#chihiro yadora

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 1 — Race

1327AE, Divinity’s Reach

Chihiro sits on his family’s brownstone porch, dressed in a white shirt held together by leather strings and loose slacks, lamenting the heat of this summer season. The cup in his hand offers little solace of cooling as the ice inside melts and dilutes the chilled tea. His cherished violet blindfold sits around his neck, blocking sunlight but also soaking in sweat. In a few days the anniversary of the botched “Queen’s Jubilee” will come ‘round. Jennah will probably try to host it again, promising better security this time around. Human security specifically; clockwork knights will be toned down in favor of paid actors and actresses, a boon to the local troupes and the Tyrian Actors Guild both. There will be free food yet again. There will be free drinks yet again. Fun and festivities for all involved.

He wants nothing to do with this mess. Not since last year. Because of last year. Even with the profuse apology letter from the Queen herself, and the pretty bouquet she’s sent to go with it. It’ll be good mulch for the communal garden.

Instead, he heads back inside and lets his niece Matsu know they’re heading out in thirty minutes; she hollers back confirmation from somewhere on the second floor, no doubt picking out clothes she won’t sweat herself to death in. Good. He heads to the bathroom in the cellar, the coolest room in the two-story office-home by far, and gets ready to clean himself up. A good distraction from the heat. A great distraction from the festivities winding up in a few days. In the isolation of the bathroom, walls insulated thanks to dirt and stone and wood, Chihiro holds back an ugly sob. He smells the smoke again. The charred flesh. Sees the pieces.

No, he tells himself. Strikes himself twice on the cheeks, jaw tingling. Grandma told me herself. I keep going.

Keep going. Keep moving. Stay strong.

Hanae’s family moved to Kryta decades ago fleeing the persecution of the hermit empire. Their ancestors were heroes. Literal fucking heroes. Saved Cantha from Shiro. Saved Cantha again from Reiko. Aided the Sunspears when Nightfall opened portals all over Kaineng City. And what was their thanks? For the older sister to be chased out of her own home. According to Grandma, ‘Sumiko wasn’t even allowed to bury her sister, who died alone somewhere in Raisu Palace.’ And yet, where this would destroy most other people, Sumiko moved on. Kept moving. Decided Kryta wasn’t too bad and moved there. Settled down. Founded a nice family on the back of what wealth she could take with her. Left behind her old moniker of ‘Hero’. A cursed title best left buried.

(Well, buried until he dug it back up.)

The story of Sumiko Yadora, assassin-turned-monk-turned-hero, was one of many tales barked about during the Queen’s Jubilee. A grand celebration of “Humanity’s resilience,” Queen Jennah says. A microcosm of Humanity as a whole: perseverance through tragedy. Endurance through horror. Life past misery. Humanity’s story is one unending, one full of trials and tribulations, but always with an answer at the end, always with a resolution to the conflict ahead. Chihiro would almost buy the tale if he didn’t understand the Queen to be full of shit.

He takes a deep breath. In, out. In, out. Takes off his clothing with wanton care, but delicately undoes the knot of his blindfold and sets it on a table away from his clothes. Matsu and he would make their first of hopefully many yearly visits to Hanae, Niko, and Qin Xue at the Commons Columbarium over by the local temple of Grenth.

He hopes Matsu will be of strong enough will to see her aunty and her brothers again. He knows he won’t be. But he’ll try.

[diamond-dangeresque]

The crystals pulse with energy even after its creator long moved south. Echoes of the climactic battle hang in the air alongside draconic electricity. There is a tension, a trepidation, to the scene as Chihiro arrives atop a small floating platform of Brandcrystal, hopping off of his rotund cuckoo and looking upon the carnage. Sheathed at his side, Bolt crackles with lightning in its brassy edges, threatening to lift itself out and dance on the sun rays. Chihiro rests a hand on the handle, the other hand grabbing his cape to shake any clinging dust or crystalline shards clinging to the frayed hem. He doesn't need to lift his blindfold to see the remains far below, in fact hasn't needed to see with it off in a long time.

"Behold," he hears the voice of Glint in his mind, bountiful with regrets and remorse, "my last stand...and what remains of it."

Chihiro looks on in silence. His minds-eye vision reveals draco-energy swirling from the impact zone far below, rising upwards and out through the air, reverberating into the Brandcrystal and back out. He can almost hear the ghosts of this combat: swords and arrows and magical blasts hitting rock-solid crystal, bodies flung onto sand, a machine whirring to life as a sandstorm howls for the blood of these unknown combatants.

"I knew," Glint continued, "for a very long time that I was to die. In the maw of my own father. On the grounds where I called home. Dying in vain trying to strike back against a living maelstrom."

Finally, Chihiro finds his voice and speaks up: "How did it feel?" A beat. "When the death blow came."

He could feel the Dragon mull over that question. Could feel her retreat from his mental presence. And then Glint returned, as solemn as when she first spoke up. "A sharp spike of pain, and then disappointment," was her answer.

"At what?" Chihiro kept his gaze towards the epicenter of this scene of draconic violence. He can see, with some further focusing, the fuzzy outlines of a combat long past: a Charr, a Norn, a Sylvari, two Asura (one smaller with a golem, the other with a pained gait to their walk as they guided complicated and multi-limbed machinery with them), and a large dragon. The dragon-silhouette fights valiantly at first, but waves and waves of Branded slowly choke out any hope of victory for this lone group.

There's more silence from Glint until she breaks it, the first time the Herald had ever heard the Dragon's voice falter: "I had hoped fate would change. That my visions were not so immutable." He can hear Glint snort. "That I would have the privilege to see my child grow with me."

He thinks back to Aurene. He thinks on how she was going to grow to that size one day. She already has her mother's coloration, her second "uncle's" flat snout and swirled cheeks, her first "uncle's" voracious appetite and sharp teeth . (He wonders what she'd inherit from her "grandfather".) And he thinks to himself, 'Her own mother died fighting Kralkatorrik at the prime of her life. How the hell is she ready?''

"It was a foolish notion in the end," Glint says, perhaps more to herself than to her Herald.

"I don't know," Chihiro muses, "I mean...this whole me-being-the-Hero plans hinges on changing fate, doesn't it? I'm alive 'cause of you, ain't I? When I shoulda been at the bottom of Lake Doric."

"Your obligation to the role of Hero is why you live still. Why reality hasn't yet torn you asunder."

"And here I thought my swell personality was keeping reality from turning me into Mists-shreds," Chihiro says with his usual please-relax jokey tone, trying his balance to offset his patron's exhaustion from having to explain this point again, grabs from his pack a bundle of bamboo and rope and cloth that pops open into a glider with the ease of an umbrella. Gotta love those crafty Zephyrites. "Well, Aurene knows you're there with her all the way. Comforts her, even."

