Binding Ties

Lugh had made a habit of waking early since they had been expecting guests, but he seemed to abandon it overnight. Chad was first to wake, and he couldn't bring himself to disturb Lugh from his long-deserved rest. Together, the brothers looked strangely serene—Lleu's face buried beneath a pillow, Lugh sprawled like a boneless ragdoll—so Chad took care to shut the door softly on his way out, and skipped over the steps that he knew to creak the loudest. Chad could still be stealthy when it suited him.

All the while, he outlined the day's agenda in his head. Breakfast, school, Igor, guests, Edgar—

Shit, he thought. Reaching the foot of the staircase, he halted at the sound of shifting from the sitting area, the wall obstructing his view; he reached for a knife at his hip that was not there. Then, steeling his nerves, he strode out to the center of the room to face the intruder.

Soren glanced up from the scroll he had been studying, seated in the very same spot he had taken the other day. He had an almost businesslike importance about him, his back erect with no one there to correct him, one leg crossed over the other and his hands folded in his lap.

For lack of any better ideas, Chad dropped his shoulders and gave a weak wave in greeting.

"Hey."

"Good morning," Soren said evenly, with that slurring accent.

"Sleep well?"

"Very well. Thank you."

"Where's, uh, Ike? Was it?"

"He is sleeping."

He communicated startlingly well.

"Probably exhausted, huh."

"Hm."

"Well, uh." Chad couldn't tell if he had just been dismissed, or if Soren had simply cleared his throat. "We're gonna get working on breakfast soon, so… stay put, I guess."

"Yes. Thank you."

He returned to his reading. Chad was seized with the urge to ask about the scroll, but he decided against prying and headed into the kitchen. From there he heard light footfalls descending the steps, and then—before he could rush back and retrieve the newcomer—a boy's voice. Too loud and shrill for this hour. It was enough to make Chad cringe.

"You're Lleu's friend, aren't you? You didn't come to dinner last night!"

Goddammit, Tom.

"They told us about you. Are you the mage?"

Goddammit, Tom. Chad returned to the sitting area and Soren's eyes flickered over him as he responded to the child.

"Yes."

"Woah! You sort of look like a mage. I'm a mage too. Is that mark on your forehead magic?"

"Hey."

Tom gave a start and twisted to face him, face contorted with guilt.

"Mind your own business, Tom."

"Sorry."

His voice had dropped to a near-whisper. Chad commanded that sort of respect in children.

"Better yet, mind me and fetch some water while I get a fire started."

"Yessir."

For all his fibbing, though, and for all of Chad's goading, Tom was one of the better-behaved children. Chad had to grant him that.

"Thank you," he said.

Chad then followed him with his eyes until he was out the door, before returning to the foreigner.

"Sorry about that."

Soren glanced back at his scroll. The conversation should have ended there.

Some sick compulsion drew Chad back into it.

"Uh, so the children here learn the applications of anima magic—"

"Yes," he said. "He tell us."

"Lugh did?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Well, they get really excited when there are experienced mages around," Chad explained.

Soren set the scroll on his lap.

"So, uh, sorry in advance for that. You're not obligated to demonstrate or anything, but…"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't need to show off for us." Chad rephrased, slowly this time.

"Ah."

He picked up his scroll and unfurled it again. The conversation left some threads hanging in dead air, but Chad didn't care to pick them up. Instead, he went to fetch some wood and trusted no one would burn the house down in his short absence.

To his surprise and subsequent relief, Igor and his sister came around earlier than expected, catching Chad on the trip out of the shed. Chad had meditated on a question before for at least a minute—the question of whether to first inform Igor of the guests or the fence. He judged the visitors a matter of more pressing importance, and told the two as he stood in the center of the field, sleep in his eyes and a pile of logs crammed against his chest. He told them first that Lugh's twin had finally returned, that he had brought a couple of friends, but he did not delve into much detail concerning their eccentricities.

Igor took the news well, flashing a dirt-lined grin.

"Did I ever tell you that I had a brother?" he said, securing the bundle of wood in his muscular, leathery arms before they proceeded back towards the house.

"What? You serious?"

Chad looked to the maid for a reaction. She blinked blearily into the distance. Igor did as well. His hair had gone pale, though not quite white. Periwinkle, maybe.

"He was a fool," he said. "More than that, he was delusional. He denied God. It is good, then—"

Igor watched him sidelong and grinned again.

"—that Lugh's brother does not suffer the same fate."

It sounded almost ominous. He guessed it was a habit with elderly people, dispensing warm, provincial nuggets of wisdom—they just didn't convey them so well.

"I don't know about that," Chad said.

Igor's chuckles were rough, gravelly, and mildly unpleasant.

"I should like to meet him."

"You, uh… they're both asleep now. He and Lugh, I mean." Chad stopped at the foot of the stoop, and the siblings stopped with him. "You'll meet one of the other guests first, and he doesn't speak… fluent Common. So you might have to talk slow."

