Chapter Text

After collecting the magical items to her name, Pyrrha had asked Jaune for a few moments to say goodbye to her home.

Seeing as how his filter air was starting to fade, he was more than happy to oblige, returning to the entrance. Stepping back into the cold from the sweltering heat of the lair nearly took his breath away as he emerged from the mouth of the cavern and climbed over the thick roots that obscured it from being noticed from below.

There, he found his cloak, hastily removed as he originally approached to give himself full freedom of movement in case he was both forced to fight and by some miracle survived the dragon's first strike. He hastily retrieved it and pulled it over his shoulders. Aside from his ancestor's sword and breastplate, the cloak was the finest thing he owned—and the only thing he could tell for sure was magical.

Yes, there were legends surrounding the sword, and family tales about the armor, but he'd never seen either of those doing anything more than failing to rust in practice. He'd been using the cloak as a blanket whenever he was out in the wilderness for the past two years and it objectively and observably retained his body heat and kept the cold from seeping through.

He'd won it at the Harvest Festival in his fifteenth autumn in a storytelling contest; the first and only time he'd ever won anything.

Luxuriating in the soft silk lining and his own reflected warmth, he hunkered down on one of the roots to wait.

Pyrrha's lair was just below the treeline, where the foliage was sparse—enough to keep her hidden, but not enough to hinder her when she went out hunting. Reaching it had been a bad time for Jaune, as the place hadn't been chosen for accessibility to those who couldn't fly. It had taken an hour's climb to reach, and now that Jaune could got a good look at the gauntlet of steep, sharp, snow-covered rocks, he was shocked he'd survived it.

A small gasp and the sound of something heavy thumping on the ground drew his attention back tot he mouth of the cave. Pyrrha stood there, her bag at her feet as she hugged herself against the cold.

“Are you okay?”

She met his eyes and opened her mouth to lie before seeming to think better of it. “I wasn't aware it was still Winter.”

Jaune nodded. That seemed to check out. Many of the stories he'd grown up with depicted dragons as supremely lazy, lounging about of days, weeks or even months at a time atop their hoards. As far as he knew, she'd slept the winter away. Maybe dragons hibernated like bears an woodchucks.

“Today is actually the second day of Spring. It just stays cold longer up here in the mountains.”

Gamely doing her best not to shiver, Pyrrha retrieved her bag and slung it over one shoulder. “I suppose it does. I try to make sure my food stores are enough so I never have to go out in... this.” Looking utterly miserable, she climbed over the roots toward Jaune.

After a moment's thought, he gave her a sympathetic look. “Oh... oh, this must be awful for you. It's like with lizards, right? The cold makes you slow down?”

His reward was a look of indignation. “I'm not sure if you're mocking me or not. Despite the scales, we aren't reptiles. In fact, a member of the White or Silver Nations would thrive in this—perhaps complain it's too warm. But I'm a creature of fire. It's in my soul, my blood. Cold isn't something I enjoy is all.”

Jaune bit his lip and cast his eyes back to the long trek down from the cave. “I've got a few extra changes of clothes back at camp. They won't fit well, but they should do.” He sighed and removed his cloak. Damn his own eyes, he knew she was a dragon, but she was in the shape of a person and no Arc would allow themselves to be snug and warm while a fellow person was as close to naked in the snow as possible.

“In the meantime...” He shrugged off the cloak and held it out to her. The cold air pressed in on him immediately. Now dressed in leathers, padding and a thin sheen of now-frozen sweat, he felt like he was going to die, but bolstered himself with the merry little flame of righteousness that he was doing the moral and proper thing.

Pyrrha's eyes darted from the proffered cloak to Jaune and back, no doubt taking notice of his discomfort. “I couldn't...” she said, doing her best to keep the hesitance and avarice out of her voice. Maybe some of that little magpie her brood mother always talked about wasn't quite dead in her.

“It's just until we get to my camp,” said Jaune, “And I'm not the creature of fire here, so I insist.” When she dithered again, he moved around behind her and draped the cloak over her shoulders himself. The difference was immediate for her as the cloak began to reflect her naturally high body heat back on her. Almost reflexively, she pulled it closed around her, humming a little as she did.

