Dragon Summoning

by LordsFire

Louise summons a creature both capable, and willing to act independently, and in a mature manner. Moved from Familiar and Unfamiliar Summonings.

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

AN: I think posting Cameron's Legacy on Spacebattles first has spoiled me; I've become frustrated with my inability to post responses to some of the comments I've gotten in reviews promptly. For example, where on earth did so many people get the idea that there are no security systems built into the armor's interface? None of the Valliere's or their retainers even understand the language the interface uses, much less how to manipulate it, or even necessarily that it is ever any different than what they've already seen. I suppose it's simply a case of, since it is not seen, its absence is assumed.

Also, sorry for posting this a day later than my usual schedule, traveling over Thanksgiving delayed my posting. I'm hoping the large size makes up for it.

((()))

The royal castle of Gallia was a large, well-fortified structure, legitimately designed to serve as a military stronghold. And late at night, the upper towers made for an excellent covert rendezvous location, if one of the parties involved lived within the castle, and the other had a flying mount.

One of the upper towers was currently receiving exactly such a use, as a large flying beast bore its rider down to one of the tower's pinnacle.

"Wales is dead," The rider said to a man sitting in shadows on the tower's top.

"Good," The man said, "Anything else?"

"Henrietta will be traveling to visit the Valliere estate," The rider said, "To keep her childhood friend company while she is ill."

"Her friend is Louise Valliere?" The second man said sharply.

"Yes," The rider said.

"Excellent," The second man said, a smile in his voice, "We can use this."

((()))

"I wish to speak with Louise's familiar," Henrietta said.

Karin frowned.

"Your Highness," Karin said, "Louise's familiar is a very dangerous creature, At least a triangle mage of earth, wind, and fire, and I am not certain I can guarantee your safety around it if it is awake."

Henrietta arched an eyebrow at that.

"So dangerous that the Heavy Wind herself is cautious?" She asked.

"I have fought with him twice," Karin said, "The first time, I had to have my right arm partially regrown and reattached after the fight. The second time, I had to have my left hand regrown. The only ones besides myself I would trust around him, would be my daughter, and her handmaiden, as he is emotionally invested in their protection."

Henrietta was genuinely surprised, Louise had fallen asleep before she had progressed far enough in her recounting of her life since Joshua's arrival to speak of the Knight's fight with the Heavy Wind, though she had made it clear her familiar was a formidable combatant. Ultimately though, the question was whether she trusted Karin's estimation of the out-worlder's character better, or Louise's.

"I understand your concern," Henrietta said cordially, "And I will make sure my guardsmen understand you protest the safety of me doing so, but I must insist on meeting him. Without you present."

Karin was clearly not happy with Henrietta's proclamation, but she did the Princess' bidding.

((()))

This time, when Joshua awoke, he gave no outward sign of it. He simply lay there, listening, and reaching out with his magical senses to see who, if anyone, was nearby. He heard the soft breathing of two individuals within the enclosure that held him, too faint to have been heard if he had been using his human ears. He could sense the distinct, and powerful, magic of Karin a modest distance from the enclosure, her powerful signature recognizable even through the distortion of the wards they had raised around him. Much closer, was a water user of considerable power, her magical presence refined, showing a greater discipline and control than the students at the Academy had, save for Tabitha, but lesser than the teachers had. Whoever she was, it did not seem likely that she was expected to serve as some kind of threat.

So, he opened his eyes, and looked at her. He immediately recognized both people in the room; the one without a magical signature was Siesta, the one with was Louise's childhood friend, Princess Henrietta. That, he had not expected. Siesta and the Princess were both seated in wooden chairs, reading quietly, and apparently waiting for him to wake up. Joshua really wished he had a more recent source of information about the Princess' character than Louise's memories from seven years ago. His actions here and now would most probably determine whether his nation would find itself fighting a second war, brief as it would be.

"You know," He said softly-well, softly for a Dragon massing more than four tons, meaning his voice was a low rumble that could be mistaken for distant thunder, "It's generally considered unwise to leave the second-ranking leader of your nation unguarded with an armed prisoner of war."

Both of the young woman startled at his words, looking up from their reading material to stare at him. The Princess opened her mouth to respond, but Siesta pre-empted her, both in speed, and magnitude of response.

"Joshua!" She exclaimed, joy and relief permeating both her voice and face, leapt to her feet, and rushed across the chamber to embrace the front of his face.

Joshua would have said something in response, but was rather stymied by the fact that Siesta had wrapped herself around the front of his jaw, and the movements involved in speaking would have risked accidentally chewing on her. And with the size of his teeth in this form, when he chewed on someone, it was usually the last thing they experienced.

Taking a moment to flex the assorted muscles in his body and ensure his control was not compromised by lingering effects of sleep, brought his tail around, and gently slipped it between Siesta and his muzzle. He then lifted her up, which elicited a squeak of surprise from the maid, and carefully set her down on top of his skull, directly over his eyes, before turning his attention back to the Princess.

Who was giggling. Joshua rolled his eyes as he felt Siesta embrace him from above, attaching herself to the top of his skull, then beginning to giggle a little herself.

"What's so funny?" Joshua asked, some exasperation slipping into his tone.

"Your fur," Siesta said, and he could hear the smile in her voice, "It tickles, a little."

Joshua looked to the Princess, and she took a moment to stop her giggles before answering as well.

"You're not very imposing with Siesta hanging off of your face," Henrietta said, smiling prettily at him, "You're probably the least intimidating Dragon I've ever met."

Joshua seemed to wilt at Henrietta's words, turning his head away, and moving Siesta again, this time setting her down on the floor as he curled his head beneath his wing, and then partially furled the wing to hide it fully.

"Not many share your opinion," He said, his voice reaching an even deeper, more gravelly range than usual for his Draconic form.

Henrietta was more than a little surprised at his response to her words; she had met many men who she believed would take such comments as an affront to their masculinity, and in retrospect, she was not his Princess, so really should not have been so free with her words, but he seemed more upset that more didn't see him as she did. While she was thinking, Siesta was acting, striding purposefully around Joshua's large body, and then crawling up underneath his wing to sit on his head.

"Joshua N'bara," She said firmly, voice strong enough that Henrietta could hear her even though it was muffled by Joshua's wing, "I do not know who it is that is afraid of you, but unless they have done something genuinely deserving serious punishment, they are fools to be such. You are the most kind-hearted and protective man I have ever known, and I would consider myself safer held in your claws, than with the entire Tristanian army protecting me."

Surprising Henrietta yet again, the Dragon began trembling, its body shaking a way that if he had been human, Henrietta would have been certain meant he was attempting to not cry. She suddenly felt horribly like she was intruding on something terribly private, and was torn about what to do. On the one hand, she really did need to speak with Louise's familiar, on the other hand, it would be rude to intrude during his moment of vulnerability. Deciding that she needed to compromise, she withdrew her wand, and cast a spell first to ward the chamber as a whole from eavesdroppers, then a second to isolate a bubble around herself from anything less than an outright shout. That accomplished, she picked up her book again, one of Louise's secret stash of romance novels, and deliberately set about distracting herself with it.

((()))

"Joshua," Siesta asked quietly as she stroked the fur on his brow, "What is it that troubles you so?"

The Dragon Siesta was more or less surrounded by at this point shifted beneath her, and made an unhappy noise, but Siesta waited, and continued with her stroking.

"How long has it been since I first fought Karin?" He said eventually, and Siesta could hear the strain in his voice.

"Most of a month," Siesta admitted.

"I've been away from everyone I've ever known, fresh from the battlefield, without support, resupply, or rest time, for two months," Joshua rumbled quietly, "And people keep unintentionally reminding me of what happened to my family. I'm facing stress burn-out from having to be on-guard for a month."

"This isn't just stress," Siesta said gently as she began stroking progressively further down his face, "You're hurting, inside."

Joshua said nothing, but she could feel him trembling again, and the wetness building around his large eyes.

"Why do you fight to keep it inside so much?" Siesta asked softly, leaning in to hug Joshua's head for a moment, before resuming her stroking.

"My parents were killed in the attack that started the war," Joshua said thickly, "That made me a leader, for my sisters first, and later others. Leaders don't lose it in front of their subordinates."

"I'm not your subordinate," Siesta said firmly, "And I have many siblings, and know how to tell when someone needs a good cry. And right now, you do."

Joshua's angry growl surprised her, and as she was standing directly next to his very large jaw, jabbed the instinctive fear response intrinsic all humans shared hard. Siesta promptly ignored the instinct, as deliberately learned instincts told her that reacting in fear to Joshua would be the worst possible way she could respond to him in that moment.

"What I need," Joshua growled, intense heat not only in his voice, suddenly rolling off his body all around her, "Is to return to my nation, to the war it is fighting, to protect my people."

"I believe you," Siesta said firmly, "And I wish I was able to help you with that, but I am just a commoner maid, and both a younger and older sister. You may need to return to your people, but you also need a good cry, before all the pressure breaks you inside."

The heat rolling off of Joshua's body ceased, and he shied away from her, a futile action considering she was literally standing on him, and she knew her point had been made, even if he wasn't willing to admit it yet. When she felt the moisture that had been limited to his eyes a moment before begin to spread though, she realized that her words had probably touched his heart in deeper places that he wanted right now. Siesta fought off the urge to sigh; he was just like her brothers, wanting to always be the strong, independent man, and to not need to rely on anyone.

Taking a moment to think, she figured out what the best way to maximize physical contact for comforting effect with her vastly smaller size relative to his was as best she could, then firmly wrapped his head in a hug again, and began murmuring comforting words to him while she stroked him with one free hand.

((()))

It was a good quarter of an hour later by the time Siesta emerged from the Dragon's curled body, and Henrietta had managed to sufficiently involve herself in her reading that she did not notice Siesta until the maid entered her sound-warded bubble.

"He's fallen asleep, Princess," Siesta said, with a bittersweet smile, "He probably would be more amenable if you don't refer to it as such, but he cried himself to sleep in my arms. He'll almost certainly be awake again in a half an hour or so, as he's only sleeping off the emotional exhaustion."

Henrietta lowered her book, and just studied the maid. Siesta was not what Henrietta had come to expect from the commoners amongst her subjects. The girl's first response to a Dragon speaking with her, had been to hug its snout, and by what Henrietta had picked up from Louise's story the previous night, Siesta had not spent time with Joshua while he was in his Dragon form, or at the least, while he was in his Dragon form, and conscious. She also had not missed that the maid's body language spoke clearly that she would defer to the Dragon, before she would defer to Henrietta. A brief glance through memory had shown the same attitude regarding Louise. Henrietta was also fairly certain that Siesta had fallen in love with Joshua, but never having seen him as a human, it was hard for her to properly wrap her mind around that.

"Siesta," Henrietta said, "I must say, you are far more impressive than most of the common folk of my realm."

"T-thank you your Highness," Siesta stuttered, suddenly blushing as she looked away from Henrietta.

"I've seen the way you look at Louise, and Joshua," Henrietta said, "It is clear to me that you are very loyal to both of them, but from Louise's accounting, she only met you two months ago. How is it that she earned your loyalty so quicky?"

Siesta was silent for a moment, and when she looked back to meet Henrietta's gaze, she was definitely no longer blushing.

"Did she tell you about Joshua's duel with Lord Sothos?" Siesta asked quietly.

"Yes," Henrietta said.

"Did she tell you why Joshua fought with Sothos?" Siesta asked.

