Chapter Text
The first time Dietrich met Zenos yae Galvus on the field of battle, only the lightning could pierce the smoke-choked sky above Rhalgr’s Reach.
There was chaos on all sides. Scimitars flashed in the flickering light of flames and the blinding bursts of lightning overhead; men screamed in anger and agony as they cut down their foes or fell to their knees, dark blood seeping into the dirt. Dietrich had not seen a single one of the Resistance leaders giving orders, and the dead and wounded wearing Resistance uniforms far outnumbered those in Imperial colors. Somewhere nearby, Puck, Alisaie, and Vice Marshall Pipin had joined the fray, in an attempt to turn the tide, while Krile and Alphinaud saw to the injured.
And all around them, the Reach burned.
Dietrich’s breaths came short and shallow as he watched the hulking figure of the Viceroy approach, sword in hand. His grotesque armor clanked with every step, his long, blond hair spilling down over his shoulders from beneath his ghoulish helmet, nightmarishly illuminated in a flash of lightning. Despite the weight of all that plate and the massive mechanical sheath at his hip, his gait was light; slow and purposeful, but untroubled—like a tiger prowling through its territory, secure in the fact that it is the most frightening thing in the forest.
There was a casual ease amidst the chaos and carnage of the battlefield, a disinterested arrogance, that brought a disdainful little curl to Dietrich’s lips.
“Your friends were a disappointment,” said Galvus, his voice distorted by his helmet. “But you… You will entertain me, will you not?”
The bile rose in Dietrich’s mouth. He sucked in a breath and squared his shoulders. If everything he had heard was true, then Galvus would be a challenging opponent; but it took more than tiger teeth or tiger claws to scare Dietrich. “If it is entertaining to die, ” he growled, fingers clenching tight around his staff as he began to channel his aether through it, “then aye—you will be most entertained.”
From behind his helmet, Galvus sighed. “Then, come,” he said. He lifted his sword and traced a wide arc through the dirt with his left foot, sliding effortlessly into a fighting stance. “Give me something to remember.”
And Dietrich’s staff exploded into lightning. With a violent crack and a flash of white light, it struck.
But it did not catch Galvus, who stepped easily aside. Untouched and on his toes, still in motion, it was clear that he was going to come for Dietrich next. Dietrich backed up and started his next cast, sure to hit Galvus before Galvus could hit him.
But instead, Galvus plunged his blade into the earth. Fissures exploded out from beneath his feet, racing for Dietrich. The ground under Dietrich buckled and lurched dangerously; he was thrown backwards, but jerked forward, digging his fingers into the dirt to stabilize himself through the shock.
And Galvus was approaching, his sword crackling with lightning. Dietrich threw up his staff as the bolt hit him. He sucked in a breath and he grasped it with his aether and redirected it. It climbed his body, his arm, scaling his staff to explode again with a great crack.
Galvus jerked as the lightning hit him, knocking him back half a step—but he stopped only for the moment. Dietrich’s whole body tingled with the electrical current, and his eyes blazed as he backed up and began his next cast.
But Gavlus swung up his sword, the blade surging again with lightning. The lightning exploded, and Dietrich stopped his cast and rushed in; with a crack that shook Dietrich to his bones, it struck the place where he had just been standing in a wide circle. The ambient electricity in the air swelled, making the hairs on Dietrich’s tail stand on end, prickling across his sweat-damp skin.
But now he was within striking distance. Galvus swung at him, his blade slicing cleaning through the air; Dietrich swore and threw up his staff to block it. Galvus’ blade bounced off, but Dietrich hadn’t been ready for the force behind it; he staggered, throwing his staff up again as Galvus struck again.
This one knocked Dietrich to the ground. He let himself roll and easily hopped back to his feet, trotting backwards to put some distance back between them. Resting on his toes, he conjured fire.
Galvus threw up his arm as the first bolt hit him, exploding with a great burst of burning air. One after another, Dietrich struck him again and again and again, until he had to pause to suck in a breath. Through the smoke, Dietrich could see the flashing white of lightning coiled around Galvus’ blade.
“Better,” hummed Galvus, loudly enough for Dietrich to hear him.
Dietrich was already moving, and when Galvus’ lightning struck, he was already clear of it. He stopped dead and began a fresh cast, just as Galvus again brought down his blade. The earth bucked violently under Dietrich’s feet, and he wasn’t ready for it this time. It threw him back, and he fell hard, tumbling heels over head through the dirt.
“But lacking, nevertheless…” sighed Galvus.
