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rose_in_winter2019-08-30 05:42 pm
lassarina) wrote in rose_in_winter2019-08-30 05:42 pm
[Final Fantasy IV] Every Light Casts a Shadow: Epilogue
Pairings/Characters: Kain Highwind, plus cast
Rating: R (overall), PG (this chapter)
Warnings: Spoilers. Violence and language. Occasional sexual content. Other warnings may apply that are not listed here.
Notes: This fic belongs to the Lucis Ante Terminum arc. Chapter list is here.
Summary: Though it is possible to return home, it is rarely possible to return affairs to their previous state. Sometimes the only course of action is to move forward.
Wordcount: 400 this chapter.
Beta:celeloriel
I have put off writing about Uncle Kain's death, but I do not wish to do so any longer. He went easily, not with his spear in hand as I suspect he always thought he would. Aunt Elizabeth grieves, but Robert is there to comfort her.
My uncle was not a generous man, and frequently he was not a kind one; yet that is not to say that he was evil, or selfish, or unkind. He did the right thing whenever it was possible, and when it was not possible he shed few tears over things he was unable to change.
He held together a fractious country whose power-brokers loathed him; few could claim the same success.
He taught me how to rule. He would have said he was teaching me how to be practical, unlike Mama and Papa; in truth, he was rarely so ruthless as he would have had others believe.
This is not to make him blameless. He might, for example, have done more to support Mama after Papa died; he might have taken the time to spend with us when we were younger, before Papa died, or after in some capacity other than Regent.
Still, I would not see my uncle dragged down by those too petty to understand what he did for Baron, and thus by extension, for them. I cannot—or should not—rewrite the histories to make him into a hero, but I will not see him made a villain. He was greater than Golbez would have made him.
I will see his name remembered.
Already my foster-cousin earns tassels for his spear in the Dragon Knights; I have posthumously granted one more to Uncle Kain. It will not match his father's, but I do not think that was important to him anymore. I have increased the Highwind lands a second time; I do not know why Papa did not do so, after all the help Uncle Kain gave him against Zeromus.
I pray I never have to face such a thing as Zeromus, nor my sons and daughters, but that is not given me to know.
Yet of all the things I wish for my uncle, those he would have approved and those that would have made him frown, the greatest is this: that at last he has found peace, and no longer torments himself with things he could never have changed.
—From the journals of King Jalen Harvey, first of that name in Baron, dated the thirty-ninth year of his reign.
Rating: R (overall), PG (this chapter)
Warnings: Spoilers. Violence and language. Occasional sexual content. Other warnings may apply that are not listed here.
Notes: This fic belongs to the Lucis Ante Terminum arc. Chapter list is here.
Summary: Though it is possible to return home, it is rarely possible to return affairs to their previous state. Sometimes the only course of action is to move forward.
Wordcount: 400 this chapter.
Beta:
celelorielI have put off writing about Uncle Kain's death, but I do not wish to do so any longer. He went easily, not with his spear in hand as I suspect he always thought he would. Aunt Elizabeth grieves, but Robert is there to comfort her.
My uncle was not a generous man, and frequently he was not a kind one; yet that is not to say that he was evil, or selfish, or unkind. He did the right thing whenever it was possible, and when it was not possible he shed few tears over things he was unable to change.
He held together a fractious country whose power-brokers loathed him; few could claim the same success.
He taught me how to rule. He would have said he was teaching me how to be practical, unlike Mama and Papa; in truth, he was rarely so ruthless as he would have had others believe.
This is not to make him blameless. He might, for example, have done more to support Mama after Papa died; he might have taken the time to spend with us when we were younger, before Papa died, or after in some capacity other than Regent.
Still, I would not see my uncle dragged down by those too petty to understand what he did for Baron, and thus by extension, for them. I cannot—or should not—rewrite the histories to make him into a hero, but I will not see him made a villain. He was greater than Golbez would have made him.
I will see his name remembered.
Already my foster-cousin earns tassels for his spear in the Dragon Knights; I have posthumously granted one more to Uncle Kain. It will not match his father's, but I do not think that was important to him anymore. I have increased the Highwind lands a second time; I do not know why Papa did not do so, after all the help Uncle Kain gave him against Zeromus.
I pray I never have to face such a thing as Zeromus, nor my sons and daughters, but that is not given me to know.
Yet of all the things I wish for my uncle, those he would have approved and those that would have made him frown, the greatest is this: that at last he has found peace, and no longer torments himself with things he could never have changed.
—From the journals of King Jalen Harvey, first of that name in Baron, dated the thirty-ninth year of his reign.