Gaiden

[tj_dragonblade]

Oh.  Gaiden.  I...there are no words.  Just the ache.  It breaks the heart, yes, but it moves the soul in such a way...

Dear, brash, big-hearted Kenren. Of course he's the first to go.

...

...

...It is entirely inappropriate, perhaps, in light of...well, everything...that even as my heart is in my throat and my eyes are beginning to prick, there is still a piece of me capable of being quietly awestruck at how utterly beautiful Goujun is on the final page.  Blood and all.  Or perhaps it's that 'everything' that puts such beauty in the panel.  It just...oh.  Everything.  Everything.

*Observes another moment of silence*

Comments

[tj-dragonblade.livejournal.com]

Yes. YES. I think that's why that panel strikes me so deeply - it's not just that Goujun is inherently pretty, it's...everything else. The look in his eye, the set of his mouth, the salute, everything that goes unspoken underneath that gesture and I just ache with it. If only Goujun could have seen to the heart of his general before the end. It's unfortunate that he barely knew the man as anything more than an insobordinate irritant, barely had the chance to see that there was something more, something worthwhile and suitably dragonish underneath. And yet the whole tragedy of it all is part of the appeal.

Goujun afforded Kenren full respect in the end; even though Kenren will never know he's finally earned that from his commander, we know it. And there's just a little echo of when Tenpou and Kenren turn him loose in the hall a few chapters back, resign their commissions, in the gesture. It moves me. Deeply. My beautiful, dutiful, conflicted Dragon King.

Also, I am relieved on another level that Kenren's end did not come at Goujun's hands. I was pretty sure it wouldn't, somehow, but there was a little piece of me fretting all the same.