What Happens
The Rent World
Guts and Casca return to Godo’s home and find Erica at his grave. She suggests that everyone stay and Guts, whom Casca is now less uneasy around, seemingly agrees. But he’s also disturbed that he felt no urge to kill when he saw Griffith at St. Albion’s.
Erica tells him Rickert has a visitor, who says he’s an old friend. Long white hair, looks like a girl, all Prince Charming-like, maybe someone Guts knows too…
Reunion on the Hill of Swords
At the grave of the Hawks, Guts tries to do exactly what you’d expect but Rickert stops him, shocked that he’s so angry; Griffith remarks that he never changes. Guts demands to know why he’s here, and Griffith says it’s to see if he feels anything seeing Guts again; he doesn’t. Guts throws Rickert aside and lunges at him, but is parried by Zodd.
Beast Swordsman vs. the Black Swordsman
Guts and Zodd fight. Rickert is astounded by their skill. Griffith feels some faint stirrings and ascribes them to the homunculus, who became his vessel.
Unchanged
Zodd decides to get serious and switches to his Apostle form, but Guts evades and sends him crashing into Godo’s ore cave. Drawn to the scene by the Brand, Casca is almost crushed when he bursts from the cave but is saved by Griffith, who calls off Zodd and climbs onto his back.
Prologue to War
As Zodd flies away, Griffith tells Guts he’s still pursuing his dream, and reprimands him for being surprised to hear that. He also tells Rickert that even if he learns the truth and comes to hate him he’s still free to join him if he can. Rickert demands to know what really happened to the Hawks, and insists on coming along when Guts tells him, but Guts won’t let him because he could never truly hate Griffith.
With the cave collapsed and Guts determined not to leave Casca again, he asks Puck if there’s any other elf dwellings nearby. Puck can’t think of any, but then he remembers another place, one that’s probably safer than anywhere else – his home.
Fierce Kushan Attack
Guts and Casca leave together, and Guts promises to himself he won’t desert her again.
The Kushan have taken a castle in western Midland. The men are being executed and the women led away to become slaves, but one girl insists the Hawk of Light will save them.
The Kushan general heaps contempt on Silat and his men. The army has taken six fortresses but the Bakiraka under SIlat can’t even capture one man. We learn that the Kushan invasion started because of an oracle (the general insists it’s only a pretext), and that the Bakiraka were driven from Kushan, where they had the status of slaves, for supporting the old royal family in a civil war. They save the general from an assassination attempt and leave to continue their search for the Hawk – found him!
War Cry of the Wind, Chapters 1-2
Griffith calmly rides up and runs his sword through the general’s eye. The second-in-command orders the archers to shoot but all the arrows inexplicably land behind Griffith. Before a second volley can be loosed Zodd tears into them from behind. Spearmen try to advance on Griffith, but the whole front rank is pierced through the temples by an abnormally long lance whose wielder identifies himself as Locus, the Moonlight Knight. Griffith recognizes him and accepts him into his service.
Silat tries to use the confusion to capture Griffith, but his men are suddenly stopped. On the ground a black ball uncurls into a small shape swathed in black, with a mask that makes it look like a demented No Face. They recognize their clan’s exile, Raksas, who pledges loyalty to Griffith because he/she/whatever wants to be the one to kill him and now isn’t a good time.
An armored giant with a cannon in his shield smashes through the main gate. Strange shapes kill the soldiers in the inner stronghold.
A bird perched atop the castle flies into the nearby woods, towards an adolescent girl in witches’ clothes. The girl, Schierke, was using the bird and returns her soul to her body. She tells the elf perched on her hat that Griffith is “…the Hawk of Darkness. The master of the sinful black sheep, the king of the blind white sheep. The one who shall call down upon the world an age of darkness.”
Of Snow and Flame, Chapters 1-2
Serpico remembers growing up on the streets of the Holy City, fighting with the other street children for food even as his mother insisted such things were beneath a boy of high birth. She once worked for a nobleman, whom she insisted was Serpico’s father. As he lay beaten and exhausted in the snow one evening, Farnese found him and personally tended to him, demanding that he enter her service in return. Now a page and able to afford a housekeeper for his mother, he lived and worked in the mansion of the Vandimion family, the richest in the land and one of the most powerful, with marriage ties to several royal dynasties and enormous influence in the Holy See.
Farnese was bratty and tyrannical, and burned small animals that wouldn’t become attached to her. Her father was absorbed in his work, her mother in high society, both giving her countless gifts but rarely their attention. But Serpico endured her abuse. It was still better than what he’d had before, and he understood she acted as she did because she was lonely and frustrated, with no outlet except to direct her anger at others.
Serpico always wore a locket his mother gave him, and when Lord Vandimion asked to see it one day he recognized her portrait inside. Both quickly realized who Serpico’s father was. With three sons already squabbling over the succession, Lord Vandimion offered Serpico a title of nobility in exchange for keeping his parentage a secret. The latter agreed, wanting to stay with Farnese since he was her only true source of companionship.
