Shun and the others are leaving Zoozian Island, on a ship gifted to the Ignauts by their new allies. They’re sailing towards their next destination, a snow-topped mountain. Oh yay. ;~; (Let’s just say I totally sympathize with Shun. I *hate* the cold.)
Upon arriving at the base of the mountain, they stop at an inn for the night. Mischa, Alicia, Shun and Emilio crowd in front of the fire for warmth while the four Ignauts meet with some of their allies to discuss their next move. Demetrio says their top priority is to meet with the king for negotiations. Shun admires their efforts, but Emilio thinks they’re all wasting their time; nothing will change until he can kill King Delzaine himself with his bare hands.
The next day Emilio and the others set off up the mountain. They’ve had to change into their warmer clothes because of the cold. While they’re hiking up the trail, Alicia and Shun discuss Emilio’s comments from the night before. Alicia can’t understand why Emilio would want to kill the only family he has left; she has no family, and just can’t understand his feelings. She feels that surely he must be able to find another option.
Before long a blizzard hits, and Shun and Emilio are stuck in a tent together again. Shun manages to convince the whiny Emilio to explain a little of what’s on his mind, namely that King Delzaine is not his birth father, and Pascal was the only friend/father-figure he had in the castle until Delzaine banished him. Emilio says he wants to kill the king to avenge his birth father, whom Delzaine supposedly killed so he could take over the throne, but Shun doesn’t agree with Emilio’s logic. What parent wants to see their child become a murderder? Which is an interesting point, and one which hadn’t been raised until now. Shun admits that if he were Emilio he’d probably also want to kill Delzine, but that the thought of his mother would keep him from actually killing anyone. We see a brief flashback of Emilio as a child being given his sword by his father, but Emilio’s shocked to see he can’t remember his birth father’s face anymore.
The next day dawns bright and sunny. Shun finds a large dragon track in the snow, leading to Demetrio explaining about the history of dragons on Endora. Pretty neat! Their group starts to move out, but doesn’t get far before Eljuia falls down into an underground cavern. Falarion gets agitated; what could be underground?
Back at the castle, a young researcher with carrot-coloured hair and glasses bumps into Pascal, who’s doing some secret investigating (at what I’m presuming is the royal castle) in the dark, guided by only a headlamp. The young researcher, whose name is Joseph, is so excited to see Pascal and unknowingly reveals that he’s the reason why Delzaine learned of the error in the Babel machine. *facepalm* Overeager much?
Back on the mountain, Falarion leads the search for Eljuia by tracking the signal from Eljuia’s Warp Relic. Suddenly their group is ambushed by not one but two dragons! Instead of fire they breath frost, and Demetrio says all they can do without Eljuia is to run away. Which they try to do, but Alicia, Falarion, Shun and Emilio get seperated from the rest of the group and cornered by one of the dragons.
Suddenly Falarion flies out in front and transforms into a fire dragon! He blocks the attacks from the frost dragon, and when the frost dragon appears stunned by this new rival, Falarion transports Alicia, Shun and Emilio to another dimension. There Falarion speaks to Alicia – except it’s not really Falarion, but the spirit of her father. Alicia’s father explained his drive to evolve his Warp Relic when he was younger, but that once he married and became a father he
put all that behind him. However after his wife was killed by bandits, Alicia’s father left to get his revenge against those bandits. They paid for their crime with their lives, but so did Alicia’s father: his hatred triggered his Warp Relic’s final evolution, and his spirit merged with Falarion’s. It will lie dormant unless Alicia is in imminent danger, in which case he will emerge to help Alicia, presumably as Falarion’s dragon form. It was a little unclear to me why Alicia’s father’s spirit was inside Falarion – was it because Falarion happened to be flying nearby when his weapon triggered its final evolution? Did his metal weapon evolve into Falarion, a living creature? I don’t really care, I’m more just curious about the details. *shrugs*
After Alicia, Shun and Emilio are returned to their reality (with Falarion back to his cute self), Eljuia rejoins their group with a dragon of his own. Turns out the cavern is home to a small dragon family, and it was the parents who attacked the Ignauts out of fear for their offspring. Upon reaching the surface, the three dragons fly the Ignauts over the mountain, saving them much time in their travels.
My thoughts: This episode wasn’t bad. The beginning was a little slow, but the second half with the dragon family was more interesting. I really liked seeing some of Alicia’s backstory with her father’s spirit inside Falarion, and how it ties into Alicia’s feelings for Emilio and her opinion of his plan to kill Delzaine. It looks like some of those feelings might be coming to a head next episode, so I’m curious if we’re going to start getting some emotional drama. Aside from Emilio’s, because holy shit that kind is whiny and still a brat. At least Shun’s got a level head and optimism going for him.
Nasch and Yuya….jeez…