Reis blinked in the dim dawn light, peering into the foggy haze that hung low over the bridge. The mist covered all; tents, sleeping people, the black asphalt of the road…not even the slightest pale yellow of the early morning sky was visible, only dull, flat grey that thickened along with the distance. Stretching, she stood up, tilting her head left and right, before flying off into the sky. There's much to do…but I guess the Esthar army can deal with the Galbadians…
The large artillery vehicles below shrunk to dot-like squares as she soared higher into the sky. Birds dived out of her way as she beat her wings in forward movement, plunging several feet before rising up again. Feeling the cool, morning air brush and caress her face, she felt a sense of bliss, peace beyond all that she could remember. The sun began to rise further up into the sky; now a semicircle of gold upon the sapphire ocean, illuminating the darkness gradually as it rose, slowly, dignified. Reis stopped for a moment, glancing at the scene of peace. If only…I could have a peaceful, ordered, stable year…no, month, or even week…I would be very thankful. Never have I had a rest, for there is always someone out to persecute us dragoners. What have we done? What evil have we done? The truth will always delude me. I will forever seek the answer to this problem…and I will never find it, I assume. Maybe I should speak to the dragons that were said to live north-east of Esthar…If the sun rose from the east, then I will go that way.
Diving down into the fog again, Reis began to speed along, beating her wings madly in an effort to reach Esthar as fast as she could. I never mind some exercise in the morning…
The calm, glassy surface of the deep blue broke into frothing white foam as Reis zoomed past, her speed whipping up the waves on previously lucid waters. Sparkling droplets stuck to her wings as she beat them ever faster, occasionally touching the smooth surface of the water. She made skipping movements over the large, round sapphire, pretending to be a nymph of the ocean. Her feet skimmed the tops of the waves, dividing them, the water peacefully surrounding her toes and receding again as she rose and fell in the air.
It's so good…to have peace like this…I miss…I miss the old days, when I could go without fear of being attacked.
The rose-coloured cliffs of Esthar loomed in the distance, hazy with a fine grey mist of smoke. If that were west, then I need to go north of that…
Veering over to her left, Reis began to head northeast. Up and around little caverns she went, dodging overhanging rocks and weaving her way through the various sea stacks and arches. Up she went, over a cliff…when she spotted a red, large object, which she knew would be what she was looking for.
The dragoner landed with a soft series of dull thumps as her feet stepped down on the mossy ground, the red dragon only giving a surprised look at her as it noticed her scaly, dragon-like wings.
'Good morning, dragon,'
'I never knew humans could understand us,' the dragon replied gruffly, clawing its way towards Reis, examining her closely with a dark eye.
'I'm not totally human, as you can clearly see,'
'Oh, part dragon?' it snorted, raising its large head to her eye level.
'Indeed. I would like to ask you about the creator of this item…I believe that you may have seen her at some stage in your life,' Reis said, pulling out the dragon-hilted sword of light. The dragon stared at the decoration, before hissing its rather unfeeling answer.
'Lucrece had died decades ago,' the dragon hissed, 'She was…possibly one of the kindest humans who had obtained the gift of dragon-speech. She was the one who looked after all of us. She was the one that fought for our rights. She was the one who represented us. Of course we knew her well. However, she had been…assaulted in a manner most repugnant, to us dragons and to you humans and half-dragons. Shocked, she took up her knife…and slit her own throat, rather than bear the child of a filthy, dishonourable human criminal. Death…would have been welcome for her instead of the loss of her high-held honour. That is all I have to say of her,'
'I see…' Reis replied, disgusted by the facts given, and also amazed at Lucrece's given, albeit short, life story given by this dragon, 'Farewell,'
'You are welcome for talking to me. It has been…at least fifty years since anyone talked to me. Lucrece last spoke…to me…minutes before she committed suicide. I must admit…it is lonely, being a dragon and alone as well. May I come with you? At least I shall have some task to perform, rather than sit here doing nothing, avoiding hunting parties as they pass,'
'You would be most welcome to come with me. By the way, are there any other dragon-speakers that you know of or have heard of?'
'Yes…to think about it. However, I have lost contact with them during Queen Ultimecia's long, iron-handed grip on the world. Thank heavens that she had been sealed by magical means, we dragons would have been extinct by now if she were not defeated. There were seven original dragon-speakers in this world; all female, all beautiful, and all very proud and honourable people, reflecting the values that we, the dragons, hold. However, six died by execution at distant locations, or so I heard. Lucrece was the survivor, and continued to live for the next thousand years, nurturing us dragons and our hatchlings as if we were her own children… We have regarded her as nearly our mother and caretaker, a leader, a supreme goddess. Of the other six, I know little,'
So there are dragoners in this world…Reis thought, Persecuted, attacked, excluded from normal society. Exactly like it is in Ivalice. What makes us so special? What makes us that feared or hated? What is it that makes us so…oh, I am at a loss to describe any more of this ridiculous prejudice. Something about us causes the humans to hate us…most of them, that is, for there are always exceptions…
'Come, let us leave. There is a siege at Fisherman's Horizon, and the Estharian army is being mobilized for the first time in years. We must hurry, the sun is quite high already, and we will be late if we do not make haste,'
The two took off into the light blue sky, zooming through the air towards the endless ocean. Following the course of a bridge, Reis found herself in a totally different scene to what she had seen in the morning…
Fisherman's Horizon, normally a peaceful, quiet town, was up in flames; many of its buildings were on fire, while others were reduced to rubble. Numerous gunshots could be heard even from the distance; the battle was not over yet. The Estharian army had obviously been forced into retreat; many bodies of metal-clad soldiers littered the far side of the road, painted in purple, with few, if any, blue-uniformed Galbadian casualties. Now the fighting had descended into street-by-street warfare; the Estharians were entrenched at various points behind fallen walls and in craters in roads, caused by artillery bombardment.
