it doesn’t matter if every single cannon and every single soldier in rezann’s army is defeated, if the man himself still can’t be killed. and robin refrained from publicly challenging rezann because of this - she’s super smart and she can draft a winning battle plan any day, but rezann himself is supposedly impossible to beat. he fights dragons in his gijinka form, he’s ridiculously overpowered and he can’t die
then robin found eladrin. this young skydancer is shade-touched and any magic spell will backfire horribly in his presence. that makes him a danger to everyone around him, including his allies. eladrin was basically wandering around sornieth with no goal, trying to avoid society, when robin’s scouts found him. robin’s mechanical creations don’t break around eladrin because they’re not magic, unlike p.much any other machine in sornieth. so eladrin got on quite well in robin’s army, until his talent was discovered.
the plan has 2 parts. first, eladrin has to be there, on the battlefield, as close to rezann as possible. for that to happen, the commander has to be baited out into the fray. this is pretty easy, since he’s quite a hands-on commander anyway. eladrin will be installed in rezann’s army as some minor footsoldier at the very last second, so that his powers don’t have a chance to betray his presence.
with eladrin there, rezann should become vulnerable. his regeneration and resurrection magic should backfire. but that means that someone still has to go in and actually physically fight him, which will be tricky. robin still isn’t sure what she’ll do for that half of the plan - she has a lot of fine warriors, but no one who can go toe to toe with rezann long enough to inflict a fatal wound.
luckily for her, and unluckily for rezann, an elite world-famous warrior has just made it into the citadel. getting them to fight might be a challenge, though.
delta writes back to his clan to ask for help and robin finds her fighter
~
Delta stared down at the blank sheet of paper on the table in front of him. He raised his pen, hesitated, then lowered it again.
How could he even begin to write back to his clan? Who would he even address the letter to? Leo had been in a coma last time Delta had seen him. Orress was gone. Luke was missing in action (Delta refused to think dead).
John, he decided. It was a letter for him, after all.
“What's the matter?” Neven said. They'd been exploring the new quarters they shared with Delta and Seafra, skimming their hands over the military bunks and stone walls. When Delta didn't respond, Neven came back to the table and set a hand on his shoulder.
“They probably don't want to hear from me,” Delta said quietly. “You weren't there when I left the clan. Fiach was so angry. They all hate me now, and I'm supposed to ask for their help...”
“Well,” Neven said, “you can apologise, but I. Don't really think you need to? If I was Fiach, I would be delighted to hear from you. Especially if I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Just write! Even if he is still angry – and I really don't think he is – he will understand. You can say that by leaving the clan, you found me. That's! A justification!” They jogged Delta's shoulder in time with their words, their tone relentlessly bright.
Delta wasn't convinced. But Neven was right – one good thing had come from his ill-fated trip to the Court to kill Xandra. If he hadn't gone, Neven would have been lost forever. Emboldened by this justification (an excuse, really, but he didn't like to think that way), he picked up his pen again.
Dear John,
It's me, Delta. I'm alive and in the Starfall Isles and I need your help. Well, President Robin needs your help. Her spies saw the battle you had with the cannon fleet in the bay and she wants you to do it again but with the rest of the cannons. I know this seems like a lot but this is the closest anyone's ever gotten to beating Rezann and if he was gone the world would be a much better place. Come to the citadel on the north-western coast. It's fine if you don't want to, also. I know it's a lot to ask.
Goodbye. Maybe I'll see you soon?
Delta
(p.s. tell dad I'm sorry)
That worked, he decided, reading over it again and again. Short and to the point.
He folded the letter and slotted it into the envelope. “Okay, let's go and find those messenger birds Robin was telling us about.” The birds in question were bred for rapid postal service, so hopefully the letter would arrive at its intended destination within a few hours.
The military barracks was made up of large grey buildings around a square courtyard. Large banners hung above each door covered up the moth emblems with Robin's own crest. In one corner of the courtyard was a fenced-in area where the birds were kept.
The master falconer rolled up Delta's letter and attached it to the leg of one of the birds.
The bird made it about two hundred feet before being shot out of the sky.
