Wakfu and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.
Spoilers ahoy!

AN- When I rewatched the show recently, I thought there were some weird parallels going on between Adamaï and Armand. Since there's an entire chunk of time where Adamaï is just chilling in the Sadida Kingdom before the Council of Twelve, there's all kinds of potential for exploration of his stay there which, from what we see in the show, is...less than stellar for his tastes.

Title is a play on the Brotherhood of the Forgotten, which Adamaï ends up joining for professed reasons of feeling like Yugo always chooses others over Adamaï's priorities and himself and as early as the opener of season 2, we get signs of him feeling frustration over getting left behind out of adventures.

Not beta read

The last thing Adamaï wanted to see after a long meeting with the King, Master Joris, and too many annoying advisors, was Prince Armand waiting in his temporary chambers with a small black reptilian spitfire trying to dismember the tanned hand gripping its nape.

Grougal may not be a massive adult dragon, but he certainly did try to do as much damage as an adult could have on every angry hand and unlucky stable he stumbled across. It was a source of frustration for Adamaï. Despite instructing the infant to stay away from dragoturkey stables or Qilby for his own good, Grougal did as he wanted. It was irritating. Adamaï had to wonder if he was this bratty as a child for Grougaloragran. When it came down to it, however, he couldn't stay mad at his little dragon brother.

People like Armand were different stories in that regard.

The Prince was tapping his foot impatiently against the floor, face twitching with every successful claw or bite attacking his wrist. Adamaï could tell what was coming. He'd heard it before too many times. Too many times on Grougal's part for continuing to stir up trouble, too many times Armand gave an angry spiel about how Adamaï was failing to keep the new dragon under control (and if he wouldn't manage a single dragon infant, how could he handle an entire kingdom's worth of people? He heard that question directed behind his back or to his face. He heard it too many times.)

And it was him, just him, to hear it. Qilby and Alibert helped shoulder all the comments and the responsibility of taking care of Grougal and Chibi, but they weren't the ones here in these quarters right now. Adamaï had those two adults helping him and who else? His brother? His brotherhood? They didn't hear any of the complaints leveled against the Eliatrope and Dragon people by advisors and royals and politicians. Qilby told stories of past lives and painted pictures of past Yugos and Adamaïs being adventurers. Some life this current one was, trapped babysitting and stuck in thankless, speedless bureaucracy. He would rather be out flying around to explore and adventure, like he did in the stories Qilby told. Not hearing people tell him to do more and more as he couldn't do enough to satisfy them.

It bubbled up in that way. A culmination of exhaustion over that day's meeting (and stupidity and ignorance and the way no one understood this mattered and needed speed rather than procrastination) and a resentfulness he didn't often humor (what sort of hero was resentful? None of the stories ever said it was a trait that heroes had, so they either hid it or did, in fact, not experience much resenting). Adamaï didn't mean to snap at him. He hadn't expected to. But when Armand began his angry, superfluous tirade about keeping Grougal leashed, Adamaï could practically hear the strings of his patience (his pride, his esteem, his shielding against all the stress building up and up) snap apart.

The Sadida Prince was a stranger to insults. He didn't hear such from his father (he didn't hear much of anything really, whether praise or reprimand), he would never allow it from his advisors or bodyguards, he had almost killed a stranger just for feeling insulted by an unintentional Tristepin. Every Sadida except the King and his sister treated him as glass for their own safety, not wanting to risk the lengths he'd go to in order to avenge hurt pride. And with that, an insult could be anything. He could take a wrong look as insult.

Or take someone lashing out at him as an insult to the royal rank he thought meant so much.

Prince Armand, center of the universe. Hah. The more he built himself up, the more Adamaï could see the plain facts that no one else did. A hair trigger temper and far too easily insulted ego left the Prince unbearable to anyone. So he came here to get some kicks by telling Adamaï that he wasn't doing a good enough job with (anything, everything) Grougal?

No.

