know them by this sign
just a casualty of war
Bowerstone is burning, once again a casualty of war. It has witnessed the rise and fall of many a regime, has seen the horrors, the sorrows, the joys of its people. And though this upheaval is new to those on either side, the siblings bound and torn by fate and blood and the coming darkness, it is not new to the city that lights the night sky.
It will burn, because that is what is required to keep its walls strong.
The woman at the forefront stands in the echo of her father, her boots following the imprint his left so many years ago. She too brings fire and lead and steel to bear within the walls of her home, raising his symbol up from the ashes of the past to fly, to sing its cacophonous song.
And in the end she too will know the burden of war and ruling.
Those behind her rejoice in the destruction, but she does not. It, to her, is a necessity and little more, something to be saddened by, something with which to sharpen her resolve. The tattered sparrow is a weight on her shoulders, and she alone feels the sharpness of its talons on her grime streaked skin.
He feels it too, she knows.
The look in her brother's dark, tired eyes tells her as much. She does not threaten him, holsters her weapons as her mentor declares their victory. She isn't listening, and neither is he, the two of them seeing the other for the first time since Avo knows when, truly seeing.
And she does not see a tyrant, and he does not see an ignorant child too fragile to handle the truth.
Both have seen the darkness, the terror of it mirrored in one another's eyes. And she knows, in that moment, that her brother is not the man so many claim him to be. Just as he knows, when he sees the fire in her eyes and the symbol on her shoulders, that she is the Hero Albion needs.
And when she has been crowned Queen and all are crying out for the blood of the former King, she looks into his eyes and steadfastly refuses.
Too many have died, by both their hands, and she knows his death will not help their cause, not lift her father's symbol higher. And she knows he was trying, Avo was he trying, to save his people, their people, from the monsters both knew too well were real.
And the grudge she had held, the proclamation of never forgetting, were gone, had been gone since the night she learned that the monsters under her bed were real.
Because he had known, even then, that she would one day stand in his place and carry the burden he wasn't equipped to shoulder. And he was glad to be rid of it, the weight of hatred and distrust, the burning knowledge of the oncoming storm only he, then, could stop.
And she was willing to take it, because he too was his father's son and Hero or not he would be an irreplaceable ally. And more than that, all they had in the end was each other, the children of the great Hero King who was no longer there to keep the bad things at bay.
So he stays at her side, and she is grateful for it, because no bird can fly without wind to bolster its wings, and he is the gale she needs if this is to be the last time Bowerstone burns before their eyes.