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It was there, in the middle of the chaos and destruction wrought on Rhalgr's Reach, that she found it. Perfection. There was no wasted energy in his movements, each of them controlled strength and fluidity, honed by what she knew were years of practice.
She could only watch as he cut people in half, dancing to a tune rhythmed by the sound of bodies hitting the ground and mangled screams.
She had been looking for this, when she left for Eorzea. Someone to emulate now that her dancing prowess had grown too far beyond that of her peers. Instead, she had been made a hero, alone in her place at the top once more. With nothing to keep her engaged, to help her become more . It had been frustrating, this endless stagnation. One could always become better, but this time she had no idea about how to achieve that goal. She had always known before, her teachers always pointing out her flaws, helping her see what to improve.
She hated what she felt with each passing day that she had to give this message to this resistant, carry this stack of grains to this woman, help this farmer with his fields. The frustration, the contempt. She was regressing. Yet she had held in the sneers and scoffs, all for the chance that this might lead her to another exhilarating dance with a new Primal, with a dragon, with whoever would make a suitable partner for a new deadly dance.
She had finally found her goal, but now she was the one not good enough. For he was deadly grace incarnate. She would not be able to claim him as her equal partner no, but him she could strive to emulate. She had to learn from whoever this Garlean was.
He was the heart of a carefully controlled chaos, forcing others to dance to his own rhythm and preying on their weaknesses when invariably they failed to keep up.
She was rooted in her spot, blind to the carnage around her as she drank him in, trying to look with more than her eyes. She focused her aether the way she had been taught to in order to dance with perfect synchronicity with her partners, to help herself hear, feel, see him better.
Little by little, it came to her. The muscles he used for the downward swing of his katana. How every inch of his body was under his control and had been trained to the peak of physical capabilities. How she could feel him, despite the impossibility of it, using aether to further the strength of his blows. There was something implacable in the rhythm of his steps as they sidestepped an attack by some suicidal fool.
Truly, Hext had stood no chance, she didn’t even know why the blonde had been spared from a much deserved death.
Then came a peerless sense of equilibrium displayed in a sharp turn to deflect a blow from the sky.
Shinobis were so good at aerial acrobatics, she would have gotten Yugiri to teach her some if the Au Ra hadn’t been so dead set on finding that Kaien person. Well, looking at how the unknown Garlean managed to parry and counterattack without any flashy aerial display, she wondered if ultimately that wouldn’t have been a waste of effort on her part. Though the style might still be good enough for finishing flourishes, she nodded to herself. She so loved infusing her killing blows with a dramatic flair.
He was now steadily gathering power to use a blade to brute force his way through a magical barrier. If he managed, it would be the first time she ever saw such a feat. He reminded her of what her aerial dancing teacher had made her understand was the core of that discipline : this was pure strength made to look graceful, hiding all the training that had come before and all the efforts it took to deliver the one smooth movement.
She creeped closer, slinking around allies and foes without engaging any. Now that she was closer, she could see the cool, analytical look he cast on the world, buried deep beneath layers of boredom.
He, too, was forced to dance with people who had no hope of keeping up with him. He exuded disappointment in the angles of his shoulders, the weight in his steps. Yet that got livened up by a spark of faint surprise that shimmered in the blue eyes she could clearly see now that his helmet had been fully removed. He held her stare and slowly, he lifted his katana until it pointed straight at her.
The challenge took her breath away and the rushing in her ears stopped for long enough for her to hear the end of his sentence.
“Your friends were a disappointment. But you…You will entertain me will you not?
It was a heady feeling, to know that this man who was so out of her league – being a good dancer was about knowing your own limits and she could recognize when she was outclassed – was inviting her for a duet.
She wouldn’t best him.
But she would see how long she lasted and give herself an estimation of how much progress she had yet to go through to be worthy of him.
As she unhooked her chakrams from her waist, jumping lightly from one foot to the other, she focused on the flow of her aether. Once its waves were level with her heartbeat, she pushed it to spread it through her body. It easily warmed up muscles, enhancing them, gave her tendons more flexibility, the energy thrumming through her in the steady beat of the melody of her soul at rest making herself feel lighter, as though she was walking on clouds.
He let her do her swift warm up. He was patient, apparently, when it came to fighting someone who might make his victory less crushing than what he was used to.
She finished her preparation by imbuing her weapons with her aether until they felt less like objects and more like an extension of herself.
She would do her best to prove herself worthy.
It was a strange feeling, this apprehension of not being deemed good enough, she had long since grown unused to it. The threat of dying was something she had grown indifferent to, it was par for the course. But to be cast aside as yet another subpar opponent, that would be the cruelest punishment.
So she steeled herself: she kept her breath even and her aether flowing as she focused all of her attention on him.
She craved a partner, to twine their aether together and move as one, to share their strengths and counterbalance their weaknesses. If she showed enough promise then maybe, maybe, he would consider helping her reach his level. And investment into a future where they would stand as equals, reaching out for more together.
