well looks like it's been awhile since anyone reviewed this little gem. I was very impressed with it, you took a charcter witch, as has been stated it previous reviews, had very little screen time and mannaged to take that and flesh her out, to make her more real. I personaly wish there had been more time for the series to explore the Donya x Mullen relationship since in the whole series it was the one the really hit a chord with me. Once more let me say that this story in a absolute thing of beauty and I hope that we will be seeing more of the same in the future.

Regret you writing more LE fics? Enough of this madness. It really shouldn't have taken me so long to review this, however, as it's a fiendishly clever little vignette about an under-appreciated character. Donya needs more love, on the grounds that she knows the weight of a pack and is probably hard as nails as a result. I think you're much closer to the canon Donya than you give yourself credit for, by the way, which I'll explain.

First of all I've got to say I wholeheartedly approve of you marrying your own particular interest in polytheism with what you're writing. It shows a commendable degree of confidence on your part, and frankly there's so many fics which don't even have a clue about the original material about which they're writing that to see ones with a number of themes and ideas struggling beneath the surface is very heartening. The danger of course is that the author's pet idea either smothers the original work or is whittled down to a couple of throwaway comments which don't seem to fit. However when it's done right, and I can assure you yours is, it has the effect of emphasising some latent feature within the original material which might not otherwise have been brought to the fore. In this case it acts not only as a motif which can be applied retrospectively to shed light on earlier scenes in the anime but as an explanation and unifying theme for Donya's actions.

Just through the line "sanity battled with the need to express anguish. A mix of both won..." you express one of the cornerstones of her character: you could just as easily be describing the moment in the anime where she sees the Disith migration capsules crash and fires her rifle blindly into the air in defiance. The mental atmosphere in that moment and your story are more or less equivalent: in one she's faced with her nation collapsing in front of her eyes, in the other she finds herself sharing Gotterdammerung with the body of the one person she wanted to survive it.

Only in this case instead of firing her rifle in the air she takes up Mullin's survival medals and refers to the pair of them as "we" as acts of defiance against either of them being killed: she can't save Mullin's life any more than she could stop the capsules being destroyed, but these small actions are equivalent to waving the flag on a sinking ship or leading a charge with a sword held aloft - ultimately futile but having in them a certain symbolic resonance. Having this particular detail in your work shows that you've understood Donya as a character, and seeing all this through the prism of unbelief which you give her only makes what she does more rational. Without the gods it's all the more important for an abandoned humanity to cling to whatever heroic gestures it can, no matter how empty and powerless against circumstance they might be.

There's a few other things which caught my eye and rang true:

Donya doesn't cry out for victory in spite of their losses, or even vengeance, but for an end. When she realises Mullin is alive she doesn't suddenly fall onto her knees and praise the gods she was damning a few minutes earlier. The impression you get is that Donya realises there's more wrong with the world than can be put right by one person being saved or one nation being defeated - even the symbol of the old world, the warship, is "broken", and the story ends as they're navigating their way out of its wreckage.

Religion has descended into superstition ("the gods were rarely mentioned without a curse attached"), you can almost imagine that before a battle instead of kissing (for instance) a cross or an icon the soldiers would spit or trample on it. This is very astute; they've toppled all their old gods without removing the need for something to believe in.

There's wonderful little touches of inner symmetry in this fic, too. First the gods fade away, and then by the end of the fic the war is fading away ("a faint murmur in the distance"). In the midst of a world coming apart at the seams Mullin's survival medals become "twisted pieces of metal", just another piece of shrapnel.

So yes, there is a lot of very keen work going on in this fic. And besides being smart it's very enjoyable indeed, you have my compliments, even if there is something missing here... something exciteable and Dio-shaped, I can't think what it might be... Again, humbly requesting more Last Exile work from you ^^

About time someone wrote a Mullen/Dunya fic, and this one was very well written. I thought Dunya was very IC and you portrayed her emotions very well. This is almost exactly as I imagined happening in the series (to be honest I almost cried when I thought Mullen was killed and really relieved when they showed he was alive in the last episode, only problem was there was no explanation as to what exactly happened). Anyway, excellently done fic.
PS: Any chance for a sequel (pretty please)?

Yay! mullen's alive! I hated that part of the anime when we all thought he was dead and then at the end do they only show you that he isn't! argh!! so exasperating! Very good fic! You should write longer ones next time =p

Hmm... I could have sworn I had reviewed before, but since I evidently did not, I am now!
Ladida...
I can't remember what I said when I tried to review before, and I'm pretty sure I gave all my comments when I beta-read, but I still think this was a good fic. I, too, like some of your descriptions. :)
It's hard for me to think in English right now-- I have Spanglish in my head. :)
Well...
I REVIEWED!
Summary:'you did a great jorb out there!' (Strong bad... Coach Z, actually)

This was very good, you write excellent fics. Donya wasn't out of character in the least, but then again, as you mentioned, she had little screen time so she really doesn't have any strong characteristics to conform to. FINALLY there's a fic without dio or mention of the Guild. at first LE fanfics were all about claus and lavi (which i loved), but lately it's all been about Guilders. Not that i object to guilder fics, it's just that they've been a little excessive lately. In my opinion, some one should try another claus and lavi fic. After all, they are pretty much the main characters (and they go so good together). You should try to write one, if you want that is, because it think that you write EXCELLENT fics. Sorry if this got a little wordy. -menecr

Reading through this, the first thing that -did- stand out to me was you introduction of the notion of gods in LE. I was like, "Hey. Someone noticed, someone cared" and I wasn't sure you were going to continue that theme or not. Obviously, it was something relatively set in your mind to touch on and I appreciate you for delving into such an intrinsic part of any culture, one that many authors and, indeed, readers, forget exist. It makes the entire premise of LE more believable, in context and comparison to civilizations we know now.

As far as critiques go, I'd like to liken this fic as a "proposal" for a longer, more detailed piece (even though it seems more proposals in themselves nowadays are mini-novellas.) There is an okay flow, but perhaps it's because of the emotions Dunya is experiencing that it seems partially choppy.

Some images are striking:
A deep gash had rent the mighty behemoth. Donya could see patches of sky, along with battling ships, their gun turrets in constant motion.

And I also like the notion of death being apart of her, and her heritage, for a long time.

Overall, this was a good read that may inspire other LE authors who've been dabbling in the thoughts of a not-so-Diocentric fic that would do the series the metaphorical and philosophical justice it deserves.