(forged in) six pieces

General Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply | Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)

Gen | for soobledoo | 666 words | 2022-08-01 | Prompt Fills | AO3

Hikari | Mythra & Kagutsuchi | Brighid, Hikari | Mythra & Wadatsumi | Aegaeon, Hikari | Mythra & Shin | Jin, Hikari | Mythra & Kasumi | Fan la Norne | Haze, Hikari | Mythra & Yuugo Eru Superbia | Hugo Ardanach, Hikari | Mythra & Laura | Lora

Hikari | Mythra, Kagutsuchi | Brighid, Wadatsumi | Aegaeon, Shin | Jin, Kasumi | Fan la Norne | Haze, Yuugo Eru Superbia | Hugo Ardanach, Laura | Lora

Torna: The Golden Country DLC, Coming of Age, Drabble Series, Inspired by Music, Source: Tony Banks

Mythra comes together. (playlist here)

Chapter 01: Siren (to blare)
Chapter 02: Still Waters (to reflect)
Chapter 03: Blade (to focus)
Chapter 04: Wild Pilgrimage (to dream)
Chapter 05: The Oracle (to understand)
Chapter 06: City of Gold (to wonder)

"What's it like?"

She'd emerged noiselessly from the water tower, swishing over to stand a comfortable distance away from her target.

"Huh?"

"When you call her. Siren, did you say her name was?"

Mythra, disquieted by the sudden, seemingly genuine, attention, fidgeted. Fenced: "Who said Siren's a she?"

Brighid didn't chuckle. "I assumed you'd never trust its likeness to a man."

"Pretty human thing to do. Worrying about all that. Don't you think?"

If Brighid's eyes had (ever) been open, Mythra would have sworn she was being studied. Realistically, she probably was anyway.

"Keep that independent thinking. Despite its flaws, it's...one of the few truly admirable things about you."

Truly?

Though Aegaeon wasn't her favorite person to hang around, Mythra found him far more tolerable around bodies of water, like the moat in Auresco or the springland just outside it.

He crouched there now, fist almost gripping the armored end of his chin. His eyes, vacant but not absent, moved slowly, tracking the horny inhabitants of the shallows.

How was it he moved so deliberately, yet never missed a beat?

"Got your eye on a big one?" she cracked - he'd probably take it at face value, pontificate on the relation of size to a fish.

Tolerable, boring stuff.

One steely finger dipped to the surface.

No irrevocable ripple.

"Gaze with me."

"Again!"

She'd barely had time to reset her feet before Jin's blade lashed out. It wasn't possible for him to move through her Foresight!

That's what she would have said a few weeks ago, anyway. Yes, she'd still maintain that it shouldn't have been possible, but clearly it was.

Hate fighting though he might, and Mythra did believe him (wouldn't have a few weeks ago, anyway), Jin was the most finely honed Blade in all of Alrest. As for their faculties of performing as people, as proto-humans, the accusations of coarseness could probably go both ways, but when it came to leveling particulate of life on the edge of absolution...

"Again!"

"Is there anywhere special you want to go? After...all this."

Lidding her eyes for long enough that Mythra could see the glittering sheen of orange shadow atop, Haze contemplated her question. The fabric of her pants rustled in awkward counter-rhythm to the shift of the sand below, yet another glaring example of the dichotomy between forest and field.

(Mythra's legs? Adaptably bare. Tetherless.)

It wasn't like Blades' concepts of pilgrimages, dream travels, meant any less than Humans' did. It was the same exact idea, really.

"I think I'd like to see a play, in Uraya."

Not that weird. Not that wild. So why didn't Mythra have anywhere to go?

Elysium...

Bluff Knight. Addam was horrible at it. Hugo was an ace. Mythra, malingering somewhere between fatally tetchy and overwhelmingly cool, found herself transfixed by the idea that an emperor of an entire continent could hold so many secrets, and be so right for it.

Without fail, she predicted the wrong direction he'd move the crucial piece, and he'd smile with genuine joy as he moved to reset the handful.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Mythra?"

"Oh, sure. Like a dream."

"But do you see why I've kept winning?"

"Because you're better than me, I dunno."

"Because I do like to take a risk, every now and then. The ease is only eventual."

"I used to be afraid of this place, you know."

"Afraid? I thought you'd always dreamed of becoming a knight. Living in cushy digs, eating gourmet snacks, getting to talk with the king - from a safe distance, obviously."

"He makes you nervous, too?"

Mouth still half-gaped around a victorious smirk at her easy casing of Lora's deal, Mythra lamely shuttered her lips. Lora's smile gentled.

"The golden country...it's so true. So full of promise, even if it does make you nervous sometimes."

She laughed. "I mean, hey, if it didn't, what kind of promise would it be?"

A bad one, Mythra was about to retort, but...maybe Lora was right.