Private Tales Brothers

[Zael Castomir]

I think I might be done, dude. With all of this...I'm gonna be a dad.

Though Zael couldn't yet know it, Gaage's decision, his words, would have a profound effect on him in the future. Far more than he could even fathom at present.

He thought briefly of Gaage's verdict on Gilram, knew he didn't exactly agree with his brother on that account, but put all that aside. None of that was important. Not right now. It could come later, maybe, in a moment at least.

"Before you say anythin else..."

Zael held out his hand, seeking clasp it firmly in Gaage's own, to pull him then into a tight, one-armed hug that'd probably tell Gaage way more than his forthcoming words could just how fuckin' happy he was for him.

"...man, congratulations. You're gonna have one strong kid, alright."

Gaage Eberwhit

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage wasn't the kind of guy to open up emotionally. At least, not to anybody besides Ysobel. Zael was his best friend, but it wasn't as though they'd had long conversations about their feelings. No, their bond had been one forged in the field, in a shared love for fighting and thinking on your feet. When it came to getting the job done, no two people shared a mind quite like Eberwhit and Castomir.

So when Zael pulled him in and wrapped an arm around him in a hug, Gaage didn't say out loud how much he'd needed it. He didn't tell Zael how badly he'd missed his dumb ass.

He didn't say it out loud, but he hugged him back.

"Yeah... but if it's as stubborn as its' mother..." He grinned into Zael's shoulder. "I think I'm in for more pain than any Dreadlord could hit me with." Ysobel had quite literally hunted Gaage after he'd left. Tracking him down with the aim of cuffing him and dragging him home. How they'd ended up in a bed instead of on a wagon back to Vel Anir, he still wasn't sure, but...

He was glad.

"So... anybody make any 'one-eyed willie' jokes to you yet?" Gaage pulled away, nodding towards Zael's eyepatch with a smirk. "With that and the mop you call a hairdo, you look like you've been sailing the Allirian Strait for the last year on a booze-runner."

Actually... that didn't sound like a bad gig.

Zael Castomir

 

[Zael Castomir]

So... anybody make any 'one-eyed willie' jokes to you yet?

"You'd be the first," Zael said with a smile. Then, unconsciously in tune with Gaage as was the usual, he said, "And maybe that booze-runner job ain't a half bad idea if this whole rebellion thing goes tits up."

Mirth was soon traded out for solemnity, however. Gaage was making a big decision here, and it loomed large in the small space of the humble home's kitchen. He'd taken the offer Gilram had made to everyone in the Blackwood—took it even before Zael did. And now he was leaving it behind. Not that he could really be faulted for it, in Zael's opinion. If Gilram was all about freedom and choice for the Dreadlords, then this also fell into that category. It was the Republic which found quitting to be intolerable.

"So you're goin to hang up the Rogue's hat of yours," Zael said. "What are you thinkin about doin elsewise?"

Maybe it really was just as simple as living the remote life out here. Maybe not.

Gaage Eberwhit

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Well, they couldn't dance around the topic forever, could they?

Before today, Gaage hadn't seen Zael since the Graduation fiasco. He'd had no clue that he'd gone rogue, that he was working for Gilram, or even that he was still alive. When they'd finally seen each other again, there'd been to time to process any of those facts.

Now that there was time, Gaage still found himself reluctant to.

Exile was a choice that he'd bemoaned himself for making too many times to count. He hadn't had a good reason for doing it, except the piece of ass he'd been swept off his feet by. Once she'd left him, he found himself in a world he really didn't belong in. He didn't hate Vel Anir. Didn't hate the Republic. The Zael he'd left behind hadn't either.

So what the fuck had happened?

"Was never my hat to begin with." Gaage sighed, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. The throbbing pain in his nose was still present, but tilting his head back relieved the pressure a bit. "I followed Lennox. I never gave a shit about Gilram or fighting back against the Republic. I mean... fuck, Z, The Republic let me do the only thing I was ever good at."

Gaage waves a hand off to the side, shaking his head with a sneer. "Delaney ran off pretty quick after we left to god knows where, and suddenly I'm a soldier in a war that ain't mine. Fighting used to be fun, man. Before we were getting aimed at each other. Now it's just... It's stupid." He didn't want to sound as though he was demonizing Zael for his choice. If he'd seceeded from the Dreadlords, Eberwhit believed he must have had a reason.

"Yoh found me, and stuff happened... A kid changes things, Zael. All of a sudden, there's something more important than me. There's something that I really do wanna protect. For the first time in my entire life. If I keep doing this, the kinda shit we did today, I'm gonna die. I can't do that to Yoh, can't do that to our kid."

There was a swath of silence, before Gaage steeled his resolve and swallowed down the lingering fear that had been building in his chest since he'd first heard Zael's name spoken by Gilram's messenger. He couldn't avoid it any longer. Gods knew he dreaded the answer, but...

"The hell are you doing here, Zael? Not... in my house, I mean. What are you doing with the rebellion? The fuck happened while I was gone?"

