Suikoden VII

Chapter Eight: Part One

Note: Hello again! I'm back!

Sorry for the long hiatus; it proved to be less than productive due to my health issues. But I'm back and this is Chapter Eight! This is a chapter that's going to be HEAVILY character-driven, so there won't be a lot of plot advancement. But the trade off is that there will be a lot of character development. I hope you enjoy.

—

—

Chapter Eight: Part One

Three days later...

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Windy didn't remember where she had heard that phrase, but she knew it to be the truth. In her long life she had often seen the same scenarios played out again and again. There were few constants in the universe, but they were there.

The 27 True Runes. And...Harmonia. Her upper lip rose in a snarl briefly before she relaxed. There were other constants in the universe, however. Emotions. Hate, indifference, and...love. All of which could bring victory or destruction. And it was very clear that emotions were driving the civil war that was ravaging the Kingdom of Zelant.

King Franz hates his youngest child so much that he killed the child he loves most to stop her. The lure of power of a True Rune can exceed love, it seems. But love is so very destructive, isn't it?

Love and hate. Those two emotions had been Windy's driving force for eons. She hated the Holy Kingdom, and it was her life's mission to make them pay for everything they had done. But as she was not an unfeeling creature, she knew she was capable of love. Her capacity for love had destroyed the Scarlet Moon Empire. And her capacity for love had facilitated the downfall of the Theocracy of Nagarea. But she wouldn't deny the love and hate inside of her. She had carried it for too long and wouldn't let it go.

Yuber has always been burdened by hate, but now he is also burdened by love.

Windy smiled thinly. She remembered the girl with the black hair and white dress from the end of the Nagarean Civil War, but she could have sworn she had seen the girl elsewhere as well. She couldn't quite place it, but Windy knew that the girl had to have been special if she had somehow managed to thaw the impenetrable wall that was Yuber's heart. So completely unlike the beast who wielded the Eightfold Rune.

Love and hate drive this war. Astraea Reiser surely loves her father, as children are wont to do, but her father hates her. And King Franz has Yuber as an ally, but he loves one of Astraea Reiser's allies.

"Love and hate," she murmured aloud. She glanced towards the sky. "Well, Astraea Reiser. Which one of these emotions will rule over you in the end?"

Whatever it was, it would be amusing to watch.

—

Old Capital

Astraea looked up from her breakfast and down the long table. Most of her siblings were present to eat breakfast; only Kion wasn't. But some of her half-siblings were also present eating with them. Her brow furrowed slightly. "Again...?" she murmured to herself.

"Is everything all right, Your Majesty?" Dawa asked her. Dawa sat at her right, at Astraea's insistence. She wanted all of the assists to sit down and eat breakfast, but most of them insisted on standing with their charges.

Astraea shook her head. "David hasn't been joining us for breakfast recently, has he?"

The other people at the table looked up from their plates. "Now that you mention it," Ferdinand said from his position behind Sigrun's chair. "I haven't seen him in the last couple of days."