The woman ran as hard and as fast as she could, ignoring the squalling of the newborn in her arms.

She could not ignore the cries, hoots, and laughter of those right behind her.

Gaining. Ever gaining.

Strange, how the weight of a child and purported sin could make one much heavier than those bedecked in armor. Armor and their righteousness. Their purported righteousness.

Her breath tore, burning, through her lungs and against her throat. The burn stretched down into her stomach, into her legs, rusty barbed wire that threatened to hamstring her. But she had to keep running.

She had no destination in mind. Her eyes were blind to all but the concept of escape. Thus it was that she passed through the safety of Tailfeather and its reaching caelum trees, into territory long shunned by Ishgardians.

Dragon territory.

And thus it was that with the ruins of Anyx Trine in front of her, they caught her, and they cut her down, and ripped the shrieking newborn from her cold and stiffening arms. They laughed and shook the pathetic, wrinkled thing, and approached the home of their enemies and tossed it through the crumbling portal through which they dared not step, lest dragonfire be their end.

When they left, nothing marked they had been there except a corpse and the shrill crying of the forsaken child.

Eventually, the crying stilled to gasping sniffles, and then to silence.

Silence until the sound of powerful wings beating the air, and then a heavy, gargantuan body coming to rest. Claws scored along old granite and cobbles and approached the bundle that was barely the size of the creature's eye.

It lowered its giant, scaled head and flared its nostrils. The child stank of blood and despair. It might make a snack for the dragonettes, but it would be a poor snack.

The dragon was not without sympathy for the babe. It was of that cursed line of Ishgard, but it did not blame a newborn not even able to crawl.

The great head began to turn, and then it felt a touch on its chin. A whisper of a touch, that of a fly. The soft hand of the child pressed to the scaled skin, finding comfort in the warmth therein, and it burbled contentedly.

The dragon stood above it, this easily crushed, swallowed, defenseless thing. Pathetic creature.

Its claws slid nearer the bundle and, after a moment's hesitation, closed around it.

Silence, and then once more, wing beats to break it.

Stood at the edge of one of the crumbling, round balconies scattered along the outside of Anyx Trine, Non could see for miles. She could see Tailfeather's aetheryte, the hunter's village protected by the dense foliage of the caelum trees. She could see the hive of the Gnath, only second to Ishgardians for dragon's rage.

Wings beat and her father, Oosh Sooh, landed on a balcony above and to her left. His neck stretched forward and he gazed with her out upon the forelands.

"What do your eyes see, child?"

Her eyes, honed with hunter's care and training, saw much. She saw those that had broken from the hivemind of the Gnath scrabbling to exist in their new and terrifying individuality. She saw the hunters of Tailfeather, capturing chocobos with a zeal rarely seen. If she focused, she could see, just beyond that horizon, the vast snowfield of the highlands.

Long years spent amongst the dragons had taught her not only the speech of the dragons, but their meaning. Her father was not asking about the Gnath, or the hunters. He was not asking for what her eyes could see of the forelands, of what was present. He was asking what her eyes could perceive of everything as a whole. And there was only one answer to that question - an answer she had been both dreading and exulting in for some time.

"I see war."

The dragon's dark eye regarded the Hyur, expression unreadable to all but his own kin. He regarded this one he had found and taken in, had raised alongside his clutch. He had been called a fool for it, soft-hearted, sentimental. Perhaps he was.

He did not wish to see her made a weapon in this war. Undoubtedly she would fight if given the choice - she would fight well. But Oosh Sooh saw her rage and hatred and it was not pleasing to him. It made within him a deep sadness.

She should have been raised by her own kind. Should have grown to womanhood in Ishgard, not in this wild place, bereft of so much, forced to grow into this ragged stripling, fighting for a cause she did not, could not understand.

But, he thought wryly, what of her being raised in Ishgard? Brought to bear as a tool anyway - simply in the hands of those on the other side.

Better for her to not be a part of any of it.

Oosh Sooh had schemed with her brothers and sisters and they had finally come upon a plan to see her away from Dravania. A part of him felt as if he was betraying her. Non - lost. Forsaken. The name he had given her in a fit of pique and now regretted. For was he not, by sending her away, forsaking her? Was he making of this name a grim prophecy? Was this her only path, her only future?

"Perhaps war," he conceded quietly. "Perhaps. Or maybe simply change." Her eyes shifted, a quick glance his way, curious and somewhat perturbed by the idea. He continued, "I have spoken with Vidofnir. If we are to be prepared for what this ill wind tells of, we must needs know more."

Non dipped her chin. Invoking the name of Vidofnir, who had always tolerated her and who Non deeply respected, would do much to soften her to the plan.

"We hear much of the happenings in Ishgard. But further, we know naught. We would change this, for it is of those lands beyond where utmost destruction - or utmost salvation - might come."

The Hyur tossed her head with a scoff. "Might come? We waste our time on mights, now?"

Oosh Sooh's voice was a muttered growl. "You know as well as I, child, the power of mights. It is the power of hope." He turned to gaze at her fully, his eyes radiating power that she would be hard pressed to ignore.

"Hope." The word tasted like ash in her mouth. "Wishes. Stuff of children's fairy tales. Let me infiltrate Ishgard." Her hand fell to one of the pair of slim, black daggers, cinched at her waist. "My claws would do more than hope."

"Ishgard is infiltrated, child. Do you not trust in Ysayle and her heretics?"

"I do, but I would -"

"You would be but a drop in the ocean. We would have you be our eyes instead. Beyond the borders of Coerthas, where we do not - dare not - roam, but you may with ease." He paused. "You are the only one we can ask this of, daughter."

Manipulation of the highest degree. Oosh Sooh sighed inwardly, and reminded himself that all life was manipulation, and that he did such to protect this forsaken soul, his lost foundling. Because he loved her.

She stood, silent, arms crossed, anger evident in the furrow of her brow, the tightening of her jaw. But her father knew her answer. Knew it long before she gave it.

"Fine. If this is the will of my family, how can I deny it?"

He nodded, relieved despite the knowing. "Tohm Fan will go with you."

Some of the anger faded from Non's face. Tohm Fan was her youngest brother, and the two - having never known an existence without the other - were boon companions, each beloved by the other. Though it would pain her to leave those she knew of as family, to leave lands she called her own, she would at least not be alone.

Little else need be said. She sprung from the balcony, and her father, anticipating, took to his wings and caught her in her exhilarating free fall.

"I will return with salvation," he heard her murmur into his neck, and Oosh Sooh hoped it would be so.

Non's eyes had seen true, and war, inevitable, did come.

She hastened her return. She met the Warrior of Light and was stayed from battle, and her own ending, only by Ysayle's hand. She could not rightly be said to have fought at their side, but she did not bar their way and offered what help the fury within her would allow.

So war came, but on its heels - the change her father had seen. Peace.

Non had survived by the force of her hatred, and now, the end of the war brought no place for that hatred. Where before she had been forsaken only by her city of birth but guided by rage, now she had no path - now she was forsaken even by that force that had sculpted her into the creature she was.

And it was in this forsaken state, this utter encompassing of her self by her name, the one thing her father had feared, that she was given a new name.

She stood, lost, before Vidofnir and Lucia.

"You will be redemption," the white dragon proclaimed. "You will be love."

And with the losing of Non, Nasah Nehsk was found.

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