"She said that Sothos was harassing the women on the castle staff," Henrietta said, "Was it you he was harassing in particular?"

"I was his most recent target," Siesta said sadly, "But he'd raped at least five women before, three of them often enough to get them pregnant."

Siesta started as Henrietta's silence ward came apart in a loud splatter, while the Princess' fist clenched around her wand.

"This is Martel Sothos," Henrietta said, her diction painfully precise, "Second son of the Sothos family, you speak of?"

Siesta nodded, slightly unnerved by Henrietta's sudden mood swing.

"I have heard nothing of this," Henrietta said, her voice sharpening till it was almost bloody, "And if there had been a trial, it would have been at the Capital. What became of Sothos?"

"Joshua unmanned him," Siesta said, a touch of ire entering her tone, "With sword and flame, after which he was expelled from the academy."

Henrietta nodded sharply.

"I suppose that is an acceptable outcome, for now," Henrietta said, "However, I will be contacting the Sothos family, and informing them that if the regenerate Martel's organs, or have already done so, the Crown will be prosecuting him for rape to the maximum extent of the law."

Siesta stared at Henrietta, face slack and eyes wide with shock, and Henrietta realized rather abruptly realized just how Louise and Joshua had earned the maid's loyalty, and that she had just done so herself. It was not as though her own story with Agnes was terribly different.

"Miss Siesta," Henrietta said, staring directly into the young maid's eyes, "It will not be long before I become the new monarch of Tristain. I will tell you now, very plainly, that when I do, I intend to change a great many things, things that most of the nobility will object to strenuously. Your mistress, Louise, is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I will need her as a strong, loyal ally to help me weather the opposition I will face. She relies on your services greatly, and from listening to more than just what she said, she has come to rely on your support personally as well. If you wish to support the changes I will be making, please do so by supporting Louise."

Before he had died, Henrietta's father had taught her a great deal about the skills a ruler needed, and one of the foremost was how to make people feel like their every-day efforts were part of an overall greater purpose. It was a skill she was often hesitant about putting into practice, as it could tend to feel like an almost-lie, but in this case, what she said was nothing but the truth, and she had no compunctions about using it.

"Th-thank you, your highness," Siesta said, smiling tremulously at Henrietta.

"There is no need to thank me," Henrietta said, smiling at the maid, "After all, nobility and royalty are only worth being nobility and royalty, when they rule well."

Siesta nodded sharply, tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes, and Henrietta knew she had another subject committed to her cause.

((()))

When Joshua woke again, it was to the sound of Henrietta and Siesta quietly exchanging stories of growing up in the Tristain Palace, and Tarbes, respectively. He listened to them for a time, quietly removing his wing from over his head so that he could hear more clearly, and allowed the tales of simple everyday life, and the girl's occassional giggles, to soothe him. He only allowed a few minutes to pass this way, however, as he knew there had to be a greater purpose than idle curiosity behind the Princess staying and waiting for him to wake up again.

"I'm awake," He eventually said, bringing his head around to face the pair of attractive young women, "I assume you wished to speak with me about something more?"

"Yes," Henrietta said, turning gracefully to face him, "I have spoken with Louise, and received a partial accounting of the events since you arrived in Halkeginia. And also, apparently, she has been seeing your memories in her dreams."

Joshua closed his eyes, and sighed at that, his breath gusting about the enclosure. He sighed again, then his body began to glow, rapidly growing in intensity to become painfully bright, and when it faded, Joshua was human again. It took Siesta and Henrietta a few moments to blink away the flash-blindness, and in that time, Joshua smashed a fist through the floor of the enclosure, and levitated up a mass of loose earth to use as an improvised pair of trunks. Modesty preserved, he walked over to the other two, and seated himself cross-legged on the earth in front of them.

"I'm not entirely surprised," Joshua said, "I have been seeing her memories in my dreams as well, since Karin defeated me. Before then, I calibrated my sleeping patterns to only overlap a little, as such things have been known to happen when my people form magical bonds before."

Henrietta nodded before speaking herself.

"There are anecdotes of mages having strange dreams of hunting or grazing after binding their familiar," Henrietta said, eying Joshua speculatively, "I suppose it is unsurprising they would be more intense amongst two intelligent beings. Tell me though, Duchess Valliere believes you are a Dragon taken human form, and Louise believes you are a human who can take Dragon form, which is it?"

"Neither, actually," Joshua said, smirking slightly, "Both forms are equally natural to me. I was born in human form, but some few of my kindred are born as Dragons, and make the change in the opposite direction."

"I must admit," Henrietta said, studying him carefully as she spoke, "Of all possible responses, that one had not occured to me. Louise painted a fantastic picture of your world for me, a world of incredible wealth, where the ability to use magic does not divide commoner from noble, and the machines of commoners, or perhaps more accurately, non-magicals, put them on a parity with magic-users."

"That would be one way of describing it," Joshua said, "I'm frankly amazed by how stagnant your world has managed to remain. Professor Colbert at the academy is most probably doing more for your people with his mechanical tinkering than any entire generation has with any other endeavour in the last six thousand years. The one advantage your people have over mine, is having managed to maintain a history for six thousand years."

"I wish our histories did us better credit," Henrietta said quietly, "I have desired change for my people for some time, and I hope that you may be able to tell me more of your world, so that I can better learn to enact it."

"Well then," Joshua said, "I'll be happy to fill you in."

((()))

Tabitha had never seen the Valliere estates before, but she knew about the Heavy Wind, and was not entirely surprised by the heavily-fortified nature of its core settlement. Considering how heavily the walls were both armed, and manned, she decided that it would be in her, Kirche, Sylphid, and Flame's best interests to land a good half mile from the castle, and approach the castle at a slow, leisurely walk, careful to appear as non-threatening as a pair of triangle-mages escorted by a Dragon and a Salamander could. It appeared to work, as they were challenged, rather than attacked, when they reached the gate. Kirche was still terribly aware that six different ballistae on the walls were trained on their position.

"Hail!" The Valliere armsman at the gate called as they reached the gate, "Who be you Ladies, and what brings you to the castle Valliere?"

Kirche opened her mouth to respond, but Tabitha laid her hand on the Germanian girl's arm. The redhead looked down at her diminutive companion, who shook her head, then lowered her book, and stood straighter. Kirche was more than a little unnerved, as the last time she had seen Tabitha stand so, they had fought. Instead of attacking, however, Tabitha addressed the guard, raising her voice to the highest volume the Germanian had ever heard it reach.

"I am Charlotte d'Orleans," Tabitha said clearly, "And I have come to speak with Henrietta of Tristain. I bid you send someone to inform her of such. We will wait here."

Kirche stared at Tabitha in confusion, then turned to look at the gateman, but found he had followed Tabitha's instruction, so she turned back to her friend.

"Charlotte d'Orleans?" Kirche asked, confusion and a small amount of hurt in her voice, "I have never asked your family or title, but I had thought Tabitha was your real name?"

Tabitha looked down and away from Kirche, but not before Kirche was able to notice the pain in the smaller girl's eyes. Kirche felt the impulse to, and was her nature, did not resist, so reached over and hugged her friend tightly.

"Will you tell me later?" Kirche said, "When we have some privacy?"

Tabitha trembled in her grip for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. Seeing no reason not to, Kirche continued to hold Tabitha, until the gateman returned.

"The Princess will receive you within," He said, "She specifically instructed that you were not to be required to surrender your wands. Your familiars may wait within the courtyards."

The man gestured for them to follow him within, and they did so, Slyphid having to manage her wings carefully in order to avoid scraping them against the gate's walls. They passed through the outer wall, the outer courtyard, the inner wall, and the inner courtyard, before entering the inner keep. Flame and Slyphid remained on the grounds, Flame following Slyphid, who broke off with a gesture from Tabitha. Once within the keep, they passed to the second floor, and several corridors, before coming to a small but comfortably furnished sitting room with two other exits, where the Princess of Tristain awaited, sitting at a small table, and sipping tea. A pair of royal guardsman flanked the entrance to the room, and to their surprise, Siesta was seated with the Princess.

"Charlotte," She said when the pair entered, smiling warmly at the bluenette, "I have not seen you since we were children, come, have a seat, and please introduce your friend?"

Tabitha nodded her head in greeting, but looked at Siesta, rather than introduce Kirche directly.

"Ah," Siesta said standing to seat the newly-arrived nobles, trying to overcome her surprise at seeing the pair, "Princess, she is Kirche von Zerbst, a student at Tristain Academy."

"A Zerbst?" Henrietta said as Siesta served Tabitha and Kirche tea, eyebrows rising slightly in surprise, "Quite daring, to come within the stronghold of your traditional rivals like this. Do sit down again, Siesta. What brings the two of you to the Valliere estates?"

Kirche was accustomed to speaking for the pair, but was hesitant to do so given recent events, so instead looked to Tabitha for a signal about what to do next. Tabitha nodded slightly for Kirche to speak, and Kirche turned back to face the pair of Tristainians.

"I was unaware, your Highness," Kirche said, "That Ta-, er, Charlotte, was personally acquainted with you. If she has social business with you, I am unaware of it, but at the least, we have come to see to the care of the Knight who is Louise Valliere's familiar. I wouldn't mind speaking with Louise herself, either."

"Oh?" Henrietta said, arching an eyebrow, "What is it about a familiar, albeit an unusual one, that interests a scion of the Zerbst, and the Heir to the throne of Gallia?"

Kirche opened her mouth to respond, before her brain fully caught the last part of Henrietta's statement, then began to choke as her brain locked up halfway through her first word. Turning, she stared in shock at Tabitha, mouth still hanging open as she tried to reconcile her near-mute friend with the words of the Princess of Tristain.

Tabitha for her part, sat as still as ever, her face a tight mixture of concentration and pain. She did not look at Kirche, but kept her gaze fixed upon the Heir of Tristain, and then spoke, very slowly and haltingly.

"My familiar," Tabitha said, "Is much like Louise' Familiar, but much younger. He showed concern for her, even to willingness to fight me to ensure she was well-treated. Kirche is romantically interested in him."

Henrietta gazed at Kirche for a few moments, sizing the tall, well-endowed girl up, before turning to meet Charlotte's gaze, keen eyes meeting the bluenette's own determined ones.

"He has had a rough time," Hernrietta said, "But is in good physical health, and I may be placing him under my personal protection before my visit concludes. I have spoken with him, Louise, and Siesta about the events since he arrived within my realm, and I see an honorable man in him. Or Dragon. Or whatever he is."

Tabitha nodded minutely, and Kirche managed to finally get her brain in gear.

"Heir to the Throne of Gallia?" She practically exploded, "I thought the King was without issue!"

"He is," Henrietta said, turning to fix her gaze upon Kirche, "Charlotte is his niece, and there are none closer related. There is something not right here though, Charlotte is nothing like what I remember from so many years ago, and I gather she has been under an assumed name at the Tristain Academy."

She turned to face the bluenette again.

"What is going on, Charlotte?" She asked firmly, "Why are you so quiet?"

Tabitha finally broke her gaze off of Henrietta, by closing her eyes. The girl's death became deep, and labored, and all the other occupants of the room could readily see that she was struggling mightily against tears.

"Father killed," Her soft voice eventually revealed, "Mother poisoned, driven mad. They will kill her if I disobey. Sent on suicide missions since I was seven."