“T-thank you. Though you didn't have to.”

He had the ritual book out as he stepped away from her this time, flipping through pages looking for something in particular. “Yeah, I kind of did. Wouldn't have been right just leaving you to be cold.” After a few more pages, he found what he was looking for and knelt to start drawing a spell diagram in the snow.

A small frown marred Pyrrha's expression as she padded up behind him and peered over his shoulder. “What does it say of me then if I leave you to be cold?”

“That you aren't an Arc,” he replied, distracted. “Like I said, don't worry about me. I can live a few minutes in the cold.”

A quick glance showed Pyrrha a long, steep climb ahead of them. It certainly wouldn't take mere minutes. “I believe it will take us longer than that to reach your camp unless I transform again and fly us down.”

At this suggestion, he paused in his drawing, a complex circle in the snow left partially constructed. Looking up at her, a mix of emotions she couldn't read flashed in his eyes before he stopped and shook his head, turning his attention back to his work. “I wouldn't ask you to do that. It looked like it hurt the first time.”

“I'm told I'll get used to it eventually.”

Jaune finished drawing his diagram and fumbled around inside his armor until he came up with a small bag. From it, he took a pinch of glittering sand, which he sprinkled over the diagram. “If it's all the same to you? I'd rather not be the reason for someone else's pain if I can help it.”

His tone had grown more and more sober over the course of the conversation and even as much of a novice to basic interaction was Pyrrha was, she realized it was time to change the subject. “Hmm. So how far away is Lord Citraan's... manor? Fortress?”

“It used to be an outpost—a garrison for the forces holding the valley at Rygauld Pass. Lord Citraan calls it Castle Mayllon now.” Jaune pointed out over the valley below them. While they weren't high enough to see much more than the sea of trees covering the foothills of the mountains, Pyrrha could make up the break in them and the opposite mountain range beyond. “It's on the other side of the lake. Getting there's going to take almost two weeks no matter which way we go.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Two weeks out in the open?” Even larger dragons didn't just lollygag about in the open wilds. Some spirit beasts could and would best them in battle, not to mention enterprising gangs of monsters, bandits and powerful adventurers, not all of whom were an altruistic lot.

That earned her a a short, bitter laugh from Jaune. “We'll stay in towns when we can... but don't worry: woodcraft is the one thing I am good at.” He cut himself off right after saying that, hunching over the diagram and muttering. Pyrrha recognized the words as a dialect of the draconic tongue, one modified and bastardized by mortal spellcasters to create a scholar's language for magic called arcanis. The words she understood, but there was no syntax or structure, only concepts invoked in an authoritative tense.

“Void. Power. Become. Solidity. Motion. Self. Command.” The lines he'd drawn in the snow burst into white flame, which rushed away from the diagram to swirl in the space just over the edge of a boulder overlooking the drop down for Pyrrha's lair.

“Resolve.”

The swirling flames flattened out into a disc that roughly mimicked the shape of the diagram, but flickered and twisted chaotically in the air.

“Resolve.” Jaune ground the word out more forcefully, now holding both hands out to the nascent spell. The burning disc stopped rotating, but the flames still flickered in a blurry facsimile of the desired form.

“Resolve!” This time he actually shouted, the draconic word clear and powerful in the silent winter around them. Still the spell refused to fall into place. Jaune was breathing hard and staring at the silver fire with an expression bordering on desperation. He drew breath and then all but screamed. “Damn you to the inferno-- RESOLVE!”

Those last words were in the common trading tongue and issued forth from hims mouth with an odd vibration that Pyrrha could swear she felt reverberate in her chest.

The silver flames of the incomplete spell leapt into alignment, becoming crisp, smooth lines while the spaces between them seemed to crystallize into solid planes of tangible force.

A shuddering breath make Jaune's shoulders shake and he closed his eyes just for a moment. “Maybe I didn't follow the instructions perfectly,” he murmured before stowing both book and pouch back in his breastplate and getting to his feet. He turned to find Pyrrha regarding him with curiosity. “What?”

