The Chungler was now deeply familiar with his patrol route through the Valleys of Orgrimmar. He ran through them all, trails of sweat and Vapor in his wake as one by one, he dispatched Ghoul after Ghoul that burst up through the ground, or absently fell from high above the clifftops.
Kick.
The Chungler disliked fighting the mindless dead above all else. There was something extremely disconcerting about the experience, his hoof making contact with bone, his fist on flesh. The lack of Feeling within, not as it was in the scant times he’s scuffled with a Forsaken adversary during the Fourth War. They, even in their state of decay, had a Feeling when stricken upon.
Punch.
It was like hitting a heavy bag. Just Force upon Mass. A dull, wet thud. Maybe the crack of bone, the rip of sinew. The unsettling popping noise that comes from dislodging a limb from its socket. And though anything, everything else he has ever dusted knuckles with, everything else recoils. They react to being hit. They experience pain, or at the very least concern.
Chop.
But not the Scourge. These things did not deter them, should they even reach their notice. They press forward, they rage forward, they grasp and swipe, with jaws that bite, with claws that catch. They will stop at nothing to feed on you or anyone else when their hunger rises. They would run, and they would collide with walls or posts or trees or spikes or weapons or oncoming fire… They would lose flesh, fingers, eyes… and press on. Slowed down only by Force upon Mass, and that alone. That disconnect of feeling, as if to make contact and hit nothing… It unsettled him.
Block.
He ran. He jogged. He Chungled his route dutifully, at the Commander’s Command. And at the six or seventh hour of the day’s patrol, he decided he would use his duty as an excuse to check on a friend. Up, to the Northeast. Past the Caravan. Across the bridge...
Duck.
That was Mister Fox. That was Mister Fox. He wished that it was not, very intensely. But that was him. Saying those… strange things. He was in pain. It didn’t take a Chungler to see it, but see it he did. Heard it in his heart. Felt it in his spirit. Not that Mister Fox made any effort to hide it, rather that he very pointedly made it known, especially to Chungler that he was...
Jump.
His heart, in his throat, leaps up and down upon his gut as a trampoline. He wants to pound against this door, so easily could he just obliterate it with one swift Strike, how he could grunt and heave and yank it off the hinges, how he could simply charge and barrel through with his mighty Force upon Mass. To get inside, to see her, to make sure she was safe… to help her get away.
Turn.
The Chungler, no longer alone, attempted to convince a wearied Postman that their friend was not home. Slip the parcel under the door! Easy breezy, as ever! No problems today for friends! Gently, he tried to nudge a change of scenery, to get an early jump on the job for the night! Commander Commands us back to the Pass, back to the Keep, to retake the homestead! Once we do that, we can be safe, and we can offer safety to our friends who are very quite, like... stressed out, man! The sooner we leave, the sooner we can leave!
Pose.
Do not flinch. Do not wince. Do not grimace or express alert. Just be cool. Just vibe. Just chill. It is Mister Fox again, and he is still Very Upset. And Reko is here, and he is also Very Upset, but in a different way. And Kisa is here, and she is Very Confused and probably also Very Upset by that. Do not show your hand. Do not allow yourself to be perceived. Do not allow another Lie to be exposed, no matter how bad you are at keeping them. Just wave. Just leave. Just pick your friend up by the head like a grape and leave and you can come back later and you can maybe help probably. But not now. Now, it’s time to go. Right now, we need to help something else, and this… this will be alright. Yska said so. She should know better than anyone if it’s going to be all right. And she said so. That thing, those things, everything that you’re afraid of...
today is such a good day imma talk about hard of hearing airmen
so in dragon soul thom makes this comment “Whether he’d lost the best of his hearing during his time with the Dragon Corps, or rather he just didn’t care who heard him, I’d never been able to ascertain, but Rook was loud and it carried” (this is just before the stables where the innkeeper’s daughter brings them food and is generally charmed by Rook’s dashing good looks, im so sorry I’m reading off an e-reader so i have no page number for you)
but the thing is, thom, rook is both hard of hearing AND doesn’t care who hears him.