Prince Armand may think it, but he was not the epicenter of the world. And Adamaï was among the last dragons: he was part of an immortal race of alien spacefarers who'd paved the way for so much of the magic in the World of Twelve from Qilby's stories. He wasn't going to hear disrespect time and time again from all these people who couldn't accept that he was trying to help secure his people a place. Yugo didn't have to hear all this, so why should he have to stand by and take it either?

Adamaï had never been good at staying quiet or passive. Qilby seemed to be amused at it when the two of them did their incidents of diplomacy. He'd looked through his tiny little spectacles at him with eyes that, while tired and bemused and so much more calm than his own, also read like he agreed with the more fiery attitude of his far younger brother: this was a waste of valuable time. The more time they spent in their Sadida apartments (hardly a fitting place for an infant dragon, but Grougal couldn't be taken elsewhere until they'd finished securing a kingdom) talking nice with advisors, the more time the Eliatrope people had to remain in stasis. Still, whether he sympathized with the sentiment or not, Qilby still took the lead more often than not so that he could appease while Adamaï stayed quiet instead of yelling at any potential help.

He didn't get to go on quests so that he could instead run this interference on the diplomatic side of things, and he didn't even get to play much of a role in that because Qilby alone could speak while he was confused at why most of these processes took so long in the first place.

There was barely a reason he couldn't have gone with Yugo at this point. Grougal didn't belong in Sadida anymore than he and Chibi would've on a quest. That erased one half of the entire reasoning for him remaining here.

Part of him questioned why Yugo hadn't considered that and invited him along with the rest of the Brotherhood of Tofu.

(He was still a part of it, wasn't he?)

(There was more anxiety in the thought than he'd have liked)

Armand was bringing out the sort of questions he tried to ignore. That alone just made Adamaï's retort fiercer.

He could see how unexpected it was to hear in the way that Armand stepped back, in how his face twitched, in how clear and dangerous the expression of offense flickering there was (he hadn't been there for the duel between the Prince and Tristepin, but he'd heard the stories- he'd heard enough-. Armand was dangerously unstable and treated with caution by those around him because of that; yet the part of Adamaï equally as bristling was fine prodding that bear when his own pride was on the line, his own self on the offensive in response to being offended). It was poking a dragon, to use the phrase (hah, the only dragon here was him; if Armand wanted a fight, Adamaï would do better than Tristepin once had). Adamaï didn't care. He wasn't one for nuance. Nor subtlety or waiting or playing nice for those whose egos were made of glass. It made him a poor diplomat. Grougaloragran had never taught him those finer arts of interactions and how to say only what was socially acceptable.

The reincarnation of his deceased mentor was dropped into the air now. Armand's hand had a tremor where it now sat in the air, flexed open. It was that rage, barely contained. The same rage the others spoke of, the very same that had led to their brotherhood disbanding right before Nox's arrival. It was contained.

Grougal flipped right-side up in the air and spat a puff of fire at the man who had been restraining him, before shooting away airborne to Chibi's room. Right. It had been Grougal that this was all about. It had been the little terror getting into more dragoturkeys yet again. It hadn't been about him. It hadn't been about how he was so ill fit for the current situation and felt abandoned for it, just like when the rest ran off to save Tristepin from Rubilax months earlier.

Sometime, someday, he'd like it to be about him.

He didn't want to feel forgotten, didn't want to be left to the boring work no one else wanted, didn't want to feel like his friends and family chose their own priorities and comforts over himself.

Armand remained standing there with a frown a few seconds longer than most would have. But the Prince knew better than to do something like lash out when that would bemet with ramifications from the King and others (when it was just some of his sister's friends, who could talk down a Prince for his behaviors? but when it was the official spokesperson of the Dragons and Eliatropes, there would be clear consequences). So, with an apology to Master Dragon (a title spoken through clear remnants of anger at the perception of insult, but one the Prince spoke anyways) (he stood on circumstance, titles, enforced a pecking order even if it meant acknowledging a rank above his own as a Prince), the older man left.

He returned not a day later.

And the next.

