Chapter Text
Even in his deathsleep, Midgardsormr knew of the Dragonsong War. The rancor of his child did not compel him the way it did the lesser drakes; he was the primogenitor, the First, and he could no more be commanded by the song of his progeny than he could be commanded by one of his own claws. But it roused him nonetheless.
The first time he saw the Warrior was when she stood before his corpse, tangled up with the remains of the warship he had brought to ruin. He brought his anger and his anima to bear against her, and yet still she stood, still she fought back with fire and ice and lightning, wove the very aether around herself into a shield before she surrounded the remains of his children with it and burned them to ash.
The fight left him weak and drained, with just enough aether left to converse with her through a half-rotted throat. Who was this impudent mortal to tread the ground where he had fallen, to come to him? Who was she to earn the trust of Hydaelyn with her talk of justice? Even the scales that covered her body, even the thin tail that curled behind her, reminded him of the progeny that he had lost to the folly of man. So he stripped her of Her blessing, stole her power just as mankind had stolen Ratatoskr's. And with it he formed a body to watch over her, to listen and wait and see whether she truly was of Light or a mere pretender, nothing without the protection of her Mother.
In those early days, he hid himself from the world and from her, existing as a mere voice in her head, only manifesting his aetherial body when there would be none else to see. Though he did not expect her to succeed, he knew even that faint hope would be extinguished if they saw her with a dragonet, let alone with the father of dragons. So he slept coiled around her soul, drawing off of her energy to sustain his spirit; he watched through her eyes and heard through her horns.
So he was with her when she lost the protection of her mortal allies, her friends scattered and her trust shattered. Another betrayal of man against man, all for the lure of power. He would not have been surprised if it had broken her, driven her to turn her back on the world. And they certainly passed many a cliff, many an opportunity for one wrong step. But she persisted, struggled through the snow with fire in her heart and her soul until she reached Ishgard.
During their first night together, he watched from atop her bed as she worked some manner of alchemy with supplies she had risked life and limb to purchase before her hasty departure from Ul'dah. A retort, a mortar, a pestle, powders and potions that he could not guess at the nature or purpose of, all to produce a bottle full of some kind of pale blue liquid. She barely gave it time to cool from the burner's flame before she swallowed it in one swift motion, and he could see her shudder of relief all the way from her head to the tip of her scaled tail.
"What manner of draught is this?"
"That is on a need to know basis, and none need to know but me."
He wanted to snarl at her, but the sheer brazenness of her response stilled his throat, and so instead he settled for silence.
Where Ysayle had fallen, the Warrior had succeeded. Ravana's might, the fury of a species single-minded on conquest and expansion, had proven no match for her sheer aetherial power. She moved around the arena faster than he could keep up with through her eyes: one moment his blades would be crashing down on her head, the next she would be behind him and unleashing an infernal gout of flame on him. But Midgardsormr was not impressed. He had seen her might firsthand, had known her skill in the lost arts of black magic.
What impressed him came later, as she was collecting medicine for a dragon that despised her and her kind.
"Why dost thou aid him, daughter of man? Wert thou injured and dying in Ishgard, the only salvation thou wouldst find from him would be a swift death." He hovered by her shoulder and watched her search the ruins; explaining to the dragons of Dravania why their sire was amongst them would take far too much time, so it was only in moments where the two of them were alone that he allowed himself the pleasure of a body.
"Isn't that the point of all of this? Nidhogg's brood despise us. But I am tired of seeing people fall to this senseless war, and I may yet save Ohl Ahs from being yet another victim of it." She paused, fingers trailing along the cover of a mold-stained tome. "Here. A book of medicine for dragons, written in the hand of man."
"And if thou canst not stay Nidhogg's hand?"
She lifted the tome from its resting place and tucked it under her arm. "Then I suppose this conflict will need to claim one last life."
Before he could reply, she was outside again, and he let his body dissolve into aether lest the inquisitive dragonet Kal Myhk ask her too many questions about her strange companion.
Disaster struck her in the Sea of Clouds. A violent gust of wind near the edge of a floating island nearly knocked her off of her feet, nearly sent her tumbling into the abyss below. The Warrior managed to catch herself before she fell, but her backpack was not fastened tightly, and so he watched through her eyes as vial after vial of the mysterious potion fell into the cloudy abyss. He could hear her choked cry of anguish, feel her pain through the link of their covenant, and he felt... pity, almost, for her.
'Twas a strange thing. He had seen her betrayed and beaten, go up against insurmountable odds and insurmountable gods and come out the other side with nothing but her grim determination, seen her start to reignite the light of Hydaelyn’s blessing through force of will. And yet the lack of this curious concoction could reduce her to nothing?
That night, when Estinien and Ysayle were asleep, she drew forth one of the remaining vials from her backpack, but she only drank half before she returned it. He could sense the tears in her eyes, even if their link could not let him read her further; the meaning of it all was yet a mystery. But she had been willing to treat with Ysayle, to at least entertain the notion of ending the war with her. She kept the peace between cold-hearted heretic and hide-bound hunter. Even if this all failed and the war continued for another bloody millennium, she had come farther than he had thought possible.
So distracted was she that she barely even noticed him drawing on her aether to manifest himself; her gaze remained fixed on the fire until his snout nudged at her thigh. She looked down at him in surprise, mouth open to say something, but... nothing came. Instead he just climbed into her lap, taking just a little bit of care to not dig his claws into her skin or scales, and curled up there.
"Thou art strong, daughter of man."
He could barely hear her soft 'thank you'. But he did feel her arm around his body, and soon afterwards he followed her when she went to finally take her rest.