Glint sighs. "Your attempts at soothing my woes are...not unappreciated."

Jeez, this dragon and her insistence on flowery language... "Uh, you're welcome?"

"Let us move on," Glint says, her façade of calm calculation returning to her voice, "we shouldn't leave your teammates waiting to meet a god."

[diamond-dangeresque]

The mess hall was the busiest room in the Grothmar citadel today, soldiers pouring in and out to dine on meals in comfort and privacy. Far away from strangers to the land, further still even from the Charr of other Legions. Conversations held from the earshot of overly observant centurions. Whispers and murmurs held in the sanctity of a room without any Ashen spooks.

Which makes Chihiro's presence all the more unwelcome in the hall.

Some of the Charr in the room break from their meals to look at the Human. They stare. The skinned warhound acting as a mantle draws attention, brings alight bad memories of "old Ascalon relics" found in the ruins of the former capital. They whisper amongst themselves, the absurdity of a mouse watching them through a blindfold, arms crossed with a selfsure grin. Many chuckle. Some grumble. A few perform something akin to a self-ward with their hands, the performers chided by compatriots around them for their superstitious behavior. He's just a mouse in a blindfold, they'd say in a manner of paraphrase, we're not dealing with a Flame shaman here. A few humor the idea aloud of throwing a dagger or firing a pistol at the mouse, see if he reacts at all. (Chihiro would love to see them try. Even if any claims of "self-defense" or "fuck around and find out" would fall flat in a place like this.)

Standing at his left is the presence of Kalla Scorchrazor, her gaze scanning over the room just as Chihiro's is through the cloth. She had previously admired the statue of her likeness just behind the Herald, noted its composition of "Searing Cauldron bronze," approved of the good use of metal. But this place was a shitshow, and this mess hall was a pretty little microcosm of that. Blood soldiers purposefully, willingly, kept separate from other Charr. Non-Charr "encouraged" to stay in more public areas, outside of the Keep and especially away from "Charr common rooms". Corralled outside, in the open, where others can watch from afar and with scrutiny. In the open: nothing but respect and honor and tact. Behind closed doors: about three steps from belting out slurs and hateful rhetoric, because it's "safe" over here. No judging eyes. No ethics violations.

Chihiro had respect for the ways the Legions trained their Charr. He was now reconsidering such a notion.

She had seen through the Herald's eyes what fruit the seeds of this Human-Charr peace treaty had wrought, what peace it had allowed the Charr to experience. It was a peace she envied dearly for her living years, something to gift to her cubs if only she had it. And to imagine someone willingly tossing that all away, to cling to old self-destructive ideas and memories of long-gone days, to fan flames that long should have been doused...it was the Flame shamans and their uprising all over again. She could already smell the burning fur as she thought of it.

As for Chihiro, he's fought Renegades before: the large, disparate warband started by those who didn't believe in the treaty of peace between the Kingdom of Kryta and the High Legions of the Charr. They broke off in droves over decades. Entire families raised and trained in the life of killing humans to hold up a war rapidly losing its last legs. Brainwashed into blind hatred, ignorant malice, fearful paranoia. Renegades kill some Humans, they make some Separatists out of the survivors; in turn they kill some Charr, they make some Renegades out of their survivors. A pair of snakes each devouring the other's tail. It wasn't going to end for them unless one side was just a mountain of corpses. These Renegades, they didn't seem to care. The bodies were the point of their exclamation mark: better dead than in league with mice.

"What do you think?" Chihiro asks Kalla, head turning to further scan the room. "Any of these fellas seem...backstabby to you?"

"Not particularly," Kalla answers, snout twitching and dragging part of her upper lip with it. Her ears twitch, trying to hone in on any interesting conversations held within the aisles of the mess hall. "Talks of recruiting cubs and greenhorns into traitorous ranks so casually held in this room don't give me any confidence, all being said."

"They think I can't do jack about what they're saying." Chihiro chuckles. Some of the Charr nearest to him turn their heads slightly. "That it's their word, their superior's word, versus mine and the Pact's. We'll see about that." He begins to walk towards the doorway, some of those nearest-to-him Charr spooked at the sudden peep he had let out after who-knows-how long he had held his tongue up until now. "Oh. Whoops~✨"

"That wasn't a slip," Kalla chides.

"Can't prove or disprove it either way," Chihiro chuckles, shrugging as he passes Brokenstone at the door. "But we've got good intel. We can rejoin Kasmeer and Efram at–" He notices the warband general's shoulders tense up. Tail stiffened and swishing. "...You good?" Brokenstone leans forward a touch, eyeing the Human talking to himself. Weirdo.

No. Frankly, never. It was bad enough seeing the Flame Legion persist centuries after their fall from power and grace. To see them grovelling back to the Legions? To plead for acceptance, forgiveness, after everything they've done to the Charr as a whole? Nigh unforgivable! "Let's move on, Herald." But that wasn't her choice to make. And it wasn't her place to judge the actions of modern Charr by antiquated standards; the so-called Renegades do enough of that as it is.

"Roger, ma'am." Chihiro kept tabs on Kalla's touchiness towards Flame Legion; he knows of the Scorch warband's history well enough, yeah, but he didn't anticipate a response as undisciplined as this. Then again, this whole "party" had been one conga line of surprises after another. He didn't expect Aurene to crash the party the way she did. He didn't expect the Blood Legion Imperator to be a snobby politician with fascistic goals in his horned head. He definitely didn't expect the party to be a cover for a mass levy attempt, and he absolutely didn't anticipate Rytlock's boy to be in the center of this spiked web.

But, despite being deprived of his precious and rare alcohol, the flavor of this mission's intrigue kept him going. He wanted to see this through to its end, in whatever shape that took. "I'll call in Kasmeer; I think we need to go undercover for this."

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 2 — Profession

(A/N: I actually intend on expanding upon this story further as it's an adaptation of the way I created Chihiro through RP. Also because i love this origin story omgggg. That'll be after Commander Week though. Watch the reblogs!)

1325AE, Lake Doric

The lights above slowly fade to shades of ink-dark and deep blues. His legs fail him. His stomach churns and paralyzes him. His arms flail, then motion, then flail, then stop. His own dark hair begins to cloud his vision, obscuring all but the shrinking pinpricks of light above him. Further and further away. Screaming was pointless, it'd only hasten the water desperate to rush into his lungs. Plus, fucked up as it was to admit this to himself, no one even noticed when Chihiro fell into the water from the party boat. And given how soft and undisturbed the water looks from here, no one came to find him either.

His consciousness fades. This is where he dies. How pitiful. Leaving Hanae alone, leaving his niece and nephews to fend for themselves. How pathetic. He hates himself.