“Ah,” the falconer said, as Delta's hopeful expression withered away. “It looks like the Commander doesn't want us to send any messages.”
An empty no-man's-land divided the citadel from the army surrounding it. The sound of thousands of dragons crossed the invisible border-line – voices shouting and hammers thundering and weapons clanging. The army had been there for almost a week and from the noise it was making, it was doing its utmost to prepare for battle.
“What'll we do?” Delta said in undertone, taking Neven's hand. They simply shrugged. The other option had been to get a dragon to fly out, but that was far too dangerous. Nobody would agree to it.
As Delta continued to worry, the noise outside rose dramatically in volume. Drum-beats rippled through the air, followed by a sound like some kind of woodwind instrument. Then a shape appeared in the distance, framed by cloud. A pearlcatcher was flying towards the barracks, one of the purple moth banners streaming from its grip.
For one wild moment, Delta thought the battle had already started. He didn't know whether to grab Neven and escape or shapeshift to meet the intruder. It was lucky that he didn't actually get around to doing anything, because apparently this was a pre-arranged visit. As the pearlcatcher came in to land on the courtyard, Robin herself strode out of the main building, surrounded by her retinue of advisers and captains.
The pearlcatcher landed and bowed to her, wings spread in deference. “It's good to meet you, President Robin.”
“And you,” Robin said, nodding curtly.
Neven shrank back, then tried to hide behind Delta, their ears flat back. Delta obligingly shielded them from sight, but it was too late. The pearlcatcher had spotted Neven. A ripple of shock passed over her face.
“General?” she said, raising herself to peer over the heads of the crowd. “General Neven?”
Robin's eyes widened and she shot Delta a sharp look. Delta hesitated, and was about to speak when the pearlcatcher shook her head.
“The Commander will know of this, but that's not why I'm here,” she said firmly. “Robin, I believe we were to negotiate? I'll start by saying that we have no desire to destroy our own home, and a battle will do that for sure. The Commander is not without mercy.”
As the negotiations began – long, tedious, and so opaque that he hardly understood a word anyone was saying, Delta took Neven's hand and unobtrusively left the courtyard. Robin was insisting that she would not surrender without a fight as he pushed open the door to the dormitories, and she paused to cast him a look that promised that she wasn't finished with him yet.
And she wasn't. An hour later, when the pearlcatcher's departing wingbeats were still making the windows rattle, Robin burst into Delta's quarters.
“Is it true?” she said. There was a quiet stillness in her anger that did not bode well. “Am I to understand that your imperial friend there is Wind General Neven?”
“No,” Delta said quickly, putting the table between himself and her. Neven, who sat on the top bunk, pressed themself back and out of sight.
Robin continued to watch Delta. His defence crumbled. “I mean, yes? Kind of?” he said. “Neven hasn't been in the army for years now. They're not the general any more.”
She dragged her hand down her face and closed her eyes briefly. “Can I trust you two?” she said quietly.
“Yes,” Delta said, meeting her eyes. “Yes, I promise. We're on your side.”
As the anger dissipated from her face, her expression became thoughtful. “I did hear that the Wind General was to be replaced. That the old one went missing.” She watched Delta for a moment, then transferred her gaze to what little was visible of Neven. “The gods were on my side the day you showed up, Delta. Not only have you brought me Xandra's pet battlemage, you have given me a fighter who might be capable of taking down Rezann.”
Neven couldn't stay silent at that. They clambered down from the bunk and faced Robin, their shoulders square. “I will not fight for you. I don't do that any more.”
“Yeah,” Delta said, “sorry, President, but we really can't-”
“No,” Robin said, holding up her hand. “I understand completely. You turn to pacifism to assuage your own guilt at what you did in the past, under Rezann's command, right? You must also realise, in your heart, that it's nothing more than wilful selfishness.”
Delta flinched a little, his stomach churning. She was right – and not just about Neven. She was right, she was so right, and no amount of nice behaviour would wipe away what Delta had done under Xandra's rule. Surely Neven felt the same?
But Neven was shaking their head.
“I can't,” they said faintly. “I can't do it again.”
“You could rid the world of a tyrant,” Robin said. “Or you could sit here and make daisy chains while we all die. It's your choice. Let me know if you change your mind.”