Zael Castomir Ysobel

 

[Zael Castomir]

Sounded like things happened quick for Gaage, like him getting caught up in a whirlwind of one thing leading to another. That whirlwind eventually set him down here, in a remote piece of land, not just far from where he had come physically but far in mindset as well. Fighting used to be fun, man. Hell, Zael had to admit, it did hurt a little to hear him say that; but it was a strange kind of pain, one that wasn't all bad and likewise not all good either.

But Zael, perhaps more than any other of their erstwhile fellow-Initiates, understood where he was coming from. Zael had wanted his father's love, and never got it—never would get it. His wanting it even though his father was nothing but an asshole to him went to show how special it truly was, and he knew firsthand just how awful it was to not have it. Gaage wanting to be there for his kid? Yeah, Zael could get behind that. Get behind that big time. Gaage could figure out that details as he went along—he was good at operating like that.

Then the question came back around to Zael.

He crossed his arms, smiled thinly, and said, "I don't think I was ever gonna be a good little Anirian—toein the line of the Houses or the Guard or whoever. Thought I was, you know, like everyone else. Thought that even after the Revolution. Because why not? That's all we ever knew—just like they wanted.

"Then Gilram came along. Call em whatever you wanna call em, Kress knows I fuckin did." He grinned and laughed a little. "But here's the thing: Gilram offered us all a real option. Even for those who didn't take him up on it, he showed it doesn't have to be the way the Republic set up for us. So I made this war mine. I jumped in it for the fight of my life."

He made an expansive gesture with his hands and said, "I want to see the Dreadlords freed, Gaage, and I don't care who does it. That's what I decided I'm gonna do."

Maybe the Republic bends the knee after suffering too many reverses, maybe Gilram takes over entirely, whatever the case. All Zael wanted was to see the leash of State removed from the necks of all magically-born Anirians—and that would be no small feat.

Gaage Eberwhit Ysobel

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Considering the path that Gaage himself had taken, he probably shouldn't have felt the pang of pain in his gut that he did as he listened to Zael talk about his motivations for leaving home and joining up with Gilram. Who was Eberwhit to judge anybody? He'd left for far less noble a reason, hadn't he? Gods knew he didn't have the other Dreadlords on his mind when he'd turned his back on them. Didn't have the good of his people lingering on his conscience.

Even still, he couldn't hold back the grimace that grew on his face as his Brother laid out his intentions, his ultimate goal of freeing the Dreadlords. It was the same spiel he'd heard a dozen times from the other Gilram followers, touting the rouge Archon as a means to an end, as a man who offered them a choice they wouldn't have otherwise.

For the briefest of moments, somewhere in the deepest part of his chest, Gaage felt that fire he'd just proclaimed he no longer had flare up. He'd had to endure everybody and their mother putting this guy on a pedestal, and now Zael was going to do it too? Why?

"Gilram didn't offer anybody anything." Gaage shook his head, doing his best not to get too heated in the moment. "If our class wanted to rebel, wanted to do our own thing and fight back against the Republic, we could have done that long before those assholes took us into the forest." The Academy was imposing, but even they would struggle to contain the rebellion of a whole class of final-year Initiates. "The only thing Gilram did was take advantage of a bunch of scared, wounded, and emotionally damaged kids at one of the lowest points of their lives, asked us to make a life-changing choice when none of us were in our right mind to."

It wasn't ever the idea of rebellion that irked Gaage. He understood the reasoning, and he certainly wasn't about to claim that Vel Anir had treated them well. No, what had kept Gaage from fully accepting the rhetoric of Rebellion was the idea that they needed Gilram.

"He's romanticized this rebellion like it's some noble thing, like we're fighting for good and justice and all that bullshit, but we're not part of some grand scheme, Zael. We're exiles with an asterisk. At the end of the day, if we win? We've replaced one monster with another, because this monster doesn't hurt our feelings as much."

Gaage bites his cheek and leans his head back against the wall, pointing his eyes up at the ceiling as he sighs. "I'm sorry. That ain't fair. I know you must have a damned good reason to believe in him. I don't doubt you, Z. I just... I can't do the same. I agree with you, Dreadlords should be treated better, given the freedoms that they don't have. Hell, I'd raise my sword for that, even now. But we never needed him to do it, and we don't need him now."

Zael Castomir

 

[Zael Castomir]

In time, Zael through shifting circumstances would come to see more of Gaage's point of view. But at present, he had said what he meant: he wanted to see the Dreadlords freed, and he did not care who did it.

A wan smile crossed his face. "This is the way it's gotta be then," he said.

With sluggish effort, he turned and started walking out of the kitchen.

"I'll leave you to Ysobel. Gonna check on Heather."


Gaage Eberwhit Ysobel

 

[Ysobel]

For a time, as the two men spoke only a room or so over, Ysobel sat in the lukewarm water and watched as the bubbles popped. Slowly. One by one. Until a small glint of her residual energy danced from her hair, landing on the waters surface where it would spread quickly and eliminate the rest in less than a second. Even in a room where she was completely alone, she was still embarrassed. She'd been better at executing a lavender scented soap-bubble than a man who threatened the life of the one she loved.