Chihiro Yadora soon hits the bottom of Lake Doric.

———

1325AE, ????

Eyes flicker open, vision hazy and swirling. A kaleidoscope of colors assault his eyes and it burns a headache into him that makes him want to g–

"Oh, good. You're awake."

Chihiro sits up, rubbing his eyes and combing his untied hair back with his hands. Small strands poke back forward from ahead of his ears and on the small crest of his hairline. There's a pressure on his chest, as if someone were sitting on it with their whole weight. Each breath was pulled with strength, more than usual. "Where am I...?"

"Your body or you?" the voice asks back. Amidst the kaleidoscope, Chihiro's eyes focus; his vision sharpens and he sees a very blue lump swaying and moving. "You are safe with me, here in the Mists. Your body, however, lies at the bottom of a lake."

The pressure on his chest deepens. Breathing becomes shallow, labored further. "Wait. So." Chihiro looks at the figure, the lump now sharpened to the shape of a dragon, sapphires for scales and sitting in a room covered in radiant prisms. Its eyes, like two emerald inset in her head, stare right through the young man. "Am I dying? Is this what my dying dream looks like?"

The dragon gently shakes its head. "You are dying, yes, but you can still be saved. You need only answer one question: do you want to live?"

His vision began to blur again. Even taking short breaths was becoming unavoidably painful, let alone anything deeper than a hard wheeze. Chihiro looks at his hands. His fingers are turning blue-gray in front of his eyes, veins bulging as they scrape every inch for oxygen.

The dragon glares again at Chihiro. "Do you want to live?" she repeats to him. The words carry a harsh gravitas the past sentence didn't. As if this was a form of incantation. Energy sparks in the air, prickles the young man's skin. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The dragon's mouth opens, mist pouring from its maw. "Silence will be treated as refusal."

Now or never, Chihiro thinks to himself. He can't seem to think of much more. He tastes water in the back of his throat. He really is drowning. This isn't a nightmare. This is a death knell.

But it doesn't have to be.

"F-fine," Chihiro stumbles on his own words, "I want to live." Silence from the dragon. More mist pours from its mouth. Chihiro can no longer see his own feet, or the dragon's. Or really, he can barely see at all now. A hissing noise, like pressurized air escaping from a faulty iron pipe seal, floods the room. The (thu-thump) is almost completely stopped. "I want to live! I want to live!! Godsdamn you, do you hear me?!" he screeches.

There's a chuckle from the dragon. "Yes, yes," the dragon answers, "I heard you the first time. Now wake up." Its maw slams shut, and the sound of a thousand million chunks of glass shattering at once slam into Chihiro's ears.

———

1325AE, Lake Doric, Saidra's Haven

Chihiro's eyes shoot open, his first seconds conscious again spent hacking up and puking lakewater from his gut and lungs as he turns over to face the ground. He sees others surrounding him. Other partygoers, at least two soaking wet and mesmerized at what they see. Some Seraph run over to the forming crowd on the lakeshore outside of the port-tavern. He would pass this off as yet another nightmare, maybe a bad swim caused by tequila-fueled bad decisions, but the taste of algae on his tongue begs to differ. Most of the Seraph arriving are either setting up a perimeter or pulling away partygoers to ask questions. Where was the lifeguard on duty tonight? How did this man end up in the lake when there was a prohibition on swimming passed recently? And so on and so on.

He finally feels like all the water in his body had been excised. Leaving his mouth was now a small plume of snow-white mist, the same as what was leaving the dragon, before that too dried up. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. An energy foreign to his body surges through him, head to toe and back and again circulating like wild lightning trapped in cables. He didn't anticipate a pact with a ghost dragon to do all this. He wonders if this is still a strange nightmare of some sort.

One more Seraph finishes her trot to the group. Almost as tall as he was, with a silvery odachi strapped to her back. Chihiro lifts his head to the side for a better look. Jet-black hair and eyes the color of harvest wheat. Fuck. Fuck. Not her. Anyone but her.

"Everyone move along, now," Belinda Delaqua barks to the jazzed-out partygoers and recently-inebriated loiterers, "head home or speak with a Seraph if you know anything. Move along, we will be enforcing curfew shortly." She kneels down to Chihiro, her stony gaze chipped away to show her true feelings: worry. Remorse. Fear. "Are you alright? Everyone here's saying you sank like a stone–"

Panic grips Chihiro's heart. And as he looks up to try and see Belinda eye-to-eye, he feels himself physically slip away, a harsh tailwind blowing past him. When he actually sits up and looks around, he's a few yards from where he had woken up. Belinda stares at him from the distance, blinking. Did...did he just teleport? How did he DO that? The newly-minted Revenant stands up, legs shaking. He looks around again. More people are beginning to look towards him. At him.

It was one thing, all those things happening in that dreamworld, having the dragon bark into his ear and tell him what to do. It was another for these things to happen here, in reality.

"What...what did..." Chihiro hadn't been rendered a flustered, blubbering mess in years. Only one other person in the world did, and she's dead. (Hopefully.) "Hey. Glint. What the fuck did you do to me?"

"I saved you," she answered, her presence announced by swirls of cyan-colored energy around his hands and wrists, tiny crystals dancing in the weave. "As I promised I would."

"What did you do to me?!" Chihiro flees the scene, his legs feeling lighter than air as he strides great distances in short seconds. He needed to find a place to calm down, a place to calm down and reevaluate...really, fucking everything right now!!

He was supposed to be dead! This whole schtick of a dragon tasking him to be a "Hero," to go out and "bind worthy spirits to [his] cause," to "fulfill a great destiny in the vacuum of dead children," this was all supposed to just be a cool dying dream! This isn't real. This can't be real.

What the fuck is he?

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 4 — Elder Dragon

1335AE, the Jade Sea; "Mother's Lament"

The glider slowly descends into the cavern beneath Chihiro, a semi-dark locale partially made of temple construct and hollowed jade. Even from up here he can see Aurene. Kind of hard not to, really, what with her own bioluminescence sparkling even far down in the dark. As he got closer to the ground, he saw the other figure down below, a sickly-looking serpentine figure coiled unto herself with fading azure scales.

This was it, he tells himself. Soo-Won is on her last breaths. Not much longer before the Dragonvoid consumes her, not much longer until that needs to be put down as well. There were a lot of strange feelings about Soo-Won. He kept them to himself for the time being. No use bothering anyone about his personal grievances with the Elder Dragon of Water, Creation, and Possibilities. And especially given that last bit, he figures to be of the three (alongside Aurene and Glint) who know the truth behind that third sphere of influence.

