(maven learns his friend is not one to be taken for granted.)

Maven kept up routine meetings with Thomas.

They were almost daily. Sometimes Maven would have a hard time getting away from his duties or stay up too late to go visit his friend. As the days went by and turned into weeks, Maven became busier and busier. Father had said they were to stay at the front for three months, then they would be brought home. As the deadline crept closer and closer, Maven felt more and more distraught. He didn't want to leave. He'd came here hating it more than anything, but now, he didn't want to return to the bland and boring court, unfriendly and hostile. He supposed that, like Cal, he found a bit of freedom in the war front. Cal's freedom was in fighting. Maven's freedom was in friends.

But most of all, as the days passed, Maven steadily came to see that he didn't want to leave Thomas. Their conversations were the highlight of his day.

Thomas, Maven learned, really enjoyed drawing. "Sometimes they have us do blueprints, right," Thomas had told him. "Or do designs for them or… whatever. It's really fun, t' me anyway. I like it." His tone had become wistful. "They don't let us do it often down there. But when I have spare time up here, sometimes I'll just take out some paper n' design or draw things. Kinda calming, see."

"Drawing's nice," Maven agreed, though he had stopped it a long time ago because it was often considered childish. He stared out over the lake. They were on the shore, watching the sun steadily creep towards the horizon. Already, a tinge of pink had begun to creep over the sky. Maven had set up a fire - trying his best to conceal how he did it - and the two of them had sat around it together, Maven wrapped in the scarf Thomas had gave him, Thomas fiddling with some piece of machinery or another. "I like to read."

"Do you?" said Thomas, curious. "We don't get many books up in the slums."

Maven shrugged. "My parents were… wealthy enough to get me some books that I liked. It's fun to read them. You can just… imagine a lot of things." He seemed to be grasping for a reason. "Escapism, I guess."

Thomas tilted his head. "Escapism would be nice," he said after a minute. "But there are no libraries, y'know. So we can't even get that many if we wanted to."

Maven huffed a sigh. He had grown more used to the disappointment of what Thomas had to deal with when he lived in the slums. Thomas had even told him once that the food here, at the front, was better than any of the food he ate at the slums. It was awful in Maven's eyes. Thomas had made him realize a lot of things that he hadn't before, consider things about Reds and their lives and the slums. He'd never bothered to think about it. Like Cal, he had automatically taken to the 'Red below Silver' balance as his mentality. Then he shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of his brother. "Your sister might like books if she ever got a chance to read one," he said instead.

Thomas smiled a little bit, moving closer to the fire. "I think she would, too."

And for a while, that was how it remained. Maven did whatever duties he needed to do, then slipped off to find Thomas. They bonded over anything and everything. Maven told Thomas a lot of things that he didn't tell anybody else, even Cal. Thomas was one of the people that Maven trusted the most. But at the same time, Maven felt like there was a weight to them. As winter continued on, clouds overhead became more frequent, and more times did snow fall. The Calore princes had been at the front for two months, which meant Maven had only one more month until he'd leave. And possibly never see Thomas again.

He asked Thomas what his full name was and wrote it down. Just in case.

One day, he had followed Cal into that building where he met with all the other officials. Maven's leg bounced up and down. His fingers drummed on his thigh. His mind screamed in his head, Not right not right not right. But Maven was a fool, and his gut instinct was also usually wrong, so he kept his mouth shut. Do not speak unless spoken to–

The door slammed open.

"Lakelanders," a soldier gasped. He fell over. Cal shot out of his seat like he'd been fired at. He dashed through the door, fire already snaking around him. "Attacking," the soldier wheezed.

The generals muttered to themselves before dispersing. But Maven was frozen. Frozen, on his feet, one hand pressed against the table to not fall over. One name running through his mind. Alarm bells on high alert. Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.

Something in his mind clicked. He threw himself out the door, nearly barreling over the soldier who'd just stood up. Guards behind him cried, "Your Highness, no–" but he did not care, he did not care, he did not care. The path he'd memorized to the workshop by Lake Tarion – faster, faster, you're too slow! It was faster than he'd ever run but still not enough. His guards were gaining on him, but he needed to find him, needed to find Thomas. He skidded down to the lake, nearly stumbling over his feet.

There were soldiers in the tent, dragging out Reds. "NO!" he bellowed.

Brown hair so dark it was almost black, light brown skin, wide, russet-colored eyes glinting with fear instead of mirth, his head swiveling to him. "Maven!" A gasp a plea a cry, I'll save you I'll save you. "Maven, run, run, get ou–"

He lunged, lunged for Thomas. Hands pulled on his arms, yanked him back, caged him in like a wild animal. "THOMAS!" he screamed. "Thomas–" his voice cracked "–no, please, anyone but him, I–"

"Your Highness, please stop this."

Maven didn't hear, didn't hear anything. All he could see was Thomas, the Lakelanders dragging him away, a gun lifting to his head. "No," Maven gasped. "No!"

"Maven, run!" yelled Thomas. "Get–"

There was a gunshot.

Maven saw red.

His blood, his blood, everywhere, his body carelessly thrown to the side by the Lakelanders. Maven screamed. Something unearthly, unintelligible but he didn't care. Thomas is dead, Thomas is dead, Thomas is dead.

"You killed him!"

The guards pleaded, begged. "Your Highness, we have to get back, stop this!"

"LET ME GO!"

Thomas's blood was everywhere now. On the sand where they had once laughed together. Spilling where that fire had been. Staining his already dirty clothes. On the Lakelanders' hands, on the guards who were caging him's hands, on his hands. Thomas's wide brown eyes stared off into nothing nothing nothing. "I'm gonna kill you," Maven swore, still yelling at the top of his lungs. To his guards, to the Lakelanders, to anyone who had dared to play a part in Thomas's death. He would destroy them, one by one by one, until they all had the same fate as Thomas, Thomas who didn't deserve it, Thomas who he loved more than anything, Thomas the best person he'd ever met-

Someone slammed him over the head with their rifle.

He fell unconscious.

"Your Highness, sir, we must get back to Archeon."

Maven's eyes slowly opened.

"I thought it was a three-month trip." Cal's voice came to him, sounding perplexed. Maven chanced a glance to his side to see Cal standing there. He shut his eyes to get a good listen of their conversation.

"It was supposed to be," the guard said carefully.

Cal scoffed. "A Lakelander attack is going to stop this?"

The guard moved, judging by the unique sound of their footsteps. "Your Highness, look at your brother. We most certainly cannot keep him here after this."

More footsteps. The chair besides him squeaked. When Cal spoke again, his voice was softer. "My brother is strong. Maven is often underestimated, I think. Surely he will recover–"

"I did not mean physically, sir. But mentally… he had quite an outburst that day. He should take some time off."

"Outburst?" asked Cal. "What do you mean–"

"Perhaps it's better if you talk about that yourself," the guard said softly. There was the squeak of a door opening, then the guard's footsteps, then it closing. Maven didn't know how long it was until Cal sighed, got up, and left as well.

Once alone, Maven drifted back into a comfortable sleep, which he had been half longing for and half dreading.

(All Maven remembered from the dream was a gunshot. Whatever it was, though, it was enough for Cal to discover his brother crying when he peeked back in.)