She glided through the steps of her opening variation to strengthen her awareness of him even more and curled her aether around her chakrams. She shaped her aether through the glyphs of power her body made and used her soulcrystal as the catalyst to store the energy for later in the corresponding seals engraved in her many rings and bracelets. When finally, weapons and accessories felt like extensions of herself, she threw her arm and extended the chain of aether that ended with her chakram in his direction. She weaved in a wave of aquatic magics to sharpen the sting of their slice in a move she had learnt as a Cascade.
She immediately followed through with a dash forward and a half pirouette that announced the cleaving blow of a Reverse Cascade before engaging in a cautious retreat.
It was not the longest chain of movements but it proved a good idea as the first sheen of green appeared in her bond to her weapons while she sidestepped a blow, while she nimbly skipped out of the path of his blade and out of his reach in a way she would not have been allowed to had she pressed on too early.
Thus the dance began. They circled each other as they gauged each other’s rhythm, strengths, reach, reactivity.
He was taller and stronger. She was more agile and had the advantage of reach.
As far as speed went, she doubted he had let her see the whole of it as of yet and she did not waste precious time and energy in her usual faints and flourishes. The buildup of power for future combinations of steps would suffer a little, but it was not this sort of demonstration.
So she kept her movements clean and precise and adjusted to his 8-beats tempo. Two measures on a 4 quarter notes rhythm.
She adjusted out of her safe three-four waltz and into an old long-mastered choreography. A simple, but effective one.
One, two.
An opening glissage ending in a dégagé.
Three and four.
Use the tensed aether to project the chakram further.
Pivot a quarter of a turn with a port-de-bras going from fifth to third position and use it to call back the chakram in an oblong curve.
Five, six.
Catch the weapon and finish the spin, using the turn to coil the aether back to her core in sync. Then release said aether to gain a burst of speed forward.
Seven, eight.
Slash, let the chakram slide off the opponent’s blade. The goal was not to break it but rather to follow it. The bad dancers impose and ultimately break. The good ones seamlessly adjust.
A pas-de-bourrée was reduced to its barebones to adjust the flow of her aether back to a neutral stage and she was back in her starting position.
A few measures later, she had a fairly good idea of the tune he had chosen to dance on. All that was left was for her to find a way to make her inner music match his for as long as he would allow it.
So she tried in earnest once more, a familiar sequence of arabesques, jumps, and ports-de-bras that extended to her chakrams and that led to her pirouetting away. She had to be as weightless as a freefalling bird of prey, as agile as a feline. Eventually, she felt comfortable enough to add faints and develop her movements to the fullest under his dispassionate gaze that missed nothing.
They were creating what was doubtlessly one of her better performances of late. The smile she kept on her face out of habit - “we dancers are not brutish gladiators,” her teachers all agreed, “no one needs nor wants to know the pain it takes you to deliver each step and each strike flawlessly, they need to see you move and think that it is easy and effortless ” - became one of genuine exhilaration.
Slowly but surely, her weapons charged, all four stones on her rings shining with a bright green light that matched the ones encrusted on her ever flying chakrams.
It was just in time as the ground started to shake, with him at the very epicenter. With a sharp burst of aether, she had to jump her way out of the zone.
From then on, the rhythm picked up. His own evaluation of her capabilities was over and he started mercilessly changing their pace every few measures. She helplessly felt herself being pulled out of the balance she had reached between her inner music and his into struggling to keep up. She had the time to weave the four bursts of previously charged energies in between her blocks and parries and evasions, using the cutting power of the long feathered aether fans as shields to deflect his blows instead of the slicing motions they were supposed to be used for.
She was pushed again and again on the defensive until she missed a beat, missed a step.
She disengaged then. In a swirl of blindingly bright Windmill to keep him and his blade away while she waited the precious seconds needed for the aether channels in her feet and legs to have recuperated. The burst of aether from her previous dash that had been so violent in its emergency it had left them numb.
She was out of reach but not for long as he came ever closer, unhurriedly like the superior dancer that he was. She used the precious respite to calm the trembling in her muscles and wrangle her breathing back into control, her steps moving smoothly and instinctively in the reassuring 1-2-3 pattern of her healing waltz.
She did not have time to enjoy the lessening of her aches for she had to pick up the rhythm for a lightning fast Samba of protection. It was botched, she only had time to mark the poses and force her aether through the approximative glyphs of power made by her body and it showed in the dullness of the materializing aether that rose around her. But his power had surged and spread again, making the ground shake and crackle. She was struggling to simply keep on being upright and maintaining the final pose of her shield as gravity increased while she had no hope of making it out of his reach.
She did not manage to catch up to his pace after that, her focus was jarred by fatigue and she became unable to hear some key notes of his tune. She failed step after step until she was forced down by the blanket of aether enforced gravity again, was pressed into the ground with no hopes of getting back up, her head swimming and a formless buzz coating all surrounding sounds.
Then finally, he ceased his unrelenting assault. She only had her instincts to save for recognizing the screeching note resonating through the ambient aether still saturated by the sound dampening weight as he sped towards her, finally showing her the true extent of his speed.