Soldiers fell dead as bullets ripped through their bodies; civilians were not excluded from the fire. A wave of fury spread over Reis as a weeping girl, only about the age of five, approached her, sobbing on her battle gear, before she was shot by a Galbadian soldier, who laughed at the girl's cry of pain. Reis quickly placed the girl against the brick wall, and drew her katana. Advancing upon the lone soldier, she glared at the still-smug face, hating it, an urge to destroy the person pulsing through her mind. Not one chance was given to the soldier to repent as Reis tore him into two halves with her katana. Turning back to the wounded girl, she kneeled over her bleeding body.
'Poor girl…I will try my best to heal you, don't worry, everything will be fine,' Reis whispered, cuddling the little girl in her arms to calm her down. Weaving her hands in a complex healing spell, Reis closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the thought of healing the injured girl. A flash of soft golden light later and the girl's wound had been sealed, leaving her in a quite stable condition but still shocked by the unprovoked attack by the soldier.
'I will take you somewhere safe,' Reis said into her ear, picking up the girl and leaving her on the dragon's back, 'Please remain still, and guard this spot. Do not allow anyone to touch the girl, especially a soldier of Galbadia. Also, do not attack anyone that appears to be a non-combatant,'
The dragon grunted to assure Reis of its understanding, and the dragoner dashed off into the city under fire to assist the rest of the Estharian soldiers.
Squadrons of Galbadian soldiers were opening fire on a number of Estharian soldiers, forcing them to remain inside the crater or be shot. Sprinting towards them, her blade dragging on the ground and emitting fiery sparks, she shouted an indistinct word, the other blade held above her head as she charged. Down came the blade, and decapitated three men in one fell swing, and up came the other, and ripped a few others in two. She thrust the blood-stained left blade into a squad commander, just as she struck off his head with the other katana. Kicking off the dead body, she continued to rampage through the soldiers, scattering them in a sea of blood and guts.
A bullet entered the gap in her armour underneath her thigh; she buckled slightly as the shot sped through her flesh and bone, zipping out the other side. Flames shone within the ultramarine coldness of her eyes, before she pointed her blade at the group of soldiers that were aiming at her.
'Doom of a planet…Crush punch!' she panted, stabbing the katana towards the laughing group. Disintegrating into loose fragments of bloody pieces of meat and bone, they were soon deprived of anything to laugh about. Sweeping her blade in a wide arc as she repeatedly muttered that incantation, the air was thick with blood mist, fragments of bone flying like a number of grenades. When all the debris had settled, she slumped down onto the nearest wall, breathing heavily and clutching her leg. There was a large hole in her lower thigh, where the projectile had entered her flesh, and exited at the other end. Her blood ran down her white hands, dripping onto the already-bloodstained road.
As if my blood would make a difference here, anyway. There's enough blood that I've spilled here for a whole war…
'Ugh…life's refreshing breeze, cure!' she gasped, the colour draining from her face as another bullet struck her chest right above her heart; if it were not for the Impermacite plating above her breast, she would have been reunited with her love by now. Standing up once more, she made a grabbing movement with her hands towards the sniper who had attempted to kill her.
Dangling hopelessly in the air, the man clutched at his throat, his face turning purple the longer that she held him up. Drawing her hand back and making a throwing movement, she watched the man fly through the air and slam into the wall of a flaming house in rage.
'Reis?' a familiar voice said, 'Is that you?'
'Quistis?' Reis answered back, turning around. Sure enough, there was the instructor, her glasses askew, bullet wounds liberally spread over her body, neither large nor at vital spots. She was, at least, fortunate enough not to have any bullets strike too seriously…
'What're you doing here, Reis? And in that ridiculous suit of armour?'
'Oh, forget about the armour. It looks ridiculous but it's saved my life more than once already. We must kill the Galbadians before they overrun the city!'
'I will stay here and prevent any more coming this way,' she said, walking over to an Estharian entrenchment, which was unmanned.
'Then I will rout the rest of the army. Try not to die,' Reis shouted at Quistis as she ran, smiling.
'It should be me that says that to you, not the other way around!' Quistis yelled back, waving at the blonde woman. Since when did she have wings?
Minute after minute, hour after hour, second after second, Reis hacked and slashed her way through the sea of Galbadian invaders. Blood ran down the roadside gutters as the spilled blood flowed into them, creating a trickle, a stream, a steady flow of crimson fluid. It was…nearly a bloodbath. Tens of thousands of Galbadian heads and severed body parts were strewn all over the cobbled streets, more than half of the city on fire…it was nearly a living image of hell. Sitting down on top of a pyramid of dead corpses, Reis dropped her katana and sobbed into her hands.
Purity…had been my most highly valued attributes during my childhood…My conscience is right…I am not the pure Reis that I once knew. Love can solve war. It can stop war. It can prevent war. While fighting can end wars, it breeds more wars; violence breeds violence; love breeds love; greed creates more greed. I must…repent and make amends…I must not see Beowulf before I am once more a clean, gentle maid…
Where is the inner peace that I once had, when I need it? When I walk the valley of death, where does the peace go? My soul is troubled, my spirit befouled. Body may be strong, but spirit destroyed; what does that amount to? Mind may be brilliant, but soul bereft. What is that good for? Nothing. Exactly nothing.
A/N
End of another long chapter…and also nearly the end of another week for me. Writing fanfictions is very addictive, I find...