He was already on top of him. Dietrich scrambled out of his way as Galvus brought down his blade, narrowly missing him. He tried to get his feet under him, but again, Galvus struck at him, and he rolled sideways to avoid being cut.
And Galvus kept after him, at that maddeningly slow pace. He could have easily caught Dietrich if he’d wanted to, but instead he wanted to play with him. Fury welled in Dietrich’s stomach, his heart hammered in his ears—and he shivered as he felt the air sliding off of Galvus’ blade brush against the back of his neck as he rolled out of the way of another sweep.
“Don’t stop now,” murmured Galvus as he continued to advance.
He swung again, and Dietrich threw out his staff to protect himself. He used it like a rapier, catching Galvus’ blade between the head and the top of the handle—narrowly keeping all his fingers—and forcing it aside in a clumsy parry as he leapt to his feet. It only held for a moment, but that was all he needed: as Galvus swung back, Dietrich sprang backwards, backing up quickly to a safer distance.
Dietrich struck him again with fire—it slowed Galvus, but only for a moment. Dietrich backed up again and wound up for another spell. He let off a bigger burst of fire that exploded against Galvus, erupting with a great blast of hot air into a thousand tiny embers, flying and skittering in every direction. By now, there were a dozen little fires burning around them, eating up grasses and scraps of fabric, obscuring Dietrich’s view of the Viceroy.
But again, Galvus had stopped. Dietrich felt a spark of confidence in his chest; a little breathless, he started his next cast.
By all accounts, the bastard looked untouched, but Dietrich knew better than to just take it at appearances. As long as Galvus had the presence of mind and the force of will to act like none of this affected him, then his armor would give nothing away and Dietrich would be none the wiser. It was the simplest of tricks, and Dietrich wasn’t going to fall for it and lose heart.
No; this was challenging—but manageable.
But over the crackling flames, Dietrich thought he heard Galvus sigh. “It would seem that I have misjudged you. This ends now.”
And too quickly, his massive form split the blaze, and his blade sliced neatly through the back of Dietrich’s thigh.
Dietrich snarled with pain. He swore and dropped to one knee, blood spilling hot down his leg to mix with the dirt at his feet. Breathless, he clapped a protective hand to the wound, feeling it slide, his leather glove slick with red. Dietrich grit his teeth and tried to lift himself up with his good leg, but he couldn’t quite manage it.
Galvus stood over him. His massive shape loomed, solid, inscrutable black against the dark sky, illuminated only in flickering orange flames and white-hot cracks of lightning overhead. He said nothing as he looked down at Dietrich, sword raised high, poised to come down on Dietrich’s head.
Although he could not see his expression, Dietrich somehow felt that the Viceroy looked at him with a passionless contempt.
Dietrich’s lips curled into a snarl as his insides went cold with fury.
As Galvus’ sword came down, Dietrich’s staff swung up, and exploded in fire. The very air trembled with the force of the blast, and there was a violent flash of light; Dietrich’s ears rang, and he screwed up his eyes as burning air seared his face and ripped at his hair and clothing.
And then Dietrich’s eyes were open again. He blinked furiously to clear the spots from his vision, and after a moment, he could see that Galvus still stood firm—but at a greater distance than before. Dust swirled around his feet at the end of long tracks scraped into the dirt from where he had skidded, blown back by the explosion. But barring some singe marks on his armor, he looked none the worse for wear.
And save his sword, which had born the brunt of the blast and snapped in half.
But there were still two more swords in that sheath, and the loss of one would not delay Galvus long. Dietrich wasted no time levering himself back to his feet with his staff, already gathering up his aether for his next strike. He was losing too much blood, too fast, and so injured, he did not have many options at his disposal—but there was a solution, so long as he could stay alive long enough to find it.
But as he moved, a searing pain shot through the back of his injured leg, and he faltered, feet sliding in the blood pooling beneath him, mixing with the dirt and dust to make a thick, red mud. He grit his teeth and heaved himself up again, despite the trembling weakness that was starting to infect the rest of him.
No—Dietrich refused to die here, of all places; to this, of all things.
But as he gained his feet again and raised his staff to cast another spell—again, his leg crumpled beneath him, and he collapsed, sprawling in the dirt.
“Pathetic,” intoned Galvus.
Dietrich’s head snapped up, fixing his eyes on Galvus as he scrabbled to get his hands and knees under him, gasping for breath and choking on the dust. The Viceroy stared down at him with that same feeling of dispassionate contempt.
