Hi. Future (present?) Raen here. Most of this was written when I had first finished Conjunction, though I'll chime in here and there with stuff that I think is relevant.

 

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So! That was a thing!

I started this over a year ago and it's finally done! Some thoughts:

 

Nanase is very loosely based on the character of the same name from CMB since I was reading it at the time. Totally tangential, but it’s a solid mystery manga. I kinda like the main series (QED) more but they’ve both got some pretty nice flavors going on (math and related fields (cryptography, etc.) for QED, natural sciences and anthropology for CMB) and both are definitely worth a look.

 

Azama’s whole “time’s wack” thing is… well, it’s not something I’ll be elaborating on here, that’s for sure! It’s rooted in the whole ‘characters not aging’ thing that Heroes has going on because it’s a game and not real life (lol) but also it’s an extension of the whole ‘Hel curses Alfonse and will come to kill him in a week or whatever’ plot point in book 3 that took 4 real-life months to actually resolve and how one might reconcile that with how outside of the main narrative Heroes tries to maintain the illusion that time passes in Askr at the same rate as in real life (with seasonal banners and whatnot). It’ll probably come up again in a future piece in this series, if I ever get around to it.

This is also where Kiran started to really become a clear character in my mind, even though they don’t even appear (lol). They were loosely(…?) based on me in MML, and clearly have thoughts and worries and stuff but there’s a difference between writing a character that’s a writer insert and one that’s not. As time passed in Askr and in the real world, Kiran has drifted apart from who I am, and it’s been useful to think of them as someone who used to be me.

 

One of Caineghis’ home screen lines is “You... probably shouldn't touch me. My hair is very coarse. You might get poked right back.” I can’t say for sure what the intent behind that line was, but if I had written it, it would have been something along the lines of “Kiran is excited about Caineghis being summoned and is a bit too hands on, so Caineghis makes up a reason to not be touched and not-so-subtly insinuates the potential for retaliation if Kiran doesn’t chill out.”

Kiran, of course, doesn’t realize what he was trying to say and instead thinks Caineghis is bemoaning the lack of resources needed to keep up an adequate hair-care regimen, which is why they go to the combination hoshidan bathhouse/hotsprings.

 

I had initially started this because I was super mega hardcore alienated by Greil saying “me dying made you into a man” to Ike during the GD paralogue both because 1) what the fuck and 2) that didn’t feel like something he’d say. Obviously, this changed quite a bit from what I had originally intended while I was writing it, but I guess that’s what happens when you write something to explore your own feelings on a particular subject and it takes you well over a year to actually come to an answer.

still think they should have made him say something else though lmao

 

 

This was also a bit of a character study, obviously focusing on Caineghis. In-game he’s… relatively straightforward. He’s king of Gallia, and he has the charisma, strength, and wits to hold his own against pretty much anyone, but like the vast majority of fire emblem characters (and especially late-game recruits) he doesn’t really get the screentime to be explored on a particularly meaningful level. He’s kind, he’s your ally, he’s strong, but… we don’t see much of what makes him tick beyond his devotion to Gallia and I wanted to dig deeper.

His Tellius Recollection I profile mentions that his talent is “behaving rationally” and it’s mentioned a few times in the games that he was as hotheaded as Skrimir (and sometimes even worse) when he was younger. The word ‘talent’ implies some innate ability, but I took that to mean that his levelheaded and collected demeanor in the games was something that he deliberately cultivated. It was a skill he had honed and it was a front that he maintained because when it comes down to it, Caineghis is a passionate man but because he’s a king that’s the kind of thing that can get him in trouble. What he feels about things he feels strongly, but acting on impulse is something that would end badly for both him and Gallia, so he restrains himself and reigns his emotions in to a point that borders on suppressing them.

I think Caineghis was… pushed to an extreme here. An extreme facilitated by being dragged to Askr and being forced to stay there, and an extreme facilitated by being reunited with Greil.

 

A lot of fiction has the ability to see your lost loved ones again as a grand moment of catharsis, a moment where your hero’s journey and struggles —however painful it may have been— becomes worth it. From Mamma Mia 2 to Drakengard, nearly every time someone is reunited with their deceased lover in death it’s… good. It’s a moment of happiness, no how bittersweet it is, and the underlying commonality between all of these is that the hero had no reason to not want to see their dearly departed one last time.