The Herald feels his feet touch the ground, actual solid dirt and stone as opposed to solidified inner sea water or polished mainland brick and marble. Aurene is laying next to Soo-Won, doing her best to nuzzle her dying great-grandmother. The only family she's ever gotten to talk with, to actually meet face-to-face in the flesh, the oldest of the Elder Dragons and she's dying and there's nothing that can be done except to make sure her suffering isn't prolonged any further. It feels like a cruel joke. To see your impending loneliness creep up on you. To realize you really will have to bear this burden alone, and the person responsible for this is now a buried half-burnt corpse. Chihiro was surprised Aurene doesn't get angrier. More indignant, maybe. She carries this grief of her own with a grace he laments not having himself when he was younger.

"Ah," Soo-Won hisses, a voice strained by disease and injury, "the Herald arrives." Her facial whiskers sway in the windless air, slowly reaching towards Chihiro. Yes, yes. Kuunavang did not speak as highly of the Revenant as she did of the Ritualist before him, but Aurene's testimony proved a good second opinion to the more...biased report from her direct progeny. "Come, child. Come closer."

Chihiro didn't know how to really respond to all this. For so many years, it had always been strike down the dragons, slay the dragons, crush the dragons. Aurene was always the exception because she was deigned the exception, from before she even hatched all the way to now. The dragons were dangerous, the dragons were malicious, the dragons consumed with an endless hunger that threatened the very existence of Tyria as we knew it. And for the most part it rang true. Zhaitan was a mindless horde, a living undead hunger with a body built to contain it; Mordremoth wanted all life but his own smothered beneath or mulched to feed his plantfolk; Kralkatorrik's rampage threatened not only Elona but the Mists itself, his desire to defy fate his own undoing (what cruel, cruel irony); Jormag and Primordus were menaces to the Norn and Asura for centuries even before their empowerment from their siblings dying, and even now Tyria recovers from their brotherly dispute.

For so many long years, Aurene was the only exception. There was Vlast, once, but he never lived long enough to fulfill that obligation with his sister. There was Glint, their mother, made an exception through exceptional work from the Forgotten at the bidding of their Humanly-Divine masters. And now here is Soo-Won, living testament that perhaps the Dragons could have been different at their very core. They all could have been different. Yet here we are, and soon Aurene will be the only exception again.

No more Dragonrises. No more lost civilizations and lost knowledge. No more fear of the underground, the deep cold, the dark jungles, the crystalline deserts, of the dead and dying. But also: no more family. No more familiarity. No more of the feeling that you belong to a group of someones. Chihiro pets Aurene's scales, smooth to the touch with their glimmer dimming just a bit as his hand brushes over. In that final way, they could relate to a scary degree. Growing up without your family. Growing up as the last being of your world.

"I apologize," Soo-Won whispers, her voice crackling with further debilitation. The Dragonvoid was hollowing her. It was proving harder and harder to remain who she is as the seconds and minutes tick by. Aurene's presence, as does the Herald's, helps in remaining moored to this chain of consciousness. But its links are weak, only growing weaker. "Our meeting was to be under better circumstances. I did not have enough time."

"None of us did," Aurene responds.

"I only wish I could have tutored you more," she tells Aurene, "and prepared you for the tough responsibilities ahead. It will be long, arduous, and at times very painful."

Aurene's crest-scales fold back down onto her head. Her luster dulls. "I...I have my champion. I have the guidance of my mother through him. I'll be alright."

Soo-Won chuckles. "I am proud of you, Aurene. As your mother is. This world is fragile. Its peoples need love, care, support." But there is a caution in those words. A small fear. Soo-Won is very familiar with mortality in all its myriad forms. She has scars Aurene does not yet bear but will one day have to.

"We've got our communities for that, ma'am," Chihiro pipes up, feeling rather like he wants to hop on a skiff and sail off into the dark waters of this cave than be here. Really, he's only here for Aurene. "Your help is...much appreciated."

This whole ordeal of calming down Soo-Won at the Jade Sea has been nothing but one exhausting event after another. And Chihiro certainly took no pleasure in commanding the Pact's onslaught against the formerly only other friendly dragon in the world, now turned as magic-hungry and dangerous as her children did. Cantha will mourn her departure. Kryta and Elona, maybe not so much. He wants this conversation to be over already. It feels...awkward.

"When was the last time you properly mourned, Commander?" Chihiro can hear Ventari ask, deep from the recesses of his mind. He doesn't answer. (He doesn't like the idea of what this answer looks like.)

The minutes idle away. Aurene continues to show affection to her elder. Chihiro continues to feel out of place in all this.

"Go now, both of you." Soo-Won shivers. Strands of Dragonvoid weave through her, visible just so between the azure scales slowly turning darker and oil-sheened. "My rest here was...brief. Too brief. But thank you both for being here with me as I..." She groans. The strands become larger, working their way towards the elder dragon's head.

"Soo-Won, please, there has to be a way I can—"

"No, child of Glint. I am gone. The Dragonvoid has consumed too much. All you have left is to release what is left of me from this pain."

"No...please..." Aurene rises to her feet. Instinctually Chihiro hops onto the crystal dragon's back, holds on to some upraised shoulder scales. This is going to be rough, he thinks.

"Go." Her voice warbles. She feels her mind unraveling. Not much longer before she drowns in memories of her past, her experiences, her children. Aurene takes off, Chihiro holding on tight as the new Crystal Dragon takes flight towards the Harvest Temple.

[diamond-dangeresque]

visiting the Empress didn't go all too well

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 7 — Aurene

A/N: okay folks i'm gonna try and keep this at a reasonable length. the real Great Wall Of Text is for Day 8, the mercifully optional post. also: a first person post! yippee!!

1334AE, ???

When I began plummeting into the ground, and then into the murky waters of the Mists, the last person I saw was you.

I feel so terrible. You have all this responsibility on your shoulders. Something I could help you with, empathize with, yet here I go dying on you for a second time.

I'm so sorry.

As my vision gets darker and cloudier, I think back to the first day we met. I guess technically that was in the Maguuma jungle. You were still an egg then, and I was desperately moving to get you away from the clutches of Mordremoth. Why he wanted to get his hands on you, I didn't understand then and I don't care now. You were an orphan, alone in the world, reaching out to the first person who could help you. Who could understand you.

Gods, do I understand you.

I'll admit this because I know I'm taking this secret with me to my grave, but you were actually pretty cute when you first hatched. You had your green uncle's weird flat snout. You had your moldy uncle's sharp teeth and voracious appetite. And there was this glimmer in your eyes, sometimes it was curiosity and sometimes it was playfulness, but I'm positive that you got from your mother. From Glint. I got to enjoy raising you where I could: teaching you the basics of heroics one day, pranking some of the Exalted another day, it was all good fun. And, for all the enmity I hold towards Caithe still, she did do a good job raising you, too.

I think you'll be alright without me. But sometimes I still wonder.

