MY ONE-SHOTS

Summary: Tiffany wants to stay in Caladbolg's second vision for longer. The mindscape shifts to Fort Trinity, where she and Trahearne pretend that it's still 1325 for a day.

Chapter fourteen: Mini Trahearne

Author's Notes:

Yes, yes, I should be writing The Unbroken, but this was a dream I had and you are very lucky you got it in mostly-unaltered form. This is due to the fact that I wrote it right upon waking up, and the fact that it needed only minor tweaks to make it realistic, and… probably something else, too. This version feels slightly incomplete because there's something missing, but I already forget what was in the dream at that particular part so I can't put it in until I remember.

Anyway, this is the backstory behind Trahearne's mini and how Tiffany got it, so that I don't have to feel weird when playing with a mini version of Trahearne. And because it was a dream and I always write down my GW2 dreams into fanfictions (that's where chapters one and three, Tendrils of Terror and A Daring Rescue respectively, came from).

Also, I mentioned Agent Kito in this chapter, because I'm fairly sure it was him in my dream but I'm not sure. He didn't act like Kito, not from what I know of him, and he certainly wouldn't ever have been in Fort Trinity, since he's an Order of Shadows Agent, but I'm fairly sure all these strangers were Kito and his non-canonical brothers. I'd rather have some way of differentiating them, anyway.

Okay, here's the story now:

"It was good seeing you again, Commander, even like this," Trahearne tells Tiffany.

"Do I have to leave already?" Tiffany asks with a sigh.

"Commander, you can't just stay in here!" Trahearne protests. "Tyria is waiting for you - Tyria needs you."

"Well I… I know that," Tiffany acknowledges after a moment, "but I don't want to leave quite yet. Just stay a little while."

Trahearne sighs with a hint of amusement. "If you insist, Commander. But let us leave this devastated place and go somewhere with happier memories - Fort Trinity, perhaps?"

Tiffany brightens. "Yes! We can pretend like we're still trying to fight Zhaitan." Then, she laughs, just because she feels at home already.

Caladbolg's mindscape shifts, and Tiffany recognizes Fort Trinity around her. She glances at Trahearne with a grin, noting that, despite his initial hesitancy, he seems to be happier as well. Fort Trinity has many fond memories for both of them.

"I did have one idea that I never implemented against Zhaitan," Trahearne tells her. "It never seemed like a viable tactic - but we can try it now."

"Oh, what is it?" Tiffany asks interestedly as she follows him to Caer Aval.

"You'll see," Trahearne replies mysteriously. "Now, if we're pretending to still be fighting Zhaitan, then you need to go fight off the Risen attacking the Pact's headquarters while I design a countermeasure."

"On it, Marshal!" Tiffany says with a salute, grinning. She isn't surprised that Trahearne is the one in control of the mindscape, so she hurries off to fight the Risen that are undoubtedly coming.

After the Risen have been fended off, Tiffany returns to Caer Aval, sure that there must be something she can figure out about Trahearne's secret. It turns out not to be as hard as she had anticipated.

She sees a tiny version of an airship, specifically the Glory of Tyria, floating a few inches off the ground, and frowns in thought. "What is it?" she asks.

"It's a mini version of the Glory of Tyria," Trahearne tells her. "It will be able to act as a decoy when it is big enough. If it can't get bigger, I'm sure I can find a use for a mini airship."

"That's brilliant!" Tiffany beams. "Decoy airships! How are you making it? How does it work?"

Trahearne shows her how it works, but Tiffany doesn't understand it very well and gets disinterested in the behind-the-scenes mechanisms before long. Instead, she sits back and watches Trahearne make the airship get bigger, as if it were inflating.

Suddenly, it flies out of control and zooms up into Tiffany's face. She staggers back a little with a surprised yelp, drawing the attention of several other people in the room, but she recovers quickly, wearing a huge grin. "That was awesome!" she exclaims, as "How big is it going to get?"

"I don't know," Trahearne reminds her.

However, the incident had drawn attention to Trahearne's little project, and soon he is being asked questions left and right. He eventually tells them all to go fight the Risen, and Tiffany and the others hurry off to do so.

Tiffany is heading back to Caer Aval after fighting off this round of Risen, but she is diverted by a stranger. Seeing strangers in Fort Trinity is nothing new - Tiffany can hardly hope to remember the names and faces of every member of the Pact - but this stranger is different.

