#if L.umine didn't say that not only Dain would be able to solo

[reginrokkr]

I just realized that I kept forgetting to talk about the canon divergence of my Dain concerning 「Bedtime story」 which... I wish it didn't come to this, as this would be genuinely the first canon divergence I'll write that is directly related to one of his quests. Nonetheless, it's something that must be done and so it'll be, as there are many things that don't make much sense to me no matter how hard I try to put aside my own bias and exhaust every possibility under the sun as to why things were done the way they were for no other reason than... apparent narrative convenience. So here we go:

α) One of the things that didn't make sense to me is having Dain be as highly perceptive and sentient as he is, feeling in every moment when a new memory is being implanted in his mind and even when the ley lines are being altered, only to be okay with the knowledge that he had given Aether the eye of the first field tiller. Why do I think so? Because Aether kept saying quest after quest that even if he doesn't understand Lumine's actions nor he subscribes to them, that he's still with her. After all, his journey began because he's searching for her, his only kin, and his journey continues to be because of that. In the same quest, Dain asks him if he believes that Lumine betrayed him and regardless of the answer he gave, Dain encouraged him to remain positive because their relationship isn't incorrigible nor beyond repair, unlike his own with his own brother.

It's because of this that I think that it makes zero sense that he'd be okay with the thought that he has given Aether the eye of the first field tiller because, following the previous line of logic, it'd be easy to think that in the scenario where he'd have to choose between Dain and Lumine, he would choose Lumine over him always. This in itself would be very dangerous in the face of wanting to stop the Abyss Order's plans.

β) Which leads to the second problem, and that is his "confrontation" against Lumine. So we know that Dain was at ease knowing that Aether has the eye of the first field tiller and that he sent him off just in time so that the two of them wouldn't meet. Once again, in the scenario that Aether stayed and things played out in reality the way Dain conceived it to be because of Caribert's actions, the odds that the eye would fall in Lumine's hands would be higher if Aether stayed than if he left.

Moving on to the next issue with this part, it's the fact that Lumine does tell Dain that he risked his own safety and that of the eye to ambush her. This here should've sufficed to him to realize that he never gave the eye to Aether (since he showed to be highly perceptive, analytical and sentient with less information in order to reach to very sound conclusions, it's difficult to think that he would continue to believe that Aether has the eye when Lumine is telling to his face otherwise), to defend himself against Lumine even if it's just to not let her have a way to the eye no matter if he didn't want to fight her. But instead... there was nothing of this and, once again, it makes zero sense.

So now that I addressed the two main points that for the life of me I can't agree with, the canon divergence of all of this is that: Dain becomes suspicious of the memory of himself giving the eye to Aether, specially after having a similar memory but with Caribert being the receiver instead. And for the love of Celestia, no matter how much he doesn't want to fight Lumine, he does defend himself and he succeeds in defending the eye, too. That being said, since I'm aware that him losing the eye and the Loom of Fate being completed is a pivotal point of the narrative to continue with the main story line, Dain will still lose the eye. Just... not like this. The reason will be kept obscured (if anything because I haven't come out with a good way for him to lose it save for the outline of it, but it doesn't matter too much as he'd probably feel ashamed enough to not talk about the topic, no matter how he comes to lose the eye), but his own brother will be related to this instead.