Author's Notes (New): The perk of working on a novel for the last several months is becoming more confident in your writing, and coming to the realization that there is always more to learn about writing. You also come to realize that you can always do better on what you have done before. Thus, after such a long hiatus from working on Hyne's War I return to it, hopefully a better writer. With this being what I intend to be the first part of a two part epic regarding what may come after the known timeline of Final Fantasy 8, I what to give it what is my best, and thus I find myself compelled to revision. A truly large one at that. As such I have returned to the very beginning and am reconstructing the story right from the first word. I hope to avoid some of the horrible language and grammar mistakes I have been making, and at the same time I hope to provide a better story altogether.

I ask you to be patient while I catch up with revisions, and please go back and reread old material (you will know it by this verbatim new author's notes preceding all revised sections. I ask this as there will be new things in with the old, and it is quite possible that by the time I reach the point where I started the revision (revision of original prologue through chapter 8) there will be some major changes in the story.

I have every intention of finishing Hyne's War and moving on to Eden's Chosen. Real life, of course, comes first, though I doubt there will be much conflict at this point in time due to the fact that I am currently on the easy side of my final semester of my undergraduate studies. This story also provides me an outlet for the urge to write while enabling a break from the work I need to do to get my novel into a presentable version.

As always, any offers for potential betas are more than welcome, especially for the aspect of 'poke LotP until she gives you more story' role.

With that said, I give you Hyne's War.

Author's Notes (Original): And so it begins.

Hyne's War: Prologue

"Another cup of coffee, Father?"

The question earned not only a denial from Boyce, but a chuckle. "You'll keep me up all night. Men my age need to sleep early so we don't get to be crotchety old bastards."

"Come now, you're only, what, forty-seven this year. I'd hardly call that 'old.' They are saying that fifty is the new forty after all."

"And forty is the old sixty," Boyce laughed, and waved the coffee off once more. "I have business that requires me to wake early, so I'd rather not have another cup to keep me up into the wee hours."

"Of course," his son says, though the younger man pours another cup for himself and his wife. "Still, if I had your energy this late at night I wouldn't need one myself. It's hard keeping up with a baby sometimes."

"I'm well aware of that. It feels that just yesterday you were the lad's size. Where have all of the years gone?"

Before his son could respond wails erupted from the baby monitor that sat on a corner of the table. Both the boy and his wife jumped, frowning at the monitor and each other, before Boyce shook his head. Already his daughter-in-law was starting to rise, a weary look in her eyes, and Boyce waved her back into her seat. To look at the poor girl it should have been her, and not Boyce, who was graying at the temples.

"Come now, you look like you could use a little bit of a break. I'll go look in on the tyke. I'm sure it's nothing his grandfather can't deal with. Not like I haven't handled a diaper or two in my days."

His son's cheeks pinked at the comment, and Boyce laughed as he stood. The boy had always been too sensitive in Boyce's opinion, but it had drawn such a singularly amazing woman to the lad that Boyce could not hold it against his son. Even adopted as the lad was, he had done Boyce proud.

"Besides, what is a grandfather for other than spoiling their grandchildren rotten from the very earliest?"

This drew a genuine smile from his son, but Boyce could not help but notice that the smile from the lad's wife was more strained. Like a not the poor girl needed more sleep than she was getting with a newborn around.

Either was it was something easily brushed aside as Boyce finished the last dredges of his coffee and then turned for the hall. Boyce hadn't made it halfway down the hall, though, before he heard the voices of his son and daughter-in-law drift after him in spite of the fact that they were obviously trying to whisper. Then again, disagreements usually made it past the whispering point long before the parties involved realized it, didn't they?

"I wish you would tell him to go away," she was saying, and Boyce couldn't help but frown.

"If you keep acting like this, how are you ever going to get along with him?"

"I don't intend to 'get along with him.' Not now, not ever. I don't care that he's your father. I don't want him near our son, filling his head with that damn poison of his."

Poison, she called it, but how could Boyce expect her to understand? As much as it shamed him, he had never been able to get his own son to take him seriously about this, so how could he expect more of the woman he had chosen? In the end it didn't matter really. His son would get to the bottom of whatever the argument was really about and clear things up before morning, and Boyce would learn all about it by lunch.

"Now now," Boyce mumbled as he pushed open the door to the nursery, only to be met with the even louder wails of the child. "Shhhh. Rest now, little one. If you are quiet then I'll tell you a story."

Soon enough the child quieted, likely from a combination of Boyce's deep, rumbling voice and the fact that Boyce was rocking the child slowly in his arms. It was something that had used to drop his boy off in mere minutes, back when the child had been brought to him to raise, orphaned by one of the wars that seemed to constantly plague the world these days.