Kirche stared at her friend in horror. She knew that Tabitha's history and familial relations were not pleasant, but she had assumed it was something more along the lines of her own, not this. Siesta was silently crying, and fidgeting with her hands as she tried to decide whether or not it would be appropriate to offer the smaller girl comfort via a hug.

Henrietta, on the other hand, was staring at empty space past Tabitha's head, her eyes narrowed as she began tallying assets and allies, and what she knew of conditions within Gallia.

"Where is your mother being held?" She asked after long seconds in contemplation, "I may be able to arrange for her retrieval."

Siesta, Kirche, and Tabitha all immediately faced Henrietta, expressions ranging from surprise to shock at her unexpected words.

"You could end up in a war with Gallia!" Kirche said in startlement, "How on earth would you accomplish such a thing, anyways?"

"War is doubtful," Henrietta said, her voice harsh as she turned to face Kirche, "It has not been made public yet, but I am soon to be wed to the Emperor of Germania. Gallia is powerful, but King Joseph would be a fool to face both Tristain's elite mages, and the sheer size of the Germanian army combined. I do not think you knew Charlotte before her family was destroyed. It was many years ago, but she still stands out in my mind as one of the most innocent, friendly girls I have ever met. Look at her now!"

Henrietta gestured to the silent, trembling bluenette, anger clear in her voice.

"I can not stand such atrocities on any level nation. If I do nothing, I give my tacit assent to such things through my inaction."

Siesta smiled through her tears, and rested the urge to applaud Henrietta's words. Tabitha wrapped her arms around herself as she continued to struggle with her emotions.

Kirche did not know how to respond to Henrietta's words, so did nothing.

"Kirche of the Zerbst," Henrietta said, continuing to stare at the fiery redhead, "As I recall, a political marriage was arranged for you, to a count three times your age. I am sure that part of the reason you are at Tristain Academy, rather than a Germanian or Gallian school, is because of your opposition to this?"

Kirche nodded slightly.

"Then you know just as well as I do," Henrietta said, pain beginning to leak past the anger in her voice, "Something in Halkeginia is rotten, corrupt. Change is needed."

Her eyes blazed with a fire so hot, a fire like nothing Kirche had ever seen in a woman before, and for the first time, Kirche understood what a charismatic leader was.

"I mean to bring that change," Henrietta said, "And soon enough, your realm will be allied with my own. Will you aid me in bringing that change?"

Kirche had made her life around seeking out passion, and responding to it, and found that nothing in her was willing to do anything but consent to the fiery woman before her, and so she nodded sharply in assent.

Henrietta leaned back into her seat, and closed her eyes. She took deep, even breaths, striving for calm, but Siesta could see the pain in her body language as the anger and zeal faded.

"Princess," She said hesitantly, and Henrietta turned her head and opened her eyes to look at the maid, "Princess," Siesta continued with more surety, her voice gentle, "What is it that you have lost?"

Henrietta closed her eyes, and shrank in her chair, pulling her legs up in front of her, and wrapping her arms around them.

"I have seen the injustices in my own realm for many years," Henrietta said sadly, "And it is because of this that I have made my plans to act. But as to what I have lost..."

Her voice trailed off for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was hoarse with emotion.

"This past week," She said, her voice so faint as to be scarcely audible, "Prince Wales, of Albion, was assassinated by the Reconquista. He was my beloved, and had it not been for the rebellion within his kingdom, we could have shared a marriage both of Love, and to strengthen both our realms."

Once the last words were said, she buried her face in her legs, and began to tremble as tears sought to escape her.

Siesta had no great familiarity with Tabitha, despite the time both had spent at the academy, but she had spent most of the past few days with the Princess, as Louise was almost always asleep, and Agnes, the Princess customary personal servant, had not yet returned from some form of errand or another. Her greater familiarity with the Princess of Tristain led her to believe that the young woman would welcome her comfort, rather than feel Siesta was acting above her station, and so she stood, and moved around the table to where the Princess sat, and wrapped her in a warm embrace.

"Princess," Siesta said gently, rubbing the younger woman's shoulders soothingly, "I know I am poor substitute for an old friend such as Louise, but you did not need to hide this for so long."

Henrietta began to quietly weep, and once her tears began to flow, Tabitha's finally broke fully free as well. Kirche eyed Siesta and Henrietta for a moment, then firmly made her mind up, and pulled Tabitha into her lap to comfort the girl herself. After a few moments, Siesta maneuvered the Heir of Tristain into her own lap.

Kirche and Siesta gently held and provided comfort to the two Heirs that evening, until the two cried themselves to sleep. It would be only the first highly unusual bonding experience they would share.

((()))

Irukuku was a little bit nervous about this new place; there were a lot of humans about, and none of the ones she was familiar with, besides Big Sis and Auntie Kirche. And they were inside now, where she couldn't really fit properly, and now she was alone with Flame. Flame was like the annoying little brother she wasn't sure if she was glad she'd inherited or not.

At least his curiosity-driven antics were distracting some people, so not everyone was staring at her. Still, Big Sis had said she might find another Dragon around here, the one that looked like a human sometimes, and he might need help, so she kept moving around the courtyards, looking. It didn't take long to find him; after all, there weren't many places big enough to hide a Dragon, even one as small as she was, and this one was much bigger.

There was a big hollow lump of magical earth that smelled like it had been moved fairly recently in one of the sections of courtyard, one with two guard-humans standing watch near it, and two of the big bows up on the wall pointed at its entrance. Irukuku was pretty sure it was the place, but still stuck her head in to make sure. It made the guard-humans nervous, but they didn't have any magic, so she wasn't worried about them. Inside, she found a middle-sized Dragon, and, he was asleep. He also had fur, all over the place, which definitely meant he was the right Dragon, even if it was weird, because Dragons were supposed to have scales, not fur.

Deciding that it was as good a place to sleep as any, Irukuku crooned a little to let Flame know where she was going, then slipped into the hole in the ground, and curled up beside the larger Dragon to get to sleep. It helped her feel a little bit less far away from her mama, being close to an older Dragon, even if he had fur instead of scales.

((()))

"It just lay down and went to sleep?" Karin asked, staring into the Dragon's enclosure.

"Yes ma'am," The guard said, "It made no threatening gestures whatsoever."

Karin nodded, then turned to face the guard.

"Both of the Princesses have retired for the night," She said, "That Dragon is the Familiar of the heir to the throne of Gallia. Unless it is directly threatening a human life, directly, not merely posturing, do not attack it. If it exhibits any dangerous behavior, summon myself, and Cattleya, at once, regardless of the hour."

The guard nodded, and saluted crisply. Karin saluted back, then turned and left, intending to turn in for the night herself.

((()))

At one hour past midnight, the night after Tabitha and Kirche arrived, some five miles from the Castle Valliere, half of the Royal Griffon Knights were assembled, receiving final orders from their Captain.

"I am engaged to the third daughter of the Valliere's," Viscount Wardes said, "I will attempt to gain entry to the castle via the excuse of a visit to my sick fiancee. If I do not return or send a message within three hours, know that our fears are confirmed and the Princess is held captive. If this is the case, hold nothing back, storm the castle with the utmost prejudice, and take any measure necessary to ensure her safety. Is this understood?"

"Aye, sir," The assembled Knights quietly proclaimed, mindful of keeping their presence undetected.

"Then I am off," Wardes said, leaping astride his own Griffon, and soaring off into the night.

((()))

Irukuku woke in the dead of the night, as she was wont to do, and took a moment to remember where she was. Once she remembered the trip Big Sis had taken her on, and the Dragon she was sleeping next to, she took a few moments out to yawn and stretch, before waking the other Dragon. She frowned when a few pokes and some jostling failed to wake him, then took a good sniff at him.

Ohhh! She realized, Someone's put a sleepy spell on him with the water magic! Big Sis has been showing me how to do the water magic!

Irukuku didn't really know how to do much more than shape water magic, she was really much more of a wind Dragon, but she figured it couldn't hurt to poke at the sleep spell on the other Dragon and see if she could pick it apart, so she set about to doing just that, curiosity driving her just as much as the desire to have the Draogn wake up.

((()))

It was not difficult for Wardes to gain entry to the Castle Valliere, it had been many years since he had visited, but he was still on the short list of individuals the Duke and Duchess had granted ready access to their home to. After all, if he was to wed their youngest daughter, they had needs to trust him, didn't they?

It had been ten years, but once the guards allowed him entrance, he was still able to find Louise's quarters by himself, though the guards at the entrance warned him that the girl's illness had had untoward effects on her body, and he may not wish to see his fiancee in such a state. Wardes was surprised that they had not instead insist he enter only with an escort, in order to ensure her virtue was not threatened.

Once he entered the inner chambers of Louise's suite, however, he understood all too well why they had not made even mention of such things. His betrothed's body was not merely beset by an illness, one could not even call it human anymore. The only vaguely recognizable features about her, were her hair (and the matching pink fur), and her face, though even that was distorted somewhat. Her body had become so massive, that even laying on her flank, she still stretched out to cover the entire, quite sizable, bed.

In a modest cot beside Louise's bed, a pretty young maid with the distinct features of a descendant of Tarbes slept, directly beside the nightstand. On the nightstand, several large mounds of salted and sliced pork rested, as well as three whole loafs of bread, and two large pitchers of water. This, combined with the bedpan he noticed, led Wardes to conclude that his fiancee was not only immobilized, but also her illness kept her unconscious must of the time. Considering the sheer amount of growth she seemed to be undergoing, that was hardly surprising.

"Ah, Louise," Wardes said softly, "What have they done to you?"

Then he set a silencing spell around the maid, and began securing his fiancée for transport. After all, he had only a little more than two hours before the attack would begin.

((()))

Joshua awoke to a decidedly unpleasant feeling, that of someone else poking around at his insides with magic. The only thing that kept him from immediately moving to attack, was how utterly inept the fumblings were, and the fact that whoever was doing it, had apparently managed to dispel whatever it was that had been keeping him unconscious.

So instead, he rolled away from whoever it was that was poking at him, then sat up at his haunches. He hadn't expected to see Slyphid, Tabitha's familiar staring at him with great big puppy dog eyes.

"Nee, nee," The Dragon whispered, its voice the, relatively, soft voice of a child Dragon, "Is Big Brother awake now?"

Joshua blinked, taking a moment to think before responding.

"Yes," He said, "I am awake. What brings you here?"

"Big Sis was worried about Big Bro," The younger Dragon said, "And so was Aunty Kirche, so we came to visit, and see how you were doing."

Slyphid paused for a moment, before continuing.

"So, how is Big Bro doing?"

"As well as can be expected," Joshua said, not wishing to alarm the child in front of him, "And what of you?"

"Kyyuuuuuiii!" Slyphid trilled excitedly, and Joshua winced, before condensing a buffer of air to deaden any sound traveling out of the bunker they were in, "Irukuku is happy! Now she has another Dragon she can talk to!"

Joshua began performing stretches, and preparing himself for a breakout, as he listened to the younger Dragon's excited recounting of her day with half an ear.

((()))

"It's been three hours," The lieutenant who held command in Wardes absence announced, "Let's move out."

The Royal Griffon Knights mounted up, and began to depart, rapidly climbing so that they would be harder to see or hear in the night sky.

((()))

"They're moving out," Sheffeld announced to the circling Albion Dragon Knights, "We follow, but remember, attack only on my signal."

Flying high, at heights that no other mount in Halkeginia could manage, the Dragons shadowed the Griffons.

((()))

Joshua's head snapped around, facing to the West and up.

