News spreads fast when you make a big splash

"I still can't believe she actually said that! Easy! Quite easy!"

The knight's eyes were wide as he finished his tale. Despite the early morning, the Swordhaven tavern was packed full to bursting. While most knights had elected to return to their homes after the clash with the wind elves, a considerable number headed to the tavern, all buzzing over what they'd seen to spread the news. The other tavern patrons' frustration with the sudden crowd and even more sudden ruckus quickly turned into rapt attention once one of the knights, a Pactagonal Knight by the name of Dame Essinger, began to tell the tale, eyes sparkling as she recounted it in all its vicious glory.

"What happened next?" a dark-haired woman, one of the waitresses prompted, eyes wide. "Did… surely, she came with you all?"

Dame Essinger shook her head. "After talking with His Majesty for a little while—she just went home. Wouldn't even let His Majesty give her a horse or anything. Said she wanted to stretch her legs after being frozen for so long."

"Wait…" Another interrupted, a blonde man peering out from the kitchens. "So the first thing she does after waking up from being frozen for nearly a year… is to go after the head of a conquering army and beat her in a fight?!"

Through all the commotion that erupted at Dame Essinger's enthusiastic "Yes!", a silver-haired man at the end of the bar snorted, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. "That sounds just like her."

"They don't call her the Hero for nothing," the barman agreed, pouring him another round.

Meanwhile, a man in fine clothes looked unimpressed. "So… am I to take it that you louts didn't do anything?" he scoffed. "How wonderful to know our taxes are going to a good cause."

Dame Essinger's face turned red, though it wasn't apparent given her closed helmet. "We were fighting all day! We were the ones who met Yalla's army in the field and–and we mopped up the stragglers," she said, just a little defensively. "But there really wasn't much else for us to do after Riese and Yalla—yeah. A lot of the elves just surrendered after that display. A ton of them were still cowering when we found 'em."

"But couldn't you have helped?" a small child asked, voice high and eyes wide as he gripped a tiny, wooden dagger. "Even the strongest heroes need help, don't they?"

"And get in the way? Please!" She threw back her head and laughed. "With all the daggers and spears and–and scythes flying around, we'd have been cut to pieces if we tried! And we didn't need to, anyway, she had it totally under control. By the end of it, we needed to scrape—" Realizing her audience contained a child, Dame Essinger quickly shut her mouth. "The Hero really did not need any help from us."

"It's true!" another knight, another Pactagonal Knight by the name of Sir Tifai, was quick to interject. His face was absolutely glowing, something visible thanks to his open visor. "It was incredible! Spectacular! Absolutely–"

On the inn's second floor, behind a closed door, Jaania, unable to tune out the sounds of revelry (not for her, of course not for her, but for that reckless, careless—), reached for a pillow to block her ears as she tried to sleep.

Meanwhile, in Moonridge, a trio of mercenaries had taken up a corner of the Dragonfang Inn and though they didn't seem to notice it, had attracted a lot of attention with their loud, impassioned conversation—not that their entrance hadn't attracted attention in and of itself, what with them having traveled there via their own dragons, all of whom were currently napping by the side of the building. Though they weren't aware, they were currently very much the center of attention for each and every one of the inn's patrons, from the brown-haired Paladin by the bar to the Dragonlords stationed upstairs.

"I'm just saying, she didn't have to–to come in and hog all the glory," the female DragonWarrior said fiercely. "I mean, I know she was, like, 'just doing her job' or whatever but… please." She leaned back. "Like, she's already the Hero! I could've… we could've done the same thing."

"Yeah… you totally could've done that backflip into a kick-spin into a reversal with a giant friggin' spear," the DragonMage said wryly. The DragonWarrior turned red and looked away with a huff. "Which exploded and turned into a rain of knives. We totally could've done that. Totally."

"Look, Raf, I'm not saying we could've done the exact same thing…" she began, but the DragonMage only shook his head.

"Seriously, we're good but she's… she beat a dragon that ate the sun, Livy. No shame to admit she's on a completely different level. And you know she only beat her quickly to save lives and whatnot, not to… hog the glory. We've met, you know? During the Vilmor incident? Trust me, she's not the type."