Dietrich’s insides turned to ice, even as his hot blood thundered in his ears and flowed freely down his leg. Snarling, he raked his fingers through the dirt, clenching them into fists as he pushed himself up onto his arms.
No—Dietrich refused to die!
But Galvus tossed his broken sword aside, and turned away from Dietrich, as if he no longer existed.
And then he just walked away.
From her position off to the side, Fordola rem Lupus nodded and gestured sharply to her men. “Fall back!” she roared over the crackling flames and the lingering chaos of battle. At once, her Skulls disengaged; and although the Resistance soldiers had no one to command them, almost uniformly, they let them go.
But Dietrich still struggled to get to his feet, blood boiling, pounding in his ears. Like hells that bastard was just going to walk away— like hells Dietrich was going to just lie there in the dirt and let him!
But the shaking was getting worse, his breaths coming shorter and faster, his thoughts muddier by the moment. His feet scrabbled uselessly in the blood-soaked dust, and he couldn’t get his knees under him. He was starting to feel faint, and a low stream of curses tumbled out of his mouth as he struggled.
If he could just get to his feet...
“Dieter! ” At once, Puck was beside him, her tiny hands on his arm. “Thal’s balls, Dieter— Your leg—!”
“I’m fine,” he growled, breathless as he continued trying to get to his feet.
“No, you definitely are not,” she said with an uncharacteristic seriousness. She pushed on him, forcing him to lie flat with an ease that made the fury well higher in him. “Just lie down, huh? Hey, Alphinaud!” she bellowed over her shoulder. “ Alphinaud, are you done? That guy’s not gettin’ up again; get over here—”
Then there were others—the sound of footsteps, and the boom of General Raubahn’s voice, he thought. But the confusion was starting to set in, and it was increasingly difficult to focus on anything until even his own fury seemed distant.
That was a bad sign.
“I need a tourniquet...” he mumbled into the dust, fighting to hold onto his thoughts.
He thought he felt Puck’s hands on his arm. “What?”
“Wrap it above the injury, then twist the windlass until the bleeding stops…”
“O-oh—no, no, a healer’s here, Dieter; it’s all right!”
Dietrich wasn’t familiar with the next voice he heard, and the words it said slipped through his brain without leaving an impression. His vision was blurry and dimming.
But Dietrich’s last thought before he lost consciousness—was that he refused to die because of this.
And so he didn’t.
Two days later—after they had seen to the wounded and buried the dead—Dietrich stood with the rest of his allies and colleagues in Castrum Oriens to discuss their next steps. The chirurgeons, as well as Puck and Alphinaud, had strongly discouraged him from attending, owing to his injury, but he did not think it severe enough that he couldn’t attend a meeting. Certainly, his pace as they approached was slow from heavily favoring his right leg, but it was nothing he couldn’t endure for a little while. After all, he had made the decision to join his colleagues in fighting for Ala Mhigan freedom, and he intended to do it.
And of course, he expected that their route forward would depend somewhat heavily on him, in specific, and he refused to let the plans be made without his input.
“Were it not for the actions of the Scions and the Alliance, many more would have died,” said Commander Kemp, addressing the entire war table. “You risked your lives to save ours, and for that, you have our thanks.”
As he said it, his tired eyes passed over everyone present. No one there had been absent from the battle at Rhalgr’s Reach, all either personally engaging the enemy or tending the wounded. But Dietrich noticed that when Commander Kemp met his eyes, he quickly glanced over to Puck, instead.
The famed Champion of Eorzea, the Savior of Ishgard, Slayer of Gods—left bleeding helplessly in the dirt, while Zenos yae Galvus just turned and walked away.
Dietrich narrowed his eyes, fighting to keep the snarl off his lips, and willed himself to brush aside Commander Kemp’s clear disappointment with his performance.
“There is no need to thank us, Commander Kemp,” said Alphinaud, his blue eyes bright and earnest. “We are allies, are we not?"
“Aye, just so,” added General Raubahn. “Let us not dwell on the tragedy, but look to the future.”
Commander Kemp turned to General Raubahn, his brow creasing. “The future?” he echoed, tone sombre. “I’m sorry, General, but there is no future for us.”
Dietrich turned to him, focused. “What do you mean, ‘no future’?” He did his best to keep his voice even, despite the spark of frustration that had already ignited in his chest. It was not an encouraging statement to hear from the leader of the Resistance.
But Commander Kemp just shook his head. “We’ve lost too many… Gods, they’ve ripped the heart right out of us. They’ve broken us. Our fight is over.”