Igor and his sister, surprisingly, didn't seem to question this. They waited a fair distance behind him while Chad cracked the door to see if the foreigner had moved.

To his relief—or distress—he found Serena and Ila awake and chatting in the sitting area, Soren's chair as empty as if he had never been there. For a moment, Chad imagined how his mind could have simply fabricated the conversation, and how the foreigners could have been ghosts or otherwise supernatural entities, emitting scentless, phantasmal fumes to drive mortals to mental unsoundness and glut themselves with it.

"Where'd, uh—"

"Soren?" Ila said. "He left."

Of course he did; to assume otherwise would have been silly. Chad fancied himself of unerring faith, compared to Lleu, at least, but not so superstitious. Maybe Lleu's paranoia was contagious.

"Did you chase him off?"

"Maybe. I introduced myself. Soren's an odd name."

"What's wrong with his eyes?" Serena said.

"He's not from here," Ila answered abruptly. "What I want to know is what the symbol's for."

She centered her gaze on Chad, as though prying for hidden answers. He scoffed and looked away.

"You guys are way too snoopy for own good."

"Maybe they're too shifty," she retorted.

Chad returned her hard stare.

What annoyed him most is that he didn't disagree.

"Mister Igor's here," he said, stepping in to make way for the elderly duo. The man stretched his scarred, leathery cheek into a smile while his sister took a seat. They were both looking tired—growing older every day, as they said. Like Father Reuben, who Chad hadn't seen yet, but he hadn't seen any rats either.

Lugh came down to greet them while Chad went about the business of breakfast, and soon most of the children followed. He could hear their eager chatter from the other room, discordant and continual as a stream flooding over.

"He looks exactly like you!"

"Except the hair is longer…"

"Are you gonna cut it?"

"It could stand to be trimmed," Lugh said, and Chad briefly wondered if the foreigners had gone into hiding at the outpour of screeching questions from volatile young mages. Better for them, he supposed—he was still leery of keeping them around the children.

He heard Serena again: "So what is wrong with Soren's eyes?"

And of course, most of the children hadn't seen him, and of course most of the children were compelled to ask, and of course, one answer rang loudest above the others.

"They're red, like fire, 'cause he took a fire spell in the face!"

Goddammit, Tom.

"You'd go blind if that happened," said Ila.

"Not if you're a mage. It's like how you can absorb magic without getting burned, 'cept he did it with his eyes!"

"Let's not spread falsehoods, Tom."

Lugh brought an end their tall tales before Chad could march in and do it himself. Instead, he called them to breakfast. They said grace proper this time, though afterwards the visitors remained the topic of conversation, Lleu no exception.

"Why isn't he here?"

Tom was certainly loud enough to rouse the druid sleeping straight above the kitchen table, so Chad began to wonder himself.

"He's very, very tired," said Lugh, and they left it at that. A few more questions, and Chad told them to be quiet. Can twins be a boy and a girl? Why aren't you a druid? Do the other guests even eat?

He reminded himself that they'd instilled a healthy sense of curiosity in the children—a form of self-consolation. Once that had all calmed, Chad slipped in a mention of the fence. Not too damaged, just a minor concern. Igor agreed to look at it and lend a hand.

Afterwards, Lugh and Ila offered to clear up the kitchen before class. That left Chad with two options: wake the foreigners, or return Lleu his clothes.

He told Lugh not to worry about it, and headed outside to retrieve the robes off the clothesline. They were still slightly damp and smelled too floral, however faintly, to belong to Lleu. He slung it over his shoulder, haphazardly folded on his way back inside, and took care to sink his weight into the loose, creaking steps on the trip up. Opening the door, he heard the hiss of a body resettling into the sheets. Lleu had definitely been awake for some time.

"Hey." He tossed his clothes at the foot of the bed and watched as Lleu stirred beneath his pillow. "You missed breakfast with the kids."

"Shit, I'm sore," he groaned. "Could've slept a while longer."

"And I thought I've gone soft." He shut the door behind him.

Lleu cast him a sleepy glower, then threw both legs over the side of the bed.

"What is it."

"We're having company today, so look sharp," Chad said as Lleu began to undress. Modesty was not a luxury that most orphanages could afford.

"Is that what you wanted to tell me?" Lleu slipped into his undershirt, and then gathered up his robe.

"I want to talk about our benefactor for a bit."

"What about him," he grumbled, lurching to his feet.

"First off, know that at least one of us here gives two shits about Lugh's well-being, and this isn't an easy job. You're bound to make hard decisions and live with hard regrets."

He froze with one leg in his trousers.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"So when you realize Edgar is an irredeemable asshole, consider this before you go off condemning my sinner's soul to everlasting damnation."

"You're seriously worried about that?"