The male human - who seems not to know his way around the fort - comes up to Tiffany with an arrogant swagger and demands to know where their leader is. Tiffany frowns at him. "Anything you need to say to Trahearne you can say to me," she tells him.

He narrows his eyes and huffs. "If you're going to be that way," he murmurs, and draws his blade. This just makes Tiffany glad she hadn't given in to his demand, and she draws her own blade, her bow being unsuitable for this close-quarters fight.

The stranger proves to be quite adept with his sword, however, and Tiffany is locked in a stiff fight. "What's your name, anyway?" she asks.

"You can call me Kito," he replies.

"Key-toe?" Tiffany queries with a mischievous grin.

"Yes," he answers, and Tiffany sighs. That tactic never works.

Before long, of course, Trahearne comes looking for her because he knows when the battle with the Risen ended, and he also knows that Tiffany should have been back and being curious by now.

Kito stops fighting Tiffany and turns toward Trahearne - and somehow Kito knows that Trahearne is the person he was looking for - and asks to see the mini airship and be shown how it works. When asked why, his reply was so mysterious as to be a non-answer.

Since it isn't really that important, Trahearne and Tiffany show the man the workstation that had been used to craft the mini airship.

Kito learns how the workstation operates quickly enough, and fiddles with it and the mini for a few minutes.

"It's gotten bigger," Tiffany notes as she and Trahearne watch the stranger. The airship had gotten bigger - it is now knee-high, and probably would be the most annoying thing in the world to trip over.

Trahearne nods. "I think the latter stages of growth will go more quickly, but the details on the inside are still developing as the airship gets big enough to contain them."

"Oh, that makes sense," Tiffany says with a nod.

Suddenly, another stranger walks into the room, and he looks quite similar to Kito. "Kito, you cheat!" he cries.

"The Order of Shadows cannot afford to take the routes expected of us," Kito replies, turning and drawing his blade.

"And the Priory Astralarium have no means of travel but those the god-king has afforded us," Kito's adversary snarls. "You know how limited those are."

Tiffany glances at Trahearne with a frown. This is like some weird parody… but who is 'the god-king?'

Then Kito and his nemesis get into a fight, completely ignoring everybody else. Tiffany still thinks this is rather weird - especially since Trahearne doesn't know what is going on - but then another stranger appears.

This stranger seems more focused than the other two, getting distracted less easily.

No longer willing to let strangers play with his project, Trahearne tells this third stranger to leave, but instead, the stranger attacks them. Tiffany is quite alarmed when this stranger is even more skilled than Kito, and she and Trahearne together aren't capable of doing more than stalling him and tiring him out.

Neither of them are willing to use that tactic, however, because the other two strangers might finish their fight and join them, or there might be more of them.

But then Sayeh shows up, and with her help they force the third stranger to flee.

"Hey," Tiffany says slowly. "Wouldn't it be fun to make mini-versions of other people and watch them fight? I've always wondered how Canach and Braham would fight against each other - and if they can fight each other, can they fight Risen, or other dragon minions?"

"It can't hurt to try," Trahearne shrugs, "since we're only in a vision anyway." He turns and tells Kito and his enemy to take their fight elsewhere, and the two comply without much trouble.

It takes a while, but soon there are life-size versions of Canach and Braham fighting each other, which Tiffany thinks is absolutely hilarious.

Meanwhile, the mini airship is now double its previous size, rather impossible to trip over at waist height - except perhaps for a norn - and rather heavy. Tiffany hopes it doesn't get out of control again.

As the airship grows, the mini workstation is freer to do other things, like growing minis of people, and Tiffany gets to see General Almorra fight Destiny's Edge. Even though the outcome to that fight was rather expected, it was still fun to watch. Another fight was Caithe versus Sayeh, assassin versus assassin, and Marjory versus Scarlet, which Tiffany had always wanted to know the outcome of. It turns out that the mini of Scarlet was very underpowered, since Trahearne didn't want her getting away and messing things up like she had in real life, outside the vision. Tiffany wants to see a version of Forgal versus Rytlock, which ends up in a tie. This outcome leaves Tiffany with a smug smirk, because that means both Forgal and Rytlock are awesome.

After a while, Kito and the other strangers - who are all friends now - come back, but Tiffany, with the help of the minis of her other friends, fight them off so that Trahearne can focus on the airship.

