via
https://ift.tt/2QudIuusparklecryptid:
So. Just - random Jules stuff?
In Jules’ battle with Leviathan - it becomes increasingly apparent to any onlookers (because I like to imagine that someone’s recording this, and that Regis et al get a copy later - because if it was going out live, you know that Jules’ siblings would have shown up to help; as it is, I think the Imperial Troops threw up a total block on communications) that Jules isn’t a warrior. She’s been trained, yes, the same as the rest of her siblings, but - it’s the difference between learning self-defense and enrolling in the armed forces. Uncle Ardyn made very sure his niblings would be able to take care of themselves, but - that’s about it for Jules.
So Regis et al are forced to watch as Jules fights a literal goddess - not with skill or any of the training that would mark her as a skilled warrior. (Can you even imagine what Regis must have felt like as he watched his newfound daughter raise a Wall, challenge Leviathan, and then pick a fight with the Astral?) It’s apparent that Jules’ warpings are basically designed to put Imperial troops between her and the rampaging Hydrean, with the purpose of making the Astral crush them during their battle - and it works.
Jules fights not with talent or with cleverness or strength of skill, but by throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Leviathan. She’s throwing the Armiger, throwing whatever spells she can come up with, warping like crazy to avoid hits - she’s just trying to keep alive, keep away from the major hits, and buy time. Time for Leviathan to crush the Imperial Forces (she warps in to one of their gun controls and has them target everything on the rampaging astral; it buys her a few minutes). Time for Lucian forces to get there. Time to stay alive.
But she doesn’t start gaining ground until, in a single motion that has everything to do with instinct and nothing to do with training, Jules reaches for the other Armiger. Not for the royal arms. For her siblings’ weapons.
And it’s almost like having them there with her, and for Jules - for Jules, her siblings are her safe place. Her family has always - helped. Made her feel more confident, made her feel like she could do anything for them, for the people she loves.
Jules stands in the way that Bard showed her and swings the huge battle-axe using her back, not her shoulders, and buries it between Leviathan’s scales. She warps straight up and falls on the Astral with Mercury’s dragoon lance in a movement she’s seen her blonde sister pull off uncounted times before. The gravity-sink spell a babbling Thanatos demonstrated for the family - an unholy mixture of black fire and crushing pressure - flies from her hand and detonates across the battlefield. Jupiter’s sword, Ardor’s sword, Persephone’s gauntlet-blades - she uses each in turn, warp-striking the way Ace taught her to slam his staff forward with the full force of her momentum behind it.
She calls the Mystic’s blade to her hands and lunges in a devastating slash, because for all that she and her siblings hate the fucker, he is still her blood, and she will not deny that.
She manifests the Accursed Scythe - the weapon of her Uncle, of the man she thinks of as her father-in-all-but-blood, of the man she’s always secretly wanted to call ‘dad’, and she buries it between Leviathan’s eyes.
And she uses her own weapons - the pair of daggers that she’s always thought of as weak and useless in comparison to everything else her family wields - and charges them with lightning before doing her best to electrocute the Hydrean.
She doesn’t win. She can’t beat a literal goddess. She doesn’t have the training, she doesn’t have the skill, but she can hold and fight until - until Leviathan throws her head back and laughs, and grants Jules her Covenant.
Oh this! Oh I love this! I love the idea of Jules not being a fighter (because she isn’t, she can defend herself but she doesn’t seek out battle the way many of her siblings do, she isn’t a soldier and she perfers it that way.) but fighting anyway because those are her people.
and i love how she uses her siblings weapons, how she finds comfort in using them because it’s almost as though they are fighting beside her. and leviathan granting her her covenant anyway because the goddess finds something interesting about this mortal who called on her not because jules thought she could win against a goddess, but because she needed a way to get rid of the imperial forces marching on her town.
and i- headcanon that for all jules is shy she is kind of territorial as well, when someone is hers they are hers. her people her town her family. hers. and it doesn’t show in way that’s recognizable. it mainly shows in how she cares for others and bakes for charity events and other things but she is still a lucis caelum and though her possessive tendencies are toned way down they are still there.
and leviathan can see that. can see how jules fights for her home, can see how she’s out of her depth but still swimming, still fighting against an almost impossible force despite the fact the currents are against her.
leviathan sees this, and thinks:
yes
this one i like.
@sparklecryptid
Fighter or not, Jules is still a Lucis Caelum, a Lucis Caelum trained by Ardyn. She’s got the potential for almost ridiculous power, but she just. That isn’t her. She’s a bookstore owner and an introvert; she’s satisfied with what power she has, and she doesn’t want or need more. Even so - even so, when it comes down to it, she’ll be at the vanguard, daggers in her shaking hands as she puts herself between the enemy and the people she loves.
Jules is almost the personification of that axiom: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to overcome it.” She’s so very frightened, and she considers herself a coward - but Leviathan was right when she described The Radiant. Jules is scared, but she does it anyway, because someone has to. Because she can’t just sit back and watch this happen. Because she could have run. she could have warped out and left the town to its fate - instead, she raised a Wall and challenged a Goddess, and she survived.
Jules is a Lucis Caelum with that mine instinct - but hers is. Not exactly blunted. More like - extended, in an odd sense. She considers people and places and things hers, but there’s a very strong undertone of ‘if it’s yours, you should care for it. Protect it. Nurture it. It’s your responsibility; if you love it, live for it.’ It’s just - again, Jules will never see it this way, but this is what royalty is supposed to do. They’re supposed to dedicate their lives to caring for their people, and Jules - Jules gives regularly to charities. She signs petitions to get forests declared national parks. She knits for people - she’s good.
And I just. How do you think Regis et al reacted when they saw the video of this thin, not-a-fighter-woman raising a wall and fighting a literal Astral because it was the only option? Because someone had to do it, because she was the only one there? (And oh gods, Regis’ reaction when he saw the video of Jules just breaking down after the fight, whimpering for her brothers, her sisters, her uncle, her family…)
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