"And cut the skepticism bullshit around Lugh. Goddamn, listen to me; your sermonizing must be contagious or something. I can't even get to the point."

Lleu narrowed his eyes.

"Then get to it, Mother."

"Alright, with pleasure: Edgar is going to say some things and it's going to piss me off. I mean you. It's going to piss you off and you're going to want to make him sit on a sword, but don't act on it. Lleu, look at me."

He turned around, his cape slung sloppily over his shoulder.

"Don't act on it. You're going to say 'this is General Roy all over again and you're a toady kissass' and sure, say what you want, but we weren't financially dependent on Lord Roy."

"Yes we were."

"Alright, we were, but he wasn't a petulant brat with abandonment issues so don't. Lleu! Don't," he said, lowering his voice for emphasis.

"Alright, alright! Good God, man."

"And don't use God's name in vain around Lugh."

"Holy shit, you're the biggest hypocrite."

True, but Chad was more satisfied that he could hold Lleu's attention without threat of violent retort. Mostly because he had just fallen out of bed. He finished dressing, then took another look at him.

"I had better tell Soren," Lleu said, almost conclusively.

"Wait, what's there to say?"

"That he's going to make children suffer if his more brutish tendencies leak into social obligations."

"What 'brutish tendencies'?"

"Believe me, they're there."

"Why should I believe you? I haven't seen any evidence that leads me to believe such a thing exists."

Chad grinned, but Lleu seemed markedly less impressed. Lugh would have chastised him for making light of his brother's "fall from God's path".

"Shut the hell up."

"Anyway, why do you have to tell him? It seems like his acts of willfulness are largely provoked by the way you're treating him. I mean, we held a pretty lucid conversation this morning. He's not a child."

"Children are capable of a lot more than people give them credit for. But those two are barbarians."

"Didn't look that way to me. He was studying some kind of scroll when I talked with him, which isn't something I imagine barbarians commit to in their spare time."

Lleu snorted.

"Yeah, that's mine. It's a recipe, or something stupid like that. Gift from Niime; basically wanted to give me a hard time. A lot for him to chew over, eh? Look like he was having trouble?"

"Alright, this isn't working." Chad massaged his forehead. "Just… finish up. Find Lugh when you're done. I'll take care of it."

"Where—"

"Probably in the schoolhouse. Don't interrupt him if there's a lesson going on, and for the love of God don't butt in if you get the lecture itch. Alright?"

He waited for an answer while Lleu fumbled with his clasp, silent but for the occasional grunt of frustration.

Finally, he nodded his head "fine".

Just out the door, Chad hung back and watched him grope around beneath the bed for the boots that had been kicked in.

"Thanks, Lleu."

The druid grumbled in response, and Chad liked to hear it as "you're welcome" as he pulled the door shut behind him.

When he checked his den for sign of the foreigners, he found the room abandoned and only remnants of their stay, including Lleu's "recipe scroll". They seemed to travel light, which was more than he could say of Lugh or his brother—at least during their time spent with Roy.

He took a close inspection of the affairs around the room for signs of tampering, pilfering, or otherwise molesting his personal affairs. Thankfully, the foreigners seemed to comprehend the concept of ownership, which Chad learned long ago was not a universal, innate instinct among all people.

Satisfied, he sought them outside, heading first towards the site of the broken fence.

He found them with Igor and his indolent sister. Ike and the gentleman knelt in the soil of the garden, inspecting the uprooted fenceposts. Nearby, the maid hunched quietly over some kind of game spread out over a stump—Chad had seen it around camp during the war, a part of a knight's training according to one of the Pheraens, but it seemed to appeal to the lonely sensibilities of bored old biddies as well. It couldn't have been a fair game, but perhaps Soren caught on quickly.

"How's it look?" he asked Igor, who squinted up at him.

"Looks like it couldn't have done much against an animal in the first place," he said. "Something must've run it through… or tore it down. Ike's offered to help, bless his soul, so it shouldn't be a hard fix."

Ike seemed only faintly aware of the conversation, but perked up at the sound of his name. Like a well-loved pet… bless his soul.

"Did you need anything?" Igor continued.

"Just uh… need to steal Soren from your sister for a bit. You can keep Ike."

"Steal?"

Oh. He had been paying attention. Ike drew himself to full, impressive height, and Chad decided that gambling on miscommunications would be unwise.

"Need to talk about magic stuff for a bit with him."

"Ah. I understand."

"Yeah."

The maid glanced up at him dispassionately, and Soren stood without another word to her.

"Yes?"

"Hey," Chad said, passing him to draw him out of earshot, though he doubted Igor or his sister cared all that much; Soren followed nonetheless.

"Uh, Lleu tells me you don't like people who pry into your business."

"Hm?"

"Nosy people." He stopped, and tried to think of something simpler. "Do you understand what that means?"

He couldn't read the expression on Soren's face beyond vague impatience.

