What exactly is a "joy dance"? I can try putting together Lars playing a pipe organ or something like that if you want.

Well, I was thinking of po pi po but there also technically is an actual joy dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfPg5LjGYz8


....

....

....

that might be a bit much.

Yeah. That IS a bit much. Especially if it's pixels. Animating pixels is hell. Actually... a Po Pi Po is simpler to do. I might actually make that. And Rhen too. Both in their wedding outfits. Maybe.

I meant a bit much in the sense of being rather over the top.

But your reason is a better one.

(When I told my friend I had finished writing this, that's the link she sent me.)

Say, if I manage to keep my schedule and do make a wedding-Rhen doing Po Pi Po, do you want braided-Rhen or Wedding-pixel-Rhen (the one with poofy wavy hair)?

I... have no idea.
I guess braid-y?

Okay. Wedding Rhen in braids. Let's see what i can do about that

Epilogue #1:

All the records agreed that it was an enormous event, the wedding.

There was no official sit-down meal, but the buffet had enough food to sustain several nations. Which was fortunate, since the guest list was simply enormous. But of course it had to be- after all, there were countless people throughout the world with some connection to either the bride or groom.

Nearly the entire country of Thais attended, on the groom's side.

As for the bride... Well, it was typical of the Dreamer that even some monsters were allowed to peacefully attend the wedding, in Aveyond's tradition as a refuge to all without discrimination.

Where the records did not agree, however, was what exactly happened after the second dance and before the stand-up skit that was destined never to be.

A leftover act of malice from the daeva Ahriman was one popular theory, but much scoffed at by historians. Ahriman's hatred of Talia Maurva and Devin Perry (once Devin Pendragon) was well-known, but he had, after all, been safely contained.

Another theory involved a conspiracy carried out by a squadron of highly trained military squirrels.

And yet another theory involved the combustible nature of certain gases when exposed to undue amounts of magic, especially in closed spaces like crowded shrines that had not been built to serve as massive wedding halls.

And these theories were equally considered and weighed in upon and discussed in academic circles for years after the event.

But there were several people who had an entirely different explanation, one far less reasonable than combustible gases. No, it was suspected by those in positions privy to such knowledge that the actual cause of the... incident... was a confrontation between two guests.

This theory is a little flawed, in that most eyewitness accounts record the encounter between Lars and Rhen Tenobor and Dameon and Serina Pendragon as having been cordial, Serina and Rhen having even exchanged several small niceties of conversation regarding the difficulties of pregnancy.

Nonetheless, at some point or other it seem that one or the other or both of the women had to excuse themselves to the facilities...

At which point one of the men said something, to which the other responded in kind, and then at some point their staffs came into play and after that...

Well. Let's just say that the Aveyond Shrine had to be rebuilt, in a new location.

Again.




Epilogue #2

After the birth of their daughter, Rhen and Lars were slightly concerned that she might have the same difficulties Gaden had experienced, of having both swordsinging and sorcerous magic. They kept a careful eye on her, as she was growing up, just in case.

They were for the most part relieved when it became apparent that rather than possessing both magics, Veira possessed no magic at all.

Instead, growing up in the circles of the powerful and influential, she rapidly gained renown as a diplomat in the Empress's court, in particular in her dealings with foreign dignitaries.

Rhen and Lars saw no problem with this.

Then one day their daughter announced that she was getting married to the crown prince of Thais.

“What?! Absolutely not!” Lars had exclaimed, in horror.

“I'm sorry, did I say 'getting married'? I meant to say that I 'got married'. Last Tuesday, during my trip to Thais. There was a very accommodating priest.”

After that, and very reluctantly, Lars and Dameon were forced to reconcile. They mostly handled this by avoiding ever being in the same room together. Rhen and Serina, however, began a mutually advantageous correspondence that furthered the prosperity of their Empire and Kingdom, respectively.

As for Veira and the Crown Prince... They named their eldest-born daughter Rhen and she became a very famous queen (that some of the legends got her mixed up with her grandmother is, of course, perfectly understandable).

THE END.





That's it folks.
It's over.
Yup.
It's been a long ride.
...
...
...yeah.

Perfect!!! Queen Rhen Pendragon isn't the Rhen who beat up Ahriman. LOL!!!

Whose wedding was happening in the first Epilogue anyway?

PS: You didn't give me time to do the Po Pi Po. No fair!!!