"Irukuku," He said softly, "I sense an approaching group of high-level mages, between three and five dozen. Do you know where Tabitha sleeps?"

Irukuku nodded.

"Time is short," Joshua said, and took a long moment to concentrate, before shifting forms with much less light and flash than usual, "We must go to her at once."

Irukuku nodded, bounding out of the enclosure, bowling the guards posted outside over as she did so. Joshua sprinted after her, leaping onto her back with a wind-assisted jump before she could get too far ahead of him.

((()))

Wardes stood beside his fiancee's bed, staring out the window to the West as he waited for the change-of-watch bell to toll. Behind him, Louise's bloated form was wrapped securely in sheets and blankets, under the effects of a sleeping potion, with his wand tip carefully laid atop the bundle, ready to deliver the Levitation spell he would need to carry her out.

In front of him, he held a minor magical artifact, one pre-loaded with a single spell, and the crux of his plans for himself and Louise. Her altered form would only ease the execution of his plan, as once the Knights saw her...

The bell tolled, and Wardes triggered his device, shattering the relative quiet of the night with a blast of earth and fire magic that breached to outer wall of the keep, tearing open a hole large enough to move a full-grown Dragon through.

((()))

What Wardes had heard was not, in fact, the watch-bell, it was an alert bell raised because of Irukuku and Joshua's breakout from the bunker that the Knight had been held in. Had Wardes not detonated his magical shaped charge, the alert would simply have summoned the current watch to the area, and within a few minutes, Karin would have been roused. Instead, the explosion awoke every armsmen, both in service and retired, on the Valliere estate, as well as every single mage, Cattleya, Louise, Karin, Kirche, and both Princesses.

In the three minutes before the Royal Griffon Knights would arrive, every single emplacement on the castle walls would be manned by extremely well-disciplined and trained soldiers, and mages would raise signal flares to illuminate the night sky. The attackers would arrive to find the castle at maximum alert, and the protection of the night sky considerably diminished.

((()))

"Go to Tabitha!" Joshua shouted, leaping off of Irukuku as she rounded one of the tight corners within the castle keep.

Joshua's entire body trembled for a moment in mid leap, then it was coated in a layer of synthetic muscle, then impact-absorbing gel over that, then finally, plate mail and helm over that.

When he struck the earth, his sword appeared in his hand, and he began to sprint towards Louise's quarters, guided by the connection between him and the young woman formed in the summoning court on the day he arrived.

((()))

Kirche stormed out of the guest quarters she had been given, only partially dressed, but holding her wand, which was enough for her. In the corridor, she found Tabitha, wearing only an oversized slip, also wielding her staff, and the pair of royal guardsmen that held watch over the Princess.

"What happened?" She immediately demanded of the guardsmen, but before they could respond, Henrietta burst from her own room, fully, if simply clad, unlike the other two nobles.

"Princess!" One of the guards burst out, but any further words were cut off by the arrival of Tabitha's familiar.

Tabitha locked gazes for a moment with the young Dragon, before sweeping her gaze across the hallway's other four occupants, sharply weighing them.

"Irukuku," She said, turning to face her familiar again, "You may speak in front of these humans. What happened?"

"Kyuu~ii!" The Dragon said, "There was an explosion, and Big Bro said to find you, then he went to find the pink almost-Dragon!"

Tabitha turned to look at Henrietta, and the two Princesses held each other's gazes for a long moment, before Henrietta nodded.

"Sergeant Trent," Henrietta said, turning to face one of her guards, "You will remain with me, while Corporal Brooks will hold position here, and direct the rest of the guard to catch up with us when they arrive."

"Where will we be going ma'am?" Sergeant Trent asked.

"To find Duchess Valliere," Henrietta said, "She will know what is happening."

((()))

Karin was indeed aware of what was happening, the first thing she had done upon waking, was check the condition of her daughters. When she had entered the room of her middle daughter, she had found Cattleya being dressed by Gretchen. When she entered Louise's chambers, however, she found a stunned Siesta trying to drag herself out from under her overturned cot, a massive hole in the wall of the keep, and her youngest daughter missing.

A quick levitation spell freed Siesta, but before Karin could begin to question the maid on what had happened, Joshua N'bara sprinted into the room, fully armed and armored. Karin turned to interdict him, but he barely paid the woman a glance before leaping out of the hole, and making the fiery transition to his Dragon form, taking flight into the night. Snarling, Karin leapt out after him, wrapping her magic around herself to fly in pursuit. The Dragon was swift, but she was swifter, and it took her less than half a minute to catch up with him, but by then, her perception of things had changed a great deal.

Approaching out of the East, fully half of the Royal Griffon Knights were approaching, and flying away to meet them, was a cloaked figure that she was almost certain was Viscount Wardes, carrying the writhing form of her daughter.

"There are more," Joshua said, his voice a low rumble which only she could hear, "Another group approaches from three more miles out, at an altitude only Dragons can reach in your world."

Karin snorted, staring at the approaching battle-mages, anger rising in her as she realized that her home was under attack, and more importantly, she had been betrayed.

"There are too many of them to fight in the air," She said, snarling, "We will have to fight them from the castle walls."

With that she turned and retreated, and after a moment of thought, Joshua grudgingly followed.

((()))

Cattleya emerged from her quarters, the Princesses and their companions reached the corridor that accessed the Valliere family's personal quarters, and Karin and Joshua returned all within moments of each other.

"Duchess Valliere," Henrietta said, "What is happening, and how can we help?"

"The Royal Griffon Knights are attacking," Karin said, "I suspect that Viscount Wardes may be behind this, and may have been the one to abduct Louise."

"Is this Wardes?" Joshua asked, as the image of a white-gray haired man in his twenties appeared atop his Dragon-sized left gauntlet.

"Yes," Karin and Henrietta both said simultaneously.

"Wardes should not be here without direct orders from myself, or my mother," Henrietta said, "As he made no effort to contact me, personally, before initiating violence, I name him traitor."

"And the rest of the Knights?" Karin asked.

"Are at best, dupes to a Traitor," Henrietta said harshly, "I would prefer they survive the coming fight, but I will not place the value of their lives above that of your men or those still serving me properly."

"And the Dragons coming behind them?" Joshua asked, his voice grinding with anger.

Henrietta opened her mouth to respond, then remembered just who, and what, she was speaking to, as well as the smaller Dragon behind her.

"Do you have any direct way of telling if a Dragon is intelligent?" She asked instead.

"Not without a shared language," Joshua said.

"Then treat them as either enemy soldiers, or an enemy's warhorse," Henrietta said, "Whichever."

"Unless you have further direction," Karin said, "I must direct my men."

"There are three triangle class mages here," Henrietta said, "I'm certain you can use us somewhere."

"Response team," Karin said, already walking away, "If you see a defensive point fail, please render aid."

Quiet reigned for nearly a minute, Joshua trying to determine the tactical situation as best he could, Henrietta's mind whirling through possible reasons and ramifications of Wardes betrayal, Cattleya quietly asking Siesta what had happened, Tabitha whispering instructions to Irukuku, and Kirche feeling terribly out of depth.

"Albion's Dragon Knights," Henrietta abruptly said, "They have to be."

"What?" Kirche asked, "Why?"

"Wardes does not have enough weight to draw in more than those he personally commanded," Henrietta said, "And he must have had some idea of what he would face, between The Heavy Wind, and the Valliere family's retainers. If he had only brought the Griffon Knights, and expected them to fail against the Valliere forces. But he also must have a motive for all of this, and the only I can see is either a personal grudge against the Valliere's, which is unlikely as he took Louise with him, rather than killed her outright, or to assassinate me. If he has convinced the Griffon Knights I am held captive, or even ensorcelled, he can lead the Knights against us, and then the Dragon Knights come in to wipe out the surviving faction, and slay me. This fits perfectly with the goals of the Reconquista."

"The critical question then becomes," Joshua said, "Can we convince the Griffon Knights you are not held captive?"

"Unlikely," Henrietta said, shaking her head sharply, "Wardes is smart, he would have accounted for the possibility. If he did not think he could convince them I am under influence, he would have attempted to kill me himself."

Joshua nodded silently.

"So," He said, "The true problem, is that there should be more than enough soldiers on the other side of the field to guarantee our defeat. I can most probably evacuate the lot of us, but I cannot move the entirety of the castle's population."

"And I cannot allow the Valliere's to fall," Henrietta said, "As they are amongst the strongest supporters of the Royal family, not to mention we will need their aid to rescue Louise."

She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath, before turning to face Kirche.

"Miss Zerbst," She said, "We need reinforcements, and the only possible source of such within reasonable range, is your family."

Kirche paled as she realized what Henrietta was about to ask.

"Miss Zerbst," Henrietta said, "I need you to travel to your family estates, and secure prompt reinforcements."

"I am fallen from favor amongst my family," Kirche said, "They likely will not listen."

"If they have heard of my impending marriage to the Emperor," Henrietta said, "They should find just cause. If not…" She turned to face Cattleya, "I would ask you to travel with her, to act as evidence that the plea for aid is legitimate. At best, you should not be in danger, at worst, they will likely hold you hostage instead, until they hear that Castle Valliere has fallen, either way, you should be safe."

"Princess," Cattleya said, a soft smile falling across her gentle face, "I would go for you if it meant certain death."

Henrietta paused for a moment, struck by the fragile woman's loyalty, and smiled at the middle Valliere child, before turning to the Dragons in (or partway in) the hallway.

"Which of you is faster?" She asked.

Neither answered for a moment, as neither had tested their speed against each other directly.

"Can you magically augment your speed?" Joshua asked, and both Tabitha and Irukuku nodded.

"I cannot," Joshua said, "And with my armor, I am the more able combatant. You should go."

Tabitha nodded, and, along with Irukuku, began to turn towards the exit. Gretchen immediately began to assist Cattleya along towards them, but Kirche decided to go and speak with Joshua before she followed.

"Dar-" She cut herself off, then started again, "Joshua, could I speak with you for a moment?"

Joshua eyed her for a moment, then reached one massive paw up to remove his helmet, so he could meet her gaze directly.

"What is it?" He asked, voice brisk, but not harsh.

"It has troubled me ever since we last spoke," She said, "Why do you say I have no respect for myself?"

"Because you flaunt your body," Joshua said, "And sleep around."

Kirche blinked, more than a little surprised at his bluntness.

"Every time you make yourself intimate, physically or emotionally," Joshua said, "With anybody, you bring your heart close to theirs. When you become intimate so casually, discard it so casually, and treat your body so casually, you demean yourself. If have known women like you, and even been friends with some of them. But I cannot accept a romance with a woman who has so little respect for herself. Your heart and body are precious and wonderful things, and as such should be guarded jealously, and only shared with one who is truly trustworthy."

Kirche had felt anger and hurt begin to form within her, as she heard words like so many others had thrown at her, especially those amongst her family, until the last of Joshua's words. No one had ever before rebuked her for her flirting, or her sleeping around, claiming she was worth more than that. Before, such rebukes had always claimed her behavior as proof of her worthlessness. She didn't know what to make of that.

"Come," Tabitha said, tugging gently on Kirche's elbow, and Kirche allowed herself to be lead off with the emissary group.

Joshua, Siesta, and Henrietta spent a moment watching the others go, while the single guardsman still with Henrietta kept watch past Joshua on the hole in the Keep wall.

"What will you do, Princess?" Joshua said, his deep voice soft with concern.