After a pitched battle in the middle of Fort Trinity, supplemented by Risen that don't care which side they attack, the strangers are driven off. As Forgal and General Almorra deal with the third stranger, Destiny's Edge take on Kito. Braham, Canach, Marjory, Scarlet and Sayeh fight the second stranger.

After the strangers are driven off again, Tiffany insists that Trahearne fight the minis and see how he does, and that she will do the same.

Trahearne wins against most of them, although he can't fight General Almorra or Destiny's Edge alone, and fighting Forgal ends in a tie. Sayeh is last, and by this point Trahearne is rather tired out, and so Sayeh beats him after some fighting.

Tiffany fares similarly, except that she fights in reverse order and beats Sayeh while losing out to General Almorra and Destiny's Edge.

Then the Kito strangers show up again, but they insist that they will be nice now and just want to watch Trahearne making more minis.

Now that he has seen how effective the minis are - and since people have stopped bothering him to do other things - Trahearne gets back to growing the airship.

Once the airship is done - it had stopped growing when it got to normal airship size, so it isn't quite as big as the real version of the Glory of Tyria - Kito and his friends start fighting them again.

The other minis seem to have malfunctioned, and do nothing but run around aimlessly, so Tiffany and Trahearne have to fight off these enemies by themselves. The strangers are routinely distracted by the life-size models of these powerful figures, so Tiffany and Trahearne manage to win and drive them off.

"Why did I ever want to fight them with the minis?" Tiffany asks. "I much prefer fighting with you."

"I agree," Trahearne tells her with a smile. "We beat most of the minis, anyway."

"And the minis did stop working," Tiffany frowns. "Does that mean this isn't a realistically viable strategy?"

"I'm afraid not," Trahearne replies. "They should still make good decoys, however."

Tiffany grins. "Maybe we can scare the next Elder Dragon with a bunch of mini airships."

"Perhaps," Trahearne replies. "But I do believe you should be getting out of the vision soon - I'm sure Ridhais will be worrying."

"One thing first," Tiffany says. "I want a mini of you that I can take with me."

Trahearne frowns. "I'm not sure that's how they work… but if you insist."

"Don't make it big," Tiffany tells him. "Just actually a mini version. Maybe as high as my knee. It can ride on my shoulder or something."

Trahearne laughs. "Alright," he tells her. "Maybe you can figure out how to operate the workstation so you can make it yourself if it doesn't work."

"Maybe," Tiffany agrees. "But it is really confusing."

Later, when the mini is done - knee high, capable of riding on Tiffany's shoulder - and Tiffany has learned how to operate the workstation, it is time for her to leave. "I'm glad we had this time together," she says to her friend. "It was nice just having fun for a day."

"I quite agree," Trahearne tells her. "But now you have a mini to remember me by, and Caladbolg. I'm sure you will defeat all the Elder Dragons and any other large threats to Tyria."

Tiffany smiles at him. "I certainly shall," she assures him. "That or die trying. But that's already assumed, of course."

"I hope you don't," Trahearne says gravely. "Be smart - don't try to die."

"Certainly not," Tiffany replies. "But if it happens I don't think I'll complain too much. Good bye, my friend."

"Good bye," Trahearne answers. "I hope to hear of all your victories when I see you next."

"Commander?" Ridhais asks uncertainly. "What's that?"

"It worked!" Tiffany beams. The mini version of Trahearne is standing next to her as she rises from her position kneeling in front of Caladbolg. "It's a mini version of Trahearne," she tells the valiant. "Just to remember him by."

Ridhais frowns. "That's… unusual."

"I know," Tiffany replies. "But Trahearne made it for me - I don't care if it's unusual."

Author's Notes:

So that is the secret lore and backstory of Mini Trahearne. Yes, it is weird and unusual… but it was a dream. Of course it was weird and unusual. I still don't know why I was dreaming about that. But now I don't have to feel weird with a mini version of Trahearne running around next to Tiffany, because with no backstory that is a bit crazy.

And I figured that if Kito was an Order of Shadows Agent, there might as well be parodies of the other Orders in Elona, too. So I completely made up the Priory Astralarium and was too tired to mess it up further. I was unsure how to make a parody of the Vigil - maybe the third stranger is a Sunspear or something - but like I said, I'm tired.

Also (but I was too tired to write this part): Tiffany shows Ridhais how to operate the workstation so Ridhais makes all the other minis in the game. The end.