in fact rook’s hearing is like the worst out of the dragon corps surviving members except maybe adamo, due to the fact that adamo’s been doing this the longest, but also rook takes like triple the amount of raids as the rest of them so it evens out a bit
ballfour’s hearing is the best since he’s the newest member of the dragon corps but he still gets some of the warning signs like tinnitus (ringing ears) and anyways most of it doesnt hit him until old age anyways because hearing loss can hit you decades after the thing that started all that mess in the first place
thom eventually mentions his theory that rook is HoH and Rook is defensive because he’s Rook, but thom is like “No i don’t mean that you aren’t listening, well that too actually, but i mean medically i think you aren’t hearing me”
actually once after they return to volstov thom tests each of the first waves by doing the CALFRAST thing and every single one of the airmen were shocked by how poorly they did except adamo who was like “well yeah i guessed this cause royston’s so quiet these days and he definitely didn’t do that by choice it had to be a problem with my ears”
this also explains some of adamo’s lack of volume control mentioned by laure. its not his fault he’s an old deaf man let him yell.
so basically they make the bastion pay for hearing aids which im assuming can be made given that a normal sounding voice could be created for malahide
rook h8s them and never wears them without a strict lecturing from thom
the good news is when their all old and totally deaf they had no problem understanding each other because with wind blowing at a hundred miles an hour past their heads and yelling meaning taking the risk of their voice echoing off the mountains and alerting their enemies to their presence, i decided they knew rudimentary sign language back in the days of the dragon corps’s first wave
it might not be an official sign language but maybe just one that’s military specific or something
but if balfour comes back from recon and has to inform the others “there are 5 trebuchets” and they have to adjust the plan accordingly then they got it
Its too bad the Havemercy AU isn't a thing (or at least, not widespread enough for me to have come across it) because there are plenty of fandoms with a bunch of dudes who would fit right in to a close knit team of rough and tumble metal dragon riders who are pretty not straight
Since I’m currently working on a long-form fanfiction about the infamous Airmen of the Volstov Dragon Corps, I took it upon myself to parse together a list of what dragons fulfilled what roles based on mentions in the books themselves. All I’ve looked at so far is Havemercy, since it’s the one that deals with the dragons most directly. I’ve compiled a list, complete with a key, as well as explanations and relevant quotations under the Read More.
For the purpose of this list, bold names are mentioned directly in canon, italicized ones are those that could be surmised from context clues, and ones without formatting are the ones never directly mentioned, and which I guessed on. But there’s reasoning behind them all under the divider!
I’d love to discuss this huge meta mess with anyone that happens to be interested! And since I haven’t gone through Dragonsoul or Steelhands yet, if you have any extra (or contradictory) evidence, please let me know! I’m intending to turn this post into a meta resource for anyone who’s interested in such a thing. I’ll add other quotes as necessary. (And there are also some below that deal with how raids were structured.)
Rook – Havemercy – Jacqueline
“The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy
Balfour – Anastasia – Swift
Rook specifically mentions “a swift like Anastasia” – pg. 177, Havemercy
Evariste – Illarion – Firebreather
The type of dragon that Evariste pilots is never directly mentioned in the text. However, I thought that Firebreather made the most sense, on account of a few reasons. First of all, near the end of the novel when Rook is talking about the dragons that are still in (mostly) operational condition, he groups them together by type. The swifts are mentioned first, followed by the three Jacquelines, two crushers, and then Illarion and Erdeni. Cassiopeia is the only Firebreather canonically identified—but the Dragon Corps features about 3-4 dragons of each type, and Evariste/Illarion are one of the only three pairs that has no distinct mention.
Niall – Erdeni – Firebreather
Like Illarion, Erdeni is never directly mentioned. But like her, Rook mentions Erdeni in the same group: near the end of the novel when Rook is talking about the dragons that are still in (mostly) operational condition, he groups them together by type. The swifts are mentioned first, followed by the three Jacquelines, two crushers, and then Illarion and Erdeni. Cassiopeia is the only Firebreather canonically identified—but the Dragon Corps features about 3-4 dragons of each type, and Niall/Erdeni are one of the only three pairs that has no distinct mention.