"I," Henrietta said, "Will be joining the Healers. I am capable of some combat magic, but my primary strength lies in healing."

"For as long as only the Griffons attack," Joshua said, "I will leave you to the protection of your guardsmen. But once the Dragons arrive, if you are right, you will need all the protection you can get."

"I appreciate your concern," Henrietta said, "I hope we both survive this night."

"So do I," Joshua said.

((()))

Louise dreamed. She dreamed of Joshua's world all the more, and this time, in her dreams, she sought answers to how a society and magic could function without the history of Brimir and the Church to order and guide them. She found memory-dreams of the religions of Joshua's world, where before there had been only the reflections, and edges of such things.

Unlike Halkeginia, Joshua's world was rife with a plethora of religions, and they were as varied as they were numerous. Joshua was not familiar with all of them, but he was familiar with most of those with a substantial following, both those that believed in many gods (something that Louise found utterly horrifying), and those that believed in one God.

The torrent of emotions she found attached to the whole issue utterly bewildered her; it was an intense mass of passion and zeal like nothing she had ever sensed before. She found within him an intense faith, a passionate belief in one God, though the memories that related directly to that eluded her, combined with a disgust and revulsion at any organized religion and state that held formally combined authority or power.

As a follower of the Church in Halkeginia, which was utterly entrenched within the power structures of the various Halkeginian kingdoms, this was utterly alien to her, and distressed her so much, that the emotional turmoil woke her up.

((()))

"They've ensorcelled the Princess!" Wardes shouted as he approached the Griffon Knights, "I was unable to discover to which end, but look at what they have done to the Princess' old playmate, my fiancée!"

He raised the bundle of blankets that held Louise, and with a fine bit of manipulation, unwound the bedding, revealing what could have been mistaken for an immature or malformed Dragon, save for the horrifyingly human head at the end of the long, muscular neck. Wardes almost lost his grip when Louise suddenly woke up, and screamed.

It was a deep, keening, tormented sound, wrought with a pain that transcended language or species, and utterly horrifying in every way that Wardes could imagine a scream to be. Wardes thought it was because of whatever magic had been wrought upon his body. In truth, it was because of the dream from which Louise had just awoken, and the sharp agony having her still-changing body move put her through.

The scream echoed through the night.

((()))

Joshua had followed after Karin once Henrietta had departed for the infirmary, and had just reached her when the scream echoed over the castle.

"She has entered the dementia," Joshua rumbled gravely, "In as little as an hour, or as much as a week, the change will be finished, or she will die."

"Tell me the truth, Dragon," Karin growled, staring out over her castle's defenses from atop the central keep, "What have you done to her?"

"Directly," Joshua growled, "Nothing. The magic of my people is transformative, and any who attempt to take it for their own, or connect permanently with it, will be changed. If she survives the change, she will be as I am, a half-breed human. Whatever elements that she has affinity for will no longer be able to harm her directly, and in fact, will only replenish her stamina. It takes skill to control the transformation, but she will also be able to change shape, resuming her human form."

"So I will be able to see my daughter's true form within the week?" Karin demanded harshly.

"No," Joshua said, shaking his large head, "Her body will finish the change within the week, though it is remotely possible it will take longer, as all are different. Her magic will take much longer to finish adjusting, the shortest known time is six months, the longest has been decades. She will not be able to change form until that time has completed, and she can use her magic actively once more."

"Convenient," Karin said, "That you give no way to test your story for years yet to come."

"Only if I am lying," Joshua said, shrugging, "If I am telling the truth, it is in fact, terribly inconvenient."

Above, Joshua's HUD revealed that the Griffon Knights were soon to enter effective visual range of the Castle's beacons.

"The enemy nears," He said, bunching his large form back in preparation for flight, "Before battle is joined, I must warn you, though it will take them time to cross the barrier between worlds, my people will come for me, and when they do, you will be held accountable for what you done, if we need to burn all of Tristain to the ground in order to capture or kill you in the process."

Karin turned to look at him for a long moment, but the eye-shields of his helmet revealed nothing, and all his posture revealed was the taut readiness for battle.

"We will speak of this after the battle, Dragon," Karin said, "If we both survive. Stay clear of me during the fight, you will only get in my way."

Then both of their attention was wholly consumed by the enemy.

((()))

Wardes continued West as he broke company with Louise, trying to speak with the girl once her scream trailed off into strangled sobs.

"Louise, my dear," He said, "It is I, your fiancée. What have they done to you?"

It took several repetitions before she seemed to hear him, and her slightly-enlarged eyes focused on him for a long moment, there was nothing but confusion in her eyes, but eventually, recognition dawned.

"Wardes?" She said, her voice rumbling in a way not possible for human vocal chords, "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to rescue you," Wardes said gently, "Are you in pain."

"Yes, my bed feels wrong," Louise said, clearly not fully aware of her surroundings, "Moving hurts."

"I will help," Wardes said, biting back the urge to curse himself for causing his fiancée pain, and strengthening the levitation spell to provide her a flat surface to rest upon, rather than the more efficient grip he had been using, "What happened to you?"

"Mother," Louise said, then trailed off for a moment, her eyes seeing something that was not with them in the here and now, "Mother withdrew me from the Academy, she was angry about my Familiar… Siesta!" She suddenly shouted, "You must bring Siesta, and my Familiar too!"

"I will tell my men to recover them if they can," Wardes said gently, "Is Siesta your handmaiden?"

"Yes," Louise said, her voice rising and becoming more frantic, "But my familiar, you must get my Familiar, mother might kill him…"

"I will try to find your Familiar," Wardes said, "Where is he?"

"I don't know," Louise said, pain and emotional upheaval combining into outright panic, "But he's already fought with Mother twice, and I don't know how badly she injured him the second time, she only lost a hand, and-"

"Shhhh, Louise," Wardes said, lowering himself closer to her still mostly-human face, "I will take care of it. Drink this, it will take care of the pain."

For a moment, Wardes thought Louise would protest, but then she accepted the potion he had offered her, drinking it readily, and within a few moments, the sleeping potion had rendered her unconscious.

"Rest well, my dear," Wardes said, turning his mind back to his clones, "I hope your dreams will be more peaceful than this night, and when you wake, all will be finished."

((()))

Across the battlements of both the inner and outer walls, forty-four light ballistae stood ready, their crews trained expressly for the purpose of engaging airborne targets. At every third emplacement, stood a wind or water mage, ready to raise shields over their own weapon and crew, or either of the flanking positions. On the inner keep another dozen ballistae stood, unmanned as Karin had ordered the battlements of the keep cleared, so that she would not face any danger of friendly fire as she engaged her enemies.

The weapon crews held steady bead on the Griffon Knights as they moved to within visible range, and began to close, but waited patiently for orders to fire; they trusted their commander, and had better firing discipline than literally any other unit in all of Halkeginia.

"GRIFFON KNIGHTS!" Boomed Karin's magically augmented voice, "IF YOU DO NOT STATE THE PURPOSE OF YOUR VISIT, AND REMAND THE TRAITOR WARDES AND MY DAUGHTER TO MY CUSTODY, YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON!"

The Griffon Knights remained silent as they approached, though Karin could now make out two separate copies of Wardes riding with his subordinates.

"They're both clones," Joshua rumbled out, "The real one still flees with Louise."

((()))

The Griffons closed to the distance that Karin judged was the closest that they would come without opening fire. She would know; she had set the training standards for the Tristain mage corps personally.

As they hit the critical point, Karin unleashed the spell she had been preparing since she arrived atop the keep, the spell that had earned her the title 'Heavy Wind.' At a point roughly eight inches to the side, and fifty feet from the front of, the Griffon Knight's formation, Karin's spell took effect, and with an ear-shattering scream, abruptly attracted literally tons of air, causing a hurricane force wind in the surrounding area.

The coalescing mass of air rapidly condensed into a thick, heavy mass nearly a hundred feet across, sucking all of the Griffon Knights into the mass, and nearly ripping Joshua off of the rooftop. The Valliere family retainers were physically moored to the battlements, and weathered the torrent with the ease of experience; none of the castle servants were outdoors to be directly exposed to the whirlwind. Once the spell was completed, the Griffon Knights, to the last man, were entangled within Karin's legendary 'Heavy Wind' spell, a mass of air so thick that moving through it was more like swimming than flying, all of them tumbled and disoriented by the violent rush of air.

"OPEN FIRE!" Karin screamed, and the ballista crews atop the walls began to fire into the mass of disoriented Griffon Knights in short volleys.

The Griffon Knights were not renowned for their battle prowess without reason however, and despite their disorientation, a dozen shields of air and conjured earth sprang to life around them, deflecting many of the ballista volleys, but still, some got through, wounding and killing both the Knights, and their mounts.

Then, as the Knights recovered from their disorientation, the counter-fire began. The initial bursts of fire were disorganized, instinctive attempts to force the enemy to worry about their own defense as well as their offense, and the shield-mages placed about the walls were able to ward off their shots. As order returned to the air corps, however, the mages began to coordinate their fire, and a volley of six timed shots burst past one of the shield mages, and a ballista on the inner wall was destroyed by a blast of flame, its crew killed or wounded.

"KARIN!" Joshua suddenly shouted, "IF I CAN PULL THE MOISTURE OUT OF THE AIR IN THAT MESS, I CAN INCINERATE THEM ALL WITH A SINGLE FLAME SPELL!"

A half dozen of the Griffon Knights immediately responded by conjuring large masses of water, which floated around and alongside them in the near-liquid air. Joshua immediately leapt to the air, growling false-incantations as he used his somewhat inferior ability with water magic to attempt to draw off the conjured water, and began pulling evasive maneuvers as a detachment of the Griffon Knights dedicated themselves to targeting the armored Dragon.

Karin, meanwhile, contemptuously batted aside the spells targeting her, while she maintained her Heavy Wind spell, and began to prepare the second stage of her defense.

((()))

Cattleya, reverse seated on Sylphid, with Tabitha forward of her, and Kirche farther back, the healthier Germanian girl holding the middle Valliere securely, worriedly stared back towards her home over Kirche's shoulder. Though the battle was too far to hear, the flashes of light were visible in the darkness of the deep night.

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Cattleya asked.

"Valliere," Kirche said, rolling her eyes, "A generation ago, my family's rivalry with yours nearly came to an end, as my family's strength had grown steadily for nearly a century, while yours remained stagnant due to few births. When your mother married Duke Valliere, she single-handedly restored the balance of power. The Zerbst fought a single skirmish with the Valliere's in which your mother was involved, and our forces have not crossed the border since. If she is not the most powerful mage in Halkeginia, I would hate to meet whoever is."

Cattleya nodded, but held a bit tighter to the redhead in a subconscious attempt to find comfort. She missed Gretchen, and was desperately worried for her sister.

((()))

The rest of the royal guards caught up with Henrietta at the infirmary, and immediately made it the most heavily guarded part of Castle Valliere. Only four of the two score guards were mages, three line, and one triangle; Henrietta would have sent them to aid Karin in the defense, but the Duchess had not asked, and convincing the guards to leave her immediate presence would have been very difficult anyways. She was, at least, able to conscript a dozen of her commoner guards to serve as corpsmen, going out to carry in the wounded who could not bring themselves in.

