Heartwarming / Azure Rain

• Lleuwellyn, despite hating Selkess as he is now, gives him one last hug and tells him he loves him. Even if it was just a distraction.
  • Selkess is actually stunned by it and that gives the heroes the upper hand they needed by a fraction of a second. For just a moment the old Selkess came back
• When Eureka is shot and recovering in Illdresil Gera, Baltan and Azzie both cuddle up with him.
• A lot of Azzie’s inner monologues about his new living situation become this, especially when contrasted with his memories of being abused. Azure Rain only spans maybe a little over a week’s length of time, and by the end of it he sees Eureka, Baltan, and Lleuwellyn as his true family.
  • He’s even willing to risk his life for them in order to stop Selkess. It turns out that he doesn’t need to, but he was still willing to die to protect them.
• Eureka goes back to Kwoltan Gera in order to recruit help for his and Baltan’s Leeroy Jenkins plan. He thinks he’ll get chased out again and he has every reason to be worried about this since he’s going into a village whose children are missing and are very pissed about it and willing to blame anyone. Even with Keida’s help, his safety isn’t guaranteed. So what happens shortly after he arrives in the village? His old mentor tells him how much he’s missed him. Cue a touching reunion.
• The Kwoltan Gera Azures never approved of Eureka’s banishment. They only went along with it because the king’s word is law, and with a few exceptions, most of the warriors that knew him are at least a little happy to see Eureka.
• When you really get down to it, all of the main four have grounds to be seriously messed up people, but since they have each other they’re able to push past their traumas.
• Baltan goes looking for Azzie after Eureka had been shot, which is the first real sign that he cares about him at all.
• Crossover with Funny; Baltan offers Azzie and Lleuwellyn one of his sodas in a friendly gesture, since Lleuwellyn has just come to the city. But he gave them a pickled onion flavored one, which sparked a prank war.
  • One of the first things they do as Baltan is released from the hospital is prank him by giving him a bottle of soda dosed with hot peppers as a sign that things are returning to normal.
• The last line of Azure Rain, which shows that Baltan is probably the most definite protagonist and how much he’s changed. He isn’t a totally different person but he has grown throughout the course of the book.

• Crimson Lightning gets one almost immediately when Keida goes to pick up Naesa from the hospital where she’s been for almost a year, and when she walks entirely on her own for probably the first time since then, he purrs. Even though she only took a few steps before she lost her balance you can practically feel his relief and how happy he is that she CAN walk. He hugs her and she hugs back. Daww.