Dietrich’s scowl deepened as the frustration swelled. While that might well have been the case—and Dietrich had observed a notable drop in morale at Rhalgr’s Reach in the days since the assault—it was not a commander’s job to give up without a comprehensive assessment of all available options. Dietrich refused to believe that there were no solutions to the problems of Zenos yae Galvus and the Resistance’s demoralized, depleted numbers. He felt an instinctual impatience with Commander Kemp’s willingness to fight so long and so hard, only to just lay down and die.
“And what will you say to the families of the fallen—to the mothers and the widows and the orphans?” M’naago demanded, furious and giving words to Dietrich’s own thoughts before he could. “Will you tell them that it was all for nothing?”
General Raubahn nodded. “That’s right. We dare not suffer our comrades’ sacrifices to have been in vain. Now is the time to steel our resolve and press on, painful though it may be.”
“And when Galvus comes back with his army—what then?” answered Commander Kemp, his tired face pinching into a scowl. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find men brave or stupid enough to face him again.”
“I still can’t believe how strong he was,” mused Lyse, frowning and placing her hand on her chin. She spoke slowly, thoughtfully; almost as if to herself, even while everyone turned to listen to her. “He humiliated us back there—Dietrich included.”
Dietrich whipped his head around to face her. It was like adding a dash of oil to a flame. “How interesting. I do not find myself to have been more humiliated than anyone else present that day,” he snapped, eyes blazing as he glared at her. “I am not sure why I am the only one who deserves the ignominy of being mentioned by name.”
Lyse turned and blinked at him, her blue eyes stretched wide in surprise. “Well, that’s not… quite what I meant,” she mumbled, taken aback.
Dietrich stared hard at her, unblinking. “Then why must I bear especial shame for a loss we all shared?”
Lyse shifted in place, her brows knitting together as she folded her arms. “That’s not what I meant,” she repeated, standing her ground. “But you are the one who’s killed all those primals—”
“Indeed, I have.” Dietrich’s lips pulled back into a snarl as the anger swelled high in him. “And did you think that meant responsibility for victory rested solely with me? Need I remind you that I am a scholar? For all of my unlikely successes, I am not trained for any of this! If I have been disappointing on the field, mayhap the incorrect tool has been selected for the task!”
“Dietrich,” interjected Alphinaud in a calm, placating voice. “That isn’t what Lyse meant. I’m sure she only intended to emphasize how unexpectedly strong Galvus was, that even you—”
“That even I might be bested by a man raised from birth for this express purpose, and who so expertly crushed the insurrection in Doma—aye; astutely observed, that my decade at the Studium preparing for a life of scientific study did not serve me well in this capacity!”
Alphinaud blinked as if Dietrich had struck him, and Dietrich immediately regretted it. Of all his Scion colleagues, Alphinaud was the only one Dietrich trusted to remember this about him; he was the only one who had spent enough time with him, over their long stay in Ishgard, to really get to know him. Dietrich took a sharp breath and screwed up his eyes, swallowing down his fury. “His martial prowess duly considered—how shall we contend with it?” he asked, his tone even, but brittle. “It goes without saying that he cannot be allowed to continue on as he has.”
“Indeed,” said Alphinaud, quick to take up this new topic and redirect the discussion. “It is clear that we cannot hope to best Galvus with the limited resources we have available to us here. So we must find a way around our material limitations…”
There was a general release in tension as the conversation righted itself, although Dietrich could still feel the furtive glances in his direction as discussion continued. He ignored them, arms folded and fingers and jaw clenched tight to keep a grip on the anger still roiling in his chest.
More of the same. Once, Dietrich had been used to working with the Scions, and all of the indifference and demands and high expectations that came with it. He had nearly forgotten what it was like to bear the weight of being the Scions’ sword arm and having his improbable successes against impossible circumstances taken for granted. He had not liked it before, and he did not like it now—and even less so, now that he had actually failed.
Pathetic.
That declaration—delivered with such cold contempt—still haunted him. It haunted him, because the Viceroy had put such a fine point on precisely how Dietrich had felt in that moment.
Lying in the dirt and dust, trembling and drenched in his own blood as he gazed up at Zenos yae Galvus in impotent fury, helpless to do anything else.
Pathetic, indeed.
Dietrich lifted one hand to clench the pendant that hung, cool against his bare skin, through the fabric of his shirt. Silver and black enamel, orange blossom motif, on a delicate silver chain, with a miniature portrait and a lock of silver hair inside. A bitter taste rose in his mouth.
Everything had been so different in Ishgard.
He wished he could go back.