On a road outside of the Imperial City, 5th of Last Seed 4 E 203

Bogdan was looking through the window, with his forehead bouncing against the glass at times when the carriage hit a particularly big stone on the road. The man did not grimace and just continued to stare out on the scenery they passed as they were leaving the Imperial City.

The armies of Skyrim, Hammerfell and High Rock had been positioned by the bridgehead, and the ground around it had been turned into a brown, sticky mud due to thousands of soldiers setting up camp there, awaiting news from the Thalmor army. Bogdan Goldwine barely remembered the war. It had only lasted a few months, and most of it had been played out in the west. The Thalmor had placed a siege around the Imperial City and gone south-west with the main bulk of their army, expecting to encounter the Northern Alliance army in Valenwood. The Nords, Bretons and Redguards had maneuvered around the elves and attacked the besieging army with full power, thereby putting a quick stop to the war.

Bogdan had been drunk most of the time, though. He had only been affected by the war in one way – it had become more difficult to get hold of substances. This forced him to examine his inventory at the apartment and pockets of trousers he rarely wore. His older brother, on the other hand, appeared to have decided that they were all going to die and that he might as well do the best of it. He had visited friends and prostitutes, reorganised the library at the apartment and sorted pages of plays he had not finished writing.

Neither one of the brothers feared fate those days earlier in the summer, they merely reacted differently to it. Bogdan was mostly annoyed that the blockade of the city caused an alcohol and substance shortage, he barely realised that they were at war and that there was a considerable risk for his life. This behaviour had subconsciously become a sort of a life philosophy for him. He acted as if he could not affect fate and therefore went into the direction life pushed him. Life, in his case, was often Ratibor.

"Brother..." Ratibor said.

Bogdan did not lift his head, here merely moved his eyes so he could see Ratibor's reflection in the glass.

Some argued that Ratibor Goldwine was handsome – those were mostly wrong. He had some good features; his nose was straight and about a third of his face in length, forming a triangle in profile, and curving slightly downwards in a rather manly way. The tip was wide – half the width of the nose, even though the base of it, where his nostrils were, was more to the narrow side. His mouth was wide, and the bottom lip looked as if someone was pulling it down. The chin was rectangular but soft and divided in the middle, but his neck began too close to it. Therefore, it looked like he had a double chin, even though he was nowhere chubby enough to carry one extra. The man wore an earring in his right ear, something that Bogdan found quite silly. He had pierced himself at the age of 16 when traveling to Hammerfell, and had worn a silver ring ever since. It often got stuck in his wavy, black hair, which reached beyond his shoulders by the end of the summer.

Bogdan looked at the dark-haired man's reflection and nodded.

The younger Goldwine brother abhorred the capital, yet it caused him misery to leave it. He saw that it troubled Ratibor too – and he knew why. What he did not understand, however, was why Ratibor was so attached to the books in their library. After all, they were merely the physical form of something eternal and abstract that Bogdan carried with him at all times.

Even though Bogdan understood that Ratibor felt the need to leave the capital and knew the reasons behind it, he did not fully grasp why they were actually doing it. Bogdan saw absolutely no need to follow the path his father had once chosen for him, nor what society expected from him, or even what his close friends recommended. The man was used to the fact that things simply happened to him and that there was little he could say or do to oppose the changes that occurred – and he saw no reason in protesting fate. He was not the kind of man who would lift a finger to affect it in any way. He thought of life as a game where all players were blind, meaning that there was no reason to chose a strategy as the conditions were bound to be wrong.

It did cause him some sort of distress to leave the apartment, though, for it felt like he was being torn from the last place containing Oskander's energy. Ever since their friend's death in what was now Umbranox's chamber, Bogdan's relationship to his brother had been growing increasingly difficult. He loved Ratibor more than words could describe, yet there were elements to him that he simply found intolerable. However, they only had one another, and since Bogdan lived by the idea that it was better to do as little as possible to change fate, life went on without the younger brother ever complaining.

Bogdan was sighing inside his head, and it troubled him. He detested his inability to feel anything. Leaving the memory of Oskander behind should have made him feel like a chapter in his life was coming to an end and that it was time to move on. The problem was that he never moved on or looked back. It was as if someone had been writing the story of him in a book, but then ripped out the pages and misplaced them somewhere.

He knew by watching Ratibor that the man had a rich inner life. He was able to feel emotions, and even though it made him miserable at times, it was better than the void Bogdan was experiencing, the younger brother thought.

"Let's go faster, then," the older brother said. He knocked on the wall of the carriage, and soon, the horses moved faster.

"I thought we could work on Dreams," Ratibor suggested and began to open a bag containing parchment.

The younger brother looked at him with a distant gaze and nodded, before turning his eyes back to the scenery they passed.

"I've come to the dialogue between Armanda and Devius, and was thinking of writing it into the opening of the second act," Ratibor continued as he was opening a bottle of ink.

Bogdan was looking into the horizon, yet he was not ignoring his brother. Ratibor cleared his throat. "I thought it could be like this; she is in her nightgown, preparing for bed.

With a quiet step inside a frozen picture, time pushes through the dark window. I'll sit down on my throne, royally and pompously, and let the brightest dream come.

"She falls asleep, and Devius comes to her foot end and sits down, playing with the feather pen."

But I let it stay in my right to choose nightmares for you – the right to burn in your sleep. Take it away from me if you want! If you fear it, kill it. Everything love gave me... was the right to nightmares.

"And then," Ratibor continued. "He leans in on her."

Time will lit the stars and cover us like a shell. It will kiss us with a dead love's tongue. But under the window, it will walk with the stealthy steps of a cat and bring us the smell of the sweetest dreams.

"What do you think?" he asked with an exited look.

Bogdan nodded. "That's fine."

"That's genius," Ratibor exclaimed. "Very poetic, yet understandable."

Bogdan smiled at Ratibor with a strained grimace and turned away, looking at the road again.

Bogdan Goldwine, born in 4E 180, is the younger son to the Count of Kvatch. He has a difficult relationship to his father, believing it was due to the fact that the brothers' mother, wife of the Count, died giving birth to Bogdan. He began writing novels at a young age, and often hangs around poets, artists and painters.

Ratibor Goldwine, born in 4E 174 is Bogdan's older brother and Heir apparent to Kvatch. He has written a few novels, but is mostly a playwright. His father, being an eccentric by noble measures, lets his heir engage in hobbies, as long as it does not have a negative impact on his future duties.

Oskander was the best friend of Bogdan and Ratibor, and lived with them in the Imperial City for a few years before taking an overdose of substances. His death caused the brothers great misery and affected their working relationship.