Title: Failure

Game: Suikoden 2

Characters: Riou, Nanami, Lebrante

Pairings: None

Summary: Riou does a little musing, getting a little perspective from some theoretically worthless finds. Life lessons are where ya find em.

Riou let out a relieved sigh as he returned to the castle. It was, to make the biggest understatement possible, exhausting being the leader of an army. It was certainly never something he'd thought he'd become, and quite honestly, he still had his doubts. Even with the Bright Shield rune upon his hand, there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't wonder, even if only briefly, if he were the right one. Could someone as young as he was lead them to victory? Half the time the youth felt as though others simply decided this all for him. Still, his compassion kept him going, his desire to help not only the people of the land but somehow redeem his friend keeping him going. People depended on him, and it simply wasn't in him to just let someone down if he had the strength to keep trying.

Today, however, had been a day mostly spent in travel. Not every day was filled with strategic plans or waging war. Not every day had assassins coming after you or women appearing cryptically in your room. Today he'd needed to head out with a small scouting party, rumors of trouble prompting Shu to specifically recommend he go. As it'd turned out it'd been a good thing he'd gone, but not because there'd been any sort of attack. They'd found some wounded refugees, and with the power of the rune he'd help to heal those critically injured. No doubt word of his good deed would spread, and of course, that was probably exactly what the strategist had wanted. Why else would he send the hero of the war out to investigate a rumor? Why would the most important person (according to others of course) be doing grunt work? When didn't Shu have some sort of crafty scheme in his head?

Although, thinking about it, it did often seem like he was always rushing about on errands. Oh well. Today he was done, and there was nothing he really wanted more than to hit up the bath house and get nice and toasty. That sounded absolutely heavenly, and Riou was sort of hoping he could just sneak over there right now before anyone could catch him and ask him to do something. He had such a hard time ever saying no to requests.

"Riou… we sure did pick up a lot of junk didn't we?"

Looking over at Nanami, he watched the way she was digging through their packs. Sometimes… just sometimes, he marveled at the things they'd pick up along their journeys. The almost random creatures and even plants that attacked them were prone to carrying the strangest of objects sometimes, and on more than one occasion he and his sister had wondered just why a monster would carry something like a painting. Today, it'd seemed like every other creature that leaped out to eat them had been toting a vase of some mysterious type with them. Riou wandered over and stared into the bag too, his brown bangs sliding in front of his eyes as he looked over the pottery. A tiny sigh of disappointment left his lips at the sight, and he reached a somewhat dirty hand down to pick up the bag. He'd barely taken two steps when Nanami spoke up.

"What are you doing, Lebrante isn't that way. Don't you want to get those appraised?"

Two thoughts seemed to spring to mind based upon her question, two responses he could give to her.

"Oh right… let's go get these looked at." You couldn't deny it was handy having an appraiser working for the army, and his expert eye had certainly picked out some amazing finds in all the rubble and junk they picked up. It seemed the man just couldn't be fooled when it came to priceless artifacts. Riou had asked for his services many times since recruiting him. Many many times.

"Umm… I've seen a million of these… I don't need to get them appraised to know what they are…" That was the second response he thought about giving her. After all, he'd already sought out Lebrante's expert eye many a time before. With the sheer quantity of dropped items that passed from monster to hero on a daily basis, you were bound to start seeing things that looked… familiar. And those things you saw often… were never ever any good. His brown eyes only needed to glance at the (?) Vases once to be able to make his own appraisal of what they were.

Even so, he ended up giving the first response, and following his sister along. What could he say? He knew she liked to be helpful, he knew that she tried to not so much boss him around so much as take some of the burdens off of him if she could. Her suggestions were meant, probably, so that he could let his mind move to other things. It was sweet of her. So he didn't mind playing along with her now and again, even when he knew full well that she was just causing him a bit more work.

Standing tall in his red coat and polishing his monocle, Lebrante's arrogant face never seemed to change into a smile. Not even for the leader of the army. In fact, as they unloaded all of the pottery in front of him, he took on a rather disgusted and petulant expression. He looked at the two of them as if they were wasting his time. "Failures… all failures. Take them away."

"All of them?" Nanami seemed ready to argue, but Riou put his hand on her shoulder, smiling gently. The two locked eyes, and eventually his sister seemed to calm down, a little smile on her face as she helped him to pack up their collection of Failure Urns. They thanked Lebrante (even if Nanami insulted him under her breath after), and started away, side by side. Brother and sister didn't say anything at first, but eventually Nanami reached out and hooked her arm with Riou's, enjoying this little moment where no one was rushing down the hall and sending them off into battle.

"You know… you're too nice. You need to speak up sometimes, ok?"

A couple responses flashed through his mind, but in the end Riou simply nodded, giving his sister's arm a little squeeze. These small moments were nice… and truthfully helped to keep him sane.

"So… what are you going to do with all of those?"

Riou smiled. Only one thought came to mind.

Relaxing back into the bath a short while later, the hero let out a very satisfied smile. A small white cloth rested upon his head as the steam curled up all around him. The hot water had prickled his skin initially, but now it felt heavenly as it melted away the knots and aches in his muscles. The youngster smiled happily as he listened to the occasional drop of water condense off the ceiling and fall back down into the bath with a simple plop. Everything else was silent except for that, the hero all alone. He almost thought he might be able to drift off in here like this, though that wouldn't be the smartest thing to do. He didn't need to end up nearly drowned or something. Still… peace like this… was so… rare.

Footsteps raced towards the door to the bath, and Riou swiftly slid down in the water, as low as he could go without dipping his nose in. He heard a voice call out for him and he held his breath. The steam of the bath obscured his view a bit, but that meant whichever of the Stars of Destiny searching for him couldn't see him too well either. There was also something else, in addition to the steam, helping him stay secretly out of sight.

"I guess he's already gotten out…"

The seeker turned and left, and Riou sat back up with a small smile. His eyes turned to the edge of the bath, gazing in appreciation at the pyramid of Failure Urns that'd acted as a barrier and blocked him from sight. It'd be sort of fun piling them up on the edge of the bath like that, and it was especially amusing that his childish ploy had worked. He let out a little chuckle and decided he'd only stay in the bath for a short while longer. He just wasn't a selfish enough person to hide down here forever, his responsibilities were too high. Still, looking at the mountain of vases, he couldn't help but think that even a failure could be useful for something. If that was the case, then maybe a boy really could lead an army to victory.