"... it was really cool when she made it rain knives," she finally conceded, even if a little quietly. "And then they all shattered—"

"Because they were all illusions." The DragonRogue's eyes were sparkling. "And she was actually attacking from behind with the scythe and—hmyAvatars, that was so cool, do you think I could learn to do that?! How did she even learn to use illusions anyway? D'you think it was Jonath? D'you think Jonath could teach me how to do them?!"

"Maybe, maybe…" the DragonMage didn't look particularly enthused about the thought. "What was that armor, anyway? I didn't recognize it, did you?"

Both shook their heads. "I've never seen anything like it before," Livy said. "And I'd have remembered armor that had an ab window."

"Mmm… " The DragonRogue looked dreamy. "That ab window…"

"Ven, please stop," Livy grumbled. "Actually, shouldn't you know what that armor was? She is a Rogue."

"Nah, I've definitely never even seen it before. I wish I had," Ven added. "D'you think it's a personal class? Avatars, if it is a personal class, I sure hope she's willing to give lessons because I want it."

The DragonMage frowned. "It can't have been a personal class, I could've sworn I saw something like it in the Sandsea…"

"Oooh, maybe it's some kinda class from those Atal-Atae–goat people! Oh boy, let's go to the Sandsea, maybe they're offering lessons!"

"Hey–hey, sit down, Ven, we only just got here…!"

It was a lively day in Moonridge.

After eight straight hours of hearing nothing else, Sassa felt just about done with all the stories of the Hero.

Even her Mal was no exception and he normally wasn't the type to get swept away in all the fuss about heroes and whatnot. Not this time, though. This time, just like the rest of the soldiers, Mal had done nothing but rave about the Hero, Riese, and how she'd taken down Yalla all by herself and yada yada yada, she gets it. Honestly, she doesn't need the details, the gist was fine. The Hero was great, powerful, more than deserving of her title, she gets it, that's all she needs to know, Mal.

Honestly, it all sounded too outrageous to be real. The way he told it, she came in and slaughtered Yalla in a storm of blades and whatnot. It was all so outlandish Sassa thought he had to be exaggerating. Certainly, there was likely a grain of truth, the Hero of Falconreach was famous for a reason, but… she was sure it wasn't that crazy. Sure, there was the whole debacle with a dragon that ate the sun but she had allies then. Her own dragon. This time, she'd fought and won alone. Which was quite impressive, obviously, but if it really had been as one-sided as the knights made it out to be, Sassa would eat her boot.

In any case, her job was clear and it had nothing to do with listening to more and more of the knights' yapping. Her job was to guard the newest batch of wind-elf prisoners, make sure none of them did any funny business. Truth be told, she'd expected more trouble, she wasn't new to being a guard, but this group… for lack of a better word, they all just seemed subdued. Well, she certainly wasn't going to complain that her job was easy for once…

"She isn't going to be here, right?" one of the prisoners asked her anxiously after they'd all finally been placed into their cells. Like the rest of his companions and very much unlike the usual rabble, he'd all but ran into the cell and slammed the door shut behind him. "That monster, she… she won't be coming here, right?"

She looked at him curiously. "Monster?"

"That... that beast who killed Lady Yalla," the prisoner stammered, eyes wide with terror. "Th-the human… she won't be coming here, right?"

"D'you mean Riese?" she asked, to which the prisoner—all the prisoners, actually—flinched. "She's probably back at Falconreach already. I doubt you'll be seeing her anytime soon… but why?" she had to ask. "Why do you all look so…?"

Scared? Terrified? …Awed?

"Did… did she hurt you?" she had to ask. But that couldn't be right, none of them had been injured when they'd been brought in and Mal would've mentioned if they'd been healed recently…

"She didn't do anything to us," the wind-elf answered, voice high and just a little hysterical. "H-how could she?! She never even…"

"Never even what?" She really hadn't been interested, at first but now, she couldn't help but ask: "What do you mean?"

"We tried to ambush her, do you understand?!" he shouted, making her recoil as the Wind Elf slammed up against the bars, eyes crazed. "We tried to attack her so many times! It should've worked, sh-she looked open, she was busy fighting the Lady Yalla but every… every single time…"

He swallowed.