She used what little she could scrape of her aether give herself a second wind without relying on forming the pattern. The muscles tore with miniature rupture that she would regret later but the influx of energy and mobility let her push through the pain of grabbing one of her chakrams by the blade and ramming it up. It sang with the pure note of a well timed action when it his the space she had aimed for: the exact area of his katana she had striven to hit with her chakrams all fight long and where there was now the smallest chink.
The weapon fissured from the shock that sent her flying until she crashed on the ground to roll in the dust, the gravel underneath her getting inside the multitude of tiny open wounds exposed to the air, and into her now sliced-open palm.
She remained sprawled on the ground, breathing shallow and moving as little as possible as exhaustion and a multitude of aches and injuries made themselves known.
Heavy steps came closer and she looked up, awaiting the verdict.
“Pathetic,” he called her. She gritted her teeth and only her years of control over herself stopped her from curling into a shameful ball.
She could have cried. Of rage, of envy, of despair. For the first time in years, she had wanted to impress someone and she had failed.
Yet, despite the harsh assessment, there was no sneer in his features and his attention was on his katana where her efforts had finally paid though far too late. If he let her live, she would need to train her muscles more, she still had progress to make in pure strength.
He threw away the broken weapon and with a final look cast her way that was devoid of any of the disgust or boredom she had previously seen directed at other fighters he was gone, taking his men along with him.
She slumped on the ground, exhausted, dark spots dancing at the edge of her vision, threatening to overtake everything as the last of her adrenaline left her.
She did not know how long after the Garleans’ departure Raubhan and his reinforcements arrived, but they were too late. Though even if they had come earlier, they would have been just as outmatched as she had been. This assessment was no hubris on her part, just the cold truth.
She was better than them and the Garlean was leagues better than she herself was. But next time, for she had no doubt there would be one, it would be different. She would make sure to bridge as much of the gap between them as she could.
With that final thought, she closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.
***
In the weeks that followed, after her body had recuperated, she trained in earnest. Before meeting him, losing to him, a small part of her had started believing that one could excel to the point there was nothing left to improve. She had thought her forms either perfect or had explained away the small remaining flaws as ways to make her performances more impactful for it showed how human she still was.
How arrogant she had been, how blind. She had stagnated until she lost her edge and as a result she had been easily dispatched and found lacking when a worthy opponent had come knocking. Her. How many had she saved? How many had she bested? Humans, countries, dragons, gods. She had fought all those and emerged the victor. Yet one single human without any of her unique abilities, without a shred of her aetherial aptitudes, had done what no one else had.
This could not stand.
So she practiced. She practiced with a single minded resolve that made even Hext’s insistence to look at the world through her childish rose tinted glasses pale in comparison. She practiced harder than she had even during the years under the tutelage of her beloved but merciless Professors who had pushed her to the brink ever since she had enrolled at school to become a master of the Art at the tender age of six. What would the perfectionist Professor Myrrh have thought of her?
She needed to get better, to repeat the movements and power up the glyphs endlessly until her dance was at the very least on par with his. Only then would she be satisfied. Once this milestone was reached, she would keep on working until they had a rematch where she would crush him as thoroughly as he had dominated her.
Dancers can shine alone, but it was with partners that they were the best.
Partnership did not have to be people working together, it could be a fierce competition. One she had every intention to win .
Unfortunately for her, the Scions kept conspiring against her. Her alliance with them weighted on her more than ever as she was forced to do menial task after tedious one. She understood the need to be in the Mhigan’s good graces to help them regain their fighting spirit and subsequently their freedom. Though if it all hanged on her participation, as young Alphinaud had openly hinted, then she was afraid that any freedom of theirs would be over again the day the one she now knew was the infamous Garlean Prince decided he was done playing.
Before, she would have grumbled but would have conceded to the people’s expectations and needs. Except now she was the one she needed to prioritize.
So she tried to turn everything into a training exercise, recalling how she used to transform every second into a dance when she was young and still learning the basics.
The speed of her completion of requests was negatively impacted, but for once she found a usefulness in those. Delivering letters, a thing only the Warrior of Light seemed to be able to do in foreign territory while locals trained in combat were staying in their camps, became an exercise of stamina with leaps, sprints and somersaults involved. There was no staying still allowed, no walking either.
Being made a spectator of negotiations was a way to improve her posture, her ability to keep still. She refined her grasp of the art of simple, minute movements that allied simplicity with grace. It was also a way to attune herself more to people’s melodies and theorize ways in which she could influence them to match her own so she could lead the dance on a larger scale.
She never turned down any quest requiring her to kill a beast, no matter how weak or strong it was, for it was a way to refine her blows on moving targets, to attune herself ever more to her equipment, to become a master of her own aether.
On the evenings when she couldn’t evade company, she had taken to practicing around the fire, going through the movements again and again, infusing them with more and more aether as she went. Some other nights, she went the opposite direction, trying instead to see how little she could use to achieve the desired effect. All the while, she kept an ear out for the melodies of the people around her to make them adjust to her own, to make them hang onto her every step without being able to look away.
