

"... I certainly did better than the last time I fought a dragon..." Jaune grudgingly admitted, conceding the point. "But still..."

Yang smirked, knowing she had him, and continued: "Now that we've fought back, we know they can be killed. And more importantly, we know how they can be killed. Next time we do this, it'll go very differently. And besides, if things ever go as badly as they did this time, you can just heal me back up!"

"Yang, Aura's not so simple..." Jaune explained. "I have a limited amount, and it's also used to protect me and heal me! Besides, I didn't even know I could transfer Aura to someone like that..."

"Well, now you know." Yang replied smugly. Then a thought came over her, and she eagerly asked: "Does this mean I have Aura now, too?"

"... I doubt it." Jaune said, unwilling to admit that he knew next to nothing about Aura, having only learnt about it that very year. "I don't know how to unlock Aura, and if you did, it'd have started healing you as soon as it was active. It was just me lending my Aura to you to do Aura... things."

Yang cursed quietly under her breath. The sensation of warmth and comfort gently engulfing her and running through her had been almost addictive, not to mention it's obvious abilities. Still, though, as Dragonborn she was already blessed by the Divines, and she merely shrugged and continued: "Well, it is what is is. Anyway, Vomit Boy, you said you wanted to be a hero, too. This is what heroes do, isn't it? Risk their lives in glorious combat, taking down giant monsters, in the name of protecting the land?"

Jaune looked away, unable to argue. After all, that was what Huntsmen and Huntresses did everyday (granted, dragons were a tad bit more dangerous than Ursa), and he'd been more reckless when he'd faked his way into Beacon. Yang would've probably handled herself a lot better if she'd actually gotten a proper weapon, rather than the attack happening as they'd been about to enter the town. But still, there was no way he was going to simply roll over, and it was with a show of reluctance that he murmured: "Well, I guess I do still owe you my life after Helgen, so it's not like I can just walk away."

Yang's response died in her throat, as she processed his last words. Intellectually, she knew he would not simply abandon her; he was far too naive, idealistic, and caring for that. She also knew that, barring his abilities, she had no real reason to actually want him around. She barely knew him, after all, having only met him earlier that day, and was merely looking at him like she did some of the younger children in Signal that she helped take care of. Beyond their mutual saving of each other's lives, they hardly had anything approaching a bond.

But he had saved her life. And she did, inexplicably, enjoy his company. The idea of him simply walking out on her like her mother made her stomach turn, though she couldn't explain why.

Jaune, fortunately, missed her expression as he continued with a teasing smile: "Besides, me leaving you to fight dragons by yourself would be like me letting you jump off a cliff or something. No way I could do that- oh, it looks like someone's coming."

"That was the hairiest fight I've ever been in, and I've been in more than a few." Irileth admitted, as she gave up on following her men's Dragonborn discussion, and instead moved to address the heroes of the hour. "I don't know about this Dragonborn business, but I'm sure glad you two were with us. You better get back to Whiterun right away. Jarl Balgruuf will want to know what happened here, and Farengar will want his stone. I'm taking command here for the moment. By the way... mercenary, who's your friend here?"

Jaune and Yang exchanged a quick look. While he didn't need to keep his origins a secret (if he did, publicly fighting a dragon and brazenly using Aura would have been near the top of the list of things to avoid), he and Yang had agreed that it would probably have been best to not go around announcing to all of Skyrim that he'd come from another world. Instead, he began: "I'm... I was just a hunter-in-training..."

"And he's a fellow survivor of Helgen." Yang added helpfully. "He was injured by the dragon attack, and I helped him get out."

Irileth raised an eyebrow at their words, but decided against saying anything. Sure, it was unlikely that a mere hunter would have known a healing spell more powerful than the temples, or been able to conjure a ward that could withstand the full fury of a dragon's breath, and she had been trained to be paranoid, having dealt with her fair share of assassinations (from both ends), but she could understand the need for secrets. And, if they didn't endanger her Jarl, she could even tolerate them. So, shaking her head, she replied: "I see... well, mercenary, that explains why you brought him along. I'd have been very concerned if you'd brought any civilian to fight a dragon, but- by the Nerevarine, do you hear that?"

Thunder cracked as voices rolled out from the mountain, shaking the very world in the wake of its mere echoes as they roared as one: "DOVAHKIIN!"

"... you'd better get back to town quickly." Irileth spoke first, sheathing the sword she'd instinctively drawn at the noise, before turning around to yell at her men who were trying to drag the dragon's skeleton onto the road

"... any idea what that was?" Jaune whispered to Yang, even as he helped her up and supported her as they slowly made their way back to town.

"Not really... this is also the first time I've been in Skyrim." Yang pointed out, leaning against him perhaps slightly more than was strictly necessary. "It's probably just another thing we should ask the Jarl, once we've reported back to him."

"You sure you don't want to rest first? I can take the rock to the court wizard for you." Jaune politely offered.

"... and leave you to handle Skyrim's high society?" Yang asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"..." Jaune blanched, as he considered the idea further.