 

That’s not the case with Greil and Caineghis. Even if we ignore everything that came from the Medallion (Ashnard doing things, Izuka doing things, Elena dying, etc.), the simple fact that Greil chose to die when he did would put strain on their relationship. Greil had the chance to tell Zelgius “I know you want a sword duel, but I physically can’t give that to you.” Greil had the chance to not leave the castle that night. Greil had the chance to bring someone (Titania, maybe?) so he wasn’t venturing out into the forest alone. Greil could’ve just… stayed inside.

And he didn’t.

 

To Greil’s credit, he was always… well meaning. He always tried to do the right thing, and he just kept making choices that were, with the benefit of hindsight, far from ideal, and he happened to be in a position where those mistakes had far-reaching consequences.

 

Maybe nothing would have changed if he had done things differently —and while he remained in Tellius, Caineghis had no reason to ask himself if things could have been different— but when reunited with Greil under circumstances that were already less-than-ideal? When he had to confront the fact that despite everything that had happened, despite now knowing everything that he had caused, Greil hadn’t changed? That Greil was still the same man who made careless mistakes that cost himself and others their lives? And then you factor in all the stuff with the Medallion? Greil is someone who has hurt almost everything Caineghis has held dear at one point or another (including himself), and it’s no surprise Caineghis reached the limit of his self-restraint.

 

I don’t think that Caienghis/Greil is something that couldn’t work out (or something that didn’t work out while they were together in Gallia), but… there are reasons why it was smooth sailing in Gallia and reasons why it wouldn’t be in Heroes. I think, after all this, there’s still the chance for them to repair their relationship. It won’t be easy, and it won’t exactly be fun, but I think it’s possible for Greil to own what he’s done, and what that lead to, and do what he can while in Askr to mend the pain he’s caused others (and he probably wants to), and I think it’s possible for Caineghis to allow himself to welcome Greil back into his life again. It won’t be the same, and it won’t be without further issues, but if they put the time and effort in, they certainly could make it work again.

 

 

 

 

 

The title of this piece has two meanings.

The secondary one is a reference to a skill and recurring raid mechanic in Granblue (which I had been getting back into at the time), called (you guessed it!) Conjunction. While the skill also includes some buffs to help you survive and heal back up, both versions set all your character’s HP to 1.

It pushes them to the brink of death, to that point where their tether to this mortal coil is about to snap, but it’s not too late: they have the means to pull themselves back into the realm of the living for just a little longer.

 

The other and primary meaning is in reference to conjunction in the astronomical sense. When looking up at the sky, we’re too far away from the various celestial bodies to meaningfully discern depth; if the night sky were a hollow sphere with moving dots painted on to simulate stars and planets and everything else, would we be able to tell the difference?

No.

Our eyes lack the parallax to see depth on the horizon, much less depth beyond the clouds. We can see (or at least perceive and measure) depth using two vantage points that are sufficiently far off (such as two telescopes placed miles apart, or after the earth has moved in its orbit), but as we are we simply lack the frame of reference to see how far away these things truly are.

That’s the underlying mechanic behind conjunction. Because planets and comets and whatnot may as well be painted onto a dome, there comes a time where, as everything performs their dances in the cosmos, two or more objects will grow closer in the sky and then move apart. Sometimes they overlap and one passes in front of the other (in a phenomenon called transit), but that moment where they are as close as they can be before they begin to drift apart again is what’s called a conjunction.

If you went outside into the cold winter air on December 21st, 2020 and looked up at the sky, Jupiter and Saturn would be located in the constellation of Capriconus. As they strolled around across the sky, this particular type of conjunction (named a great conjunction after the importance of Jupiter and Saturn in divination) occurs every twenty years, and they’ll be as close as they have been since 1623, at six arcminutes, or a tenth of a degree.

But therein lies the deception inherent to conjunctions; we don’t measure distance in angles, we measure it in meters and astronomical units and light years. Jupiter and Saturn aren’t moving dots on a dome, they’re massive balls of gas hurtling through space far enough from us that to the naked eye they don’t appear to be are moving at all. They simply appear to be close; their apparent distance on that night may have been be a fraction of a degree, but the planets themselves were nearly five times further apart than the Earth is from the Sun.

A conjunction is an apparent closeness created by the limitations of our own perspective, a lie we tell ourselves because we can only understand, because we can only believe what we see before us.

 

 

 

 

Greil was, and to an extent still is, a character who meant a lot to me, and the same sentiment extends to Greilghis. They were things I took great comfort in, and... despite your best efforts, life moves on and things happen that will irreversibly change the lens through which you view things. In a way, this piece was me working though how I felt about Greil, and in a way, this piece was me baring my soul more than I ever have before.

Thank you for taking the time to read it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.