She could not protect Gaage. She could not protect this child- just as her parents couldn't protect her. Her moping paused as she tried to recall their faces and the final memories she had of her family. Faceless beings and a fiery scene, blurry through her tear soaked eyes. A scene not at all how she had remembered it, though it seemed like that were the only way to possibly remember such a night.

Her head ached. A familiar sting. Like a beast's claws digging into her temples and behind her eyes. A pain that forced her eyes to well up with tears. A quiet groan escaped her lips. The sharpness of it, lasting only a few seconds, lingered longer than usual before fading into the dull ache it started with. She had grown tired of the bath she sought to savor a few moments of relaxation in.

With what felt like a great effort, Ysobel dragged herself from the bath and dressed herself- a simple tunic and pants that no longer concealed that small bump she tried to hide from the world. A bump she had almost surrendered her "no dresses" rule to. Perhaps in due time.

She lingered briefly in the same room as the child, Heather, only hearing the trailing end of their conversation. Heated or not, she could not decide through their muffled words. Before she could rejoin them, Zael had made his way through the archway. She stared at him, studying his face as though she had never seen the blond before. A minute passed before her own face softened.

"Thank you." She bowed her head to him briefly. For being crazy enough to give your life for his. She added in her head. She eyed the child once more, another ache to her head, before scurrying back into the kitchen.

Though no longer caked in a thick layer of dirt and ash, Ysobel still looked just as miserable as she had when she had awoken. Each muscle aching just as her head did from the overexertion. A darkness under her bloodshot eyes. "Is everything alright?" She rubbed her temple and shot another glance through the archway at Zael and Heather.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

If it were anybody else, Gaage would have lashed out at the act of walking away from his words. To turn ones back and run when confronted with something that challenged your worldview was the act of a coward, a simpleton who refused to stand on their beliefs. That's what he'd always thought, anyways, that you should argue for what you believed in.

Not with Zael.

Zael didn't have anything to prove to Gaage. They'd been together for too long to hold a difference in opinion like this against each other; their relationship just wasn't that petty. Eberwhit had faith in that Zael had a good reason to think the way he did, and if he was committed to that path, it wasn't Gaage's place to try and steer him away, just as Zael hadn't tried to change Gaage's mind himself. They had too much respect for one-another, too much love.

So Gaage nodded as Zael turned his back, and gave an unseen smile to the back of the blonde's head. "Thank you, brother. For being there when I needed you." Despite their disagreement, he knew that little had changed. The bond they held wasn't one so easily severed, and whatever path they'd embarked on, they would never shy away from taking a brief trip to the other's road when they needed to be carried.

Zael departed to check on the young woman they'd saved, and Ysobel arrived in his place soon after. Gaage looked up from where he'd sat, and smiled at his lover, albeit not with the usual glowing gusto he liked to greet her with. It had been a rough day, and both of them looked worse for wear.

Who was he kidding? She still looked fuckin' mint.

"Well, all things considered, I think we're alright." He shrugged, wincing at a sharp jab of pain in his face. Gods, his nose was fucked. "We killed a Dreadlord, saved an innocent bystander, and only got our asses marginally kicked in the process..." He skimmed over the part where Zael and Ysobel had both nearly given their lives for him, or where he'd been wracked by guilt over permanently severing the ties he'd had with his original home. Nothing to be done about that now.

"I couldn't have done it without you, Yoh. As usual, you find a way to keep me going." Gaage slid his chair away from the table, and gestured her closer. "C'mere, babe. Need help setting my nose, and you've got those magic hands..." He teased, unable to resist trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Ysobel
Zael Castomir

 

[Ysobel]

She only stared at him for a minute as he spoke noting that although he sounded in good spirits, he looked horrible. And she had not noticed how bad it was when she had been in there just a short while ago. His face was black and blue, nose twisted and swollen in a way that made Ysobel’s own bones ache just to look at. She repeated her thanks that had been just given to Zael, this time addressed to the pair of them. “Thank you both…”. She trailed off and followed Gaage beckoning her over.

There was a muddled look on her face. She had done so little to help them and she was ashamed of it. He was absolutely lying through his teeth if he was suggesting that she had been useful. Trying to make her feel better for whatever reason.

His teasing seemed to lighten her mood a little at least. “You know,” She leaned into him as if to pull him into an embrace, but quickly retracted with something in her hand. “You chose the person who gets queasy from the smell of grass or the sound of cooking foods to push your busted nose back into place, right?” She gave him no time to respond, stuffing the tea towel in his mouth as he opened it. “If I vomit right onto your head, it is only your fault. Got it?”

Again, he wouldn’t have the ability to respond before she put her hands on his nose and, in one swift motion with an audible crunch, she pushed the tissue back where it belonged. And true to her word, she looked like she would vomit as she stepped away and covered her mouth with a hand.

She fought back the burning in her throat and searched for some distraction. “So, you two killed the Dreadlord. Now what? Should we expect peace and safety now?“ A question left in the air for either to answer.

Zael Castomir Gaage Eberwhit