Chapter Text
Cold winds whipped at her face as she ran through the Brume, weapon drawn. Aydria felt each breath searing her lungs, the cold of an Ishgardian blizzard biting at her insides just as much as it clawed at her skin. The Dravanians were back, and ripping at everyone and anything they could get their claws in. Screams of children, women, men - knights, lowborn, and thieves all the same - mixed together with the screams of winged Dravanians as she squeezed off opportunistic rounds into the skulls of small dragons as she ran towards where she was needed most. A little girl wailed in the middle of it all, standing helpless amidst the fray, somehow untouched. The Warrior of Light sprinted towards the child, who always seemed to be just one more bounding step away. As she reached her hand out, time seemed to stretch on for an eternity, and the snows blew everything away until she was suddenly sprinting towards the crashed open doors of the Tribunal, already crawling with dragons.
…Or were there dragons? No, she realized - just shadows and knights hellbent on meting out a “justice” undeserving of the name that would stand in her way protecting an idea not worth dying for.
They died poorly, their corpses rent by a hail of bullets and left to bleed all over the uncaring stones of the Pillars. Aydria turned the corner inside the Tribunal, where a man stood high between the thick stone-hewn arms of Halone, pronouncing the guilt of a small girl who had dared to strike back against her most noble assaulter. He, too, died crudely and without fanfare as true aimed metal struck him through the chest.
Aydria placed a hand on the terrified child’s shoulder, turning her around gently. The girl’s face wavered, rippling until a once-beloved roegadyn’s stared back at her, eyes dead and pressing something rocky and cold into the Warrior of Light’s hand.
“You can’t save them all, Sparky.”
Her vision swirled and spun, then went black.
Aydria awoke with a start, fumbling for her gun and trying to stand too quickly in Bay 07 in the Skysteel Manufactory. She swung her weapon around wildly, panting, searching for foes with each thundering heartbeat - realizing as she came to that it was only a dream. A dream she’d had a dozen times before, now, each time awaking not to Moenbryda, but harsh, unforgiving lights mounted to the walls and buzzing unceasingly from overhead.
“<Your heartrate is two hundred and seven percent of resting,>” observed a robotic voice from her right.
“I’m fine, C,” she said, shaken and not really believing her own words except in regard to her physical health. C-V01, her recently constructed mechanical companion and aide, was ever chiding her on her health and habits, despite repeated attempts to program this behavior out of the droid. Aydria set the gun back down on the bench she’d been sleeping against the legs of and leaned over on it, blinking at the pile of metal that was supposed to be part of a stabilizer she had been working on before she’d drifted off.
“<High heartrates for extended periods can be evidence of stress,>” the machine observed neutrally, “<as is waving a handgun around at nothing.>”
“C, I did not ask,” Aydria reprimanded, picking up the nearing empty bottle of whiskey that was in the corner of her bench and gulping down a searing swig before setting it back down hard.
“<I understand,>” her companion said with as much care as a machine could muster.
The miqo’te sighed, adjusting her sleep-disheveled black leather vest back into place and tugging it down to fit snug again. She rubbed her eyes, and tapped against her magitek wristlet. 3:17 am shone back light blue holographic text.
She looked over at the hulking metal skeleton of an engine that she and C-V01 had been developing for the past weeks. The idea was a solid one - a specialized engine that burned not liquid ceruleum, but instead powered itself from pulling in wind aether and simultaneously converting it via compression and polarity shifting to fire and lightning aether in near equal parts, combining them again to produce thrust. She was sure it would work, if she could ever get it constructed - sourcing the required materials for the aetheroconverters and the pressure stabilizers was proving…difficult, to say the least, with most materials readily available unable to withstand the high-stress environment that would be the inside of the turbocharged thrusters.
Aydria yawned. “C’mon, C. They get worried if I don’t sleep at the manor for more than a few days in a row. We’d best get back.”
Her metal friend’s singular bright blue sensor housing mounted in the center of its head swiveled with a whir to face her. “<They should worry.>”
“Someday I’ll figure out how to stop you from just saying everything that comes into your circuits,” Aydria said with a frown as she threw a cloth cover over the engine prototype.