Ace – Thoushalt – Jacqueline
“The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy
Merritt – Vachir – Firebreather
Merritt/Vachir have no canonical mention—not even a scant one like Evariste and Niall. However, based on the number of crushers, mentions of how swifts were fewer in number than the rest of the dragons, and the fact that there are only three Jacquelines (who are all accounted for)… it only makes sense that Vachir is a Firebreather.
Jeannot – Al Atan – Jacqueline
“The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy
Maghougin – Chastity – Crusher
Chastity’s classification is never directly mentioned. However, at the end of the novel during the attack on Lapis, Rook mentions that he and Havemercy are not doing as good a job of clearing out the catapaults as a crusher might. Shortly after, Maghoughin/Chastity land in the same area and begin wreaking havoc. Rook inventories those that are lost a paragraph after Chastity goes down—two Jacquelines, two crushers, and a swift. The Jacquelines are accounted for, and there are context clues to identify the other crusher and the swift.
Adamo – Proudmouth – Crusher
[Credit for the catch goes to seagreenish/luvanderwon!] It’s mentioned in Steelhands that Proudmouth was a crusher. Quote and reference page forthcoming.
Proudmouth is mentioned as being “too big to get out of the way quick enough” at the end of the novel when the Ke-Han catapult a boulder in her direction. Rook notes immediately after that “[they] needed the bigs for sheer force” (pg. 398). Thus, her classification seems pretty cut and dry. Further evidence is in that he mentions her in the same grouping as Compassus, who we know is a crusher.
Ivory – Cassiopeia – Firebreather
Rook outright states that Cassiopeia is a “fire-belcher” – pg. 177, Havemercy
Raphael – Natalia – Swift
On page 285-287, Rook talks about one of the times he went on a raid with Compagnon and Raphael. We already know that the typical raids are groups of three—with a swift for recon, a firebreather, and a crusher. The Jacquelines, from context, can fill in for either the firebreathers or the crushers, but seem more prone to filling in for the firebreathers. Later that same chapter, he mentions that Raphael is “still running point on recon”, making it clear that Natalia is probably a swift.
Compagnon – Spiridon – Crusher
Spiridon’s classification is never directly mentioned, but there are a number of context clues that convinced me she’s a crusher. As mentioned in the previous entry on Raphael, she goes on a raid with Natalia and Havemercy, in which we know that the former is a swift, and can surmise that the latter is playing the role of firebreather. So logic seems to dictate that Spiridon is a crusher. Furthermore, during the attack on Lapis, the three dragons that dive through the winds and into the magician’s dome are Spiridon, Thoushalt, and Al Atan. An earlier conversation between Rook and Ghislain mention that the crushers are better at sustaining in the Ke-Han wind magic due to their weight, and the Jacquelines are probably the next heaviest because they can fill in for either a firebreather (who needs extra fuel) OR a crusher. Rook’s inventory of downed dragons accounts for the two Jacquelines, a swift (Yesfir), and two crushers—the only other crusher being Chastity.
Luvander – Yesfir – Swift
It’s mentioned on pg. 185 that the Corps “only had two swifts.” However, on pg. 387, Rook says “all of the swifts but Balfour’s Anastasia could barely lift their own heads for flying.” Rook’s improper grammar aside, it doesn’t make any sense that he wouldn’t simply identify Raphael as the other swift pilot—which leads me to think that perhaps there are three swifts instead of two: the “only two” perhaps being in reference to how many there were besides Anastasia. During the attack on Lapis, a boulder endangers Proudmouth—who, as a crusher, is too big (and thus slow) to get out of the way in time. Despite Rook’s boasting that Havemercy was almost as fast as Anastasia (pg. 177), he states that they are too far away to intervene fast enough. Luvander/Yesfir, however, are, and take the boulder for Adamo. Soon after that, when Rook is inventorying the number of dragons that had gone down, he lists one of the swifts. Yet Balfour doesn’t go down until later in that chapter (pg. 400), and Rook makes no direct mention of Raphael whatsoever.