The healers were surprised when the Princess arrived to assist, but nowhere near as surprised as the commoner assistants were when the first wave of wounded arrived, and Henrietta showed absolutely no compunction about personally stowing a man's entrails back into his belly, then healing the wound so well it left not even a scar. The only attention Henrietta paid to the other healers and attendants, was a trained leader's subconscious sensitivity to whether or not those around her were in danger of breaking out in a panic or other sort of unproductive frenzy. It would not be until much later that she realized the sort of personal loyalty she inspired in her subjects at Castle Valliere that day.

((()))

"Ah, Karin," One of Wardes clones said as it touched down atop the Keep, a healthy distance from the Duchess, "You have aged well."

"Wardes," Karin said, negligently deflecting another pair of attack spells from the mass of Knights above, "Why did you take my daughter?"

"Because she is my fiancée," Wardes replied, "I do care for her, though it has been a long time since I have seen her. That she will bear me heirs capable of Void Magic does not hurt either. What on earth have you done to her body?"

"I don't know what happened to her body," Karin said glaring at the clone of her daughter's kidnapper, "It is some effect of her Familiar's magic, though he claims it is unintentional. Where have you taken her?"

"Such a tragedy," Wardes said, sighing with mock sorrow, "The lone survivor of the Griffon Knights will return to the Palace tomorrow, with the tale of how the treacherous Valliere's have slain the Princess, his beloved fiancée the only survivor he could retrieve from the battle."

"Your story will fall apart when I arrive with the Princess," Karin said harshly, deftly side-stepping an air-lance spell as she spoke.

"Really?" Wardes said, raising an eyebrow mockingly at the older woman, "You are powerful, Heavy Wind, but you are past your prime, and even you cannot fight half of the Royal Griffon Knights, as well as myself, a fellow Square-class mage."

"Really?" Karin said, and for the first time in his entire life, Wardes saw the legendary Karin of the Heavy Wind smile, a feral curling of the lips that showed her teeth as a predator would.

The sight chilled him to the bone, inspiring fear in him on a deeper level than he had ever before encountered in his life, as the most primal parts of his being screamed at him that he was going to die, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

In a split-second of panic, the second clone that had been attempting to sneak up behind Karin attacked, but it was already too late.

With a single gesture, Karin unleashed the magical energy she had been building since the moment she completed the casting of her Heavy Wind spell. Like the Heavy Wind spell, it used the absolute maximum of her capacity for magical expenditure in a single spell, a capacity which through relentless training, had only increased with her age. The spell was cast through the link by which she maintained her Heavy Wind spell, and was that spells opposite in almost every way. Where the Heavy Wind spell drew air in, and compressed it together, this spell forced the air to expand and decompress as quickly as the magic behind it could manage. Simultaneous to the release of this spell, Karin stopped maintaining the Heavy Wind spell, releasing the supernatural constraints which held the air in its unnaturally compressed state.

In effect Karin had unleashed a mid-yield concussive bomb directly in the center of the Griffon Knights. The blast, powered by both the depressurization of the first phase of the Heavy Wind spell combination, and the magic of the second, obliterated the Griffon Knights as a fighting force, slaying a dozen of the Line-class mages amongst the knights instantly. The Triangle mages amongst the knights fared somewhat better, their stronger defensive magics shielding them from the worst of the blast, instead leaving them unconscious, and bleeding from the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose as they and their dead or incapacitated mounts fell from the sky. The single member of the Knights who was a Square-class mage, having achieved Square-class just the week before, and not yet told anyone, was the only one to remain conscious. His mount did not, and he was slightly dazed, but still managed to cut what would have been dozens of casualties amongst his unconscious comrades, to less than ten, with hasty levitation spells. For his trouble, he broke his own legs, as he was slow to halt his own fall.

The blast wave, easily strong enough to tear the ballista mounts from the walls, and slay any unshielded man within five hundred feet, did little more than rattle the windows of the Castle, as enchantments specially emplaced to protect against exactly this effect shielded every emplacement on the walls, as well as those within. Waves of concussive force reflecting off of the inside of the castle walls critically injured several men carrying wounded to the infirmary, and killed three of the already-wounded outright, but they were the sole fatalities of Karin's spell amongst the defenders.

The hardest struck by the spell were Joshua, and Wardes two clones. Unlike any other mage in the battle, Joshua had sensed the magical build up, and then release involved in Karin's spell. He was still caught in the middle of evasive maneuvers as he continued to distract the Griffon Knights when the spell went off, unable to dive to cover before it went off, but he still had a moment's warning. In that moment, he cast every thought from his mind, save one:

My body is Iron.

Joshua was far, far from mastering the skill he was making use of, and in truth, his body only partially became Iron before the force of Karin's spell struck, but combined with his armor, it was enough. Rather than becoming a crushed Dragon plastered across the inside of the castle walls, Joshua was slammed down into the wall, then bounced off and slammed into the top of the very bunker he had been imprisoned in. Neither yielded any more than his armor did, but instead of dead or paralyzed, Joshua was instead merely heavily stunned.

Wardes did not fare nearly so well. Expecting a direct assault from Karin, he had raised his defensive shield's strength primarily to the front, facing the Heavy Wind herself, and when the blast struck at the top of his shield, it crushed it. Wardes was strong enough that had he focused his energies correctly, his shield could have survived the blast altogether, though barely, but instead it was crushed, and he was blasted to the ground, the clone's semi-real spine snapped as it fell.

The second clone, which had been in the middle of casting an attack spell, and thus did not raise its defenses, was instead utterly obliterated.

Karin herself, standing within a circle of protective runes, was completely untouched by the spell, and simply waited for the blast, and the brief counter-force created as the vacuum left by the sudden expansion of air was refilled, to pass before stepping out of the circle towards Wardes rapidly disintegrating clone.

"You are a fool," She said harshly, "For you, your strength, your discipline, was only ever something you desired to have enough of, judging yourself relative to your peers to gauge your strength. You were strong compared to them, but never, never compared to me. Strength is an absolute, and the only truly appropriate measure for any, is 'Am I stronger than I was yesterday?' There has not been a single day passed in the last forty years where the answer to that question for me, was 'no.' When I am finished with the Dragon Knights, I will come to the palace with the Princess, and you will pay for your treachery. Pray my daughter still lives, or your death will not be swift."

The clone of Wardes opened its bloody mouth to respond, but Karin severed its head with a simple blade of air, and turned to take stock of the damage to her defenses.

((()))

Atop Sylphid, all three young women twisted around to stare back at the Valliere estate when they heard the thundering retort of Karin's spell.

"That was my mother's spell," Cattleya said softly, then waited for more signs of battle, but none appeared.

"She has defeated the Griffon Knights," Cattleya said, "Now we can only pray she is able to defeat the Dragons as well."

((()))

"Well," Joseph said from where he sat behind Sheffeld, lowering his looking glass, "That was interesting. It is well I came, isn't it?"

"Indeed, master," Sheffeld said, eyes narrowing as the Dragon Knights continued to close with the Castle Valliere, "The Griffons destroyed only a half-dozen of the ballista, and failed to even injure the Heavy Wind. If we had been unaware of such a tactic, and you were not with us, such a tactic may have defeated even this force."

"Indeed," Joseph said, smirking, "You and I will take the Heavy Wind. The others can find the Princess."

Sheffeld nodded, and relayed the orders to the Dragon Knights.

((()))

Joshua shook off the shock that had affected him enough to shift forms, and the physical transformation fully flushed the after-effects of Karin's spell from his system. Taking stock of his immediate surroundings, he swiftly decided that the Duchess would best know what the situation was, and leapt, magically augmenting the leap to the point of flight, up to the battlements of the keep.

"What's the situation?" He asked, landing lightly on his feet near the Valliere.

"We lost a sixth of the ballistae," Karin said, "Most of the Knights were incapacitated, not killed. How long until the Dragon Knights arrive?"

Joshua looked up, allowing his armor's sensors to see for him, and project their findings directly on to his retinas.

"They're less than two miles out," He said, "There are more than two hundred of them. Henrietta thinks they're the Albion Dragon Knights."

"With those numbers," Henrietta spat out, "They must be. Only Albion fields that many Dragons. It must be the Reconquista."

"What can you do against that many Dragons?" Joshua asked.

"It depends," Karin said, "If they remain grouped up as the Griffon Knights did, I can use the exact same trick. If they break up, it becomes a battle of attrition, one which heavily favors them, as eventually, one of them will get an attack through against me. None of my other tricks will be enough against a force of that size. Do you have any tricks you have not yet shown in your fights against me?"

"A few," Joshua said, continuing to stare up at the approaching Dragon Knights, "If they break up into small enough groups, I can close with them. I specialize in close combat."

"I'd noticed," Karin said flatly.

Joshua laughed at that, laughed long and loud, after all, it wasn't like he hadn't tried to close to melee both times they had fought, was it?

"This is going to be ugly," Joshua eventually said, "I should tell you before the fighting begins anew, Henrietta had Tabitha and her familiar fly Kirche and Cattleya out of the castle. My priority will be the survival of Henrietta and Siesta."

Karin nodded sharply in response.

"And mine will be the Princess and my subjects. I will fight the battle, if I lose, you see to it that the Princess makes it away."

Joshua nodded sharply, then leapt off of the Keep, leaving Karin a clear field of fire.

((()))

Henrietta was more than a little relieved when the stretcher-bearers began carrying in nothing but Griffon Knights, and word arrived with them that the Griffon Knights had been defeated, and most were still alive, if substantially injured. She was still worried about what would happen when the Dragons arrived, but was relieved that, at the least, Tristainians were not fighting each other anymore.

Healing anywhere in the head was much more precise and sensitive work than almost anywhere else in the body, but not very demanding as far as magical power went, which played very well to Henrietta's strengths, something else she was grateful for. She supremely doubted the Dragon Knights were approaching with anything other than fell intent, and knew that there would be a great deal of healing needed once battle begun anew.

((()))

Joshua was doing a swift circuit of the inner wall, surveying both it and the outer wall's defenses as best he could on the fly, looking for a particularly weak point that might need his support. Ultimately, it was the entrance to the infirmary in the inner courtyard that caught his attention. Specifically, the sizable mass of guards standing watch outside of it.

"Shit," He said.

((()))

Karin breathed deep as she prepared herself for the renewal of battle. For all that she had maintained and developed her edge constantly since her 'retirement,' until this night, the only battle she had fought in which she had actually felt there was a legitimate threat to her life, had been against Joshua. Even then, the largest part of the threat he had presented, was simply that he possessed so many unknown abilities. Few single opponents could present any real threat to Karin.

Now though, now…

This was like the battles of her youth, when the independence of Tristain had been preserved through the efforts of herself, Osmond the Siege, Colbert the Flame Snake, and a spare handful of others who had decimated entire armies by themselves. True, those armies had been mixtures of commoners and nobles, rather than the larger formations of nobles riding flying mounts that formed the core of an army's strength today, but it was because of Karin and her comrades that mage-only formations, trained to support each other tightly, had become common. A force with any other tactical doctrine would simply be annihilated.

This time though, she had no powerful allies to guard her back, though if she'd reacted differently to Joshua, he probably would have been up to the task, and if her husband had been home, he was skilled enough, if not quite so powerful as she. Now though, she would face battle alone; her men would support her as best they were able, but she knew that unless they came in a group as the Griffons had, after one volley, two at best, they would be forced to flee the walls; she had already ordered them to unmoor themselves from their positions to ease that task.