When your grandfather died, you inherited some of his worry and fear. You went into overdrive clearing all of his old Brandcrystal. And you didn't mean it, I know, buuuut you also caused an international incident in the process of "cleansing" a very specific devourer I had really hoped you'd leave alone. And now here we are: your gaslighting aunt and your temper-tantrum uncle are killing each other. You'll cleanse their energy, just as you've cleansed everyone else's, and you'll take a small bit of them with you—in you, for better and for worse—and you'll be even more of a confused and conflicted bundle of disco-ball-scales than you were before.

Which I guess is a good analogy for growing up if I were talking about literally anyone else right now.

I'm pretty sure Jormag and Primordus are dead by now. And when the rush of energy and emotions stop spiking, and everything peters out, you'll see what's left: there's only one Elder Dragon left to vanquish. You'll be truly alone very soon. I can only hope Caithe will be there for you the way I had been. Honestly I can barely trust her with a choya let alone you, but it looks like I had that choice taken from me and all I can do is trust.

...

A memory comes back to me, and I'm holding on...just before the last of my consciousness bubbles away.

You were still a hatchling, so small, kinda mastiff-puppy-sized. I grabbed you and put you on my lap. We were on top of Tarir 'cause I wanted you to catch this morning sunrise. The Maguuma has some truly amazing vistas, it seemed a shame to keep you locked away. The Exalted refused to let you out of that "sanctuary" unless it was for "important reasons", so I took matters into my own hands. It was easy enough to sneak you out 'cause you played along and kept quiet. You held onto my back and flapped your tiny wings when I scales the walls by hand. And when we got to the highest point, we watched the sunrise. You fell asleep right on my lap just a bit afterwards.

I wish I could have caught a sunrise with you one more time.

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 6 — Legendary

A/N: i wanted to promise i wouldn't hit y'all with Another Wall of Text but unfortunately i have Stephen King Syndrome and I Can't Stop Writing 😖😖😖

1325AE, Fractals of the Mists ~ Sunqua Peak Fractal

"Please, quill its elementals and restore peace! You must hurry!"

That's what the 'mountain spirit' told Chihiro, and so up the fragmented stormy mountain he climbs, pulling out a shortbow and firing at the airy wisps until their squalls bind to his legs; he leaps from stone to stone with their enchanted winds at his feet, getting closer to what looks like the top of a tall, winding staircase carved out of a mountainside.

He thinks back to the 'spirit'. She sure didn't seem like a nature spirit. Seemed pretty human, actually. But maybe it's just because he can 'see' through the charade she puts up. It'd fool most others, being fair. And he didn't want to say anything, either, both because it's not like him to spoil a kid's fun and because he's been chided before about "breaking script", whatever exactly that means.

The wind elemental scuttles in its small arena, awaiting its target. But then, as Chihiro gazes at it, the elemental turns; it gazes back at it, feet planted firmly. Warnings hiss through the gale ("Why are you even here? I don't need your help!") before it calmly leaps away, leaving behind something glittery in the rain-drenched grass. Chihiro leaps into the now-empty arena, disappointed that a fight was avoided.

"Was there an elemental you just fought?" Dessa crackles through the Observatory's intrafractal comms system, a loudspeaker over existence in this microrealm. "I can't tell; my visuals fried for a few seconds and the strong reading in that arena is gone."

"Nope," Chihiro yells back, hoping she hears him this time, "it fled." A few seconds. No response back. Damn it. He walks over to the object the fleeing elemental left behind: a small chunk of something like a sword's blade, filigree supporting a lack of blood-groove and a blade made of what was either bronze or brass segmented like drakescale. His fingers tingled at the touch, even through the draconic envoy gauntlets, and the hairs on the back of his head stood at end. This was a powerful thing the elemental left behind.

And he can feel Glint behind him, also observing. "An artifact," she hisses, satisfaction in her voice. "I did not think we would find such a boon here in the Mists. A good omen towards your path of the Hero."

"You call a broken blade a good omen?" Chihiro questions, left aghast at this Dragon's so-called wisdom.

"Where there is one," Glint answers, fading back into his subconscious, "there are others. Artifacts behave differently from normal objects and weaponry. Stay vigilant, Herald."

And to that end, she was right: as the climb became more treacherous on this fragmented Sunqua, the elementals—harsh gales giving way to roaring despondent waterfalls with waves that pushed back—in turn matched the desperation of the voice hanging in the winds on the mountain.

In the wading pools of a mountainous sanctuary surrounded by waterfalls, Chihiro effortlessly frees a trapped water elemental from under massive boulders. Its reward to him, other than desperate pleas carried on the hushed sounds of running water ("What is it that you want? ... Leave. I'll give you anything."), was another piece of the strange artifact. This time it was of the sword's forte and hilt, also of that same bronze-like material. The pommel, the endtips of the guard, all bear an open circle that crackles with further electricity, catching stray sparks in the air. Thoughts run through the back of Chihiro's mind, memories involuntarily dragged to the forefront. He pushes them back, though a few manage to stay unwelcome guests. (The fear of centaurs. The forever-bruised eyesocket. The dagger in his hip. The meeting of he and Shiro in the Replica Temple.)

Cool waters make way for heated air and flowing lava, tiny sluglike elementals rising from the molten stone to assault the Herald. Nothing Ventari's Tablet and summer-air shield can't keep away, but it eats at his energy and so he moves quickly to deal fast strikes at the lava slugs. Their body temperatures eat at his steel blade, the poor thing, and eventually he reaches another arena tossing away the ruined blade. But like with the wind elemental, this one glares. With no weapon, all he can do is defend. So he does, raising the Flameseeker Prophecies to his chest and head, kneeling as he's cocooned in a crystalline chrysalis. The catlike elemental roars at him, summoning meteorites that shriek as they land ("There's no point! ... I couldn't save her!"), then leaves once they land. By the time the Herald lowers his shield and leaves his defensive posture, another piece of the blade is in front of him. He gives it a bit before he picks it up, but still it crackles with the lightning of that raging storm outside once it sits in his hand. More memories surge through his mind, overtaking his vision. They flash too quickly for him to memorize any of them, but all carry a lingering pain that resonates through his veins. It was getting harder to keep the torrent of memories at bay.

Chihiro grips his head. The last time he had a boiling headache like this, he had drank too much Charr whiskey. "Oy, Glint."

"Herald." Glint reemerges from her position in his mind.

"Are you sure we should be collecting these things?"

"If they were truly dangerous, I would have long stopped you from claiming the first piece, let alone this third."

