Phoenix
"So you and Heinrich are quite close, huh?" Klara asked. She had fallen into step beside Phoenix as the group of adults, following Áthas' lead, made their way along the beach back to the stretch of coast facing the Drowned Channel. "Are you two very close in age?"
For a moment, Phoenix pondered the notion that some third party thought that he and Heinrich seemed close. What was it that Klara had seen that had led her to such a conclusion? He cringed inwardly at how he had kept his arm around Heinrich for so long earlier. His brother hadn't been a small child in some time, and surely had felt embarrassed to be treated that way in front of others - or treated that way, period - as though he hadn't grown into a young man in their eons apart. "I'm actually twelve years older than he is," Phoenix said, at length.
"That's a pretty big difference." Klara paused to pick up a shiny stone that had evidently caught her fancy. "It's just you two, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"I get it. It's hard. Fynn's dad was killed in the war when we still lived in Delpoi, so it's been just Fynn and me for awhile now."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Phoenix murmured, painfully aware that that phrase was now, and forever would be, hopelessly inadequate to its task.
"Thank you. But you know, in spite of everything, Fynn and I are still so lucky to have each other. The war had been going on for so long that they started getting really desperate for soldiers, and the minimum age to be drafted kept creeping backwards, closer and closer to Fynn's. We left Delpoi in time, but still, they very nearly got him. Maybe our family doesn't look like it once did, but we're still a family, just the same."
Phoenix thought about this, and realized that at some indeterminate time after the day of the cataclysm, he had ceased considering the word "family" to be one that applied to his own circumstances. But why not? Families didn't have to have living parents. Families didn't even have to exclusively consist of blood relations. He suddenly found himself missing Heinrich, who was now about fifteen minutes' hike along the coast behind them, so much that he stopped walking without realizing it. A feeling of light pressure sprouted in the center of his chest, as though someone were half-heartedly attempting to push him backwards.
"Are you okay?" Klara asked, stopping too.
Phoenix swiftly arranged his features into an easygoing smile. It was so reflexive, so effortless, that he idly wondered where the image he projected out to the world ended and where the small, confused, anxious person he felt he was inside began. "Yeah. I just thought of something, that's all."
"Oh, like an idea for flag defense strategies or something?"
"Oh?" Áthas' voice floated to their ears from up ahead, and she dropped back in the line of hikers to join them, flashing him an easy grin. "You have some flag defense strategies to share? Do tell."
"I -" Phoenix paused, flustered, and felt that awful ascending heat in his cheeks. He looked out to the Drowned Channel for a few moments, turning his face away from the others in the process, and hoped no one would notice his embarrassment. "I'm not sure we'll need much of a strategy," he blurted out, mostly for purposes of actually having something to say now that Áthas was listening in. "The dock is easy to defend. We'll see anyone coming for miles."
"You're probably right," Klara agreed, warming to the new subject. "I think we should leave our fastest runner in charge of guarding the flag, and everyone else can go on offense."
"Good idea," Emyr said from ahead of them, slowing down to join them, too. "I bet the kids' offense will be minor, and easy to defend against. In fact, I'd wager that my little hellbeasts are all on defense."
"So who's our fastest runner?" asked Siân, and inexplicably, everyone looked to Phoenix.
"Me? I'm not -"
"You'll do great," Acair reassured him. "You may only barely qualify to be on the adults team, but that just means you've got young, strong legs to chase after anyone who nabs our flag."
"I imagine that'll be Fynn making the attempt," Klara mused.
Phoenix wanted to interject, and tell her no, it was going to be Heinrich: brave Heinrich, who was working so very hard to find peace amidst the storms that raged around and within him. But the truth was, Phoenix wasn't entirely sure he believed that it would be, and so he said nothing.
