Date: July 7, X791 – Morning After the Battle
Location: Crocus
Crocus didn't feel like a city that morning. It felt like a shadow of what it once was.
The sky was pale, wide, and empty, stretching over the ruins below. Smoke rose from broken rooftops, curling into the air like lost spirits. The smell of fire and burnt stone clung to everyone still standing. It soaked into their clothes, their skin, their memories.
The streets, once filled with music, flowers, and laughter, were now broken and still. Colorful carts were overturned. Bits of stone and wood covered the ground. Statues that once stood tall in the palace gardens now lay shattered, faces half-buried in dust. But even in the middle of the wreckage, people came out. They gathered in the open, speaking in low voices, as if even mentioning the dragons might bring them back.
On the edge of a dry fountain, a soldier sat, his hands trembling as he tried to take a sip from a dented canteen.
"She tore through them… like they were nothing," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Next to him, another soldier held a sword so tightly his knuckles had gone white. He just nodded. Quiet. Still trying to believe they were alive.
Not far away, a little boy clung to his mother's dress. In his small hand, he held a rough drawing—just a stick figure with big wings and strange, shining eyes.
"Mama…" he whispered, "was she an angel? Or a monster?"
The mother didn't answer. Her lips parted like she wanted to say something, but no words came. She crouched and pulled him into a hug, holding him tightly. The question echoed in her head long after he stopped asking.
Beneath a torn canopy, a group of nobles stood in a half-circle. Their fine coats were smudged with ash, but their eyes were sharp. They looked past the ruins, already trying to turn loss into opportunity.
An older man leaned in, speaking low.
"She could win wars. Just imagine—her leading Fiore's army. With that power, no dark guild would dare show its face again."
A noble with silver-gray eyes shook his head.
"You can't control something like that," he said. "Those eyes... She's not a knight. She's a weapon."
A younger man tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Even weapons can be guided. If the hand holding them is strong enough."
Nobody replied. The silence between them felt heavier than the smoke in the air.
In a narrow alley, a group of kids sat on the ground, their faces streaked with dirt and ash. A girl with messy pigtails was drawing on the wall with chalk she'd found. She gave her figure large wings, almost as wide as the wall.
"She was beautiful," the girl said softly. "Like a real angel."
A boy sitting beside her shook his head hard, tears running down his cheeks.
"No. No, she wasn't. Mama said angels help people. She didn't help… She just destroyed everything!"
The girl kept her eyes on her drawing. Her hand shook, but she didn't stop.
Near the center of the city, healers moved quickly between the wounded. Their once-white robes were stained with blood and dirt. A young medic paused and looked up toward the rooftop where he'd last seen her—pale wings wide, standing above them all like some silent judgment.
"She looked right at me," he said quietly to the older healer beside him. "It felt like she could see through me. Not like a person. More like… the moon looking down on the sea."
The older man didn't look up.
"Enough. Save your thoughts for later. We've still got lives to save."
At the edge of the market district, a merchant sat beside the burned remains of his stall. Shattered pottery and melted candles lay scattered around him. He held one broken piece in his hand, turning it over and over.
"She saved us," he murmured. "Didn't she? Then why does it still feel so cold?"
A few streets away, a woman was digging through rubble with bare hands, ignoring the cuts and bruises. When she finally pulled her daughter free, coughing but alive, she collapsed in relief. Holding the girl close, she looked up through the thinning smoke.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Whoever you are."
But even as she said it, the image of silver eyes and ghostly wings filled her mind, and her gratitude twisted into something uneasy.
By the time the sun reached its peak, rumors had already taken root.
They were calling her the Silver-Eyed Valkyrie. The Monster Angel of Fiore.
Some said she moved faster than lightning. Others swore her wings could slice through stone. Children turned her into a game, running through alleys yelling, "The angel is coming!" before scattering like birds. But even in their laughter, there was something off. Something tight. Parents held their kids a little closer. Guards kept their weapons close, even though the dragons were long gone. Nobles locked their doors and whispered about her behind thick curtains.
Crocus, the city of flowers, was gone.
Now it was a city of whispers. A place waiting for the sound of wings overhead. Waiting for silver eyes to find them again.
Because no one could forget what she'd done.
She had saved them.
But no one could agree on what that meant.
Some thought she was a hero. Others feared she was something worse. A punishment. A warning. A ghost in the shape of a girl.
And as people started clearing the streets, rebuilding homes, and burying the lost, they still looked over their shoulders. Still watched the sky.
The legend of the Pale-Winged Valkyrie had already begun. A legend built from ash, fear, and something close to wonder.
And it would live on, long after the ruins were cleared and the flowers returned.