The only wild card on her side was Joshua, but he would make protecting the Princess his priority, and if the Reconquista forces found her, he would also be locked down in defense. Karin could not afford to fall back solely to defend the Princess as well, as that would effectively mean conceding control of the entire castle to the Reconquista, and abandoning what little advantage the ballista teams would give her.

The fierce young warrior within Karin was coming fully awake and alive as true battle loomed before her; she estimated her chances of victory and survival were fifty percent, and such a battle was the most exciting thing she knew in life.

((()))

"Princess," Joshua said, soaring gracefully over the beds of the injured to speak with her, "I need to either move you, or permission to order your guard to move."

"What?" Henrietta said, looking up from the latest man whose eardrums she had been repairing, and gesturing for Siesta to bandage the man's ears, "Why?"

"Your guards standing outside the infirmary is painting a great big target on it," Joshua said, "I doubt the Reconquista will have any compunction about killing every person in here in their attempt to get you."

Henrietta scowled at Joshua's words, not because she resented them, but because she knew they were true.

"There are only half a dozen other healers here," Henrietta said, "Of which I am the least fatigued, as they insist on giving me the lightest work. I will be needed here, or men and women will die."

"I didn't think you'd want to leave," Joshua said, "So tell your men to follow my orders. I'll leave a few here, and establish a false hide for you somewhere else."

"I don't like it," Henrietta said, "But I see the need."

She followed Joshua to the Infirmary's exit, and passed the orders for her men to work with him. Henrietta didn't notice that Siesta had gone with him until she returned to her work, and by that time, it was too late to call her back.

((()))

The commander of Henrietta's guard was quite competent; all it took was for Joshua to explain what he had in mind, and the man organized the entire thing himself. It was just as well, as while Henrietta had not noticed Siesta's movement, Joshua had.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her softly, just far enough away from the guardsmen not to be heard.

"It won't be enough for the Guardsmen to be elsewhere," Siesta said to Joshua, smiling softly up at the faceplate of his helmet, as she could not see his eyes, "They need a Princess to guard."

Immediately grasping what the young maid intended, Joshua disassociated his helm and bent down so he could look her in the eyes.

"Why?" He asked simply.

"Because she is worth it," Siesta said, "You saw her in the infirmary, and in your prison. She will be a worthy ruler, if she lives that long."

Joshua nodded sharply, respect clear in his eyes and face.

"You are a worthy woman," Joshua said, "If we survive, I would like for you to meet my sisters one day."

Siesta smiled bright enough to raise the sun, and for a moment, was too choked up to say anything. Feeling the need, Joshua leaned forward and hugged her, a fierce, brief embrace that lasted only one long moment, before Joshua withdrew, re-donned his helmet, and leapt back up to the wall.

With his armor on, most of the hug had felt like steel, save for where his head had briefly rested beside hers, but it was also the first time had ever seen Joshua initiated a form of physical contact purely intended to express affection, and that was more than enough for her. She took a moment to bask in the warmth and hope that rose in her heart, before turning her attention to the guard commander.

"Captain," She said, "I am here to serve as a body double."

((()))

The Dragon Knights split up well outside the effective range of ballistae, and attacked in groups of twelve. The instant that the larger formation split, Karin began using overpowered long distance spells to attack the various formations, attempting to disrupt the groups as much as kill the individual members.

Even at her prodigious rate of fire, she managed only a half a dozen spells before a single Dragon traveling alone demanded her attention, by diving directly towards her. Battle-honed instincts screamed at her that this was one of the enemy's prime combatants, and so she sent a square-class cluster of air-lances at the Dragon, intending to remove him from the fight preemptively.

To her considerable surprise, the spell was disrupted and dispersed before it struck home. The only mage she had ever manage something similar before was Joshua, and he had not been able to do so to her more powerful spells. Remembering that for all the thus-far unique abilities Joshua had displayed in his fights with her before, he at the least still claimed he had more, and whoever she fought now might be even more dangerous. Rather than attack an enemy with unknown ability as the Dragon continued to approach, Karin fired off another series of overpowered lances at formations of Dragons vectoring to attack the walls of her castle.

She was a little surprised that the Dragon rider did not attack her on its final approach, but surprise turned to shock, which was almost immediately supplanted by hard anger, when she saw who rode the Dragon.

"Joseph," She growled, "King of Gallia. So you are behind this."

"Yes," Joseph said, wearing a slightly mad grin, "It was simply too good of an opportunity to waste, the Princess of Tristain, another Void mage, and the Gandalfr all in one place. Best to take them out before your darling little daughter could realize her power, no?"

Karin responded to Joseph's words with a lightning spell.

((()))

All across the castle, the Dragons attacked. The castle's defenders had drilled for situations where they were being overwhelmed by superior airborne forces, and responded with precision. One man on each crew kept an eye out for signs of active spellcasting, while another aimed and held ready to fire, and the last member of the crew readied their ballista for their departure.

Dragon Knights attacked each weapon emplacement in pairs, in some cases the watchmen was able to spot the Knights preparing to cast, and call for fire. In others, the gunner judged he had a good enough shot and fired on his own initiative. In still others, the Knights fired first, though the ballista crews still managed return fire, even in these circumstances. Fire loosed, the majority of ballista crews abandoned their weapons, only those with shield mages guarding them directly remaining. Some of the ballista bolts were off target; most were not. To a man, every mage targeted by the bolts managed a shield of some sort or another before they struck; a very few evaded as well.

All of those who did not evade were fatally surprised when enchantments on the bolts caused them to smash through any shield less than Square-class, striking through to slay almost a score of Dragon Knights.

Return fire obliterated most of the ballista emplacements, killing more than a few of the crewers, what few were not destroyed by spellfire, were instead attacked directly by the Dragons, at the direction of their riders.

These Dragons, and most of their riders, were also slain when the ballista emplacements exploded the instant they were touched.

In the exchange, a tenth of the Dragon Knights were slain, and two score armsmen were either killed or critically injured. Only seven ballista emplacements remained, each of which fired only a single additional shot, then their crews evacuated before the Dragon Knights could come about for a second pass. Only two of the shots scored meaningful hits, the more wary Dragon Knights now fighting more evasively.

As the Dragon Knights began to come around for a second pass, fighting erupted atop the central keep, with high-powered spells being hurled about, few striking their targets, and many slashing out amongst the other combatants. The Knights withdrew from the immediate vicinity of the keep, and instead pressed their attack on the walls, picking off a few of the fleeing armsmen, and beginning to direct spellfire against the towers at the corners of the walls.

For the first time since the battle began, archers and crossbowmen opened fire through the arrow slits in the towers. Having expected their foes to show their full abilities earlier in the battle, the attack caught the Dragon Knights completely off guard, just as Karin had intended for it to. Even caught off guard, the Knight's passive magical shields rendered them effectively immune to such small-scale non-magical weaponry; the defenders, however, did not target the Knights, but their mounts.

All of the archers and crossbowmen aimed for the Dragon's necks, and while only three scored lethal blows, dozens of arrows pincushioned the necks of a score of dragons. While hard scales and thick muscles protected the more vital portions of the Dragons necks, the very nature of the muscular appendages meant that they were particularly vulnerable to movement further aggravating wounds, and even on a creature the size of a full-grown Halkeginian Dragon, it did not take a large wound to the jugular vein to cause critical blood loss.

The instant after the first volley ended, steel shutters slammed into place over the firing slits, enchanted to resist being taken control of by earth mages. In a few places, massed return fire from the Griffon Knights destroyed the shutters, but the defenders had already fled from the firing chambers, moving into the deeper interior of the walls. With the towers abandoned, the only remaining defenders stationed outside the castle were royal guardsmen stationed around the entrances of the inner keep.

The Dragon Knights immediately set to attack the Guardsmen, recognizing their insignia and what their presence around the keep signified. The Royal guardsmen, however, did not earn their positions easily, and for all that the Valliere armsmen were actually better trained and more well-disciplined, the difference was slight, and the Guardsmen were far, far better equipped.

Most of the guard were equipped with a sword and shield, the sword enchanted for barrier penetration, the shield enchanted to serve as a deflective barrier, though for the barrier to last long, it would require skilled use in redirecting, rather than absorbing spellfire. Combined, they were tools unlikely to allow a single guardsmen to defeat a competently trained battlemage, but they were sufficient to make him a threat, and a potentially lethal distraction while the mages within the Guard also attacked.

Under fire from the descending Dragon Knights, the Royal Guardsmen immediately retreated into the keep, though a few were cut down before they could fully withdraw into cover. It was as the Dragon Knights began to land and dismount before the Keeps entrances, that Joshua struck.

Joshua lunged out of the murder hole he had been hiding within, coming down on a landing Dragon Knight sword first. His sword slid cleanly between the man's second and third vertebrae, a better strike than he'd hoped for, which allowed Joshua to cleanly decapitate the man before leaping onward to another target. His second target took his sword between the ribs under her right shoulder, and disentangling his blade from the corpse made enough of a ruckus to attract the attention of the other nine Knights in that group, and he lost the element of surprise.

Rather than jump for a new target, Joshua seized the Dragon's reigns, and yanked hard, causing the creature to rear, and unintentionally shield him from the Dragon Knights' first barrage of spells with its body. Gauging the force behind his assailants spells by how hard they hit the Dragon beneath him, Joshua concluded that even twice the represented force would not be a significant threat to him through concussion alone, and shifted forms.

This time, he made no effort to suppress the intense flare of power and light that accompanied his shift in form, flash-blinding his opponents as the now-dead Dragon fell beneath his own enlarged form. Several of the Albion Knights had both the presence of mind, and the situational awareness, to throw reasonably accurate spells at his last known position, but they were throwing spells intended to take down a man-sized target, and the force behind them, once distributed by his armor, was barely enough to jostle him.

Up close and personal, with his Dragon-sized sword, it took him less than six seconds to carve the survivors to bloody flinders, the reach and force of his blade too much for them to protect against without sight.

His work with that squad done, Joshua shifted forms again, and set off in search of a new batch of targets.

((()))

Siesta had never before in her life worn a dress so fine; that it fit nearly perfectly was even more surprising, though she did suppose she was very close to the Princess size, perhaps an inch taller. One of the Guardsmen-mages had used a spell to recolor her hair, and after tousling it a little, she did bear quite a resemblance to Henrietta, save for the shape of her eyes.

Siesta had expected a disguise would be necessary when she volunteered to serve as a decoy, what she had not expected was how boring it would be. Secreted away in the central most chamber of the inner keep, a small knitting room, she was completely isolated from the battle, save for the sporadic slight tremor from a spell large enough to shake the entire castle. Somehow, the apparent peace made knowing that blood was being shed outside so much worse.

((()))

Joshua managed to effect a second ambush on one of the descending groups of Dragon Knights before they solidified their position on the ground, and began pressing into the castle interior. Within the castle's corridors, the fighting bogged down to a slow, bloody grind. In the walls interior passages, the Valliere armsmen used their intimate knowledge of the castle's interior, as well as traps and training for this exact kind of circumstance to heavily blunt the Dragon Knight's vastly superior number of mages. The results of Karin's intense training and preparation were telling, in that the casualty ratios were not completely one-sided, but the Reconquista's magical advantage still forced the defenders to continually give ground.

Things were vastly different within the inner keep. Whereas Karin had trained her armsmen to fight defensively, and safeguard their own lives as they fought, in order to preserve themselves as a fighting force through and beyond any one battle, the Royal Knights had been trained to aggressively slay enemy mages before they could get within attack range of the Royal Family. Three dozen Royal Guardsmen stood in layered defense of the keep, and nearly a hundred dismounted Dragon Knights invaded, acting in groups of twelve, less amongst those that had already sustained casualties.