This wasn't unexpected per se. Both Oakhart and Armand were a daily fixture in his life at the Sadida palace. The majority of time with the latter was some sort of positive interaction wherein both tolerated each other or else it was Armand telling him Grougal needed to go. Grougaloragran had raised him without ever once considering him too much of a 'pain' and throwing him to some other person. Adamaï wouldn't even consider doing that to the black dragon's new life.

Which, granted, wasn't what Armand was suggesting. No, he knew Adamaï and Grougal went together.

He thought neither belonged in Sadida.

In that, the two agreed.

When he wasn't making Adamaï feel demeaned over his handling of the smaller dragon, Armand was perfectly acceptable. He and Yugo hadn't been present for the fiasco that was the group's first meeting with the Prince and so there were less bad associations tied with them. They could be civil. As long as neither were in a bad mood, they would be civil enough.

So when Armand would hint at how none of the inhabitants of this rented apartment belonged permanently in Sadida, the dragon could agree rather than bite in offense.

You know, it's not like I'll be here forever, Adamaï had said. It hadn't been outright prompted, but that was just because Armand played the tricky little game called royal subtlety. He rarely just outright said his point in the first place. It was always layered.

Either way, the Prince gave it a nod. There was still a skepticism to it.

Yugo and the others will be done sooner or later.

Ah, seemed to be the answer Armand gave. Will they?

It was then that Adamaï realized the Prince had caught on to the brotherhood's adventuring habits as well as he had. They set off for what was time sensitive, but if souvenirs sent back by Amalia were anything to go by, were they rushing? Were they really?

(Armand, ironically, seemed to be the reason such souvenirs were even sent back. Amalia had them labeled to both her father and brother, which had surprised Adamaï [it felt more likely she'd only give them to her father, considering what he'd seen of her and Armand] up until he overheard that it was the brother who saw them with the most excitement. They were signs of life, health, well being, as well as signs of successes, excitement, happiness, all things he was glad his sister had, all things he was envious of her having. He kept them in his own apartment, as Adamaï found whenever he or Qilby had a need to enter. They sat on shelves even with the duality of bitterness in words spoken on his sister. It was a strange sort of contradiction. Armand was a strange man.)

As it turned out, the Sadida didn't feel that the party out venturing was rushing in any way. He thought it could hardly take this amount of time to retrieve a Dofus. Adamaï didn't know about that, but the general sentiment of impatience was relatable.

Now, the older of the two sat in Adamaï and Alibert's apartment, currently eating food made by the Enutrof without a current sign of anger. Tense, yes. But it was a tension only noticed by his sharper senses. Armand himself may not even have known he was tensing.

A few feet away, Adamaï lay flat as he could with a tail on the couch of his apartment, tossing a ball upwards and catching it. It was monotonous.

The majority of these weeks were. He'd think having Qilby around to tell stories that even Grougaloragran hadn't remembered (granted, the old dragon's memory had been self admittedly foggy) would keep him too distracted with tales of his people to think about anything, let alone be bored. He'd been wrong with that assumption, evidently.

So they were both here, bored, living in the monotony their siblings left them in.

Hence the complaining.

On Armand's part, it was all of what Adamaï had started to suspect. A contradiction between genuine happiness in his sister's success in her chosen path of life (maybe relief she was gone) (maybe they both found it easier to care about the other when neither were actually in proximity) and upset. In the attention she got, even while absent? Maybe. He thought himself important and yet it was she who seemed more a worldwide name at a much younger age. He'd done everything right, followed every proper expectation for a royal, taken the throne even in moments of his father's absence, and what had he to show?

He'd say his own opinion on Amalia anytime prompted. He'd give his piece and then, if worn down, give his other piece (layers and layers, flayed back) on how he felt about her and her quests themselves.

It was supposed to do her good. She'd been suffocated since mother's death, she needed this chance to get away from how congestively close father had been holding her.

And, in a way, it'd worked.

The younger Sadida had blossomed out there.

So much so that she clearly didn't want to return. She didn't want her responsibilities when instead she could be taking on Sadida itself's responsibilities in restoring old trees from sickness, discovering the threat posed by a mad Xelor, even becoming the host to Sadida to try to keep Nox from the Tree of Life. Clearly, she felt meant for more, for grandiosity, rather than doing Sadida's work in the kingdom itself.

