White Dragon Stories

Kindness

Kindness came in different ways and forms. Everyone had their own definition of kindness. Some people thought they were kind, despite being cruel, unreasonable and mean, while other saw themselves not as kind, although they were. So one could say kindness laid in the eyes of the beholder. Of course, there was a more objective definition of kindness, but who cared about that and who would start an argument with someone else because of said definition? Exactly: no one. How kind was someone, who was partly responsible for a civil war in which thousands of people had died? Was someone like that kind? How kind was someone, who rose up against his own family? Was someone like that kind? How kind was someone, who spared the lives of those, who had opposed him? Was someone like that kind? Those questions could all be answered with yes and with no at the same time. So the real question was, was someone like that a kind person in her eyes? For a long time she could neither say yes nor no. She was unsure.
At first she had been angry with her younger cousin, who had caused a civil war, because she hadn't known and understood, why he had done what he had done. Why was he fighting his own family? On the other hand, all he wanted was Kouen and no one else. So, it was not even like he was after his whole family, but only one person. It had cost her a lot of courage to ask Hakuryuu, why he had started the civil war. What she had learned was something unbelievable for her, but she had no reason to doubt him and his words. There was no reason for him to lie to her. If he wanted her on his side, he could have just used his djinn like he had done with the soldiers, but he hadn't used it against her. However, just because she understood his reasoning did not mean that he was not to blame – he was at fault, just like her brother was and all those who had turned a blind eye to the situation of the empire – or that he was kind. Until the day she was sent into battle against her own family, she had seen Hakuryuu as a very kind and gentle person. He was always smiling at his older sister Hakuei and greeted Kougyoku with one as well. The few times they had talked with each other in the past, he always had been nice to her and seemed like he cared about her – maybe all of this had been her imagination. After the war was won by Hakuryuu and his "allies", Kougyoku had started to doubt everything and everyone. Not only had she lost a big part of her family – a family that had never cared about her –, she also had lost her dear friends Alibaba and Judar and had been used against her own people by her first love Sinbad. This was a little bit too much to handle for her and she had locked herself away for some time. Although she had pledged her loyalty to Hakuryuu and wasn't as mad with him as she was with Sinbad, because in the end Hakuryuu was her cousin and she was sure he had good reasons for his doings and it hadn't been him, who had mind controlled her, she did not want to see him or had any intention of following his commands. Inside her the hate rose up and all she wanted was to let this hate go wild, but she had to stay collected. If she had acted upon her feelings, another tragedy may had just occurred and after all those horrible things that had happened this was not needed at all. What could she have achieved anyway? Besides her own death probably nothing.
So in the end she was on her own, trying to understand what just had happened to her and how her little cousin could have changed so much. When she finally was ready to face reality, to face the new world, she was also ready to confront Hakuryuu. She needed to know what was going on with him and what had going on within this empire. How many tears had she shed, when listening to his story? How often had they shouted at each other, because they disagreed and felt misunderstood? How many times had something been broken? Often, very often. But it all was necessary for them to get closer, to understand the other one and to come to their own conclusions. During those times she also learned that her brothers were all alive and stayed on a small island near the Kou Empire. Hakuryuu even offered her to visit them. Sadly she couldn't stay with them, since this would have caused problems with the International Alliance, but she did not mind as long as her brothers were alive and doing fine. Also she wanted to support her people in this chaotic times. She felt responsible because of Sinbad's mind control. Fortunately no one was holding it against her, seemingly Hakuryuu had told them the truth – that it hadn't been her, who had betrayed her family, but Sinbad who had controlled her. Or maybe no one had believed Sinbad or no one cared about it anyway. Many options, but what mattered in the end was that no one saw her as a traitor.