“<You created me to assist with tactical and strategic analysis, as well as engineering optimization. I am merely fulfilling my purpose,>” C-V01 stated with as much biting cynicism as it could unintentionally muster.
“Yeah, well, sleep pattern suggestions weren’t really what I had in mind.”
“<I understand.>”
Aydria pulled a lever and the room’s lights extinguished, buzzing fading away to the sounds of the wind whipping outside and the thunder of the gigantic generator that powered the Manufactory distantly thumping away. In the quiet of the night, she and her clanking companion left the sprawling building in Foundation and marched back up the empty roads and flights of winding stairs to the Pillars, sneaking back into Fortemps Manor before anyone else was awake to make note of her absence save the night watchman.
Aydria stirred her coffee, looking absentmindedly out the window at the snowflakes falling gently outside in the morning light. For a mercy, the snow seemed relatively light, today - no need to go trudging through snowfall up to her knees this time. She could just ask C-V01 to carry her through deep snows, of course, but that looked ridiculous, so she never did.
A knock came at her door. “Mistress Fireheart?” asked an unrecognized voice - likely another of the many stewards in the employ of the Fortemps.
I wonder what today’s errand is, Aydria thought with a twinge of annoyance as she headed to answer the door.
“Good morning, my lady,” the gaunt-looking elezen steward greeted upon her opening the door. “The Count has requested your assistance in a matter involving Lord Artoirel in the Western Highlands. Passage via airship has been booked for you in advance, paid in full. I’m afraid I cannot offer many details of Lord Artoirel’s mission in the Highlands; however, if I may, several knights have gone missing there of late. I would surmise that the Count seeks to ensure his son’s safety with your presence.”
Aydria blinked. Do these types ever stop gossiping?
“Western Highlands. Right. Anything I should know before I go?”
The steward looked both ways before leaning in towards the Warrior of Light’s door. “There are rumors that the area is infested with heretics ,” he whispered, practically spitting the last word. “How the fiends can possibly survive the cold wastes is beyond me, Fury take them. A fittingly desolate place for a those traitors, if you ask me!”
“<It is possible they are supplied by Dravania, to the northwest,>” C-V01 chimed in helpfully.
The steward gasped and recoiled. “By the Fury! That they would consort with the very dragons themselves for sustenance! Unthinkable!”
Upon noticing the Warrior of Light had not joined in his outrage, the elezen man straightened himself and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Excuse me, my lady. I will leave you to prepare for your journey,” he said with a bow before turning and walking stiffly down the hall.
Aydria watched him go before shutting the door behind her. “Alright C, you heard the man. We’ve got a job to do,” she said in a resigned voice, pulling a coat on to protect against the freezing temperatures awaiting her.
The airship journey was uneventful and quiet. The small number of poorly equipped knights and footmen that had joined her on the flight clearly did not appreciate their assigned posting, and had sat in stony, stern silence the entire time. Aydria and C-V01 departed the airship and were spotted first by Artoirel, who had trotted up to the pair and bowed in greeting.
“Lady Fireheart,” he said gracefully, “welcome to Falcon’s Nest, such as it is.”
C-V01 clicked and whirred for a moment before speaking. “<Preliminary scans indicate 48.7% of structures are currently encased in ice. This is negatively impacting performance of stationed personnel.>”
“Er, yes,” the elezen Lord agreed with a confused expression before returning his attention to the Warrior of Light, “as you can see it is something of a work in progress. Come, I will explain a brief history before introducing you to the commander here.”
The trio began walking through snows away from the airship landing. “Falcon’s Nest was once a thriving hamlet that often supplied both men to fight the dragons and plentiful food. The Calamity changed all that, as I’m sure you have already surmised from the landscape - the village was abandoned when the snows from Dalamud simply did not stop falling, and it is only recently that there has been any effort to retake the town.”
“And as a result, the whole bloody place is crawling with heretics,” interrupted a man’s voice.
“Ah, Ser Redwald,” Artoirel greeted. “I was going to bring our hero here to you, but it seems you have found us yourself first.”
