The Lost Souls recognized the danger of the situation because none of them so much as talked in a normal volume, although Lesley did stretch and caused a “popping” sound by doing so; hiding suddenly seemed like a waste of time since the witches already knew they were there and even made a point of blatantly chatting about the humans. Their meaningful jabs towards the royal dragoons earned an irritated glare from Victoria but Avian was composed… At least up until they mentioned the casualties their trickery caused. That was then that the soldier’s face turned a few shades paler and his jaw made a locking noise as the witches continued their cocky babbling. Still, he stayed his hand despite looking like he was ready to cut some hag ribbons, and even helped usher the humans out of the cave when Serenade thought it was safe enough to escape. The bunny was right; the royal family needed to know about this.

“I’m sorry you have to go through all this trouble,” Avian told Lesley with a faint smile as the pink-haired human clung to him for a couple of seconds. After that, the trek back to Sol proved uneventful save for a conversation the husband and wife shared, snippets of which could be heard by the humans:

“I knew it. Somehow I just knew that no matter what, the dragons would never do anything so atrocious unless they were being forced to,” The nobody’s violet eyes narrowed as he murmured to himself. His partner placed a hand over his shoulder and soothingly petted him. “We’ll get those oldies,” She promised and he placed his hand over her own, grateful for the comfort, but there was still a dark gloom over his handsome face. “I should’ve guessed… I grew up with dragons, after all. Speaking of, that hatchling earlier reminded me of another dragon. My cousin Gardis dated a rider who had the same dragonkin. They get to grow really large, like the clouds we see in the sky,” Avian gestured with his hands and Victoria smiled. She was relieved that at least a tiny bit of energy returned to his face, but she didn’t say so.

--------------------------------

Sol’s destruction weighed heavily on both royal dragoons, more so on Victoria because the northern district was their neighborhood. While the couple had no idea whether their house was razed to cinders or not, they didn’t even think of asking as there were people way more affected by the dragon’s rampage than they could even dream of… The scenery of chaos and carnage reminded Avian of the war long ago, and his fist clenched as he surveyed the ruins. As they rushed through the city a soldier ran over and requested the duo’s presence at the town hall where the evacuees were gathered, and Avian said he’d follow soon as they finish their report for the prince. At times like these the people wanted a beacon of hope, and the royal dragoons primarily functioned to be that symbol. 

As usual, the prince was attempting to embark on a suicide mission. Thankfully their report shook him out of it and Tobias formulated a plan. This was when the couple saw that they can’t both be absent on the trip back to the mountain; all it took was a glance shared by the partners to decide who would be left behind. “I’ll catch up, Your Highness,” Avian excused himself from the throne room and made his way towards the evacuation center.

And so Victoria left along with the humans and the considerable amount of soldiers Tobias had summoned to accompany them all back to the dragon’s den.