"Hey, explorer," Dessa sparks back onto speakers. And here Chihiro was okay getting used to her absence. "I lost signal again. Yokko's trying to parse the data that's still readable and defrag what did get scrambled—several exabytes of audio-visual feed alone—but every time you reach an elemental, the stream just gets worse and worse." Well that's not such a– "If this keeps up, I'm not entirely sure I can extract you safely given the failing signal. Or intact. Or, really, at all." Oh. Okay, that's pretty bad, actually. He'd like to not be spit back out to the Observatory in the way this blade looks right now, and getting stuck in the Mists is not an option at the moment. "Let me know if you want to pull out now or keep going. We'd prefer if you kept going, but we understand if you don't."

"Pay no mind to the Asuran krewe," Glint reassures her Herald, "you will be safely extracted despite their worries to the otherwise."

"And you know this ho–"

Glint growls. "Really now."

Silence. Chihiro swallows his pride. "Right. R-right. Sorry." Godsdamned oracles.

The exit to the cavern reveals itself, heated air rushing to escape. With some pained walking, Chihiro reaches a small garden walled off by mountainous rock. Monuments to the dead are strewn about the ground and in varying states of ruin. The 'mountain spirit' fidgets in place, legs moving about and head turning here and there as they talk to themselves about something or other.

"You doing okay?" Chihiro pipes up at the spirit.

The spirit hops in place, whipping around to look the Herald in his (blindfold?? A Ritualist? she asks herself), and gathers her composure to say, "You've done well, oh steamed one! Yet her pain overpowers her still."

"'Steamed one'? Okay, who or what is this thing, and–"

"Listen, this was fun and all," Chihiro interjects, stretching his arms and shoulders as he sways from side to side, "but it's time to stop playing. Come on, kid. Talk to me. What's really happening here?"

The spirit looks stunned. She steps back, head lowering. "I... I do not know what you speak of!"

"I can see right through you," he chimes, finishing his stretches and tapping the side of his head—the blindfold—with a finger, "even through this. You didn't fool me from word one."

"...O-oh." A beat. The spirit raises her head back up, though now in a more relaxed posture. "The woman beyond this point...I know her, and she's in terrible pain. Could you please calm her down?" She steps a bit closer, panic spiked in their last few words. "But don't hurt her."

Chihiro tilts his head a bit to the side. "Yeah, I could do that." The last request seemed off, but he keeps it in a mental back pocket. He's taken stranger assignments before.

The spirit looks to the sealed doorway. It swings open, and the storm around the mountain intensifies as it does. The spirit appears pushed back by the storm's winds, and she vanishes in the resulting gale. Stones rise from the void below to pave a bridge towards the final arena: large, carved of pristine granite, and sitting in the middle facing away from the outer stairs is a woman of middling age in light cloth garb, a straight-blade dagger on both of her hip sides.

"Energy readings are spiking! Be careful!" is what Dessa tries to tell Chihiro, but her speaker goes on the fritz and all the Herald catches are some consonants and a panicked tone that doesn't leave his mood much better. Oh well. Not like she was very helpful here to begin with.

"Why are you here?" the woman rasps, holding back a painful sob. The storm around the arena intensifies further still, now almost a typhoon centralized entirely on this platform, threatens to blow the Herald onto his back from the sheer intensity of the rain and winds. Yet, even with this, he could hear the woman clear as a bell. "I came to this mountain to be alone."

"Hear me out, please," Chihiro shouts, unsure if he's as audible through this storm to her as she was to him, "I'm just here on a favor—"

"I don't want to hurt you, but you need to leave." She stands up, turns around, looks dead on at the Herald and unfazed by his appearance. "I can't control what happens if you don't." Her face is strained, eyes red and cheeks flushed. Her hands rest on her dagger hilts.

Chihiro is too familiar with this sort of stance. So he lowers his shoulder and relaxes his posture a bit, best as he can without being knocked onto his ass, hands raised and palms open. "I got a message I'm delivering, and then I'm gone, okay? You can..." He takes a deep breath. "You can mourn in peace when I leave, okay?"

His words seem to work, and her grip on her daggers loosen a bit. The mountain rumbles and the waterfalls surge before everything calms down. Everything but the storm above both their heads, that is.

"Okay. Cool, cool. Thanks for hearing me out." He stands upright, clears his throat. "There's a spirit on this mountain, and she sounded real concerned for your well-being. Some kind of old deer-like guardian." The woman looks puzzled, but her lack of audible answer urges Chihiro to keep...explaining? Lying? Saying whatever he needs to in order to get this fuzzed-out elementalist calmed down. "Said stuff about the mountain and the elementals being in disarray, wanted you to cool it a bit with the storms and eruptions for long enough to let her talk to you." Chihiro has a vague idea of what this spirit is, but without the girl blabbing the truth he'll never know. Still, establishing some stuff ahead of time might get her to come out of hiding. More importantly, it might let him walk away from this living storm not looking like a piece of overcooked bacon. "She means it, too. She cares about you, a lot. Do you know her? Mmmmaybe you prayed to her once or twice?"

The woman finally answers her puzzlement: "The only spirit of this land is Zunraa, and he's never done anything you describe." Ahh fuck. "Now leave."

He was reeeeeally hoping this would have worked, too. "Kiiinda hard to with this storm—"

"I said LEAVE!!" The woman brandishes her daggers and the wind howls back to a harsh pace around her. "I'm warning you!!" The ground rumbles with new seismic activity, and the previously lightening rain becomes a downpour.

Damnit. Okay. A fight it is.

———

About 45 minutes later

Turns out this "Sorrowful Spellcaster" was also one hell of an Elementalist, throwing things like localized thunderstorms and fiery meteors at him. Kinda wished that deer-girl spirit warned him about this shit sooner. Though he was thankful to be able to deal with her relatively fine, it was the swirling watery vortex pulling him in, along with those crushing water tethers preventing him from moving too far away, that nearly did him in on this mission. Only thanks to retreating within the safety of his shield's chrysalis did he survive, and for long enough to break out and bash her face in with said shield; her concentration breaks and she crumbles to a kneeling stance on the floor, the magic dissipated. Her nose'll look kinda funky at the end of all this, but at least she won't be nursing any particularly grievous wounds.

He really hopes this spirit shows up and explains herself. Having his drowning be recreated when he fought this lady was beyond unpleasant.

"Just take what you've earned and go," she tells the Herald, grabbing something from an inro that hangs at the back of her waist sash and tossing it to his feet. She then moves her hands back to cradle her tender nosebridge. "You're not safe here. No one is." The tears begin to freeflow from her, thick with unspoken-of agony.

Chihiro kneels down and picks up the object: the last piece of this sword, its bronze-colored bladetip.

"That's strange," Dessa pipes up, perhaps her technology finally working at last, "you defeated the spellcaster at the center of this instability...but this fractal isn't stabilizing."