Talia/Devin.
Dammit, I thought i mentioned them by name.
Must've forgotten because I was trying to make the first paragraph sound like it could be L/R.
Fixing that brb.

Edit: Feel free to add the Po Pi Po tomorrow?

Also: Devin Perry is Perry because my theory about how royal last names work in Aveyond-verse is that they come with the position.

Kay... So. Aveyond shrine had to be rebuilt "again"? When was the first time it was rebuilt anyway?

It moves like every single game.

Woot nice endings! <3

Thanks for writing this amazing story!

Some notes that I wrote a month or more back and waited till now to post:

Well, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this story since… I can’t remember exactly when, so let’s say essentially the first chapter. It is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written.

Before discussing my characterization, a bit of defense:
The thing about Rhen is that characterization-wise you only get so much to work with in the game, and then you get the ending. And the ending you choose, in my opinion, is what then defines and retroactively interprets everything Rhen has done so far. That the Rhen endings each reflect a wholly different kind of Rhen is particularly obvious when comparing Danny’s ending to Dameon’s, but the principle should be obvious in general- choosing to be a hermit or choosing to be a queen reflect completely different kinds of personalities.
Rhen with Danny is probably one of the most likable Rhens, at least according to my standards- not only is she extremely pragmatic about Dameon (“Let’s face it, you’re not exactly stable”) but her attitude in general is rather proactive (“In fact, let’s get married”) despite the fact that she’s ostensibly retiring. (Small note: I never corrected chapter 1, but I did write it before watching the Danny ending and I was wrong about what happened when she ended up with him)
Rhen with Dameon, on the other hand… There’s a few ways of interpreting Rhen’s decision to become queen. On tvtropes it’s defined as a crowning moment of awesome, so I have to assume there are some fans out there that find Rhen’s selflessness in agreeing to become queen appealing. But my perspective- and this heavily influenced the Rhen I set out to write in this story- is a bit different.
Throughout the game, Rhen is something of a reactionary character. Something happens, she reacts, someone needs help, she agrees, something happens, she reacts. On the one hand this is perfectly reasonable for an rpg character. On the other hand you never see Rhen developing motives of her own*. It could be argued that this is because Rhen is a selfless character. That’s fair. But selflessness in and of itself is not always a healthy thing. Not when you haven’t yet fully formed your own identity. Rhen is always kind, always accommodating, even when she’s been thrust into a situation no one seems willing to fully explain to her, is forced at great risk to her own life to clean up somebody else’s mess, she even forgives Lars within seconds of him requesting it. And you can either view this all as sincere, or- you can view it as ostensibly sincere, but mostly a method of self-protection Rhen employs.
Being ripped away from her family and sold as a slave must have been an incredibly traumatic experience for Rhen, and so she’s nice because then maybe people will like her, is accommodating because she desperately craves approval, desperately needs to be “good” because maybe being “good” will serve as her anchor, so that she feels like she has somewhere she belongs, feels like her existence is worthwhile and meaningful and not something that can be so easily rooted up and displaced. Rhen must have hoped very hard those early months of servitude that someone would come and rescue her. But no one did. And when at last Talia comes, Rhen agrees to anything Talia asks, anything the Empress asks, anything anyone asks, because being “good” will save her.
*(Part of what I really like about Mel is that, as selfish as she is, you never have confusion about her motives. Her primary motive is surviving, closely followed by getting money, and then her own nagging conscience lags dead last- although Edward tends to make it take over and actually have an effect, usually guilting/goading her into doing the right thing- because of course his presence reminds her that there are other things she cares about besides herself gkjgdklg I ship that pair so hard.)