"There now, that's better. Now, let me tell you a story."

Carefully Boyce cleared his throat and pitched it low in that deep, basso-rumble that children in the village seemed to love.

Once upon a time there was a great man named Hyne. Hyne was the ruler of the world, but he was a lazy man, and decided that he would make a tool to make his life easier. Thus Hyne came up with a neat little tool that made more tools by itself. Satisfied with what he had made, Hyne stretched himself out across his world and slept, knowing the tools would work his will. Soon these tools made more, and those made more, and there were very many in the world, and these tools were people.

When Hyne work up from a nap he was surprised to find a lot of people in the world. Hyne wanted to reduce the number of people as he didn't need as many tools when he was awake, and so he used his magic to burn up the smallest of the people. These small people were children and people cherished the children very much. So the people mourned and rebelled against their father Hyne, for he was cruel and hurtful to them. Hyne had powerful magic on his side to fight the people, while all the people had none. People had something greater though, for they had lived long and hard lives together, and by living these lives they had gained something that Hyne had never expected: they had grown clever.

Eventually Hyne found himself losing the fight to the people, for there were many people to fight, and they grew ever smarter with every battle. Therefore Hyne decided to make peace with the people, and he offered them half of his body and magic. The people, foolish and greedy for the power of magic, agreed, and so Hyne cut his body in half and gave part of it to the people. As a god he could do this, and once it was done Hyne left the world he had created to people.

Yet Hyne knew something that the people did not. He knew that the people had grown cruel and jealous in their own lives, and that they would war among themselves. Sure enough the people could not decide who should have the power of Hyne. Should it go to the wisest, the strongest, or the most just? Once more the people warred, though this time it was over the power Hyne had given them through his body. The war lasted decades, and the loss was such that the King of the Zebalgan tribe mourned for the loss. He saw that the god had tricked them to war, and worked to stop the fighting. Soon, through his cunning and kindness, he was able to stop the war, and came before the body of Hyne to ask for its power for the people. Yet the body ignored his commands. No matter how he asked, what he said or did, the body would not respond. So King Zebalga called out for help in understanding what had come to pass.

So came forth the wise man Vascaroon to answer the riddle when all other wise men failed. He stood before the body and saw what the king was unable to: that it was corrupt and possessed no power that could be claimed by men. What Hyne had left the people was nothing more than a shell, and that the magic of the god had left when the god had. Yet, knowing the answer would anger the people, Vascaroon said to the king that no power could come from the fallen body, but that one day the power of the god would come to the people.

Zebalga asked how this might be and Vascaroon gave this promise to the king. Search for the true body of the god if you would seek his power, and it should come to you in whole, not in part. Yet the path to the god's power would not be unlocked, even if the god were to give to humans the whole of his power, until the day when Vascaroon's son would come to the Zebalgans. It would be through his heir that people would come to hold the power of the god in their hands. When the king asked how he knew this, Vascaroon told the had he foreseen it in a dream, and that he had also seen the signs of his son's coming.

My son, Vascaroon said, will know as I have known, for his dreams will come to pass and he will be wise from them. True magic would he weave, as if he were a daughter of Hyne, a sorceress of magic capable of shaking the world. Yet these things in full would come only to his true heir, the first son born of his line. And this son would come to guide the Zebalgan King to the path of the might of the god in a time of great struggle.

With this said Vascaroon left the King, that he might return to his own people. The king prepared himself for the coming of Vascaroon's son, but no heir came forth to guide him. The king's son after him waited for the heir, as did the son after him, and the son after him, until at last the centuries had turned and the kings came to lose hope in the words of the prophet. Yet many still know that the day shall come when the heir shall come forth, appearing before them in majesty, to guide the king to the power that the Zebalgans have long since earned. Still we search for him, to this day, looking for signs of the coming of the heir.

"Searching after fairy tales and legends of men who were trying to explain away the reasons for great wars," hissed the child's mother from where she stood in the doorway, her eyes filled with anger. "Men your age shouldn't put too much weight in story book legends."

"You call them legends," Boyce said calmly, only to be met with more fury from the woman.

"Leave here, Boyce. Do not return. You are not allowed near my son any longer. I will not have you trying to fill his head with your foolish stories or pull him into your damn cult. My son is not your tool, not some object of your false prophecy."

"Now now, my dear..."

"Do not 'my dear' me, Boyce. I will not accept this anymore. Now leave or I will call the cops."

With a sigh Boyce replaced the child in his cradle, and moved past the woman into the hall. He wasn't concerned, for all of the fury she flung at him. In the morning his son would call, apologize for his wife's behavior, and invite Boyce back over for dinner.

In the end, Boyce Megill either overestimated his son, or underestimated the fury of a mother., for he never laid eyes upon his grandson again.