Some days, she also practiced in the river that irrigated the camp, the cold seeping in being an exercise in controlling her muscles’ cramping, and the slippery wetness preparing her for a future where she would have to fight while drenched in blood from head to toe.
She practiced until she dropped from exhaustion and whichever Scions was standing guard had to help her get to her beddings. She had no way of knowing how rested she would be on the day she would meet Prince Zenos again.
She heard what people said about her as the weeks turned into months. Some things influenced by her hold on to their melodies, some not.
They said she was the hero come to free them, to defeat the Monster from Garlemald and restore their nation to greatness.
They said she was a beacon of hope and their guide to light their way out of the dark ages they were traversing.
They said she herself was a monster who would one day cause their ruins.
If the last one meant they likened her and the Garlean as birds of a feather, then this was a praise she would graciously take.
She also saw the looks the Scions gave her. They had been worried at first, but it had morphed to compassionate warmth and offers to help as they, like others, became persuaded she was simply committing herself to their cause.
Truth was, she was none of this except, perhaps, an aspiring monster for these people. She would be harmless to them though, she had no interest in their territory quarrels.
If it suited both parties, she could still be their beacon of hope: she was a dancer after all and her performances were meant to be aspiring. She also would not deny how pleasant it was to be admired and how the people’s favor - as fickle as it was - could make her life much easier.
But underneath the layers of charm, her dance was one of death and destruction. Her art was that of beautiful murder that few if any of them would be able to truly appreciate once it left the training halls to be put in practice on the battlefields.
Perhaps the sightless Miqo’te would. The wording of her sentences had been different of late. She could not pinpoint exactly when Miss Rhul’s way of addressing her had changed, but the fact was that it had.
For now though, the common folk in their indistinguishable multitude openly admired her, implicitly trusted her. She shamelessly took advantage of that boon every chance she got.
Whispers from Gridania had her hunting down the Bard unit of the Twin Adders. Surely they could, if not help her, at least give her some new insight of how to evolve. Dance and music had always gone hand in hand, it was one of the oldest partnerships in this Star.
Once she was back, she might seek out Rhul. She would have new knowledge to trade with her in exchange for the Miqo’te’s explanations of what she could see in her aether.
***
It was months later that she came face to face with the Prince again, on another continent entirely. When she had learnt who Yugiri was going after, how could she not follow? She had to see, had to know how much she had grown.
She had informed Rhul before leaving after the Shinobi. Y’shtola, she had offered to be called and perhaps she would remember and use that name. Warning her had been a courtesy, she reminded herself. An acknowledgement of the pleasant companionship she had proven herself to be. The joyful trill that seldom wove into her aether-borne melody was a welcome reaction. She had grown used to her unobtrusive and enriching company.
She was no prince Zenos, that was a given, but her melody was its own brand of pleasant. Y’shtola had also taken to practicing alongside her on the evenings when she was not observing her to point out the areas where her aether patterns could be improved and offer more efficient alternatives. Now was the time to see if this sort of teamwork had borne fruits.
She had gotten better, that was clear even before the fight started. She had been hoping that honing her listening abilities would bear fruit and she did not even have to focus to hear the intricacies of the melodies of the souls around her anymore. The increased ambiance noise destabilized her at times but it had its uses. She acknowledged one of them when she heard him malms before she could even see him. The closer she got, the more amazed she grew. Where his melody was faint before, full of missing notes, she now heard it clearly in its glorious intricacy of layers. She even heard the moment he noticed the pair of intruders by the measure of silence in his song before it started again, richer, dare she say expectant.
Yugiri stood no chance. She knew it before the shinobi even attempted to lunge at the Prince though she admired the woman’s fearlessness. Or was it foolishness?
Once Yugiri was dispatched, it was her turn. The moment of truth. Had her renewed interest in training been enough? Had the gap between their skills diminished at least slightly? Would she entertain him enough to be left alive again?
She came out of her hiding place to dispatch the few remaining guards and knock out the panicking Yotsuyu before facing the waiting Prince, whose battle march had slowed for an interlude before a new act.
“I want another evaluation,” she was calm, focused. A stark contrast to the shinobi who had let her emotions get the better of her. ‘Was this the sum of her hate’ indeed. If it were, then it amounted to little.
“Ah, I remember. Ala Mhigo. The champion of the Savages.”
A slight smile likely flashed across his helmet-covered face, there and gone and she would not have known it if not for the brief chorus of trumpets.
“You better live up to the promise you showed last time and improved, else you will not live to see the next sunrise.”
She knew that to be the truth. It made her heart race and she had little doubt an onlooker would have found her pupils dilated not by the dark - soon, she would make sure she had no need of eyes anymore when she danced - but by the exhilaration coursing through her veins.
This time, he did not give her the opening move. A cymbal rang and he was on her but she had already leaped back with an Entrechat and a Jeté, her aether singing in tune with her steps, dancing patterns of power according to her will.