And if so, then there are two ways for Rhen to continue from there.
The first is the Dameon ending. She doesn’t want to become queen, but the people of Thais want her- or at least they want the symbol of her. She might have some reservations about Dameon (who has been proven to be a proficient liar) but he wants her. And so she will once again throw herself away in favor of everyone else, and maybe that really is the unselfish thing to do and maybe, in the long run, it is better for the country etc.
Or there’s the other endings. The Danny-ending, to a great extent, is Rhen if Rhen over the course of her journey already managed to recover. She finds out that her presence in her hometown was sorely missed, and more importantly she finds the one person who did what she so desperately wanted someone to do- he came to rescue her, he came desperately seeking her. The home she’s never stopped dreaming of is of course the place she will return to, and she’ll return there with Danny, who may never have succeeded in finding and rescuing her but who nonetheless simply by his devotion has saved her. Danny-ending!Rhen is, as noted above, a self-possessed, self-assured character.
Hermit!Rhen, on the other hand, is something like Rhen gone bad. Which is to say in many senses it is a Rhen who has given up. If my impression of Rhen is someone who goes along with whatever people ask because she craves approval, at the same time it seems inevitable that at some point she will begin to under the surface experience resentment, frustration, bitterness- even a self-loathing that comes from a lack of self-respect. Hermit Rhen has spent an entire game going along with what other people asked and all she wants now is for everyone, absolutely everyone, to leave her alone. If she becomes a hermit she throws of all responsibility entirely, she can isolate herself from the world and not have to bother anymore. When compared with Dameon!Rhen is it perhaps slightly less disturbing, but nonetheless the complete shift from selflessness to self-absorption is rather abrupt. It reeks of desperation, as opposed to thought-out decision.
And then there’s Runaway Bride Rhen.
Runaway Bride Rhen is a Rhen who has not yet grown up- but she’s not given up, either. Let’s face it, logically speaking when facing the Oracle Rhen could simply have said she didn’t like the three options. But she lack the inner strength- the oracle is a figure of authority that Rhen still can’t bring herself to assert herself against, even thought that inability has made her resent the Oracle perhaps unfairly (alright, so my Oracle also tends to be a bitch. I have a theory she’s the one who told Talia to marry a psychopathic sun priest, and I never quite forgave her for sending a bunch of elves to subdue a family uprising among her daughters. Seriously, woman, stop playing around with everybody). So she agrees to go along, but she’s preparing to do the first really, truly selfish act of her life.
But that’s the thing. Running away from Dameon is an incredibly selfish thing. It’s a selfish thing that, to some extent, you could argue Rhen needs, but it is also a decision that has consequences. And that’s one thing I wanted to reflect. And the other thing is that personal change is an incredibly hard thing to go through. More than any of the other endings, Runaway Bride is the most emotionally turbulent post-game. Rhen is trying to think for herself and it’s hard.
Not only that, but like I mentioned, each ending gives Rhen a different kind of character- calm, reserved, passionate, etc etc. Runaway Bride by its very nature makes Rhen inconstant, inconsistent, something of an emotional rollercoaster. Which is what she is.

On the other hand, even as I use this as my justification for every time Rhen was overemotional in this story, I still feel like I’m making her ooc. Because in the game Rhen complains very little. Now that might be for the very same reasons that she went along with everybody- in fact this is very likely- and if so maybe when she undergoes her transition she throws that reserve at least temporarily out the window. Or maybe not. I understand the justification for my making Rhen a bit whiny I’m just not 100% comfortable with it. Because the problem is that sometimes it’s just ridiculous, how over-sensitive and emotional and melodramatic and lacking in perspective she is.


The other thing is something that I’m about to criticize in Lars as well, and that is that Rhen is supposed to grow and become more comfortable with herself over the story and while I think that happens, it could have happened much more smoothly and- more importantly- a bit more consistently, i.e. she shouldn’t regress etc. On the other hand, quite honestly? I think personal growth is maybe a bit more like I portrayed it here. Occasionally you make artificial, temporary progress for just a moment before relapsing, and occasionally even once you’ve genuinely progressed you have moments of immaturity where you’re back to before, and sometimes growth occurs in sudden laps rather than steady increments…

(So actually writing this rant already reconciled me a bit more to Rhen as a character)

But then there’s Lars.

Lars’s characterization is not nearly as complicated as Rhen’s.

(Although now that I set to write it down I suddenly lack the words- it’s there. In my head…)

He has a lot of self-confidence, to put it lightly. There are two caveats- first, over the course of the journey he changes drastically his view of the world and how it should work, overcoming various deeply ingrained prejudices and therefore, presumably, losing some confidence in the accuracy of his own judgement, although this is mostly an assumption since it’s something so slight and internal you wouldn’t really be able to notice it from the outside unless you knew him really well and paid attention. Which is to say that he completely changed his opinion on several subjects, but now acts just as confident about this new opinion as he did about the old one previously.

And secondly, there’s Rhen. Lars in this story has been crushing on Rhen for quite some time. And yet, in direct contrast to what you’d expect from such a self-assured guy, he’s never been able to work up the courage to come close to making a move on her. The reason for this is actually pretty simple- had it been anyone but Rhen, Lars would not have been having this difficulty. But it’s Rhen, and Rhen is someone Lars is a bit too much aware of having mistreated, horrendously. He does not think he has the right to be happy with her. He thinks it would be presumptuous to make the suggestion, but he’s also not willing to act on his feelings because on some level it’s his self-inflicted punishment for having been such a nasty jerk.