“I believe I should be asking the same question. What was that?”

“...A ritual? An elevating platform? It's so we don't have to climb all the way down by hand. I didn't use it to get up here because dragons can detect magic... I think.”

She waved that part off. “Only if it's bound into objects. But that isn't what I meant. Do did something at the end there...” she trailed off because he looked honestly confused. “...or maybe I was mistaken.”

They stood there for a moment that went on too long, giving each other odd looks until Jaune finally couldn't take it anymore. “We should go. The platform doesn't last more than ten minutes.” And that was that. The pair gingerly stepped off the jutting boulder and onto the conjured platform, which Jaune then caused to sink at a steady pace down to the forest floor.

While still chill, the towering evergreens offered some protection from the wind, making it more bearable at least. Jaune dismissed the platform and after taking a moment to find a mark blazed into one of the trees, led Pyrrha deeper into the wood.

They walked in silence for a time, Jaune seemingly focused on following his own trail back to camp while Pyrrha was mulling over his behavior back at the top of the cliff. She didn't think she'd said anything to offend, but something had clearly bothered him enough for him to affect a mask of stoicism that simply didn't suit him.

And then there was the ritual. Dragons didn't go in for ritual magic. Their mystical might was written into their souls such that all the mnemonics and incantations mortals used weren't necessary for them. All the same, she'd seen other rituals cast and had never seen one behave the way Jaune's had. A failed ritual failed and that all there was to it. They were either performed the right and proper way or they weren't barring direct interference from another. One couldn't just shout at it until it performed correctly.

Especially not shouts like that. She wasn't even sure it was magical: he hadn't tapped into anything as far as she knew and seemed to honestly not have noticed what he did. Accidental magic wasn't something that happened. It was a precise and conscious choice even for prodigies.

So what had happened?

“We're here.” Jaune's voice cut through her thoughts, drawing her attention to... nothing in particular. They'd come to a copse of younger trees that had sprung up in the wake of a much larger tree's demise. The splinted stump of the former jutted up from the scant few inches of snow cover with what was likely the fallen trunk forming a low rise nearby where it must have rolled.

All in all, it looked like a likely camp site, protected from the wind on all sides with the trunk forming a semi-defensible position in case of attack, but there was nothing there. Pyrrha was about to give voice to this concern when Jaune took one more step an faded from existence.

She froze, every sense going on high alert. Had all this been an elaborate trap? She hardly expected it of him, but humans were crafty and adaptable. Maybe he knew there was no way he could fight her on even footing and so planned all along to play on her sympathies and prioritizing Citraan over him.

What was unnerving was that he really did seem to be gone. As weak as her near-human senses were, she expected to still smell him considering he'd spent the better part of an hour in her lair while wearing bulky armor. But his scent was gone. There was no crunch of snow, now sound of breath. Even his footprints stopped exactly where he'd disappeared.

Then her worries turned to him. Maybe he wasn't betraying her and was instead the one in danger. There was no telling what a spirit beast might be capable of, or a mage, or even another dragon. Something could have wrapped him in an illusion or dragged him into a pocket world or...

Jaune faded back into being, brow knit in concern. “Are you alright?”

She just stared at him for a long moment as things clicked together. She'd seen this before. Adventurers usually set alarm spells like her own, or conjured hard barriers, but more than one merchant caravan she'd watched over the years chose the way of illusion. “A veil.” she said without thinking. “And a very powerful one too. It even blocks sound and smell.”

A small smile tugged at Jaune's lips. “My grandmother never did things halfway. This one isn't very big, but back in the War, they say she regularly cloaked entire encampments from spirit beasts and hailene patrols.” He gestured for him to follow him and, feeling relieved none of her dark thoughts had been realized, she followed him.

Stepping over the veil's threshold is much like what she imagined walking through a soap bubble must feel like. There was a slippery, yet clingy resistance that lasted just a moment before she was through and the clearing changed.

Where once was snow, the ground have been cleared down to bare earth and moss in a rough circle about fifteen feet across. At the center of the space, a neat circle of stones outlined a fire pit with a pile of sticks and logs at the ready to be lit and two metal poles thrust into the ground on either side with another set between them to support a pot over the fire.