Time blurred after that. From the various tried and true Fan Dances she executed for him down to her latest experiments in choreography, she knew from the way she held his pace and even pushed him back at times that she had gotten better. But impossibly, so had he and his new katana, a Kojin treasure, made him a much deadlier foe than the plain one had. So she dodged, deflected, threw, jumped. She went through new steps in a blur of colorful aether and woodwinds harmonies made more beautiful thanks to Y’shtola’s insight. Those improvements lent additional strength to her weapon throws and culminated in a flurry of aether blades.
The very air around them was alight with her aether, swirling all around her to accompany her dance in controlled patterns of reds, yellows and blues that shone like ribbons of light in the dark. Wild sparkles of pinks and purples betrayed her enjoyment of the moment as she danced around him as much as with him, for him. She tried and tried again with all her might to find an opening to take advantage of while showing off to him the well executed technicity of her movements. She needed him to see how much she had improved since they saw each other last.
The first act ended and the second one began.
Once again, the warm up was over. Whether she had passed or not, she would know once they reached the coda.
Her defeat after that was swift, but not as crushing as the previous time. She gave as good as she got and threw her all into one last attempt, powered by a moveset she had remembered admiring as a child called Dance of Devilment.
When his katana was once again at her throat and she at his mercy, she was rewarded by the sight of him once more through his damaged mask. In the hole she had made, an eye like the summer sky shone with a delight that was doubtlessly reflected in her own.
There was no shame to be had in her loss this time.
“Oh, how right I was to spare your life,” he sheathed his katana to take off his now useless helmet, a faint but genuine smile playing on thin lips and heard as an added layer of brass in his song.
Her satisfaction at his praise resonated within her awareness of her own melody and she spared a thank that he would not be able to hear nor see her preening. She doubted he would be as kind to her joy as Y’shtola was, all swishing tail and chuckling cello.
Still, she curled her aether back into herself, feeling shy and unwilling for any around to see the shining swirls of reds and yellows painting themselves on her skin. These did not belong anywhere but in performances and hers was over. Fortunately, the unprofessional display did not seem to matter to the Prince, engrossed as he was by the missing piece of his helmet that she had carved out, in the same way he had inspected his broken blade at the end of their prior encounter. The blow would have claimed his eye had not been wearing his headgear.
As with the katana, he threw the item away before looking back at her with a single minded focus she could not remember ever being directed at her.
She repressed a full bodied shiver as her breathing shortened to pants when he came closer and crouched to be level with her face. She could feel his warm breath on her face when one of his hands took hold of her jaw in an unyielding but painless hold to tilt her face towards his.
“Hear me ‘hero’,” the last word was said with a derisive sneer, tuned in a minor scale, as though he of all people had guessed that the Hero was the role she was playing in this never ending representation, but that she was vastly different from her public character.
He went to say something more but changed his words when Yugiri’s xylophone chimed back to life. As he brutally stepped away, she nearly toppled back down on the ground but kept herself upright to listen to his low tones that gradually gained in fervor and she was once more enthralled by his very presence.
“Endure, survive, live. For the rush of blood, for the time between the seconds, live. For the sole pleasure left to me in this hideous ephemeral world, live.”
The Warrior of Light hissed angrily when Yugiri, off tune as she was, interrupted the Prince. The Au Ra rushed at him, her hatred and injuries making her movements as sloppy as the song accompanying her. She should have stuck to her usual G major. She was met with a well deserved slash that could have gutted her but stopped short of life threatening and she fell, once more, to the ground.
“You are not worthy.”
There was disgust mixed with a flatness in his brass arrangements. At that moment, she knew that she never wanted to hear the same song aimed at herself. Even him calling her ‘pathetic’ had been full of his frustration at his knowledge that she could be better but that he had to wait for her to become a worthier opponent.
She wondered if her role demanded that she get up now and try to save the undeserving shinobi. What it would cost her if she did not.
Then the weak little villagers came. The same people she had had to help clean their rice fields of common pests and to help patch up support walls. These same people were now trying to menace this magnificent embodiment of War and Violence. If she hadn’t already slipped back into her heroic persona, she would have laughed at the foolishness of their actions.
The orange-clad boy whose name she didn’t care to remember at that moment delivered what could pass as a rousing speech. Yet of all of the people present in this life-sized stage, Zenos was the one who voiced her true thoughts.
“Death is death, regardless of the reason. Yet you seem determined to die, intruding upon this sacred ground, turning weapons you can scarcely wield upon me. You will not even begin to redress the balance.”
Sacred grounds. She had to turn her face downwards to hide a pleased smile. Yet she had to wrangle it away from her face if not her eyes for the villagers turned to her, wordlessly asking her to support their orange champion when the only thing she desired was to reach out to her model. She was saved from having to paraphrase the Hext girl at her most idealistic by the Leveilleur girl’s welcome “how wrong you are.”
‘Rescue’, once again, came through for her in the form of Scions envoys, likely sent by Y’shtola when she had estimated that she had given her enough time for her rematch. They were accompanied by the imposing samurai and some hidden shinobis.
She could not help the twinge of disappointment that she would not get to see what the Prince would have done after his tirade. What he would have told her next, once he was done with the interlopers.