"Yes," he said.

"We're going to have a visitor like that, who's also very rich. Do you—"

"Yes."

"You get where I'm going with this, don't you? It's really important that you… appease him. Tolerate him. Put up with him. Nobles don't like back-talk."

"Yes." He checked over his shoulder at Ike and Igor. "We know. We were with them."

"Oh yeah, Lord Roy had you for a while."

"Yes."

"Except Lord Roy's pretty special in that he treats everyone with—"

"Is this all you wanted tell me?"

This conversation had been the opposite of reassuring.

"Yeah," Chad said. "Sorry, I was just giving you a heads up. He's really interested in magic users, so I figured… he might bother you."

Soren did not answer, but gave him a brief nod before making his return to Ike and probably his certain loss at a game. Chad wondered if he had done more harm than good with his meddling, shrugged, and headed in the opposite direction—before he met Lugh rounding the corner of the house.

"You look excited. What's going on?"

"Lleu's going to show the children a bit of elder magic! I thought the others might like to join us."

He could see the tome tucked underneath Lugh's arm and, though he wasn't exactly familiar with matters of magic, it didn't look like an elder tome.

He knew what was coming. Against his best sensibilities, he went the other way while his friend gamely proceeded to offer a stranger a deadly weapon that he had been trained to wield almost certainly to kill. For instructive purposes.

Their targets were often crude, improvised, and submitted to an array of unbridled abuse. For some of Chad's less satisfactory projects, it was a favored method of disposal.

Today's was a puppet, the godless spawn of a commission that had since fallen through upon the patron's untimely, transparently self-inflicted demise. By the looks of its grotesque, wistfully hollow frown, the abomination seemed amply prepared, almost relieved to join its master. With those empty eyes that have borne witness to countless atrocities—warfare, rejection, betrayal—it silently pleaded for its long-due deliverance, stripped nude of its child-sized mage hood and dignity. They would bring it to God, its maker's maker.

Actually, Chad detested the sight of the thing and had kept it tucked in the furthest corner of the shed until Lugh dragged it out one day and drove Serena to tears with an impromptu performance. Though Chad always felt uneasy about using the human likeness, however gaping and bug-eyed and malformed, for target practice.

Lleu kept the children occupied with their questions, tome in hand. He always seemed encumbered by those books, even now. They were all kind of scrawny for veterans.

Lugh soon joined them with foreigners in tow, but Soren had not received the tome. Probably, hopefully, thankfully, he seemed to decline a demonstration.

The druid readied himself, but did not neglect to state the obvious.

"Keep clear," Lleu said over his shoulder, holding the tome open-faced and flat in his hands.

"Better yet, don't hit us?"

Nonetheless, Chad took care to station the children a good length behind him. He couldn't take magical blows as cleanly as Lugh, but he figured he had more experience with it than most of the orphans. Despite his efforts, Corbin stood too close to the druid for comfort.

Lugh waited behind him, breathless with anticipation. From the start, Chad knew he'd be treated to a running commentary.

First, the chanting. Lleu projected his voice, most likely for the student's benefit, but he also gave it a dramatic flair that Chad had never witnessed on the battlefield. He jutted out his chest, enunciating the words with vigor and purpose—he attempted a weighty, grave effect, but it only sounded as ridiculous as he looked.

But then a drone joined it, so low and close to imperceptible that Chad first mistook it for the ringing he'd occasionally hear in his inner ear. He could certainly feel the vibrations, rattling in his brain and behind his eyes and through his teeth. It underlaid Lleu's chanting, clinging to his words like a second voice, and that is where it became frightening.

He is gathering the will, the energy, Lugh babbled excitedly, or something vaguely to that effect—Chad didn't care. It was a hideous sight.

Lugh continued to cheerfully detail the process as it unfolded.

His shoulders convulsed, as though shaken from the inside-out. It is entering him! His eyes squeezed shut, snapped open—his teeth gritted, his eyes blank and sightless like those of a corpse. Now he is wrestling with the forces of darkness as they threaten to feast on his consciousness like wolves to a stumbling fawn! This is exciting! Tendrils of smoke twisted, snapped off his hand as he flexed the joints. Shadows are emanating from his form, weaving through his pores like sparks along a blackened, smoking corpse in the wake of a well-aimed thunder spell…

Chad spun on Lugh. "What?"

The mage was too absorbed in Lleu's conjuring to answer; the druid threw his arm towards the target, pointing at it as though in accusation. It shuddered, distorted behind a lens of shadow, and jerkily rose as he lifted his hand. It writhed and Lleu's chest jerked, and Chad he's releasing it! Like a strip of paper submerged in water, it twisted and dissipated and it made a noise, like the sound bending all around them, or an unearthly, metallic cry ripping from the puppet's nonexistent throat as its father took small pleasures in its horrific death.