The Guard had been trained primarily to fight within enclosed spaces, such as the Royal Palace, tactical doctrine dictating that the Dragon or Manticore Knights provide royal protection on the battlefield. The Dragon Knghts were trained to fight for aerial superiority, or attack ground-based mages and commoner infantry. While the Royal Guard lay ambushes, played with misdirection tactics, and engaged with a siege mentality, the Dragon Knights attacked in a head-long rush, with a mentality bent to using speed and striking power to overwhelm the enemy before they could strike back.

The Dragon Knights blitzed into, and through ambush after ambush, clashing in bloody and incredibly brief struggles, the Dragon Knights winning all but a handful of engagements through force of numbers and magic. Every engagement involved the complete eradication of one side, and the Royal Guard did not allow a single engagement to pass where they did not slay at least one of the Dragon Knights. Despite their magical and numerical superiority, less than four dozen of the Dragon Knights survived when they finally broke past the Guard to reach the core of the keep where Siesta had been concealed.

When they breached the knitting room she waited within, Siesta said nothing, simply sitting and staring at them with her eyes as wide open as she could, to conceal their slanting shape as best she was able.

For a long moment the Albion Knights stared back.

Then their leader took the top of her head off with a single wind spell.

"More spine to her than I would have thought," He ground out as they turned to leave, "It takes a real Noble to stare death in the face like that."

((()))

Joshua was practically snarling with frustration. The Dragon Knights were good, good enough that killing them was difficult, and they might have been able to kill him if they'd managed to cut his mobility, even through his armor, and this forced him to fight like a skirmisher. He slipped in and out of the fights between the castle's defenders around the infirmary, slaying enough to turn the tide of battle either in the Valliere armsmen's favor, or bring them closer to a draw.

He held a decided advantage in his defense of the Princess, as he could feel the magical presence of every mage on the battlefield, though with so many it became somewhat muddled, and could track every engagement in the corridors around the infirmary easily. He ended the Dragon Knights few attempts to approach the infirmary from the outside very bloodily, and they very quickly learned not to engage him on the ground, in the open, as it played to all of his strengths.

Similarly, he had learned not to engage them in the corridors alone, as doing so played to their strengths, numerical superiority and extensive training in fighting as a cohesive unit. He could disrupt between one and three spells that targeted him with his own magic before they would get one through, and word had gotten around amongst the Dragon Knights to batter the man in gunmetal armor away with blunt force, rather than try to slay him outright.

But while he could readily keep track of the threat posed to the Princess, he could do nothing about the threat posed to Siesta, as the young maid was not a mage, and thus had no magical presence for him to track. All he could sense from the inner keep was a rapidly-shifting mass of magical presences, the number of them rapidly decreasing as time passed.

The first sign Joshua received that the battle in the keep had gone one way or another, came when all active casting within the keep stopped. It took him more than a minute to notice, as he was hardly unoccupied himself, but once he had the attention to spare, he could feel all of the surviving mages within the keep moving towards the exits, and the Knights fighting within the walls also began to retreat.

Whatever they had done when they found her, Joshua knew, they had found her.

((()))

Karin's battle against King Joseph of Gallia, and his familiar, Sheffeld, had long since exceeded the limited space of the keep's battlements. Sheffeld was using an array of powerful magical artifacts to attack Karin from behind Joseph's shield, a shield that Karin had been unable to pierce no matter what spell or amount of power she used. Piercing spells, bludgeoning spells, lightning spells, all of them were dealt with in precisely the same way; distorted, disrupted, and dispersed.

It had taken Karin less than a minute to realize that whatever Joseph was doing bore only a superficial resemblance to the dispelling effect Joshua had exhibited in his fight with her, and that her attacks had no chance of piercing it. The instant that she had realized that, she had switched from fighting offensively, to fighting defensively, and doing everything she could to conceal that fact.

Joseph and Sheffeld were both skilled warriors, it was obvious to her, and would probably have trounced most square-class mages in a duel, but they were still an order of magnitude beneath her in skill and raw power. She could find no other conclusion, save that Joseph was indeed a void mage, and it was with that sacred element that he was able to defeat her every attempt at attack. So, instead, she maneuvered herself across the battlements of her castle, evading Sheffeld's attacks deftly, and probing Joseph's defenses, looking for a weakness.

It took he five seconds to find one, but she spent two minutes flitting about the battlements as she exchanged spellfire with Joseph and Sheffeld, making sure that the Gallian and his familiar were actually oblivious enough to have missed it themselves before attempting to use it. Once she concluded that Sheffeld and Joseph both, without a doubt, had both missed the flaw in their defenses, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and attacked.

Karin cast two spells simultaneously, the first a lightning blast directly targeting the King of Gallia, the second a lance-and-hammer spell designed to first pierce, and then bludgeon, a target into submission. The second spell, however, was cast at the stones directly in front of Joseph, just out of range of his shield. Momentarily blinded by the blast of lightning, Joseph failed to see the second spell in time to react to it; his familiar, Sheffeld, did. Sheffeld hurled herself in front of her master, and when the spell slammed into the stone, fracturing it then blasting the fragments forward, her moderately-armored body absorbed the blow.

Joseph suffered only from having his familiar's body slammed into his chest and face; Sheffeld suffered the effects of eighty pounds of stone shrapnel ramming into her skull, chest, abdomen, legs, and arms, tearing bloody holes in every part of her body except for her neck.

She died instantly.

((()))

Louise dreamed. Her dreams this time, driven by her own internal conflict, gravitated towards Joshua's own memories of conflict. The first few memories she dreamed through were vague recountings of arguments between Joshua and his parents, friends, and younger twin sisters.

Then Joshua's memories of the war his people were in began.

It started with an explosion on the surface, on the field one of his people's flotillas of airships was moored over, killing hundreds of men, women, and children, including Joshua's parents. Every member after that one, was streaked through with grief, and Louise watched as Joshua changed from a sharp young man training to be a pilot and technician, to a warrior piloting a war machine larger than any golem Louise had ever seen.

The war was both terrifying in its scope, and horrifying in how impersonal it was. Weapons that struck across entire continents, infantry that wore so much armor not an inch of their flesh was visible, aircraft, vehicles and ships that were largely run by machines, with only a handful of human crew, and sometimes no crew at all. Physically, the war was destructive like nothing Louise had ever seen, tearing apart landscapes and cities with intensely powerful weapons. In terms of human death, the war was startlingly one-sided, as aside from a spare handful of ambushes and the initial attack that had killed Joshua's parents.

In the end, it was a war of petty men holding grudges attempting to reach farther than they were capable, but as it turned to guerilla tactics, the war extended from months into years, the aggressors turning to more and more vicious tactics as their situation became progressively more bleak. Eventually, two years into the war, Louise came across a memory she immediately wished she hadn't. One of the enemy's more powerful battlemages, a man who held a particular hatred for Joshua's race, was part of a strike team that attacked an allied nation that was hosting the children of Joshua's migrant nation while their fleet went to war, breaking into one of the complexes that housed the children. The boys were all killed, the girls raped, some so violently they were killed as well, and a recording of it all was sent to Joshua's nation.

The enemy battlemage specifically set aside time to personally violate Joshua's sisters, and mocked him personally on the recording. Added to the grief that underwrote every memory from the beginning of the war, pain, rage, and guilt like nothing Louise had ever encountered in her life assaulted her mind, and she desperately tried to escape her dream, but the potion that had put her to sleep denied her escape. She watched as Joshua entered every battle thereafter with a brutality that frightened her, with many of his allies sharing his vengeful spirit. The war, which had prior to the attack bogged down as the enemy struck from concealment and always fled when they could, quickly turned again, as most of the nations which had tolerated Joshua's enemies before, now joined the hunt, and Joshua's nation declared war on the few that would still hide them.

Three times Joshua personally faced his sister's rapist on the battlefield, once forcing the enemy to retreat, greviously wounded, twice only surviving due to the arrival of allies. After each engagement, Joshua attempted to speak with his younger sisters, who were yet only twelve, but they refused to speak with, or even look, at any man, even their brother. Each time they rebuffed him, Joshua's anger grew, but his guilt grew even more.

It all came to an end the final time Joshua confronted the battlemage, in one of what was shaping up to be the final few engagements of the war, beginning the battle each in massive machines of war, and after almost five minutes of intense combat, ending the fight with Joshua driving his sword through the man's armored chest. The blow pushed the man through a shimmering green portal, Joshua following him through. It was then that she, for the first time, saw herself through Joshua's eyes, and realized abruptly that she had summoned the Knight directly from the battlefield where he killed the rapist.

It was in the moments where her semi-lucid mind tried to wrap around the emotional consequences of this, that Sheffeld was killed.

((()))

As an intrinsic matter of how magic functioned in Halkeginia, when one host of Void Magic, be they mage or familiar, was killed, the Void power imbued in them would move on, to seek a new host. Thus, when Sheffeld died, the Void moved on.

However, something interfered with the normal course of events. Louise Francoise de la Blanc de la Valliere, already possessing a five-fold, though mostly undeveloped, affinity for Void, was in the terminal stages of a magical metamorphosis where her Halkeginian magic fused with that of the Dragon-Blooded from Joshua's world. Louise was also less than ten miles from Castle Valliere when Sheffeld died, and her magically saturated body acted as a lightning rod for the released Void Magic, the power of the Myozitherirn, grounding it.

The magic of the Myozitherirn, however, was the magic of a Familiar, not a Magus, and refused to bond with Louise, even in her heavily altered form, and instead forced her body to act as a conduit to create a summoning portal, and bring in a new familiar.

In the fraction of a second between the Myozitherirn's magic entering her body, and forcing the portal open, the excess magic stressing her body to the limit, then pushing it over the threshold, into the final stage of transformation.

A Void Explosion an order of magnitude more powerful than anything Louise had ever conjured before detonated, with her body as the epicenter. Wardes, less than three feet away, was instantaneously slain and atomized. The blast battered the forest beneath them, snapping branches, felling small trees, frightening large animals, and slaying small ones.

When the smoke cleared, a pink-furred Dragon was falling from the sky, a shimmering green portal descending parallel to her.

((()))

End of Chapter 6.

((()))

AN: Because I'm not cruel, I'll tell you this about Siesta; healing magic in Halkeginia is potent stuff, and a human being can, sort of, survive while missing most of what is above their eyes. Of course, what kind of survival that is, and if it's worth having, is something many people debate.

Also, a note on dispelling effects; I have Joseph using a defensive variation of the Void dispel effect in this chapter; what Joshua uses is very different. In the world he originates from, unless your opponent is vastly more powerful than you, it is very easy to interrupt an ordered flow of magic by attacking it with the same element of magic. This doesn't stop someone from, say, violently slamming you with a blast of air, but it would disrupt a careful air-based levitation effect. In essence, you're taking a magical effect that works because of an ordered shape, flow, and distribution of magic, then messing it up so that instead there's a disordered shape, flow, and distribution of magic. The magic will still do something, just not what it was originally intended to. Void dispel, on the other hand, simply tears a spell apart and nullifies it altogether.

Finally, if it wasn't clear by this point, I'm editing some details of the ZnT source material to suit my purposes. This seems to be pretty standard for ZnT crossover fanfiction, but I figured I'd make it clear that it was deliberate, in case anybody was wondering.