The brown-haired mustached man looked down at the Warrior of Light. “You’re the famed Fireheart, then? You’ve come just in time - our reconnaissance party was due back a full bell ago, and we’ve not been able to find hide nor hair of them. Now, anywhere else, just a bell might not be cause for overmuch concern, but here, that bell can be the difference between life and death. I know not if they’ve caught with some freak blizzard or with heretics, but I need you to track them down and bring them back safe.”
“<At current temperatures, their survival without shelter is projected to be approximately another 6 hours,>” C-V01 supplied monotonously.
Aydria crossed her arms. “Where were they last? The way everyone talks about this place, I’d rather not go stumbling around in the snow and end up tripping over the heretics that are supposed to be everywhere.”
“There were rumblings of heretics north of Riversmeet, which is what they were sent out to observe - but their orders were not to engage, only confirm the presence. Your best place to start is likely in that vicinity, still.”
Aydria turned to Artoirel. “I assume you know where that is?”
The Fortemps Lord nodded in affirmation. “I do. I will lead the way, and together we can find these missing soldiers and bring them back safe!”
Yes, yes, nice performance, they all think you very competent, Aydria thought. “Lead on,” she prompted with an open arm.
It took them just over an hour of pressing through the snows to reach what remained of Camp Riversmeet. The whole place was buried in rifts of snow easily fulms deep, with no obvious shelter worth the name. A large aetheryte spun silently in the center of the camp, a now-useless icicle that served more as a monument to the lost here than anything else.
Aydria scanned the area, goggles down and searching for signs of life. There had been many tracks left by footprints in the snow to get here, but they all almost unnaturally ended in the camp itself. “It’s odd,” she remarked to the elezen knight next to her, “almost like the snow fell harder just here.”
“Is such a thing even possible?” he questioned.
“Not that I know of, at least not naturally,” she answered, flipping through several filters on her goggles. “Which it probably wasn’t. This whole place’s aether is warped; skewed beyond even the rest of the area towards umbral ice.”
She raised her carbine. “I don’t like it. Keep your guard up, there might still be some of Iceheart’s friends nearby.”
Artoirel drew his sword and frowned. “As you say. I will search the northern part of the camp, if you would search the southern?”
Aydria nodded curtly. “C, join Artoirel. If anything comes up on sensors, you let him know.”
“<I understand,>” the droid agreed in its usual unenthusiastic voice.
It wasn’t long before a faint, fading life sign was picked up on Aydria’s goggles. Friend or foe, they clearly were in no shape to fight, and likely with a severe case of frostbite. She approached cautiously, keeping an eye out for any would-be hostiles lying in wait. As she finished closing the distance, none materialized.
The armor the man was wearing marked him clearly as a knight from Falcon’s Nest. “Oh, thank the Fury,” he said with a tired sigh. “I thought…noone would come for me…”
The Warrior of Light knelt down in the snow, saying nothing and peeling back enough of her coat and glove to access her magitek wristband. “C, get over here, and bring Artoirel. I’ve found a live one.”
“You…have to hurry. The heretics…” he tried to explain, but was overcome by a bout of chittering teeth so much he couldn’t speak.
Aydria dug in her pack for a aetheric heat pack and thrust it into the man’s hands without a word. “T-Thank you,” the soldier managed, holding tight to the warmth and pressing it to himself as though he could imbue his very being with it if he pressed hard enough.
A loud thunking from behind Aydria marked the arrival of C-V01 and Artoirel. “Here’s one of your knights,” Aydria said as way of introduction for Artoirel. “He’s hurt pretty bad, mostly from the exposure it looks like - nothing broken that I can see.”
“My Lord!” the knight weakly exclaimed, trying and failing to find his feet.
“Have care, ser. Do not overexert yourself,” Artoirel comforted, joining the Warrior of Light and kneeling in the snow. “What happened here? Where are the others of your party?”
“We’d found the heretic hideout when were suddenly caught in some sort of freak blizzard,” the man began. “One minute it was clear, the next we were completely awash in white. We got a bit turned around what with the winds, and that’s when the heretics came down on us. Ran right out of the blizzard like it was nothing, steel in hand. There were screams, voices I didn’t recognize. I cut at the few that came close, but they got a few good hits on me in return - I tried to retreat; make it back to the Nest, but I only made it as far as here before I couldn’t go any further…tried to hide out the storm here,” the injured knight explained before descending into a coughing fit.