Lleu's shoulders fell as the darkness folded into itself. In its wake, it left what appeared to be sawdust sprinkled over the ground.

When the buzzing ceased, the ensuing silence felt strangely empty and lacking. Then Lleu doubled over with hacks, bracing himself with his knees.

"Stunning! Marvelous!" Lugh applauded him as he coughed out whatever poison the darkness had burrowed into his chest. It must have been some time since his last casting.

The children all fixed their eyes to where the puppet once sat, folded over in resignation to its sentence.

"Is that practical on the battlefield?" said Ila. "Does that leave you vulnerable during the, uh, accretion?"

"If you're—" Lleu cleared the roughness from his throat and started again. "If you're out on the battlefield, you're not going to be spellcasting out in the open; realistically speaking, that episode would really only be serviceable for breaking up tight form—"

"What does that do to people?" Serena interrupted him; she had asked the question on all of their minds, but she lacked the nerve to hold it in.

That's when they determined it best to move onto the next demonstration. Corbin was upon Lleu immediately, his mouth fixed in a tight, uncertain smile.

"That was really amazing," he laughed, and it sounded nervous and admiring all at once. "It's, uh, different. It's not weak."

Chad could've sworn he saw a flash of concern cross Lleu's face.

"Yeah. That's what some people find very attractive about it."

"If that's true, I don't know why it's so less popular than the other kinds."

"It's hard," Lleu said with a grin. "It's difficult to master. Plus, it can look downright frightening. There's a lot more to it, but I think an anima mage might want to bat some leaves around for us before I go into another lecture."

Chad could tell he was struggling to mask his disdain for the foreigner. Corbin seemed more disinterested in them than anything else, compared to the other children. Chad stepped up between them, putting a hand on Corbin's shoulder—which he shrunk away from—and nodded to the remains of the puppet.

"Is that good to touch?"

"Completely safe," said Lleu. "Scatter it around the garden and an orchard'll pop up."

"Uh-huh. I guess I should dig something out of the shed for next time."

"Right—next time." Lleu took a step forward. "For now, that won't be necessary."

He indicated over to the mages standing side by side behind him, and Chad could've swore Lugh clutched the tome a little tighter.

"Elimine forbid any such misfortune befall them, but I think it would behoove the students to observe the resistance of a magical blow… from one practitioner to another."

His eyes hardened over Soren and his tone curdled. He sounded far too much like Edgar.

"Oh. Oh no, I don't think we're doing this." Chad jostled himself between the two, unconsciously separating them.

"I agree that it isn't necessary," Lugh added with a pleading smile. "I could never even aim a spell in your direction, and Soren hasn't shown any—"

"I can."

Lugh started, as though a ghost had just slunk up and tapped him from behind. He turned to Soren.

"I'm sorry?"

"It is… not kill." Soren glanced at Lleu. "Sudesho-tujukuga nakite, ah…"

"Yeah, it's a basic tome, is what he's trying to say." Lleu smirked knowingly. "Fine for a friendly demonstration."

Their eyes met, and Lugh reluctantly transferred the tome to Soren's hands. His fingers curled over the edge with what Chad read as possessiveness, and he opened it to examine the contents.

"Good?" said Lleu.

"Yes."

With a small, sly nod to Chad—which he returned with a scoff—Lleu strode, tall and proud, into the center of the lawn, a foot on the dissipated wooden remains.

"Though the destructive potential is lesser, I advise everyone keep a safe distance from the caster, as the force of the recoil might propel him backwards and bump some elbows. Now…"

He flashed Chad a grin large enough to see from a distance. He was putting on airs.

"There's no 'correct' way to go about this, but generally if you are in a fight against a mage, you would try to keep your vitals out of the direct line of impact, like thus—while it presents the risk of injury to my shoulder and side, casting necessitates little more than a mind and a voice. Knights may value their sword and shield arms, but we are vastly more versatile."

Spoken like a true educator.

Soren had said nothing yet, but when Chad checked back at him from the side, something in his eyes struck him.

It was the first time he could describe him as seeming "relaxed", but in a cool, assured way. Like the feel of the page beneath his fingers soothed him. Maybe it was the familiarity, like Chad felt with the grip of the brush or chisel. Or hilt. It almost alarmed him. When he looked back to Lleu, he saw the realization dawn as slowly as the rising, stricken sun.

"Imagine yourself pushing outwards, as though forming an invisible barri-"

His shriek was swallowed by a roar, and his cringing form by a twisting, icy gust, buffeting Chad's hair and eyes and forcing him to turn his face away. Lleu was sent hurling onto the grass and rolled onto his side, the wind shaking a ripple through the treeline. Soren's strands of Sacaen-esque hair fell back to his shoulders, frayed and askew.

