Disclaimer: Suikoden belongs to Konami. I am not Konami.
A/N: This will be the first in a series of Nash/Gaiden-type-thingy-based oneshots, so expect more.
In the first Gaiden, Nash is assigned to take care of an imprisoned Jowy when he infiltrates the camp looking for the Beast Rune. Jowy has the choice of dying/having his family die with him or stabbing Annabelle to death for Highland. The dialogue below is all my own, since my understanding of Japanese is kind of nonexistent, but I know enough about the music they were playing to know it was definitely A MOMENT.
Um. I'll be a jerk and call artistic license on anything that doesn't quite fit. Also, I haven't played Suikoden 2 in a while, but if I remember Jowy's character correctly, then it's fairly serious and kind of annoying in that angry-self-righteous-brat sort of way. Oh, Jowy, you silly boy.
Constructive reviews are always appreciated, but if it's just rude or mean, I'll be sure to delete it and make fun of your grammar. Not necessarily in that order.
"Can I tempt you with this?"
Nash's tone, aberrantly soft, was met with a pair of steely eyes. Then the prisoner turned his face left again, staring off to the vacant slate of canvas wall. There was a thin rim of red fear tracing his eyes, knees drawn up under his firmly set chin, his pale brows set in a determined grimace.
And it had been that way for the last five minutes, since Nash had been unceremoniously pushed into the tent and handed a cold bowl of stew with a greasy spoon and told to care for the captured spy. His stomach squeezed tightlyat that word.
Spy? Oh, yeah, that's him. Sort of.
With a terse smile that hoped to be less understanding than he felt, Nash set the bowl down in his lap and dipped the spoon into it. The liquid was of a brutal smell but a growl from his stomach was all it took to remind Nash of his meager breakfast and stressful afternoon, the fear of being caught that had pressed over him like the acrid palm of a hand.
He brought the soup to his own lips. It slid down his throat without much taste besides the residual burning effect of a heavy-handed cook's access to the whiskey.
"It isn't so awful," said Nash, hoping perhaps the prisoner was feeling a bit more pliable now that his captor had given up on trying to feed him.
Again, met with rock.
A stolen meal followed, quiet save for the occasional sigh on the prisoner's part that fully conveyed the discomfort of his binds, the longing for the night air on his paling face, the dead feeling just below his stomach. He looked like he might cry or scream or beg to be freed at any second and it made Nash uneasy.
"Jowy, was it?"
The boy came out of his hollow reverie, nodding faintly and greeting Nash's smile with a cold sort of look. Jowy studied Nash's face for a second, the crinkled hair and hollow cheekbones, a face of distinct and almost feline bone structure. His mouth slackened however slightly.
"You look familiar," Jowy said.
That's because I am. I saw you on the streets of Muse. At the inn wishing your friend and a child goodbye. I, however, am I footnote to you. It isn't your job to watch for me, or to always be looking.
"I doubt that," Nash said with a casual wave of his backhand. "I've been in Highland for all my life. Would you care for the water? I daresay the cook hasn't tampered with it."
Jowy stopped here, shaking his head and casting a glance to the gritty baked dirt of the floor. "I was a Highland soldier. I..."
Again he stopped, allowing his head to fall and cradle on his knees. "Forget it. You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me," Nash answered quietly.
"I know things about that man that would make you ill to your stomach," Jowy countered. Stern.
There was no doubt in Nash's mind as to who he meant. Luca Blight had that deep red aura of bloodlust, a thing Nash knew well, but only sometimes. He could feel Grosser Fluss hissing at his hip in that twisting whisper of its voice, silent but able to be heard through those trained series of nerve endings along Nash's skin.
"My family disowned me," Jowy continued, his eyes poised to the wall behind Nash and never quite touching his face. "The Unicorn Brigade Massacre was a stain upon the family emblem…"
A dagger, sheathed in smooth brown leather and designed with a lucid flag upon the hold, lay next to Jowy, and he kicked it away with a snarl. "Why should I care if he kills them? Would they pay me the same courtesy…?"
Nash held the dagger, pulled it out just enough to see a man in a navy Highland uniform staring back, a lie on his body but a truth to his features which lay in a measure of compassion for Jowy's story. Sheathed it again; set it aside.