And she left.
Neven didn't say anything for a long while, shuddering from head to tail. Then, without a word, they sat down on one of the beds, turned their back to Delta, and cried.
robin speaks to a couple of potential new allies in her fight against rezann. also foreshadowing ofc.
~
Silence hung around the war table. Two scribes wrote frantically, making record of everything the young guardian – Delta – had said. Robin pored over the map in the centre of the table, adding new notes and wooden tokens as if preparing for a game of chess.
“So,” she said, placing a tiny, crude wooden ship on the map, between the painted borders of Arcane and Wind territories. “You're telling me that Queen Xandra's prize battlemage is still alive, a member of your clan, and on his way to the Sea of a Thousand Currents?” She pushed the wooden ship south, towards the canal that linked the Sea to the ocean outside the Ashfall Waste.
“Well, um,” Delta said, “maybe?” He tapped his fingers nervously on the table. Robin puzzled over him for a few moments, wondering what could have happened to him to make him so anxious. He was head and shoulders taller than her own guards, but he seemed to hold himself with painstaking care, his shoulders hunched to make his frame smaller. Robin had met a lot of dragons during her life, many of whom had displayed the same tell-tale signs as Delta. Every so often, Delta would cast an odd look across at the pearlcatcher standing silently in the corner of the room.
“Is he or isn't he?” Robin said, making her voice soft for his benefit.
“He is,” Delta said, “but I was separated from my clan before they found that ship. I don't know their status...”
Aklys cleared her throat. She stood a few paces back from the table, incongruous among the uniformed soldiers in her shaggy furs and discoloured leather. “My scouts report that the ship was damaged extensively in the conflict.” She spoke with a strange accent and paused often, as if to search for words. “It would have sunk, but a guardian pulled it towards the Sea. We lost track of it at the border of the Sirenian Empire.”
“Right,” Robin said. “Here's the plan. Delta, you need to write to your clanmates. Let them know you're alive and that you need their help. We're not going to last much longer under siege conditions like this, but I'd rather hold out until we're sure we have this John person on our side.” She stared down at the war table, her eyebrows knitted together.
She'd been planning this for months, carefully setting down her railways and scouts around the Isles and surrounding territories to building up an information network with no parallel. She knew more than Rezann did about the battlefield – or, at least, she hoped she did. There were still some pieces that needed to fall into place, but the plan was about ninety per cent complete.
“Okay,” Delta said. “I'll do that. I can't guarantee anything, y'know, since, um, John's supposed to be in hiding and all. He might not want to go into battle.”
“Fine,” Robin said, “that's his choice. But you let him know that he may be the difference between success and failure – we can fight an army, but taking out those cannons is a different matter entirely. At the very least, see if you can get the schematics for his magic from him.”
With a nod, Delta uncertainly rose to his feet. When no one told him to sit, he headed for the door and let himself out. He and his two travelling companions had been given beds in the barracks, as well as food and supplies, as long as they promised to fight in the coming battle.
Once he was gone, Robin sighed gently and sat back again. She dragged a hand down her face. A nervous, electric atmosphere filled the air, exacerbated by the silence. Sitting still was impossible, so she rose to her feet and circled the table, studying the map pinned to the thick oak surface.
The area surrounding the citadel was crowded with wooden moth tokens. Her own forces were in hiding to the north and south, waiting to fall upon the Commander's assembled troops. A jumble of element tokens showed the positions of Rezann's generals. The Shadow, Wind, and Light tokens were off the map; Robin had personally dispatched the Shadow general. She didn't know where the other two were. The Wind general had been missing for years, so she wasn't particularly worried about them, but Fain, the Light general, could be an issue...
She stopped by the single window. This war chamber had been built on the side of one of the stationary central crystals, affording sweeping views across the countryside to the east beyond the city walls. Rezann's army blackened the green fields, a hive of activity. Three enormous cannons faced the city head-on. The other six were still unaccounted-for. If Robin wanted to win the battle, she would have to find some way to take out all nine before the actual fighting started.
“Ma'am,” a timid voice at her side said. Eladrin had come to stand by the window with her, his pale eyes fixed on the army outside. “I'm sure I can destroy the cannons, you don't have to rely on outside help.”