“Have faith, ser. Justice will be done. But first, we must see you to safety,” Artoirel said with a grim face.
Aydria drew her weapon once more. “Where’s the hideout?” she asked, scowling.
“N-North of here. Please, before the snow covers all tracks, for my brothers, you must -” he tried to plea, before being overcome once more with a wheezing cough.
“C, take this man and Artoirel back to Falcon’s Nest. I’ll handle the heretics,” Aydria ordered.
“But, Mistress Fireheart -”
“He’s right, Artoirel. We don’t have time for me to go back with you and get reinforcements; the snows will cover all trace and by the time you can muster another party to go forth, the heretics will all be gone now that they know they’ve been discovered. I can manage myself against a few amateurs with stolen swords,” she interrupted, leaving no room for disagreement. “C-V will keep the two of you safe enough for the journey back. I’ll leave some deep footprints for you to follow from here.”
The black-haired Lord frowned but did not protest further. “Fury guide you. You certainly live up to your reputation, my lady,” he said before rising and waiting for the Warrior of Light’s machine companion to join him with their charge.
The wind only seemed to get stronger and stronger as Aydria proceeded northward up the frozen rocky hills. The tracks she was following back were faint at best, only every few steps even detectable after the heavy snowfalls. There’s no way this is natural, she thought. And there’s only one person who could be keeping it this way on command.
In truth, she’d sent C-V and Artoirel back to keep the knight safe from Iceheart more than anything. All the signs pointed to primal activity, and there was no way he’d be able to hold his own against the full might of Shiva, even without the risk of tempering. She tried to put her first encounter with the god-woman out of her mind and focus on the task, but little memories slipped past here and there. Moen’s voice cockily asserting she wouldn’t give Iceheart a chance to temper her. Jokingly making sure Aydria hadn’t suffered any serious head injuries after - twice - with a warm smile.
She grimaced against a gust of cold wind. It couldn’t be far now. The footprints in the snow were starting to get mixed together with other sets, crisscrossing to and fro across the drifts. The wireframe of a building crept into view in her goggles, clearly run down and disused. Did they really not check an abandoned building? she thought. It’s the most obvious place for a hideout you could have in all this snow.
Aydria checked the status readout on her aetherotransformer and her weapon. Both were, thankfully, still in working condition despite the cold. At least the upgrades I made are working , she thought wryly. She made her way to the crumbling house, noticing that one section was clearly in better repair than the rest. Seven Hells, are they even trying?
Despite the tale of the knight, she still had no enemies showing on her scans. Hoping she wasn’t already too late to catch the perpetrators of the attack, she kicked open the door of the better repaired section of the building, which gave way to an empty stable. At a glance, it too appeared disused, but closer inspection showed fresh hay still in many of the animal stalls. Down a narrow stone hall, another door stood half-ajar, as if taunting her. She rushed towards it, shouldering it open and checking every corner with her carbine raised - nothing. Just some stairs going down.
She took cautious steps down the stairs, keeping an eye for traps, making it down to the landing where the steps doubled back on themselves when her goggles registered a single life sign in the room at the bottom of the second flight. <Recognized entity aether signature: Iceheart> her goggles read in blocky letters across the top of her vision.
Aydria descended the last of the stairs, nudging open the door at the bottom with the barrel of her carbine to reveal a wide open living space. At the end, by an altar, knelt her quarry, platinum hair down to hair waist nearly touching the ground.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for here,” she said as she rose, not turning. “All the others have fled, living to fight injustice another day.”
“Is that what you’re calling it now? ‘Fighting injustice?’” Aydria said with a scoff. “You open the gates to let dragons murder hundreds of innocent people, and you call that ‘fighting injustice?’ Please.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way!” Iceheart barked, whirling around. “You don’t understand! Once we were inside, the dragons…they knew where the fault truly lie, in the Holy See itself, but they fell upon helpless children taught merely to fear the skies with such fury and rancor that I…I could not control them.”