When all was said and done, when Nidhogg lay dead and robbed of his eyes in the Aery, he should have felt... something. Sorrow at the loss of one of his children, though he had been lost to rage a millennium ago. Joy that the War might truly be over, though the Eyes still remained in the world. But instead, there was naught. He turned the gaze of his soul towards the Warrior; even reading the surface of her thoughts, he could see her worry.
"Ishgard. We have to tell them the truth."
"Who would listen to thee? To hear that their entire lives were founded on lies and betrayal would drive them mad."
"The truth will out one way or another. 'Tis better that it do so sooner rather than later, or the lie will destroy you from within." A sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
A desperate rescue of one friend, a noble sacrifice of another. Death surrounded the Warrior once more. She screamed her fury at the retreating airship, tried to reduce it to ash, but it was too far, too late. He could feel her anger through their link, deep and painful like a gouge in her soul.
And yet none of it showed the night in her strange alchemical ritual; an onze of powdered wyvernbone here, a drop of deepeye tears there. Her hands moved calm, steady, precise as she brewed her potions, the same as they always did, and soon the glass bottle filled up with the familiar blue liquid. But once the work was finished she barely even gave it time to cool before she measured it into a vial and swallowed it in one gulp. He was resting on the table beside her retort, so he could see her shiver, see the faint smile that it brought to her lips; it had been the first full dose she'd taken since that day in the Sea of Clouds.
The Warrior, ever the optimist, told Tiamat that soon the war would be over, that there was no need for her to stay imprisoned. But she stayed fast, wrapped up in chains of man, chains of her own despair, as her brother was forever bound by his own rage. As he had himself been bound by his own tired cynicism. And as the Warrior walked away, Midgardsormr flying beside her, he could see it deep within her: the final crystal's light shining forth. She had been shattered and reforged, stronger than ever, against all odds and against his expectations.
So he gathered all the aether he could spare and shaped it into the form he had born when he was a mere hundred years old. He stretched out his wings, partly to show off his figure (for it had been too long since he wore a form that could be called 'imposing' without laughter) and partly simply for the joy of being more than the small, diminished thing.
“If you wouldst journey to the center of these ruins, Warrior, then I shall carry you.”
She’d watched him with a mix of interest and surprise, but never did her emotions overwhelm her. He supposed all her time with dragons had inured her. So she calmly placed one gloved hand on his forehead, the bare tips of her fingers brushed against his ridges, and bowed her head.
“I am honored to accept your assistance.”
And then the moment passed and she turned on her heel, away from Tiamat and the Reactor. “But first, a meal. I’d hate for my spells to be interrupted by hunger.” So she set off, looking around for a quiet spot free from the gaze of the cursed creatures that wandered the island, someplace for her to rest.
Eventually she came to rest, her back against a nearby outcropping of rock as she looked upon Azys Lla. He settled down besides her, watched as she retrieved meats that had been salted and wrapped in ice-infused cloth. And to his surprise, she tore off a strip and held it in the palm of her hand.
“I suppose you don’t need to eat, but perhaps you’ll enjoy it all the same.”
He leaned forward, sniffed it. Salt was a new flavor to him, unpleasant and harsh to one used to fresh kills and fire-cooked meat. But...
He snatched the meat out of her palm in one quick motion of his snout and swallowed it whole. “I thank thee, Warrior.”
The rest of the meal passed in silence. Midgardsormr was in no hurry for another taste of Ishgardian cuisine, so he paced around her, took a few experimental test-flights to make sure he remembered how. When he finally returned to her, she was holding that familiar leather pouch.
"Daughter of man. What beareth thee forwards when all the world be against thee? In my countless years I have seen men slaughter and kill themselves and my kind for naught, and even the legendary peace of Shiva and Hraesvelgr lasted but a moment. Yet still you press on, ever hopeful.”
Delicately, she pulled a vial out of its protective pouch so he could see it. The sickly green light in Azys Lla reflected in the crystal glass of the vial itself, but the liquid itself was still the same pale blue as ever.
"This."
"Mine knowledge of alchemy is limited, but I was given to understand that 'liquid courage' is a mere appellation." (The father of dragons, telling a joke for a mortal!)
She laughed a little and shook her head. “It's called a ‘fantasia’. Or at least, that’s the label I found on the Allagan tomestone that the formula was contained in. My body was... created wrong. Through some form of accident or random chance. I don't know why."
He tilted his head, looking up and down her briefly. "Never hast thou limped or stumbled in our travels."
She shook her head in response. "It functions as well as it ought; it is merely the wrong sort."
"Thy words go beyond my ken, Warrior."
"I am a woman, I know this deep within my soul. And yet my body does not seem to agree with me on this point." Her words were slow, sounding as if each one of them was chosen with laborious precision, though her gaze stayed on the pale blue liquid as it shifted within its container. "Through this, I have changed my body to one closer to that which I was always meant to have. And through my change, I am reminded that nothing is truly set in stone.”
“Then why hast thou kept this secret from thy companions? Never did I see thou partake before them.”
She sighed a little. “I would rather not tell them something that they do not need to know. I told you because... because I trust you.” She looked into his eyes, her bright blue gaze fixed on his. “And I trust you to keep this a secret between us.”
He dipped his head, nudged the tip of his snout against her heart; even through her robes, he could faintly hear it beating. “Thou hast my word, Astra.” (It was the first time he had ever called her by her name.) She stroked over his head and his neck gently, tilted her head down so that her chin could rest atop him. A moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, even for a timeless being.
And then it passed. She corked the bottle, wrapped it up in its pouch, and placed it gently within her bag before turning her gaze turned to where Archbishop Thordan and his knights were no doubt awaiting them. “Shall we?”