What she got instead were hands helping her get up to flee while the Prince did not even deign to answer the now awake Yotsuyu’s pleas for someone to act on her defense. The only sound coming from him were the fading clinks that his armor made as he walked away.
***
She went back to saving two kingdoms, her fame growing to ever larger proportions with her new performances. She knew how fickle admiration was though and would not be fooled. If anything, the Crystal Braves had taught her that lesson more harshly than anything else. She went back to her training regimen, everyone respecting her need for it as she was their only hope of defeating Prince Zenos.
None dared to say it but everyone acknowledged it as fact. The Prince himself had deemed her a worthy opponent, the only one he had met on the Mhigan battlefields lately. If she could not stand against him, then he could single handedly ensure the domination of Garlemald over both Doma and Ala Mhigo.
She was alone again, the hero at the top, striving to reach ever higher peaks that others could not discern.
Or she should have been. Yet she was all but lonely. Y’shtola had taken to helping her keep her feet firmly on the ground while helping her refine her technique with genuine enthusiasm and unforgiving criticism once she had been asked. The Miqo’te had roped into her assessments her stargazing friend and his aether-blind soon-to-be lover who surprisingly also offered valuable insight and made for interesting sparring partners. Some days, when they would meet bleary eyed to the first rays of sunlight to share a light breakfast in the quiet of the still sleeping camp, they felt like a traveling dance company. She found herself relishing in those moments of closeness and support she had not realized she had been missing when she left the Swirls of Light to make way for Eorzea.
Day after day, the training went on, at a pace enhanced by the synergies only teams working together could create.
As she became better, the abilities she painstakingly developed herself began to carve new skills into her soulcrystal to be transmitted to its next holders. Her listening to the soul songs. Her ability to hear her own. The work needed to forcibly mute some sounds to better listen to others, to train one’s ears to parse out what was useful and what was not. The world was so loud nowadays, she sometimes had difficulties hearing the true sounds around her, drowned as they were under the wealth of chaotic vibrations and full blown melodies that occupied the aether.
Y’shtola helped her cope. She had gotten out of the Lifestream with her sight changed irrevocably. When they were not planning for war, they would sit down together to discuss how seeing the world without eyes went, and the Warrior of Light had spent more than one afternoon practicing navigating the world by ear with a cloth wrapped around her eyes accompanied by her newly found friend, maybe one day partner if they were not already.
Thancred, who had had to adjust to a loss of a sense, had eventually invited himself for more sessions too. His research in Garlean ways of fighting and his own need to adjust to compensate for his loss of ability to feel aether offered a perspective that completed her and Y’shtola’s aether-focused ones.
At his side, as he ever was, came Urianger whose wealth of knowledge regarding the finer points of aetherial manipulation theory became invaluable. More than once, she had to go to a suddenly shy but highly pleased Alphinaud for help to learn the knowledge necessary to get the most out of Urianger’s advice. She discovered him to be excellent at tailoring his explanations to her specific understanding of what aether was without ever making her feel lesser for her lack of elite Sharlayan knowledge. He never took away from the intricacies of the concepts he was breaking in smaller, more logical steps for her to absorb either, trusting both his abilities to explain and hers to understand.
She who had once prided herself on her instinctive grasp of all things aether had found herself engrossed in late night talks about the similarities between the Arcanist’s and Sages’ arcane patterns and her Dancing glyphs, the similarities between the disciplines becoming clearer as their understandings of the others’ specialities grew.
It was for him, Y’shtola and Urianger that she took written notes when she went back to Jehantel to wrangle out of him more knowledge of how cadence and rhythm impacted aetherweaving.
It was at Urianger’s delicate prodding that she decided to seek out the dragons to learn more of their songs once the old bard felt he could not teach her more.
That rekindling of her acquaintance with the great Hraesvelgr had once again shaken her world. Not long after, she reached out for the now retired Professor Seyhros, begging to have remedial lessons on singing. She was surprised by Alisaie’s insistence on coming with her to the remote island on the Thavnairian coast where her childhood school and home used to be, but she found in her an endless hunger for perfection that could rival her own along with a desire to understand her better.
She took to this new mentoring role with fervor and relished in the lack of complaints from the younger girl. As a reward, she introduced her personally to her favorite Professor, and the now aging Myrrh kindly agreed to help Alisaie improve her footwork when she was occupied with her own musical lessons.
From these renewed bonds, she came out better and more humbled too. She still had, after all, much to learn from them, even after all these years.
The two of them eventually bade their goodbyes with promises of continued contact, and they made their way back to their Company of Scions, shoulder brushing against shoulder. She had to marvel at how easily she slotted back with them now, when she went forward to hug the much-missed ‘Shtola and Thancred while at the same time Alisaie tackled her twin to the ground.
After that, she made a few more trips to the Dravanian Highlands to benefit from whatever knowledge Hraesvelgr would share. She traded it for news from his sister Tiamat and performances tailored to her song to liven up her spirits. His price had been to work towards giving her reasons to live instead of just surviving and she was not one to break a promise.