A sidepoint- but the significance of Lars’s apology in the game is not just that he feels sorry. Because he’s actually felt sorry for a while by that point (my interpretation of canon, at least). It’s that Lars is the kind of guy who doesn’t apologize, ever. Ever*. It is an acutely painful thing for him to do, so when he actually does it it’s the equivalent of what in someone else would maybe be something like throwing yourself at someone’s feet and literally begging for them to forgive you. Only not, because at that point it would probably be over the top… The point being that it’s not merely sincere, it’s a sign of some seriously agonizing self-inspection and a very real commitment to change.

*(He says sorry several time in this fic, but in the context of “I’m so sorry this happened to you”- when he thinks Dameon broke up with Rhen. Or “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? What did you just say?” Rhen, in contrast, apologizes like all the time. At one point I planned on having Lars get a bit sarcastic with her about that, but the opportunity never arose.)

Which, okay, leads directly into what I dislike about my portrayal of Lars in this story. Guaranteed he is going to stay the same smug arrogant overly confident rather snarky sorcerer we all love. On the other hand, I’m unbelievably inconsistent with his growth. There are points in the story where I literally cannot believe I made him do something (I’m looking specifically at that big fight he and Rhen had) and the only justification I have is that he wasn’t thinking and he didn’t realize it was such a big deal… and I find that rather hard to believe.

And another thing. Lars was not supposed to be going through a huge internal transition like Rhen. He’s supposed to be fairly static as a character. There’s one exception, and that is the progression of his feelings towards Rhen. Lars starts out the story very much attracted to Rhen, not to mention respecting her a lot for what he’s seen of her during their travels together, and thus rather infatuated with her. By the end, his infatuation is supposed to have transitioned to a very real love, and I think I did a horrendous job of expressing this. Transitions came way too abruptly, nor was the actual nature of the maturing feeling properly expressed. (On the other hand, what I still love about the restaurant scene is how it shows Lars, even while crushing on Rhen, still clearly uncomfortable with some aspects of her, whereas by the end he’s sort of accepted, resigned to them, and almost amused by it…)



As for minor, original characters- I’m disappointed, overall, with how I used them. I would have loved to make them into vivid side characters, but they all ended up devolving into essentially plot tools. With Gaden, Hio, and Kylie it was because I realized I lacked the patience to give them all enough screentime to really shine- which is to say any time the focus was on them, it was not on R/L and I enjoyed writing R/L so much more than I enjoyed writing them, even if I felt a bit guilty about that. With Neya… erk. The only side character I can say I properly developed was, of all people, Sirona. Sirona oozed off the paper for me. I deeply regretted not being able to bring her back into the story, if only to rub Rhen’s success in her face. But it didn’t fit, plot-wise- Rhen was supposed to have moved on. Bringing her in would have felt awkward and abrupt and weird.

And the plot- urgh. Plot. My only excuse, and it’s a shoddy one, is that fanfic doesn’t require plot like origfic does. Because the plot of this story is rambling, shambling, sprawling, inconsistent, and for many stretches of time nonexistent. Ostensibly it’s about Rhen and Lars becoming Head Sorcerer and Head Swordsinger. Mostly, however, it was… not.

Writing quality- Extremely variable, depending a lot on how motivated I was at the time. What stands out as a particular peeve is something someone already pointed out, the over-modernization. This was pure laziness on my part, and it was a conscious laziness which doesn’t really excuse it. Earlier in the story I made several brave attempts at trying not to give in- I wanted to give them a different calendar, I tried to give Lars an Aveyond-y sounding favorite drink… yeah. At some point I just gave up.

Which, speaking of world-creation, is something else: I interpreted game mechanics rather literally in this fic, down to health and mana points and “dying”. In general I do that with Aveyond fics because it’s fun and funny to poke fun (say that ten times fast) at rpg “science”. On the other hand, since then I wrote an Ed/Mel fic in which fading out in the middle of battle is because you pass out, not because you die, and I prefer that interpretation, although I’m keeping the death one for this fic.