"They would not," Jowy finished, with bitter enmity pulling his mouth down at the corners. "But I can't die here. Haven't you ever wanted to protect someone? So desperately you can hardly breathe at the thought of failing them?"
Old images spread on Nash's sight: First the frail smile she gave before singing in the church choir, conscious of her voice and every fluttery octave; her clear blue eyes, the color of fine flint; the rest of her came like the slow spinning of a spider web, the contours of her face shifting just enough to be the sweet and caring girl of his heart and sister in childhood. He touched the slope of her shoulder gently, to feel the warmth of her realness, but at his fingertips she fell to black.
Nash was back in the tent, aware of the sweat beading down to the crook of his collarbone.
"We all want to be someone's champion," he said. "I wouldn't shoot an albatross to become one, though."
You slay the mind of Muse, you slay the body of Muse. Annabelle dies and so does everyone else.
Sights fell on the blade again. "She was quick enough to dispose me to here," Jowy said wistfully. "There's no happiness in doing it to her. But I can't protect the people I love by staying here. Or by running from Highland at their every advance. Lying here, I'm too weak. But if I acquire the power…"
The door parted with a reticent rustle of canvas and silk, and the pair of them stared up at the woman gliding to view. Staring--they couldn't help it--at the luster in her black hair, the soft olive of her eyes, the pale translucence of her flesh. Nash stood straight as ramrod when he realized she was dismissing him.
"Thank you for your assistance, soldier," she said, waif in her voice.
Nash didn't fail to notice the sort of look Jowy gave the princess, transfixed by the apparition of her beauty and sweet song of her tones. There was a look of calm on him that had been missing all night, that no amount of kindness nor understanding could coax out of him. After all, Nash was still in the cloth of a Highlander, and the emotion he did show was measured carefully. If Jillia was able to bring the boy some ease in the dark hour to follow, it was more than Nash could ever provide.
The world was stilled beyond the tent. There was no wind, the clouds were unmoving, and the forest was quiet in its mistrust of a calm before the storm. He'd found nothing on the Beast Rune but hadn't had the misfortune of getting caught and that was that. He shed his uniform near the neatly snaking river and once again Nash was himself, or the himself he had come to be since leaving his home and old life: A liar, a spy, no one's champion and all the wiser for it.
The first battle was coming. He could hear the clash of opposing iron.
Outside of Muse there is a playful wind, and he's more happy for it because even if the forest surrounding Highland's camp is miserable with anticipation, life here goes on as it were. The sun is falling off the horizon of another cloudless blue sky and the moon is climbing up to governance again, and tomorrow will be the same, except perhaps cooler because summer is failing to winter. Inside the city there are bags brimming with purchases of knick-knacks and useless junk, and some child is erasing the pictures drawn in gritty chalk on the walkway outside her house, and the candles are flickering to life before melting down to a tack-y wax puddle. Annabelle is in her room waiting for news or plotting a strategy or reading her favorite book before drifting off to a dreamless sleep. Jowy is out there, dead or dying or still alive but crestfallen or returning home, and Nash will never know. His job is to watch but so much is obscured. People have so many faces and it's impossible to know each one.
By the gates there are three children in size order: At the front is a thin boy in a red tunic looking hopefully out across the bare expanse of green plain. Next to him is a rather pretty girl with her head on his shoulder, eyes only half open, her ears drinking in the promises of early twilight. Sitting at the last is a little girl with grubby cheeks and round brown eyes that are haunted by a wisdom she's far too young to possess.
When Nash reaches the gate there's a sudden cry, loud and joyous and unrestrained, as three pairs of feet trapeze down the cobblestone and embrace the man they're waiting for. Life has taught him enough about coincidences to know it's Jowy returned from the camp, that he's hugging them and there are tears in his eyes when he kneels down to kiss Pilika on her forehead and the dagger is sharp in his boot. Nash allows himself to turn around for that moment where they're all radiant and there's no questions to be asked or answered because Jowy's back and he's fine and for a second, everything's right in the world. Their eyes meet and Jowy pretends to not have noticed; Nash's presence only confirms the looming task he's been assigned, and how the goodbye to the people he loves dearly enough to risk the world for their protection will come soon enough.
Past the inception of war, every good intention eventually dies. But not yet, Nash thinks, not quite yet.