And just as Chihiro goes to ponder on what that actually means, he feels a sharp jolt strike his body; the pieces of the artifact fall out of his bag and hand, and they hit the floor with a claaaang!! sharper and louder than it had any right to be, even in the midst of this storm still raging over both his head and the spellcaster's. Breaking away from her own misery, she looks up; this is not her magic fueling this storm. This isn't the man's magic, either. Was it...

Was it all coming from that piece of bronze she found?

They snap to each other, sparks flying and broken lines reforming into unbroken bronze, screeching as they drag onto stone until the blade lies on the ground fully formed and intact. It was a beautiful blade, Chihiro has to admit. The woman, meanwhile, looks back down and stares at the blade in front of the man. What was that? The chain of events in front of her seemed so ludicrous as to almost snap her out of her depression. (Almost.)

"Take the blade," Glint urges.

"Hey, explorer? I think you want to leave that thing alone..."

"Ignore her. Take the blade." Chihiro obliges Glint's insistence, ignoring both Dessa's plea to stop and his own desire to step away from this thing. He grabs a hold of the blade's handle; lifting it to eye height, he discovers it to be incredibly lightweight for how long and weighty it otherwise appears to be, and the sparks that were held in each individual part now felt a circuit of electricity coursing through his body proper. It feels as if this blade was a missing piece that completed him as a circuit.

"This is..." Chihiro can barely describe the awe and wonder the blade in his hand imprints onto him. And just so: as he lifts the blade higher, not realizing it's what his body is doing involuntarily, a lightning bolt parts from the heavens to strike the blade and electrocute the Herald, the storm clearing as it does. What would have been a gruesome electrocution is instead a surge of energy charging every cell in his body as he feels his body begin to become unmoored from the realm around him. Is this Dessa performing that extraction like Glint promised she would do? Maybe so. That wasn't the core of his focus, no no no, that would be the solidified visions in his mind's eye. What were before fragmented memories and echoes, he now sees brief happenings and phenomena. He sees a past relived, bitter memories and sweet moments, even visions of things he couldn't possibly remember (a darkened doorway, bundled in a red cloth). He sees a present uncharted, new allies with unknown names across the horizon, and in the distance a city like Lion's Arch burning to the ground.

The future, to his surprise, was much more cryptic: a crystalline egg in a sanctuary made of gold.

The surge of energy clears of him and Chihiro falls to his knees, smoke and steam plumes leaving his overly warmed body. A sense of overwhelming clarity fillz his mind. Yes, he tells himself, this is what this blade was meant to do.

Bolt, he tells himself still. The blade's name is Bolt. A sword forged to serve a not-yet-existent Dragon. A blade made for a Herald of an Elder Dragon not yet here.

He understands, a little bit more, why Glint chose him as this world's "Hero".

[diamond-dangeresque]

A figure in black and purple leaps across the Desolation, nimbly springing through petrified snarls of Nightfall tendrils and climbing sheer cliff faces with dug-in toes and claws. At a rocky precipice overlooking a fortress hewn from the stone it hides in, the figure bellows in deep laughter.

What fun! What delight!

Mallyx hadn't felt so free in a very, very, very long time. Climbing the rocky cliffs of the Desolation, leaping from structure to structure, swinging and barreling amidst the remains of his former commander Abaddon...even as a fragmented echo of a long-dead demon, he never felt more alive than now as he took the reins of this "Herald" and his body. Reins Chihiro gave up in silent ease. And with full reins, Mallyx could distort the Herald's body as the demon pleased. Gauntlet digits and fingers within lengthened to dread claws. Legs pulled and spiked and twisted into something better-suited for springing through the Desolation. Six eyes projected over the Herald's tiny face to see better. Spine quills to keep hunters off of you when you travel.

But in this freedom, Mallyx understands purposelessness. His commander is long dead, and with him his mission of Nightfall. He now serves a pitiful brat who fancies himself a spirit lord, bid further on by a dead crystal dragon whispering in his ear promising heroism and purpose. If the ape didn't know any better he'd say this dragon was a guise for Kormir, that wretch of a Human-turned-"God". But he knew of Kormir and he knew of this "Glint". Two different beings, despite their identical behaviors. At least he could tolerate the dragon.

Mallyx stops laughing. Normally the Human would speak up, tell him to "calm down" or "can the laughter already," but he was awfully silent these past few hours. The silence bothered him. If the Human was gone for too long, the Dragon would wake up and banish everyone back into the Garden, back into quiet confinement.

"Herald," Mallyx yells, eyeing the ghosts of the fortress far below, "come out, or I consume these souls for myself!" They look up, a soft panic blooming in front of the Demon's eyes as some begin to scramble for cover.

The Demon can hear the sound of footfalls behind him, barefoot-on-stone, before a response rings back: "Alright, alright, I'm here you stupid ape!" The misty outline of Chihiro Yadora stands next to his own possessed-body self, see-through with edges in a glowing shade of violet. His garb is far more casual, hair untied with no blindfold and only wearing loose sleeping pants. At this angle, Mallyx can almost see the resemblance to Abaddon's Canthan general. Almost. "What do you want."

"I want ans—"

"Fuck off, Mallyx."

"How dare you!" Mallyx turns around, infuriated at the Herald's brazen apathy. Chihiro sighs. "You will take this body back this instant!"

"I don't care." The Herald sits down, legs crossed as he looks across the Elonian horizon. "Do with my body what you will, but you give it back for an hour and you don't hurt innocents. That was the agreement, yeah?"

"Your sloth will draw the Dragon's ire, child," Mallyx growls. His lack of using an indoor voice is reeeeally pissing Chihiro off. The spirits below are both frightened and somewhat confused at the one-man argument far above their heads. Only the spirit of Dunkoro seems familiar with what could be going on, and only just barely at that.

"Buddy, I just died. Again. As if I give a shit what Glint says or does. And keep your voice down, huh?."

"...Very well." Mallyx clears his(/Chihiro's) throat. "I was in belief that death didn't stop you."

"That's not the situation here, chief," Chihiro sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "it's...okay, when I died the first time, Glint was there intercepting my soul from shuffling off into one of humanity's maaaaany afterlifes. Okay?" The Revenant sees Mallyx nod, so he continues: "When I died a second time—because Balthazar beat the undead piss out of me and smite me with his fire magic—Glint couldn't catch me in time. So my waterlogged soul got tossed somewhere."

"You escaped," Mallyx notes.

