Cyas - Gran 766

I prided myself in a few things, quite the sin given my youth. One of them was my ability to keep calm. Another was my patience. Both were important skills Aunt Alicia and Grandfather had taught me, because they were both so desperately needed in healers. And I wanted to be a healer. There was something fascinating and satisfying at being able to knit wounds together and tend to illnesses. The delight of knowing that you could help someone and, even better, succeeding in helping… I loved it. So, I listened to those lessons and did my best to embody them. And so, I prided myself in those skills. However… I had to say that Conall really tried both!

"Wow, Belhalla must have some great stonemasons or whatever the term is," Conall noted as we walked through the courtyard. Somehow or another, my first meeting with Conall turned into me giving him a proper tour of the palace since he'd decided to leave his rooms again. I had assumed that leaving meant he was willing to adapt to life here or… something. "I know it's been five years and all, but I expected to at least see signs of where all the meteors hit. Patches that were newer or something?" However, Conall seemed to take great delight in being as tactless as possible. And saying exactly what he was thinking. "Oh, wait, is that an ash stain over there? Is that where Sigurd stood?"

"I wouldn't know," I replied, doing my best to be patient still. I liked being calm and patient. But I swore he was going to drive me mad! Hard to believe he was Aunt Alicia's son, being like this. Perhaps his father was equally tactless? "I didn't exactly witness it."

"Probably wouldn't have been much fun to witness. Bunch of people screaming as they burned alive or got crushed by rubble." Conall looked up at the sky curiously. I mentally counted to ten. I shouldn't get this riled, but… "I wonder if it snowed."

"Why are you asking so many questions about it?" Patience… patience… "It's clearly not an enjoyable topic."

"I'm trying to picture how Dad died." He said the words easily, but they hit me like ice water. I hadn't even thought… "And what Mom saw that day. The day where the person she trusted most betrayed her. Killed her love. Killed her best friends. Separated her from the people she called family. What was she thinking? What was Dad thinking when he died? Did he even get to see Mom before he died?" He looked back at me, eyes perfectly clear, burning with a quiet fire. A fire that declared it would burn no matter what. It reminded me of the Aunt Alicia I first met, back before… everything. "Aida and Diadora couldn't answer when I asked."

"You asked them?!" And I was right back to losing my temper. "Seriously?!"

"Yes? How else are you supposed to learn?" He tilted his head curiously. "It's not like I can pick up a book and read it. Unless Mom happened to write everything down, but I doubt it."

"It… did it not occur to you that such things might be painful to ask them?" I couldn't keep from asking. I really couldn't. "I mean…"

"Isn't it normal to hurt?"

"No!" I surprised myself with the amount of force I put into the word. But I couldn't help it. Nor could I tame the passion I put into the rest of my words. "No, it's not normal! That's why healers exist! We ease people's pain! We help them recover!" Though maybe I was just insulted that he'd so casually dismiss… "That's what your mother did! That's what Aunt Alicia did!"

"Did she? I heard she was a healer." Conall was completely unaffected by the tirade, which admittedly made me feel horribly embarrassed. Even more so because I didn't keep calm and I should've. "Oifeye said that was why I associate medicinal herbs with her. Neat."

"That…" Finally, I gave up and growled in frustration. "I do not get you at all!" I glared at him and he seemed startled. Maybe he truly didn't understand. I mean; he was only six. And I had even told Ishtar that we should wait for him, but gods darn it, he was so darn…! "Why did you leave your room if you weren't going to try and adapt?"

"Ishtar." He said it easily. Bluntly and no-nonsense. And it was honestly more of an answer that I expected to get. "She makes me feel like things won't be so bad. Maybe. I mean… I did get kidnapped. By your mom." However, with each word, his tone got dryer and dryer, showing a grasp of sarcasm I didn't remember having at his age. "And I'm in the place where my dad died, in agony because fire hurts. Where Mom lived out her last years in despair, based on what I've heard from others. Away from my twin sister and my family, who could be dead for all I know." In fact, I felt like this was his equivalent of 'yelling'. Maybe. At least with me, it was. "But Ishtar is fun and bright, and raised in this forsaken city that has too much incense like it'll cover the smell of the dead. So, I figured I'd get out and try to learn. Try to understand why they sacrificed Mom and all her friends for a 'better world'. What even is their better world anyway? It's not better for me. So, who is it better for? I don't know. Maybe Ishtar. Maybe their better world is why she's bright." He paused suddenly, breathing heavily. Only now did I see the tears he held back. "So. That's why. I am adapting. Just not in a way you find acceptable. Because, clearly, the burden of having to change is all on me, right? Even though I never wanted to come here, never wanted to be anywhere near here… Ishtar is the only reason why I left that too empty room!"