Notes I wrote over a year ago when I had just started this fic:

Originally the entire introductory part of the prologue bit- i.e. that thing with the oracle ad percentages- as intended to be continued at some later point with an explanation of how very unlikely the chance of Lars and Rhen having a successful romance would be. In the end it’s not something I really picked up the thread on (see also: deleted scene involving Talia and Rhen discussing Fate) but it nonetheless serves as an explanation for something I was trying to be conscious of in the fic. That is to say, that the people that Lars and Rhen were at the time of the end of the game had some major barriers to their having a relationship together that the Oracle picked up on, and that was why she didn’t bother offering it as an option (in later realities, also known as Build C, she changed her mind).

The barriers to the relationship? That Lars, despite having a sot of infatuation with Rhen, has some major weaknesses, specifically that he’s not all that self-aware, partially because of that doesn’t always realize how he comes across, and also that he has the bad trait known as “unable to stop digging yourself in deeper”. He has tremendous difficulty apologizing, even if when he does he never just means it superficially. He has a major ego problem. And also, he’s a teenage boy and that sort of speaks for itself.

As for Rhen- what with her extremely traumatic, unstable childhood, it’s a wonder she isn’t even more emotionally unstable than I already wrote her. As it is I decided to give her an internal streak of strength to keep her going, but it really is important to realize that Rhen spent a lot of her life just doing what other people wanted and as a result she’s rather insecure now that she’s trying to take her life into her own hands. It’s basically growing up, only she has to do it AFTER having achieved the biggest accomplishment of her life instead of before, and that’s hard. Although actually I think she has less a problem dealing with that than Lars does.

More importantly, if we’re talking about barriers to a relationship, then Rhen at first doesn’t even like Lars all that much. So that’s the first, most obvious barrier, that she starts actually feeling anything for him, and it’s complicated by the fact that Rhen hasn’t exactly totally forgiven Lars yet, for the fact that she was his slave and for the fact that he made her life miserable. I mean, that’s the kind of thing that’s extremely hard to forgive. (Remember Rhen’s explanation of how “more-than-friends” is held to a higher standard? Pretty much that, yeah)

And the final barrier off the top of my head right now is Lars’s mother. I already know she’s going to either die or fall very ill, as that is a scene that has been in my head longer than this fic. But I’m not sure how Lars is going to galvanize enough inner strength to actually go directly against the prejudices she’s been teaching him all his life. And I think that Lars is a bit of a mummy’s boy so that is an actual real problem I haven’t yet figured out.

In the end what I’m looking forward to right now is the chance to portray the two of them growing the heck up (because they’re just kids, really) and doing so /together/. Because the thing that appealed to me about Rhen/Lars to start with, more than Rhen/Danny or Rhen/Dameon, was that they were always so intensely involved with each other that I felt a relationship between them would naturally be more real

Alright I'll read the notes later but first gotta say that I LOVED the epilogue No# 2 XD XD XD It's perfect And now it's off to reading the notes! <3
EDIT: So I read the first part of the notes the ones you wrote a month back and I actually like how you've described Rhen's need to be good and stuff. Now I'm tired so I'll read the rest later

Heh. Sorry my notes are insanely long.

I'm glad you liked Epilogue #2.

Who cares about long notes? At least yours make sense and have thought behind them. Mine are just rants that go all over the place because I'm totally distracted all the time!!!

Will you become my writing teacher? *puppy eyes*

PS: Po Pi Po might take a few days to make. I am very VERY distracted these days

Ahh! It's over!

I'm not sure if I'm glad that it's finished or sad that it's over...

O.o I read the epilogues again and again...I just can't understand them. >.< So...Rhen and Lars's daughter got married to Dameon's son or something...? Argh. And...wait, what? Rhen didn't defeat Ahriman...? *takes deep breath* ok, I'll read this again when I'm properly awake.

And those notes look scary. I'll read them...later.

Explain:

Epilogue 1: Devin and Talia get married, Lars and Dameon get into a fight that destroys the wedding hall i.e. aveyond

Epilogue 2: Lars and Rhen's daughter has no magic, grows up and becomes a diplomat, in the course of becoming a diplomat she also becomes friends with the crown prince from thais, i.e. dameon's son. and by "friends" i mean they elope. They (Dameon's son, Rhen/Lars's daughter) have a daughter whom they name Rhen (grandduaghter of the original Rhen) who becomes queen.

Over the course of time, the exploits of Queen Rhen and her grandmother got a bit confused, which is why people think the same person who defeated Ahriman was also the famous queen, when she was simply grandmother of said queen.

Make sense now?