"I was released," Chihiro corrects, "something very different. And illegal, if the Envoy's warnings were true. But no. I'm letting you take this joyride because...because I want to be left alone." He pauses. Mallyx can hear the Herald's heartbeat pounding away as he thinks of...whatever exactly happened when their bonds were all severed by the War God. "I need to be left alone. If Glint gets moody, tell her to take a number and I'll get to her never." Chihiro felt his weight shift, feet pulled first and working all the way to the tip of his head. When he blinks, he feels his face and body, realizing that he had forcefully been pulled back into his physical form. "What the f—"

"We've a war to wage against a war god," Mallyx howls, now the figure silhouetted as Chihiro's body pulls itself back into its correct shape, "and I don't need you snivelling about whatever it is you saw in the Mists. What happens after Balthazar dies is none of my business." He leaves, his presence all but dissipated back to the Garden.

Chihiro, corporeal rejoined with ethereal, sits down on the hard ground. This sucks. He wanted to mope in peace.

But the ape had a point.

All this moping served nothing towards Chihiro getting his round 2 with his patron god. He needed to move, and fast. Kralkatorrik's storms were surging, and Aurene was in danger. Something had to be done, and fast.

[diamond-dangeresque]

Day 3 — Pact

1330AE, Jahai Bluffs

"Enjoying your trip, Slayer?" Valenze asks Chihiro, playful in her tone even as she strides amidst Branded Awakened and time-displaced anomalies. "Or do you only answer by Commander still?"

Chihiro catches up, thankful of the shimmering veil around the two. "Please, Preceptor," he says as a hand shoos away the idea of such formalities, "you can just call me Chihiro. Everyone does. Even Doern." He notes a Branded Awakened Soldier walk right by him; as he waves his hand in front of the mummy's face, the mummy's eyes sparkle for just a moment while the veil shimmers. He stops, looks around with weapons readied, then shrugs and continues his patrol route. "So! Why the interrogation and stalking? I know you were there at the Federation gathering in the fortress, and I know you were at the Chantry watching our Master and their Master wag words."

Valenze pauses, chewing on the question as she gazes around. She looks up to a tropical canopy line, the wavy image of a tower rising far above it, then towards the massive streak of Brand damage across the land ahead. Finally, she answers, "The Master of Whispers is concerned of your performance. She–" Her playful demeanor drops. She stops Chihiro from crossing further. A howl can be heard across the wind. Small purple dust devils streak through the Brandstorm, in their wake dropping more beings time-sheared and confused within the Bluffs. They pass, and the time-sheared individuals blink out. Her playful demeanor—really, a facade—returns. "Ah, apologies~ The weather here can be quite moody!"

"So I've seen." Chihiro senses the dust devils roll by, eventually fading into the Mists, perhaps to appear elsewhere at full strength. "So. The boss is concerned about me. How sweet."

Valenze's posture relaxes, guiding the Herald with but a motion of her staff towards a garrison. It sits distant, across the aisle of Brandstorm, but untouched by it. "Personally, I think you did alright during both conferences. You were not as attentive to the details of each meeting as another Agent or Lightbringer might be. But then, you weren't brought into these meetings merely to take notes and nod sagely."

No. No, he really wasn't. While the presence of the Commander is purely a diplomatic one, it always carried that lingering threat of total quashing should something go awry. Which it very much did. Several times. But in all times, diplomacy and safety of those present took precedence. And while Chihiro absolutely did not mind being Slayer within the Order of Whispers... "To be honest, I'm getting tired of all this."

Her eyebrows rise, further framing her unnaturally luminescent gaze. "Are you now? Your mental fatigue has a source?"

Chihiro sighs. He didn't want to talk about it. Bringing up painful memories again rarely does anything good. But he also knows that if he doesn't, Valenze would have zero hesitation cracking his skull open like an egg to sift answers like yolk from whites. And she was one of the few people out there who could bypass Glint's anti-mesmeric enchantments. He wanted to take no risks and have her seeing things she wasn't supposed to. Things she could take back to Riel. "I've been through so much now. I have family who's dead because of this stuff. A lover I see dying in front of my eyes in my nightmares. Friends whose lives are being threatened constantly. Hells, I died in the line of duty and that wasn't enough for the duty to stop."

"You know, most wouldn't look a particular gift horse in the mouth like that," Valenze half-teases, curious to no end about the Slayer's experiences in the afterlife but for now respecting Chihiro's grief about it, "but I understand that this job has been a toll onto you. It has onto us all."

"Hard to feel that solidarity when you've been specially targeted over and over."

"...I will acknowledge that particular antagonistic entities have taken a liking to making a target of you, but that's why the Order took such interest in you." Chihiro stops walking. Valenze almost steps out of the protective bubble from the Tablet, her only sign that something was amiss. Oh no. She didn't phrase that quite right. Valenze turns around, sees Chihiro's brow furled with a particular knot sitting in it. "Think about Demmi. Recall why we took her in as an Agent?"

A pause. Lightning crackles off of the air-magic barrier. "She was an in for the Mantle bullshit her dad was peddling, wasn't it?"

"Partially, yes," the Preceptor responds, motioning the Slayer/Commander to follow, "but also to protect her the only way we know how: through the veil of dark only we can uniquely provide." They didn't have much longer until the garrison was reached. "And in that similar way, we wanted to protect you. We simply recruited you sooner than we did Demmi Beetlestone." But we failed you, too, was her next thought; Valenze keeps that smothered in the back of her mind.

"So what, I've just been a charity case?" Chihiro asks. He palms Bolt's handle, the cool electricity a cold comfort to him. "Asset or Agent; what am I to you guys?"

"You can believe you were picked out due to your...unique circumstances, but no, that isn't true. You've earned your right to be here, just as Demmi did. After all, you learned of our Master's identity. We let you remember it. And you've been involved in every major attack not affiliated with the Pact, plus this escort to the old Chantry and the diplomatic intrafaction meeting." She sighs. "This is a reminder to you, Commander or Slayer or Yadora or however you wish to be referred to, that you are still valorous to our cause and still worthy. We can't even count the boons you've given to the Order through your service. The Master sees great potential in you. Don't let yourself be your worst enemy."

Chihiro laughs. The Brandstorm is finally behind them, warm Elonian sand under their feet once more. The words feel hollow to him. But then, pep talks rarely worked on him to begin with. It was hard to get attached to anybody when they could drop dead in front of you at any time. But from a sweet face like that of Riel Darkwater? Sure. That helps a little more. "Thanks. I guess."

"And thank you for the company kept." Chihiro lowers the bubble and recalls Ventari, whistling to summon the echo of Zunraa by his side and mounting him. Valenze begins walking towards the garrison's walls, her protective veil pulling from Chihiro as he sees the shimmering fade, though she stops and turns around to give the Slayer one last look. "You have your business with Elonian contacts; I have mine, away from the eyes of both our bosses."

"From the Master of Shadows or from me?" Chihiro asks, tugging on Zunraa'a reins to keep him steady.

Valenze giggles. "You're free to think about what that means." She turns around and begins her walk again, Branded Awakened remaining oblivious as she strolls by them.