Once, they even sang together. She had not known it was possible to feel joy in the poor imitation of a dragonsong she gave, but cry of it she did. So did Tiamat’s brother once she shared with him the memory of it through a clumsy yet complete song.
***
War and guerilla tactics planned in huge part by Alphinaud’s strategic mind started anew. He took full advantage of the new relationships between her School of Arts and the Gridanian Bards that had allowed the latter to start learning how to hear aetherial melodies. The bards took to coordinating the various units, the Garleans being unable to intercept their musical communication in the way they could with linkpearl messages.
The conflict culminated in an assault on the Palace of Ala Mhigo where her Scions gave her an opening to meet him again, in the gardens at the top of the monumental building.
She had been waiting for this moment for so long. Or had she lately?
But he was different. His soul’s music was not the same. It had grown dissonant, the way Fordola’s had become after she acquired the echo but even worse. It made her ill at ease and jumpy, skin itchy and she wanted to tear the sound apart.
When she turned down his offer of partnership, she realized she would not have taken it in any case. He had once been the beacon of perfection in her dull life and had he made the same offer back in Doma, she knew she would have followed him with far too few qualms. But just like him, she had changed during their times apart. She had found so many other sources of joy and excitement. So many reasons to explore the world and even defend it.
‘Shtola’s eyes would crinkle around the corner and she would tell her she had finally learnt how to see colors instead of just shades of grey.
Hraesvelgr would sigh that she had understood what his brother never had: that death and destruction no matter how well executed had never built anything truly beautiful.
Urianger would talk about stars calling and light blessings illuminating her life. She would just smile and nod. The true meaning of his words was conveyed not by his words - as clear as he thought them to be - but by the ever gentle yet fiercely protective songs she would fight to the end to keep hearing from him.
Thancred would just scoff and plainly tell her she had finally discovered that she too had a conscience and had decided to use it. Though the words would be mocking, he would always accompany them by a small unobtrusive but oh so warmly meant touch.
Who Prince Zenos used to be would forever remain an example to emulate in her mind. Who he had become would serve as her cautionary tale.
She reached out, far into the aether for a familiar cello ballad. She sang her denial of him along with her request for an anchor despite the distance in a way she knew would be seen but not heard by her chosen partner. Acceptance came near instantly, the bond taking paths long since carved out between them and solidifying in a woven thread of aether that would only break by their combined will or by death.
A dance of death and destruction was all she knew how to do before, but she had learnt to expand her repertoire beyond that.
He should have done the same.
And then, he did the unthinkable. She was helpless as he absorbed the Primal and his soul screeched melody tearing itself apart to form a new pattern. She screamed in turn. She called for support.
Dancers were never meant to shine alone.
Somewhere from deep within the Star, Hydaelyn’s song called to her senses, stronger than ever, coiling around her soul, trying to dampen the mismatched broken notes the Prince was so happily hurling at her and giving her a solid melody to later dance to.
She clung to the song with desperation when the grotesque parody of what used to be unmatched perfection grew in volume until she couldn’t hear anything else anymore, not even the anchor to Y’shtola’s song.
Her hands went to her ears and her eyes were firmly shut as she wanted the unbearable screeching in her ears to stop, to end, and she would make it go mute even if it was the last thing she did.
This was no song to dance to. No song she could curb into an appropriate melody through her own dance prowesses. This was an abomination born of the desecration of what used to be music and it had to go.
She sang a clear note to tune herself with Hydaelyn, as loud as she could in the ambient cacophony, and jumped forward.
One, two, three steps gave her enough momentum for a grand jeté and she gave a forceful opening strike.
In the end, she prevailed. Bloody, exhausted, sanity still tearing itself out of her skin, but she had won. The worst part was that it had not even been that hard. Ravana had felt like a harder opponent to defeat and at least she had enjoyed herself when meeting him.
Therein laid the most grievous betrayal of the Garlean.
He had fought not like himself, but like a Primal. Her own skills could not have improved by such a large margin that she could beat him so easily so soon, she knew. She still had years of progress to look forward to. Was it because his quest to become greater and greater had led him to falling prey to the Primals’ lure? Had that made him weaker in the end? He had coveted the power of the Echo and had acquired a deformed if powerful parody of it. He had used it to absorb Shinryu into himself in a way similar yet radically opposed to the way Hraesvelgr had consumed his beloved Shiva.
If she wasn’t so horrified, she could have been impressed by this demonstration of physical and mental strength. That he would have remained this new twisted version of himself even after having merged with the most powerful Primal she had ever beheld was something only he and Ysayle had ever done. There was a key difference though. Ysayle and Shiva, from what little she had been able to hear from them back then, had been two firmly separate entities that coexisted and protected each other.
As it was, Zenos’ battle march, once a little flat with boredom despite it being keyed in a major scale and its ever triumphant undertones, would soon be no more. She felt it fading more with each passing second.
He had signed its end through his theft of the Echo, with his Primalisation. She would ensure the full extinction of his new melody.
She gritted her teeth when he dared to laugh in the face of his betrayal of their promise of a formidable new encounter. He had ruined their performance on purpose!