“One of the scientists—widely considered the most talented architect in all of Volstov—was something of a zealot, and the three dragons he’d designed were all named after prayers: Thoushalt, Compassus, and his most recent triumph, Havemercy” – pg. 45, Havemercy
“Only Rook, Ace, and Ghislain have gone. […] There might be another raid tonight, but propably not. It might even just be a false alarm. Raids are usually only called for one of three reasons, those being that the Ke-Han are at our doorstep—which is pretty unlikely—or that one of the watchtowers to the east’s been attacked. Third reason’s if we’ve been fighting awhile already and th’Esar gets it into his head that a preemptive hit’s necessary. Since we haven’t been fighting in a while, and since you don’t hear the alarms that’d indicate a city-breaching, I’d guess it’s the guard towers.” – pg. 158, Havemercy
“Basically, our girls were all designed by different men who I guess were thinking completely different thoughts at the time they designed them, so things are real different depending on whether you find yourself saddling up a swift like Anastasia or a fire-belcher like Ivory’s Cassiopeia, or a Jacqueline-of-all-trades like Havemercy” – pg. 177, Havemercy
“Havemercy was…almost as fast as Anastasia herself” – pg. 177, Havemercy
“And where fire was concerned, [Havemercy] was the most precise and so could hit them hardest and fastest.” – pg. 177, Havemercy
“The way rounds worked was that you signed up for at least two shifts a week, and it was best if you were working in threes with a swift for recon, a fire-belcher for razing, and a crusher like Compassus, or a Jacqueline-of-all-trades like Havemercy. Once things started getting hot and heavy I was working with Ghislain and Balfour pretty regular, but also with Ace ‘cause there was no beating us when we worked together” – pg. 178, Havemercy
“‘It’s three for a raid,’ I said, loud over the wind as we were climbing now, and the higher up we got the more it whipped around us sudden and fierce. ‘Unless the fighting’s hot, then we got no need for recon because the Ke-Han are barreling out from the hills every which way and we just got to plug them up no matter what.” – pg. 182, Havemercy
“We only had two swifts. Recon was dangerous flying: the point of being small was to get close, and if you got too close, there was always a chance you wouldn’t get out again.” – pg. 185, Havemercy
“Things came to a head the night I was out with Compagnon and Raphael” – pg. 285, Havemercy
“The Rittenhouse was nearest, was what Compagnon said, and with Raphael still running point on recon, I’d just have to wait there by myself while he got the meds out of their nice restful sleeps” – pg. 287, Havemercy
“Compagnon had done a run with Spiridon that put her out of commission, we guessed probably for good, and all of the swifts but Balfour’s Anastasia could barely lift their own heads for flying. […] The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt. As for the rest, there was Adamo on Proudmouth, Ghislain’s Compassus, then, when they could wing it, Evariste and Niall on Illarion and Erdeni, in that order. All the other girls were fucking out.” – pg. 387, Havemercy
“We’d never flown in such a group before, except in the real bad times—and even then it wasn’t all of us, maybe seven or ten at a time.” – pg. 391, Havemercy
“I saw one of the boulders go hurtling toward Proudmouth’s back—she couldn’t see it, not to mention she was too big to get out of the way quick enough—but we needed the bigs for sheer force. I was too far away to get between the speeding rock and Proudmouth’s back legs when Luvander streaked into place on Yesfir, got caught smack in the side, and went down all at once, rock and man and dragon together.” – pg. 398, Havemercy
[Mentioned as having gone down up to this point—Compagnon/Spiridon, Jeannot/Al Atan, Ace/Thoushalt into the blue dome. Then Luvander/Yesfir. Prior to this quotation, Magoughin/Chastity had just gone down.] “We were out two Jacquelines, <i>two</i> of our fucking bigs, and one of the swifts, and who knew what else since I’d stopped paying attention.” – pg. 399, Havemercy