Chad heard an "Oh my God!" from a child and a hush from another, and Lugh was kneeling by his brother's side before Chad could wheel on the students and quiet them with a box to the ears. Corbin had his eyes on Soren and looked about ready to flee, or kiss his boots or something. Corbin was hard to read, though Chad wasn't as good at reading people as Lugh in general.

Lugh came back with Lleu slung over his shoulder, but the druid wrenched away from him once he could make out his onlookers' expressions. His cheek and lip were sliced open, the cuts clean and shallow. Though Chad didn't touch him, he felt a chill emit from his skin.

"Drat," Lleu said tersely, but his eyes were saying something else.

Chad mustered up a smile and said, "You hurt?"

"Been worse," Lleu muttered, and then, in his louder, scholarly voice, "Incantations for wind magic typically run shorter than that of other spells, which leads to quicker and more frequent casting. Its effects, in turn, are comparatively less damaging—shoving, superficial cuts, maybe a little chilliness at worst."

He left a gap for the audience's laughter, which they filled with horrified silence.

"Having said that, I must stress that this is magic," he continued, "and it can easily kill a man without sufficient training—even in the hands of a relatively unskilled caster." His eyes trained over Soren. "What's that face?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you! Do you have anything to add, dog?"

What did he call him? It sounded forced, almost, like Lleu was playing the part of the scornful noble in some tired Etrurian tragedy and failing horribly.

Soren's eyes fell on the tome, and he closed it.

"It is weak magic."

Then he took a step forward, book in hand, and Lleu nearly stumbled back. Soren held it at arm's length, and after a breathless beat of uncertainty, Lleu snatched it away.

"I'll get a staff." Lugh broke the silence.

"No, I got it," Chad said, pulling the druid aside. "It's nothing big, and you ought to get back to class."

By that, he meant "we had better diffuse this situation before the children get too excited". Lugh appeared to understand.

"I'll join you in a bit," Lleu added, with a weak, bitter smile.

They watched them retreat to the schoolhouse together, foreigners in tow. Unsurprisingly, Igor and his sister had taken to watching on the periphery of the building; Chad could understand the fascination. He waited for them to clear from the area before turning back to the druid.

"Kids are gone now. You alright?" Chad repeated. This time, Lleu's shoulders fell, and his head tipped against his hand. He felt along the rivulet of blood as they started back to the house.

"I only have one face, and this guy's fucking it up," he muttered.

"I'm not worried about your face. Women love battle-scars. Too bad those are practically nicks."

"They sting like shit, in any case."

Chad fell back behind Lleu as they stepped onto the porch, examining the wet stain running down the length of his robe from where it ground against the grass.

"Sweet Elimine on a goddamn oak stump, Lleu."

"What is it?" He whirled back around, his sweat-moistened skin pale against the red heat of the scratches.

"You're like a green skunk."

This rightfully annoyed him, but Chad laughed anyway, and drew him into the front room.

"Go sit and I'll grab you a rag."

"You're all acting like I've been impaled by a frozen tornado or something. It's ridiculous."

Chad stopped midway towards the kitchen, wiping the sweat off the nape of his neck.

"Yeah, I guess we are. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," Lleu mumbled. "I was just caught off guard. By the attack, I mean, not the…just, don't worry. I'm alright."

"It surprised me too," Chad said with a shrug, finding a washcloth in the kitchen and wringing it over a bucket of water. "I was looking at him, then listening to you, and it all…hit, all of the sudden. I would've said something if I saw it coming."

"He was obviously trying to sneak one in." Lleu leaned into the back of the sofa, his back tight and drawn with indignation. "I mean, he'd have probably killed me if he could."

"Well, come on."

"What?"

"I think it was a cheap shot, but I've taken plenty hits from mages, your brother included. I'd probably get torn up a bit, but that wouldn't have been able to incapacitate, let alone kill me."

Before Lleu had a chance to argue, a forceful, persistent series of tapping choked his protests.

Chad knew that knocking all too well.

"Ah, shit. Stay there, alright?" He took one step towards the door, balked, and rushed the washcloth back to Lleu. "Clean your face," he whispered, before attending to the newcomer, growing louder and increasingly more agitated with each pound.

He swung the door open, and beneath its frame stood the full, perfumed, oiled-haired, embroidered-clothed image of their benefactor, leering at Chad in his languid, faintly disdainful way.

"What took you so long?" Edgar sneered without fanfare.

"Sorry. My hands were full."

"Full of what."

"Cleaning supplies. Couldn't just drop everything in the middle of the floor."

Edgar considered him for a moment, with those deep antique fuchsia bouquet eyes. Then he said, "You clean this place?"

Chad imagined that delicate, slender, tip-tilted nose crunching beneath his fist, one knuckle at a time as it slowly and painfully cracked, and he replied with a passionless laugh.

"Is there anything I can get you before—" He looked back and saw Lleu twisting his torso so that he could watch the visitor from over the back of the sofa, pressing a cool rag to his bleeding cheek. Too late: Edgar jostled past him.