Conall rushed off then, and I was torn with feeling bad for not being calm and patient with him, because of course he was hurting… and being completely aggravated at him! Even if he was hurting, that was no reason to inflict pain on others! That didn't solve anything! And maybe it was too much to ask of him to understand, because he was six, but seriously…!

"Well, that was quite the tirade, wasn't it?" Of course, most of the anger and frustration was drowned by humiliation when I realized there had been an audience to the argument. And, worse, it was Arvis. Though our actually relationship was a tad… complicated, and I didn't consider him my 'father' (with my grandfather serving as that figure in my life), he was still one of the people I wanted to impress. He was Mother's best friend, after all. "Probably a good thing for him, since it helps get all those thoughts out of his head," Arvis continued, resting a gentle, reassuring hand on my back. "I can't imagine it to have been easy of you, though."

"I just got so tired with his tactlessness…" I mumbled, looking down. Yeah, now I was just ashamed. "And that he was hurting Diadora and Mother… and that he just seemed to dismiss healers…"

"In short, he managed to hit every single one of your nerves. I half-think he did it on purpose, to get a read on you. And then you managed to hit one of his. Or multiple ones, since you got such a long speech out of him." Arvis smiled reassuringly at me. "I don't think you did anything wrong, Cyas. He can't get away with every comment, and if I'm right and he did rile you on purpose, then he needs to learn that isn't a good way to understand people."

"I still should've been calmer. I'm so much older than him…" The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. What was I doing, yelling at a six year old? Like he was supposed to understand anything. Little kids were dumb and learned by exploring. I knew I'd read that in quite a few books. "And more patient. I even told Ishtar that we should be patient because we got more time with Aunt Alicia than him."

"Yet Ishtar ignored you, right? And it seems had a very big impact on Conall." Arvis knelt so that he could look me in the face better. I kept looking down, after all. "Patience and serenity are good for healers, but so is knowing how to adapt to each patient. What works for one patient doesn't work for another."

"...So, I was hypocritical as well…"

"No, you discovered something that had not come up in your lessons and, even better, you saw just why it was important. In a context that didn't mean life or death, as other healers might learn." Arvis continued smiling at me. "No matter how old you like to act, Cyas, you are still a child. You're still learning. Honestly, learning never ends, no matter how old and skilled you are."

"I… think I understand." It was a learning experience for us both. A painful one, like how some children learned they couldn't by jumping from somewhere high and breaking their arms. "I should still apologize."

"Of course. But you should wait until Conall is willing to apologize too. You were not the only one at fault there."

"So… give him a few days, and then see about it?"

"Or wait for him to come to you. And then you change your approach to help him. If you so choose."

"Okay…" Already, I had an idea. Mainly, get Ishtar to help me. Because clearly, her method worked much better for Conall. "I can do that. I think."

It was three days later that Conall approached me, apologizing as sincerely as possible for yelling at me. After I accepted the apology, I had tried to apologize as well, for not considering his feelings, but he didn't let me. Instead, he changed the conversation to books… with a focus of learning about how the country was back when the Battle of Belhalla happened. Like he recognized why I was so scandalized by him asking Mother and Diadora about the battle. I did have to admit that it irritated me that he wouldn't let me apologize, but after a moment, I decided to just… go along with it. Maybe he thought I didn't need to apologize. Maybe he saw it in how I was willing to help. I wasn't sure. But healers needed to adapt as well, and… well, I really wanted to heal. So, maybe I should focus on helping Conall. We were cousins, after all. Family. Even if he was a tactless brat a lot of the time.

Author's note: Funny how seeing a single comic on twitter can spark stuff, huh? For timeline (and context) purposes, Conall is six years old and Cyas is fourteen. This is set in between Conall leaving his room and Conall meeting Julius and Julia in the first chapter of Memoirs of Belhalla (meaning that Conall has been in Belhalla for… a month at most, and more likely a couple of weeks).