“Wasn’t very bright of you to think you ever did,” Aydria shot back bluntly, carbine still aimed directly at the pale elezen.
“And perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps I never can,” Iceheart acknowledged. “But I must make this right. I, like you, am blessed by the Mother with the Echo, and through it, the great wyrm Hraesvelgr has revealed to me the truth of events that started this whole war. Man and dragon once lived in harmony, and they can do so again, but only if they admit the truth of their transgressions!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” the small miqo’te asked, incredulous.
“I used to live here, you know. In Falcon’s Nest. When the Calamity came, an avalanche buried everyone I knew; everyone I loved. With no way back to Ishgard, I turned to Dravania, knowing full well I was likely walking to my death all the same were I found there,” Iceheart explained.
“And found I was, by Hraesvelgr. It was revealed to me through his eyes the truth of this wretched war - that men, not dragons, had started it so many centuries ago, and have paraded a lie to keep justifying violence and pretending it holy. You are right, many innocents have died - and for them, I weep, but I can only make their deaths not in vain and bring an end to this endless cycle of violence once and for all.”
Aydria gripped her weapon tighter. “Gods, you sound just like him,” she spat.
Iceheart furrowed her brow, visibly confused. “Like who?”
“Midgardsormr, your beloved Father of Dragons,” Aydria answered, voice full of acid. “He sounded just the same. Burn Ishgard down in a ‘song of retribution’ so that ‘sons answer for their father’s deeds.’ You and he both talk as though the dragons haven’t taken anything from men; that it’s only personal to them and not to us.”
The Warrior of Light’s eyes narrowed beneath her goggles. “You’re both wrong.”
Iceheart sighed forlornly. “You’re not listening. Some day, I pray, you too will see the truth. Be well, Warrior of Light. Remember the Mother’s words: hear, feel, think. May She guide you to the understanding I have already come to receive,” she said before surrounding herself in a whirl of cold and ice and slipping away in a light flurry of snow.
It took until almost sundown for Artoirel and C-V01 to return with a band of reinforcements. The warmth that had permeated the building had rapidly faded with Iceheart’s departure, in a sort of cruel joke by nature trying to make a pun of the woman’s moniker.
“Lady Fireheart!” Artoirel greeted, “we returned as quickly as we could, but I see any misgivings I might have had regarding your fortitude were misplaced.”
“<I informed him repeatedly that your odds of survival were 98.985%. This did not seem to be effective,>” C-V01 said.
Aydria rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, there’s more to success than survival, C.”
“Aydria,” Artoirel said, placing a hand on the smaller woman’s shoulder. “It is truly a pity Iceheart escaped, but pray, do not let that detract from your accomplishments today. When Haurchefant pled for father to support your cause, I will admit - there were many who thought him foolish for believing in you.”
He paused, looking away.
“I was among them. Even now, I thought surely sending you alone into a blizzard that could be filled with heretics keen on your death would cause you to falter - yet here you stand, championing the Fury’s justice none the worse for wear,” the elezen said with admiration. “It’s clear my dear half-brother was right all along - you really are the hero the stories tell of.”
Aydria shrugged off the taller man’s hand. “Listen, hero or not, I’m just doing what has to be done, because I’m the only one who can, alright?”
“Call yourself what you will, then,” Artoirel conceded, confusion plain on his face. “But you must accept our thanks for your aid this day. Without it, I cannot say how many men would have been needlessly lost to Iceheart and her band of heretics.”
C-V01 tilted its boxy metal head. “<Calculations suggest->”
“Quiet, C,” Aydria interrupted. She said nothing for a moment, looking off into the snows beyond Artoirel, then sighing softly in resignation. “Well, Artoirel, your ‘hero’ is cold. Can we put this place behind us? I’d much rather be sitting in front of a fire than standing around in the cold freezing my ass off.”
The refined nobleman winced ever so slightly at her crass language. “Of course. Let us make for Falcon’s Nest - I’m sure they’ll have a warm cup and a hearth waiting for you in celebration. Come,” he said with an inviting gesture back southwards, “you’ve more than earned your rest.”