"Lugh?" Chad thought he saw Lleu visibly cringe. It was the most strident, ear-mutilating voice known to man, dragon, and God, overly-sweet when it suited Edgar and startlingly shrill when it didn't. "What on earth happened to you? Are you bleeding? You look—" He halted just halfway across the room. "I must say, those new robes look rather drab on you, and scarcely new at all. Has there been a death in the orphanage? It certainly smells as though there has been."

"Sir Edgar," Chad said.

"What is it!"

Edgar faced him impatiently, as though to strike him out of exasperation.

"This is Lugh's brother, Lleu."

"Oh." He regarded Lleu once more. "The druid. How silly of me."

His expression scrunched into something more severe and restrained.

"He neglected to specify that you were his twin, or am I mistaken?"

"We're twins. Yes." After a terse pause, Lleu added, "I'm sure he's neglected to mention a lot about me."

That's when Chad knew to step in.

"Lleu's gotten a little cut up over a demonstration today," he said. "Took a hit from a wind spell."

"Oh?" He eyed Lleu again, who fell obediently silent. "I may be of some assistance. You know, my mother served on the front lines as a healer as well as a fighter in Lord Eliwood of Pherae's campaign against Bern and that cabalistic band of worms—"

"Yes, sir, he's been told," said Chad, although this was a lie.

"It is to her that I owe my inborn pulchritude as well as my bottomless, gilded vessel of generosity from which you imbibe. Why, if it were not for her urgings, I would not even be here."

"Yes."

"Against my fellow Etrurians, the Lycian patriciate here are hardly a fashionable lot. And such dismal theater! Hundreds of playwrights scrambling to pen the one true portrayal of Lord Eliwood's endeavors, of that legendary, tactical brilliance, and not a one manages to capture the enchantment and turmoil of my parents' blossoming rom—"

"Yes." Chad realized how he had begun to sound like Soren, and cut Edgar short there. "Lleu prefers to treat his own minor, personal wounds, but we're grateful for the offer. In the meantime, Lugh and the students are currently in the schoolhouse, as well as two other guests. I think he would like to see you."

"Two other guests?"

"Friends of Lleu," Chad lied.

"Druids as well?"

"A mage," said Lleu, shooting Chad a grimace. "The other one does not wield any sort of magic."

"I see." The mention of a mage seemed to rouse Edgar's attention. "I'll leave you to your…efforts, then. I will see you shortly," he said with a nod to Chad, before taking a dainty, affectedly whimsical step towards the door.

It nearly caught the flowing, silver-fringed hem of his cape on the way out, but Edgar managed to clear without such lowly hindrances. Lleu fell quiet, fixated on the door, and said nothing until he and Chad met eyes.

"Holy shit."

"No, shut up while I get you a staff." Chad looked down from his dumbfounded, fiendishly gleeful grin and passed him on the way to the storage closet beneath the stairs.

"You weren't joking."

"Lleu, please."

"That voice is piercing enough to impale an adult human male."

"Just—"

"In full plate armor!"

"He could have been eavesdropping at the door, you idiot."

"And his hair looks so appetizing."

Chad paused with his fingers on the handle of the door.

"I…I think it's a point of pride to them," he said. He braced for an avalanche of cleaning tools as he pulled the door open, but he was only met by a faint must and the sight of a thick-legged spider scuttling down the length of a rod.

"Uh, the more little prongs around the stone, the better, right?"

"Are you serious? Just get me a basic staff."

Chad shrugged and picked up the one that the spider had crawled over, watching it lowering itself off the bottom as he carried the staff to Lleu.

"Thanks." He grabbed it, held it straight, and leaned in, resting his cheek against the stone. Eyes closed, he muttered, "You sent that guy to the barbarians."

Chad ignored him.

"So that was Edgar," he said. "Here's my problem. Assuming you don't intend to run off with that reward money."

"I don't even know how much I'm getting," Lleu sneered, lifting his head. "She said it's gonna be negotiable. 'Had to fish them out of rapids full of flaming debris, that'll be one-hundred-thousand'."

"Assuming it's something reasonably generous, then: Lugh would probably rather you stay here. That's no secret. Hell, you'd probably prefer to stay, and I…uh, anyway, it's up to you. I know people who'd kill for an offer like General Cecilia's, so that's not an issue. It'd just leave me with a conflict of interests."

Lleu set the rod flat along the ground. He was listening.

"Every time I see Edgar…" Chad began. "I feel this overwhelming urge to prowl up to him, and take him by both shoulders, and run my fingers down the exquisite silk of his cape, imported fresh from the Western Isles; I want to softly inhale the oakmoss and labdanum of his sickeningly strong and sensually complex perfume."

"Wait, Chad?"

"I want to back him up against the wall, so close that I can smell the goddamn sprig of mint on his breath. I want him to look me in the eye; I don't want him looking at me or over me or through me like he always does, like I'm worth less than dirt, but in me."