Adamaï heard something familiar in Armand's passive aggressive tone. The Prince was- behind the attempts at sounding older, more mature, merely frustrated at her immaturity- jealous.

A firstborn that did everything expected of him and more in order to help the kingdom, playing in the shadow of a sibling that did more. That seemed to be chosen to live the carefree style of an adventurer and finish quests with world changing life saving results.

It wasn't right to have all this birthright, all this training and experience, all this work put into helping his people along only for that to feel worthless in the face of greater feats.

He didn't even know that Armand said it.

He didn't even know that he was thinking it in terms of Armand's thoughts anymore either.

But it wasn't really his thoughts, no. (Was it?) He wasn't forgotten. Yugo appreciated him staying here to watch Chibi and Grougal and secure their new home. Appreciation meant thought. To be forgotten was absence of being thought of. That couldn't be him.

Yugo said he'd had no time to call for Adamaï when Eva's recall arrow took them to Rubilaxia. That meant he'd thought of his brother before realizing there was nothing to do but leave (abandon, forget) him. Yugo was his best friend. Certainly, Yugo knew this likewise and thought first before ever doing something that could hurt him.

He was hardly Armand, after all. He didn't have an ego that left some from being considered real other people and thus open for being hurt without remorse; he didn't have rage, contained or not, coolly kept under the surface unable to bubble forth; he didn't have a need to prove worth to family that forgot everything he did for their benefit. It made sense for Amalia to avoid Armand. The man was a time bomb ready to lash out. There was reason to it. None of Adamaï's family had a reason to ignore him.

(he was newer, he'd met them late after they already knew one another, he didn't meld with the rest, he was odd looking, he was abrasive, he said things social people knew not to because they weren't raised on an island, but this was superficial, superficial, blood was stronger than superficial, right?)

So it was recognized equally. At least to a degree. Adamaï didn't mind someone knowing him better, even if it was for the more negative. He wanted people to understand him. It'd help him get his own points across.

(It'd help him and his values be chosen over others)

"Not that any of this will matter," Armand gave a smirk (there was a threat to it; as though he knew better, and yet as though he wanted to make it, demand it, threaten it, to be true) (there was an exhaustion to it; as though he knew there was nothing more to do or be expected, as though he was resigned to history repeating). "When they return, the rest of you can leave for your own business. Unless...they've been waylaid? Another need has already arisen for them to deal with? Another way the world needs to be saved?"

It felt like sarcasm. It was bitter. There was too much of that here. Adamaï wanted to just have the option to up and leave. Be proactive. Get away from where he'd never do enough right for diplomats or stablehands and Qilby and him were useless.

Not that he disliked Armand. Not like the rest of the group had reason to. He hadn't been there for those reasons. He wasn't there for many of their experiences, it seemed. Besides, at this point, he had an understanding for the Prince. That didn't make him likeable. If anything, he just knew more now with proximity that the man had problems, problems with envy and anger and such neuroticism that he'd near-murder someone to defend unreal prides. But he also saw those souvenirs from Amalia sitting in his room and saw the way he took his frustrations out on everyone around him, Adamaï and Grougal included, and thought of how he had a similar habit of getting fiery with those nearby when he was feeling hurt. It wasn't dislike, it wasn't quite liking, but it was understanding that at least went one way on his end.

He could show that too.

Show that he did want away from the environment Sadida currently posed for him (draining him) just like Armand wanted him gone. Show that he wanted the brotherhood to return so that he could leave with Yugo just like Armand would have his sister back again.

Show that he saw them for the brothers that seemed cast to the shadows of their siblings.

Even if he didn't want to think it was being done purposefully by his friends, regardless if it absolutely was on Amalia's end towards her brother.

"Yugo is hurrying. I know he's hurrying."

Adamaï's mouth curled down into the slightest of frustrated snarls.

"He'd better be."

AN- Thank you for reading!