Lyse went past her in a red blur, attempting to stop the once formidable warrior from taking his own life.
But wait. Lyse. And Alphinaud that she could hear running towards them. They could not come, he was a Primal and they had no Echo to shield them.
She used his focus on his self-important monologue to unhook a chakram unnoticed, aether twisting and churning from her powerlessness of tuning him out and her anxiety of him changing her friends. She threw it forward with a snarl of pure fury.
She relished in the split second of genuine surprise that flashed upon his face when he finally took note of the aether-sped weapon hurtling towards him but it was too late. It embedded itself in his forehead, cutting through his third eye and nose and lips, bisecting his face in two symmetrical halves.
But the melody was taking too long to fade, why didn’t it fade? Why, why, why? She threw herself at the body, taking her bloodied weapon to drive it again into his skull, again and again because why did it not stop? He was dead! Anyone would die from such a blow.
She was unaware of Lyse’s shocked screams and the newly come Alphinaud’s pleas, how they tried to wrestle her away from the dead body but he was still singing and so she screamed a warning and fought them off, aether flaring around her, replicating the gravitational force field she had copied from the Garlean Primal, forcing them down and away from her. It was for their own good. She needed Y’shtola, she was the only one who was experienced enough in other ways of sensing the world to be able to help her annihilate this undying Primal.
She forced herself to breathe. In and out. And again. She had to focus on the sounds. Tiamat Hraesvelgr had both told her tales of how Bahamut used to be able to rip the Allagans’ souls to shreds, to make sure they could never be born again. She had to find a way to replicate that and to find it now.
She wiped sticky liquid away from her eyes and clenched her eyes firmly shut, adjusting her position on the cooling body underneath her.
She had to focus, to find a semblance of a pattern, there always was. The universe loved order, that was a constant. Order could be found in any chaos.
So she sang in a way she had yet to master but that would have to suffice. First, she had to wrangle his melody into submission, adding her own harmonies until it became something salvageable. Then she would work on creating silence.
She sang until a cool wave washed over her, sharpening her mind with subdued harps, helping her bear the auditory horror.
Time slowed to a crawl as she improvised, the chorus of wind playing with the strings of many harps gaining in strength and cocooning her. She acknowledged that ‘Sthola had likely understood what she was doing and had found someone to help isolate her and the monstrous Primal. The urgency of finding a solution before the music infected her Scions left her and with renewed focus, she became more aware of how much support she was receiving.
Urianger’s sparkling harmonies were keeping her aether channels strong.
Y’shtola was sharing all the strength she could spare along their bond.
A little further away, the Leveilleur twins were pooling their strengths together, patrolling the perimeter to keep everyone safe.
Finally, there was an entity made of rustling leaves and harps, a beacon of power who was keeping both her and the threat and her confined.
She was not alone, and those around were unaffected. She could finish her mission calmly and not make mistakes borne of hurry.
As though responding to her realization, the wind playing with harps picked up in strength, swirling in a hurricane that nullified the sounds all around her even more.
Of course. This was the key.
She steeled herself for this final assault and changed her tune. She would not try to make the song into a coherent melody. No, she had to oppose it, cancel each note with one of her own, create a white noise that would deny this song its very existence.
That was how the dragon of old had become one of the biggest threat the Allagan had ever faced.
Finally, throat and aether raw, she fell silent. When she opened eyes, she immediately found Lady Kan-E-Senna’s who had her staff extended towards her, trembling from exhaustion.
Of course, the forest song had been hers. She should have realized it was the Elder Seedseer keeping her grounded and hale since the beginning.
The Lady of Gridania smiled with too pale lips and slowly laid down on the ground, as exhausted as she herself was.
She turned her head towards familiar harmonies. What a joy it was to hear them again, as muted as everything was by the bone deep exhaustion that threatened to overcome her.
“Y’shtola?” her throat was dry and she repressed a cough.
“Yes?”
“Did it truly stop?”
“If you are willing to wait for the aether to settle some more, I will verify if his is gone for good,” Y’shtola answered in a monotone voice. She stood, like all the others, a fair distance away from her and the bloody corpse, supported by a cautious Lyse. They were probably keeping to the perimeter the Lady of Gridania had delimited.
“If you could, please.”
She let her eyes roam around the terrace and ascertained that her comrades were all still themselves.
She let herself imitate the Elder Seedseer and lowered herself to the ground, the warmth of the sun heated stone helping relieve the remaining tension in her muscles. She took her time to attune herself to the sounds around her as measure as the white noise she had saturated the aether with faded.
Finally, there was a rustle of noise as Y’shtola focused and all present seemed to hold their breath in anticipation of her verdict.
“I cannot see anything,” the mage affirmed after minutes that seemed to last for an eternity. “If his essence is still somewhere, then it is far out of my sight.”
“I can’t hear it anymore either,” she confirmed.
“That is good,” Y’shtola sighed, her whole frame heaving with the force of it. Her relief rippled over all those present on the terrace.
The threat was gone.
They had won.