"What the hell."

"Then I want to study the twitch of anticipation on his flawless brow before I knock his goddamn skull back so hard that there's a dent in the wall. And if that happens, that probably means we lose a valuable benefactor."

He took a seat next to Lleu, who shrank away.

"Compared to what Father Lucius had to put up with," he continued, "we live in relative comfort. We're not hungry. Winters can be rough, but we pull through. Plus, we've got a much better-behaved lot."

Lleu did not laugh.

"And we don't have to care for them on our own, like he did. I mean, aside from his friend, it must've been lonely for an adult out here, don't you think? Lugh and I put our full weights into this operation. I bet it's ridiculously easier on us."

"I don't understand what you're getting at."

"Just taking the pressure off you. We don't have it nearly as bad. Hell, I bet the Father would've loved someone like Edgar ordering him around like a slave-driver. This is something Lugh would say, but you're not under any obligation aside from the familial crap you hold yourself up to. Basically, I can't afford to inflict physical violence on a benefactor; I'm content with that, and you should be too."

Lleu paused and seemed to consider this, his brow furrowing.

"Alright; if you say so."

"'Alright'? For once I tear my stone-cold, hardened heart open and give you a glimpse inside, and that's all you can say?"

It had been meant in jest, but Lleu still did not smile. He waited for an answer of any sort, mostly derision. Lleu stared at the blackened, empty fireplace as the foreigners had done the other day.

At length, Chad said, "I should probably make sure Edgar isn't taking a switch to Serena for flinching."

"I'll go with you."

Lleu stood with an eagerness that his listlessness belied and reached down to help Chad to his feet. He groaned and allowed himself to be led out the door.

Though no one had gone looking, Father Reuben had finally been found that night—a heap of fur and flesh against the side of the shed, sleeping beneath the tall, yellowed weeds. Except when Chad knelt down to rouse him, he knew that something was amiss when he failed to react to his presence.

And when he reached down to nudge him and the cat stiffly rolled, yielding and warmthless as a log, it left no room for doubt.

It had been odd to see the foreigners listening in the back of the room as he broke the news to the children, tried to bring them to terms with it. He was old. Animals grow old quicker than we do. It's sad, but it's God's plan.

It's unfair, someone had cried. It could have been over anything: their poverty, their parents' absence, the cruel changes in weather. These were all God's plan too.

"Told you they'd be trouble," Lleu said that night, while his brother consoled the children and put them to bed. There had been no previous mention of "they", but the word had come to take on a specific meaning when Lleu used it.

"That's paranoid and idiotic. If you paid me to think of a reason for a couple of guests to leave a dead cat in their host's yard, I couldn't do it."

"Soren kept making a face at it. Probably looked at him the wrong way."

"I think that's his normal face," Chad said, leaning his back against the headboard of his bed. "And I don't know, I haven't spent so much time confined to the open wilderness with them, but they don't seem all that vicious."

Lleu snorted. That was always a weird habit of his. Chad wondered if he realized how unattractive it was.

"Particularly vicious or not, dogs are dogs."

"You know, I'd think you and Edgar would get along, for all the dramatics."

"Oh God."

"You're gonna see him a lot more now. He kept his mouth shut today, but I can tell when he's interested in something, and he was interested in your little friends."

"Yeah. I'm not excited about it." Lleu turned his back to him, flat on the bed and facing the wall. "Goddamn Etrurians."

"They can be annoying, but they're not all that bad."

Lugh soon returned and informed them that the children had been put to bed. He sounded tired and probably would have cried if he had no example to set. When he settled into bed next to Lleu, the druid apologized—for nothing in particular, or maybe for everything. Chad felt like he was intruding on an intimate confession somehow, though no words were exchanged afterwards.

Even long after their breathing leveled and their restless shifting ceased, Chad strained his ears and listened for sounds in the floor below. He could hear the door to his den open, then shut soon after. Soon after, he heard a faint scratching noise; probably the house settling. Or rats.

...

I know I've fallen into a bit of a pattern here (endless exposition, 5-8k-word chapters erratically bouncing from one Elibean perspective to the next) buuut just a heads up, it's probably going to change soon, e.g. shorter, more frequent chapters, more consistent setting(s), etc. Hopefully it won't be too jarring!

Also this might be in bad taste and unnecessary at best but whatever, while I love reviews, criticisms, complaints with the story, etc (seriously I'll openly admit that they make me super smiley and bashful like an idiot, even if they're complaining about the lack of gratuitous mansex), the review page ain't for personal gripes, as much as it pains me to say. I will readily bare my eager flesh to a sharp, well-deserved verbal flogging, but keep it to PMs. THANKS LOVE YOU GUYS HAPPY possibly belated LEFT HANDERS DAY (southpaw supremacy)