This was probably true. Eladrin, the shade-touched skydancer, caused magic to backfire violently in his presence.
“You can't be in nine places at once,” Robin said. “It's too dangerous.” She rested a hand on his shoulder briefly. “You're too important to throw away this early, Eladrin... no one else can do your job.”
Eladrin nodded, his crest lowering.
“President,” a voice said from behind. “The king wishes to speak with you.”
More good news. With a broad smile Robin turned and beckoned to the page who had come into the room. The page set down a scrying mirror on the war table and turned it to face her. Eladrin had to leave for this, for fear that his presence would disrupt the signal. The hooded pearlcatcher moved forward to stand behind Robin, her hands clasped behind her back.
She sat in front of the mirror. Its reflective surface shimmered for a moment, then solidified into a view of an elaborate black and gold tapestry. A moment later, a young guardian leant into the frame, as if to check that the mirror was working.
“Hello?” he said.
Robin inclined her head. “Your Majesty. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“President Robin,” he said, settling in front of the mirror. In comparison to the monochrome tapestry behind him, he was brilliantly coloured, green and cyan and deep red. Court Dorchadas' newest king was a dead ringer for his father, and Robin dearly hoped that the resemblance was only skin-deep.
“So I suppose you got my letter?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. No time to waste on pleasantries. “You want an alliance. Forgive me, but I thought that Court Dorchadas was allied with the Rezann?”
Emiliano nodded. “We used to be. Rather, we were allied with the Winterborn company, which primarily serves the Commander. But recent events have changed that for good. I would go to war with the Company in a second, but it's impossible to do so without also declaring war on Rezann. The Company's owner, Zaer, is Rezann's strongest ally. You can see where I'm getting at here, right?”
“I can,” Robin said. “So how about this: help us defeat Rezann now, and later I'll give any aid I can to help take down the Company. That includes my navy, my armed forces, my steam trains – should the need arise – and my magicians.”
“That sounds great,” Emiliano said earnestly. “We're ready to march at your word.”
“Well,” Robin said, “you can start marching now. The sooner you arrive, the better. I'll send someone out to discuss my terms and plans with you – we can't say too much over the mirrors, the Commander uses them too and he most definitely knows how to crack their encryption.”
“Of course. I'll get my militia ready. Thank you for this, President.”
Later, when Robin returned to her workshop to study in peace, she felt the faintest burst of guilt. With a sigh she sat at her desk and got to work, pressing a tiny mold blank into a dense pile of sand, ready to pour in molten iron. The result was a gear as fine as a wedding ring. She worked on it until the torchlight overtook sunlight as the primary source of illumination, slowly constructing each tiny necessary part for her creation.
There was a gentle knock on the door. The pearlcatcher let herself in, and as Robin glanced up she lowered her hood.
“This is a mistake, Robin,” she said softly, coming to lean against the side of the desk. “You're catching a tiger by the tail with this Dorchadas business.”
“I know, Lee,” Robin murmured, fitting another minuscule gear into the shell of her new pocket-watch. “But we don't have any other choice. We need their help.”
Lee lowered her dark gaze. She was entirely colourless – her skin and hair and eyes as grey as dilute ink. There was something unworldly about her. She was a necromancer, and it almost seemed like she herself was dead.
“If King Emiliano finds out...” she said.
“Don't worry,” Robin said. She wound up the watch and let it start, keeping an expert eye on the movement of the gears inside. “He won't.”
if u recall, robin was the one who installed fake!xandra on the dorchadas throne in order to bait rezann out of the citadel. it is, essentially, robin’s fault that all that shit went down at the court under fake!xandra’s orders
robin basically used court dorchadas and its citizens as a pawn in her war effort. and emiliano doesn’t know this yet
i couldn’t go to bed without sketching out her design, but i’ll have to finish this one tomorrow. she’s a genius inventor but even genius inventors occasionally have their inventions literally explode in their faces. she has a lot of scars
robin is super tall and her bare arms are heavily scarred from all the times her machines have burnt her or blown up on her and she’s got soot stains all over and she’s basically mechanic-chic but with a more military flair