As Farnese matured there was no shortage of noblemen who vied for her attention or the favor of her family, but she blew them all off. She would challenge anyone who insulted Serpico’s common origins to a duel, always appointing him her champion and criticizing him afterwards for ending the match in a draw. He soon realized that she had feelings for him beyond those of a servant or friend.
When Farnese’s father heard of her behaviour he quickly arranged a marriage without telling her until after everything was settled. In response she burned down one of the mansion’s houses when Serpico refused to run away with her. Her father called off the marriage and sent her to a monastery, with Serpico as her attendant, but now they were no more than mistress and servant.
In time, Farnese was appointed commander of the Holy Iron Chain Knights. That same winter, the Knights became involved in the suppression of heretics, these ones common citizens who protested the wealth monopolized by the Church and nobility and preached equality before God. Serpcio’s mother was among them, and he wondered if she resented him for abandoning her. When he let her identity slip Farnese made him light the pyre himself to prove his loyalty.
Commentary
And that’s why Farnese has issues. But good God, can you blame her. I understand how the power and prestige of the Vandimions means her parents having little spare time, even to spend with her, is unavoidable to some extent, but seriously, her father can go a whole year without seeing or speaking to her (and he says he’s “quite at a loss as concerns [her]”; yeah, I’m sure you tried everything to reign her in)? At least Zepek actually talked to his daughter, even if most of it boiled down to ‘reshpect me!’
It’s not like they want to be bad parents – they clearly made sure she didn’t lack for comforts or material things, and her father’s insistence that she get rid of her old stuffed rabbit (which he’d bought for her on probably their only family vacation, ever, at her insistence) because he can get her a newer, nicer one is well-meaning even if it completely misses why she liked it so much in the first place. The problem, of course, is that none of that is any substitute for actual parental attention and affection, and you’d think at least her mother might have thought of, I dunno, even spending just one day a week with her, and her father could probably at least write her a letter now and then. It’s not asking much, just something to let her know she’s more than an accessory. I don’t blame her for being desperate to find someone, anyone, who cared about Farnese, not the daughter of the Vandimions, or for falling for him when she did. Problem is, she’d been isolated for so long it became an all-or-nothing proposition; when it looked like even the one friend she did have couldn’t be counted on (which is completely untrue; just because he knew running away together would be a terrible idea doesn’t make him any less her friend), she finally snapped. Well, she already kind of did that night where she ran out into the storm and smashed statues while laughing hysterically and ranting about “becoming a storm yourself.” I guess that’s what planted the idea in her head that if a situation seemed scary and hopeless, the only thing to do was give in to the madness.
In the end, that’s why she needed to believe in the worth of her post as leader of the Holy Iron Chain Knights so badly. For once it seemed like she was needed and valuable, and for something so important too. But between all the fawning the Church officials did over “how grand” it was for the Knights’ leader to be “the daughter of the glorious* Vandimion family” and the fact that Azan was the one actually in charge of anything practical related to their activities, she was still just an accessory.
And that (the other that) is why Serpico doesn’t like fire. I’m not quite sure if that was a dick move on Farnese’s part (her lack of a dick notwithstanding) or the right thing to do so that at least he wouldn’t have to watch someone else kill his mother. Either way, it was probably the only way for her to get the Church officials who heard his ‘wait – mom!?’ outburst to back down.
On the other hand, I’m also not sure who’s the most to blame for how that turned out. Maybe Serpico did abandon her, but by the time he had to send her to a sanitarium she was already prematurely senile and thought he was his father (presumably he looks like a younger version of Lord Vandimion), whom he can’t compel to do anything for her. On the other hand, his mother made up her mind long ago – her “dear husband” would come for her, and she was going to wait for him as long as it took. But after a year or so she should’ve realized that that was unlikely and done more to look out for herself and her son, not pin all her hopes on Lord Vandimion wanting them back. To be fair, we don’t know what sort of illness she had, so it’s possible it was something that actually would’ve made it hard for her to be self-sufficient. Lord Vanidimion, though, he easily could’ve squirreled them away at a country house somewhere removed from the Holy City and quietly sent them a stipend every month; an adequate amount is probably pocket change to him, and it would’ve been the right thing to do as a father. Really, I think everyone involved shares the blame on this one.
Meanwhile, back with the main characters…
Griffith says Guts “never changes”, but he’s definitely wrong – Guts may be as revenge-driven as ever, but he has changed in other ways. The old Guts left Casca locked in a cave so she wouldn’t be a burden on him, but now that’s out of the question. Losing her made him understand he can’t take her safety for granted, and he’s able to accept that if he truly cares about her more than anyone that makes it his responsibility to protect her. Not only that, he’s putting his quest for revenge on hold to take her somewhere safe. Griffith on the other hand – he hasn’t changed from what we can see here. Still single-minded, still has an undercurrent of Ho Yay (although it’s now Foe Yay) with Guts, and is still a master of making everyone else think he’s the good guy. Arriving just in time to save Midland from the Indo-Ottomans certainly helps, even though it’s an obvious coincidence. Not.
*don’t you mean ‘generous with its donations’?
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