"Vomit Boy, you've been here for all of a day. The Jarl's a nice guy, but you don't know any of our customs, and I've got no way to prove we're affiliated without me vouching for you in person." Yang pressed further, before adding with a laugh: "I'd rather not have you arrested for impersonation, fraud, or disrespecting the Jarl."

Jaune was about to weakly retort, as they reached the walls, but the words died in his throat as he spotted the bright orange glow. For a moment, he though there'd been another dragon attack, another fire burning, but a closer look revealed them to be torches. Lots of torches.

Yang looked around, seeing the crowd around them watching them. There were guards, farmers, men, women, and children. By the looks of it, half the city had been at the walls, watching the fight with bated breath. When Jaune didn't react, didn't move even a muscle, she quietly sighed, before raising her fist triumphantly.

The roar of cheers deafened the pair, and Jaune flinched slightly. Yang laughed as she felt him move, and as she lightly punched him in the side, she warmly added: "Besides, the crowds cheering your name in victory? There's no way I'd go through all that trouble and miss this part of being a hero."

As the mob moved in closer, and Jaune made out the looks of joy and relief on the townspeople's faces as it seemed everyone tried to give them a pat on the back, he quietly admitted: "Okay, maybe you've got a point."


Author's Note: And we're back, this time with a shorter chapter. I really don't have specified or recommended word lengths for these things; I just write til I feel like it's a good stopping point.

Originally, I wrote the initial scene so that Jaune would be the naive wide-eyed idealist about the whole Dragonborn thing, while Yang was the skeptic. Since, in general, that is their personalities. But as I fleshed out the scene, I ended up writing and rewriting different arguments and talking points, trying to figure out arguments that fit the characters, until eventually revising it to it's current iteration (and deleting maybe a few thousand words).

After all, Yang's the Nord who's more than happy to be an awesome badass, and would probably rise to any challenge. Sure, in canon she gets depressed about losing in arm after Volume 3, but that's a lasting consequence of a reckless action that's compounded by bestie Blakey abandoning her, Weiss getting taken away from them, and Ruby going into a coma for an unspecified amount of time. In contrast, the lasting consequence of this battle is an awesome superpower while watching her new companion prove himself.

Sure, she's pragmatic enough to figure out that the gods have a task for her (there's no such thing as a free lunch and all), but hey, someone was going to have to deal with the dragons eventually, and in Skyrim Nords are big on the idea of honor; what better honor than being marked by the Divines for a greater task? May as well have her be the one who claims the fame and fortune of it (as well as the fun), especially since she's apparently got a super-strong healer who owes her a life debt. Besides, fame and power opens up doors that can help her find out about her mother, and being Dragonborn would be the biggest snub at her egg donor who was always so obsessed with strength.

Jaune, by contrast, while being far more idealistic about stuff like killing and helping people, strikes me as the kind who'd be very skeptical of stuff like fate and destiny. Not least because Remnant of his time only deals with stuff like gods as an abstract concept, but most importantly, he'd have by then witnessed the toll the argument between destiny and desire firsthand with Pyrrha, who wanted to stay with Team JNPR as herself but felt compelled by duty and destiny to accept Ozpin's offer to take Amber's Aura, irregardless of it's potential effects on her, and become the new Fall Maiden, despite coming to Beacon to escape the weight of being the Invincible Girl. Compound with the fact that Jaune died intervening in Pyrrha's destiny, and Jaune might be a bit cynical and bitter when it comes to the whole "fate and destiny" shtick, which is how the conversation presented above became written.

Someone in the comments mentioned that Ruby would probably have frozen as well, fighting against Mirmulnir, and I'd have to agree. She took a while to figure out a strategy to deal with the Nevermore during Initiation, after all, and even when Team RNJR was formed Jaune was still the general strategist of the group. But the thought was from Jaune's perspective, and during this part of the story Jaune was putting himself down whenever he compared himself to his friends. Imagine what his mental image must have been of Ruby, his first friend; the prodigy from Signal, the youngest person to ever attend Beacon Academy, who built her own weapon, and leads Team RWBY, one of the top in the year. She's taken down a Nevermore, fought Roman Torchwick thrice, stopped the White Fang at the docks, and helped out greatly at the Breach. Her main flaws mostly revolve around social awkwardness, not her skill in battle. Add those facts to a dash of self-deprecation and a semester of being the weakest and one can easily imagine how a mental image gets inflated.

One of the weird things I found about Skyrim was that, especially in Whiterun, the NPCs really don't mention the whole dragon attack that much, especially when one was burning down the watchtower less than a mile from the walls. Also, these are Nords, excited for battle and bloodshed and violence. Look at how they cheer on a barfight; they'd be crowding the walls to watch their honored guards defending them from a dragon! Hence why I added the cheering mob. It was also a good way for me to contrast the pair; Yang looks for glory and notes them cheering her name, while Jaune notices the happiness of the crowd, the relief they feel at being saved.