On he far side of the clearing, butted up against the largest tree, was a modest canvas tent with a tarp unrolled to cover the damp, cold ground. Not far from that, a stake had been driven into the ground, providing a convenient place to tie a rope, which led to a leather collar resting around the neck of a large, flightless bird.

An ornis, if Pyrrha had to guess. The nearly horse-sized creature was hunkered down in the crevasse between two roots, its glossy black and brown plumage fluffed up in an effort to trap heat while its head neck was stretched out so as to allow its head with its heavy beak to rest on the ground.

She couldn't help it. Pyrrha's mouth started watering.

Jaune didn't miss this and gave her a suspicious look that might have been partially in jest. “Please don't eat my bird.”

“I wouldn't...” she started, but remembered her internal vow to be honest. “Alright, I was thinking about it, but I wouldn't do it. He is yours after all.” She wrung her hands and decided to focus on the fire pit. “It's just that they're my favorite and it looks so delicious—have you ever eaten one?”

Jaune nodded, striking off toward the tent as he spoke. Hi s tone was light again. “We raise the riding varieties, but the Keldon family—our neighbors, they raise the eating kind. I wouldn't want to eat Gasten here though. Putting something so evil and foul tempered in your body's bound to make you sick.”

He crawled into the tent, temporarily leaving Pyrrha alone to fantasize about swooping down on a fat, wild ornis, spraying it with burning gel, then settling in to wait was burning feathers cooked the flesh to perfection. Oh, she could practically smell it.

For the second or third time that day, Jaune interrupted her thoughts. She started realizing that he'd managed to come up beside her without her noticing. “I have a shirt and breeches you can wear. I try to keep at least one change of clothes for long trips. They'll be big on you, I think, but once we get to a town, we can get you something else.” He pressed a bundle of cloth into her arms. “They're better than just wearing an illusion at least.”

She offered him a small smile. “Thank you.”

He just nodded and started rifling through the worn, canvas knapsack he'd brought with him. “Hungry?”

“A bit.” she agreed. She'd already had a doe a day or two before, but she could eat.

“So you eat ornises. Ever had auroch?”

Pyrrha had to think about that. “The large cattle they grow in the valley?”

“The large cattle my family grows in the valley, yeah.”

“Once or twice. There's really little reward raiding domesticated animals and a great deal of risk.” She paused to try and remember the last time she'd caught a stray that escaped into the mountains from its paddock. “They are delicious though. Not as good as ornises, but few things are.” Her gaze started to drift back toward Gasten.

Retrieving a roll of oilcloth from his pack, Jaune unwrapped it to reveal several strips of what appeared to be stiff leather. “This will have to do until I have dinner going. I don't suppose dragons make jerky.”

She regarded the stuff with caution. It smelled good, but at the same time, it looked to have the consistency of a shoe. “No, I don't suppose we have.” Out of pure politeness, she took a strip and held it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. It felt waxy, which was not something she looked for in a foodstuff.

“It's just dried meat.” Jaune assured her, picking up a piece himself and tearing off a chunk with his teeth.

Tentatively, Pyrrha did the same, chewing slowly. A burst of flavor from the jerky quickly dissolved all her hesitance. “Oh my, this is very good.”

“Glad you like it.” Jaune said with a genuine smile. “Dinner won't be anything special, sadly. We're too high up and it's still too cold to scrounge up most fresh things. I dug up a few wild tubers and bulbs to mix with the dry rations, so we'll see...”

By then, Pyrrha was gnawing on her jerky with a vengeance. Checking herself, she paused to give him a grateful nod. “I'm sure whatever you make, it will be grand. Thank you for sharing what you have with me. Once we reach a village, I can pay you back from the coin I'm bringing with me.”

Jaune rose, taking a moment to crack his back. “Don't worry about it. We're partners, right?”

It would have been hard to miss the spark of hope and purpose in his eyes. He had something to work for now and he wasn't going to give up easily.

“Indeed we are,” Pyrrha agreed.