"She was untouchable," he whispered, awe and terror warring for dominance in his eyes. "Whenever we thought we had her, it was just an-an illusion or some kind of trick, not her, never her. Everything… we used everything we had, spell after spell, arrow after arrow, blade after blade…! She just avoided it all! And it didn't even look like she was trying, hell, she just… it didn't even seem like she noticed that we were…" He swallowed. "We couldn't even–when she started to really attack, we couldn't even come close and-and even when we tried, she didn't even seem to… didn't even seem to…"

"... Seem to what?" The jailer looked at the wind-elf, now truly unable to quash her curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"She didn't even seem to really see us." His eyes looked haunted, dark, and hollow. "The way… the way she looked at us…" He shivered. "It was like we didn't matter. Like we didn't even exist."

"Look, on one hand, I know it sounds crazy but on the other hand—"

"Are you kidding?! This is her we're talking about here, that all sounds just like her!"

"Yeah, seriously, what's one elf with an army to the Hero who killed a dragon that ate the sun?"

"Oh my Avatars, our Hero is back! She's coming back!"

More and more people began to crowd around self-proclaimed warrior-bard who'd just landed in town from gryphon-back, pressing him for more details on the battle and, particularly, the miraculous reappearance of the town's Hero, Riese. Ash was right there with them, fighting to ask his questions. Guardian Kain was only barely able to stop it from turning into an outright stampede, and he was quite obviously resisting the urge to ask for answers of his own. Falconreach was buzzing with the news. For the first time in a very long time, there was news about their Hero, good news, and the joy was infectious.

However, Adriel only felt angry.

That dummy! That absolute big dummy!

Who cared about some dumb elf and her cronies?! He was here, wasn't he?! She should've gone straight home! Didn't she realize how much he missed her and her snacks after all this time?! Hae was way too stingy, he needed her for snacks! And, honestly, that was way too reckless, going straight after some big villain by herself just after she got her dumb head out of that ice. Yeah, of course she could take care of a bunch of whackjob elves on her own but she didn't have to. What she should've done was go straight home so that they could fight against her together! They were supposed to always be together! Didn't she know that?! That was the whole point of her being a Dragonlord!

And to think he picked today of all days to stay in. Seriously, he was at the ice block yesterday, why couldn't have she gotten out then!? Or the week before that? Or the month before that?! In fact, why did she have to get herself stuck in some stupid ice block anyway?! Honestly, she was always making things way more complicated than they had to be. He was definitely gonna have to give her a piece of his mind when she got home. And he was going to wait for her to get home.

Sure, he really was itching to go out and look for her but no. Why should he? He visited her almost every day and this was the thanks he got? Her getting out the one time he wasn't around? And now, what, he was just supposed to come flying after her, even though she didn't even bother to do the right thing and go straight home? No. Heck no!

He might really, really want to see her but after what she just did, he's going to stay right here. That'll show her not to go straight home after leaving him alone for so long! She could take the initiative of coming to him for once!

And besides, the guy who brought the news said she was already on her way home and what if he ended up missing her? What if, by the time he reached the Fairglade or wherever it was that she had her little fight with Yalla, she already got home to here in Falconreach? He can't miss her again! He's missed her enough as it is!

So, no. He was going to stay right here and wait for her. Or, well, not here here but here. Falconreach. Maybe in their house or in the inn, whatever, as long as it was in Falconreach. Where she was heading because she was finally out of the ice. Awake. Unfrozen. After all that time, she was finally out and he was going to see her awake again and they were going to go on adventures and—

Without paying any more mind to the guy who brought the news, now bragging about coming up with an epic to "commemorate her deeds" (seriously, didn't he know she already had like six of those?), he did his best not to smile as he began to make his way home, flying happy circles through the air as he sped home to spread the news.

She was coming home!

This was a bit weird for me to write. All the praise and whatnot. I hope it's understandable, given the whole famous person miraculously making a comeback to slaughter a rising threat, without breaking a sweat. The Riese of that time would've struggled a lot more, compared to her Inn-trained and prepared counterpart. Hope this was enjoyable, anyway.