Kit

A Serullan harp hummed out a low tune that mimicked the vocals of the Iridian Songbird, strings plucked with a quiet devotion. As dictated in the forgotten library books of what was the Ilves residence, the Iridian Songbirds only sang in distress, a final cry for help. Some scholars reported their song when the bird’s lover died; others speculated it was in the poor creature’s final moment. It was said one could see the exact moment the light of hope died in the eyes of an Iridian Songbird.

They did not have long lifespans.

But a Songbird had no reason to sing a lonely tune when it was draped in finery and cascaded in gold.

Of course, a Serullan funeral would be nothing less than extravagant.

In droves, Serullan nobles entered the hall, covered head to toe in various shades of darkened red, greens, blues, even oranges. Black was thought to be too cruel a colour, too impersonal, too vampiric to dare be used for a funeral.

Whispers curled around each body, sharp as the blades one would use for Serullan sword dancing, though the words might as well have been screams, for everyone seemed to parrot the same thoughts.

“—years since a funeral was held..”

“Keep your voice down, we can’t have—“

“—must be feeling so awful right now..”

“…cannot even imagine what they are feeling..”

“When is the food coming?”

“—now quieten down..”

Lit candles lined the stained glass windows, a beacon of light against the heartless backdrop of winter. Serullan winters were often like that. The air was cold, and the frost, unforgiving.

Nobility took their seats in repetitive rows that spanned across the large hall, increasing in status and wealth the closer you crept towards the centerpiece of the affair. A singular coffin, ornate in its marble carving depicting each of the ten gods. It was elevated by an indigo velvet prism.

The doors slowly creaked open; a chorus of music ripped over the crowd; a lone figure stepped inside. Draped in purple finery, and gloves to spare them from the cold, the lone royal descended the path towards the coffin.

And oh, if one looked closely they would see a pair of Atha’lin’s whose green eyes never left the royal, not even when they reached the end of the hall and were finally able to place a single, gloved hand upon the marble coffin.

It was difficult to believe. No, it was impossible to even conceptualise. Yet the evidence laid right before their eyes.

Roena Ilves was dead.

The Earis pulled off each glove, finger by finger, to allow their fingertips to rest on the marble casing that housed their mother. Someone, a high ranking noble, had flippantly suggested that the ceremony should be conducted with an open coffin. That noble was barred from entering.

A pair of hands guided the Earis to the side of the room, while a scholar in Videinity began addressing the crowd.

The words washed over the Earis.

Perhaps they spoke a prayer. Perhaps it was words detailing what a beloved Eminence she was. The things she did for the people. Perhaps it was nothing at all. And perhaps there was a word spoken, maybe even two, on the caring, gentle side of the Eminence that made up the Earis’ mother.

But the Earis understood.

Because Roena Ilves was an Eminence first, and a mother second.

And the heir had spent too long around the Eminence that they had forgotten that.

*

The gardens were a solace, just as they had always been. The Earis sat low on the ground, chest pressed into a stone bench, folded over like a collapsed house of cards with their cheek scraped against the bench. Exhaustion pervaded them.

It was quiet here. The funeral continued in the distance, but the heir simply could not stand being there any longer. They conjured up an excuse of needing air. That they would be back in five minutes, perhaps even less.

They didn’t know how long it had been since they said those words.

And yet this did not spare them from having a visitor. Upon the echo of footsteps hitting cobblestone, the Earis raised a weary head and squinted at the oncoming figure.

“Zaros.” Their voice was hoarse. Even at the appearance of the Atha’lin, the Earis did not bother to jump to a stand and smoothen down their appearance like they would have done a week ago. He bore long navy garments, similarly with gloves as a shield against the biting wind.

“My Earis.” His words were gentle. As though he had practiced them a thousand times over in his head before saying it.

The heir shook their head. “Do not say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you are sorry.” They spat. “If one more person tells me that they are sorry for my loss I swear to Solýa not even Uteus’ wisdom would save them.”

Their heart was weighed down by chains. That was surely the only explanation for the pressure coming from their insides. On shaky legs, the heir pushed themself to a stand. “I do not want to hear pity.”

“Then I will not give you pity.” He said.

The wind picked up. It pricked their skin like needles.

Clearing their throat, the Earis slipped their hands into their pockets. “Is your mother not wondering where you are?”

“She understands.”

If it were any other occasion, they would have chastised him for his lack of words, his lack of elaboration, his lack of anything. But they would rather this than the overcompensating words the other nobles gave.

Their eyes dropped to the floor, hands clenching into a fist.

“It is not fair.” They said quietly. “It is simply not fair. How can they speak of.. of Solýa and.. and Vihena when my mother is dead?”

Dead. That had to have been the first time they said it out loud. Acknowledged their mother’s death.

“My Earis—“

“No!” They yelled. “Do not try and console me. Do not try and tell me everything will be resolved in the end. You do not know that. You cannot know that. Not when your mother is paying her respects to mine.”

Living in the shadow of a brother they could never know was manageable. At the very least, the Earis couldn’t know how they would never live up to him. Now, though, in the shadow of both their brother and their mother, the scale was tipped against them.

When would it finally be their turn to be in the light?

Shifting bedsheets, shared warmth, and fingers that intertwine like unravelling thread beside the candles that cowered in the fraction of space between them. Those fingertips, those damned fingertips that traced a path down the curve of the Eminence’s palm, and again over the ridge of their wrist as if it were some sacred path. Their head, dipped into the pillow, so far back that they were certain it would leave permanent indentations.

But that meant nothing when he hovered above them and stared as if he were worshipping the God Iva themself.

But this occasion was no 9th of the 9th.

The Eminence breathed out, and such a simple, human function seemed to suck all the energy out of them. All they could muster was the gentle lift of their left hand so that the back hit Zaros’ cool cheek like a fire ember being plunged into ice. And even that was too much; their hand fell back against their mouth in time with their closed eyelids.

It was all the Eminence needed to muffle whatever noises threatened to slip as those stupidly slender fingers dragged themselves down the planes of their chest, sliding over their abdomen, before finally sinking down on where they needed him most—

The Eminence bolted from their slumber with a shuddering jolt, sweat dripping from their forehead. They touched their bottom lip, finding not the burning ember they had experienced just seconds before, but a dull cold.

*

As a certain Ilves once stated; courage and knowledge are the core values that an Eminence must possess and cared for, much like a fledgling canary. It must be nurtured, fed and raised like one’s own, and suddenly the dirt smudged chick has become a sun-kissed creature. But the average Serullan, who does not possess mountains of knowledge at their fingertips, and cannot summon courage like one could summon Uteus, would suggest another core.

Pride. It was something fixed, yet it could grow, and grow, until it could not go unnoticeable.

And pride, it seemed, was a measurable force.

To one as enigmatic as the Earis, their pride could be deftly measured in their expression the second the judge’s voice rang out.

“The win goes to Zaros Kymen Atha’lin.”

Or, more accurately, the moment their pride shattered.

One could only simply wonder the flurry of thoughts that passed through our Earis’ mind in that moment, and in front of such an audience too. While untypical of the palace to make the third trial a public event, the combat trial was a spectacle that no respectable citizen would ever dare miss.

The Earis’ grip on their weapon faltered, loosening as if their very skeleton was failing them in that moment.

However, the flurry may instead be more easily likened to a storm instead, because if the throwing down of their weapon and storming off indicated anything, it was fury.

The Earis had lost the combat trial, and they were decidedly going to make it everybody’s problem.

By avoiding every face humanly possible, it seemed.

In the eighteen hours since the Earis had awoken from their slumber, and the eight hours since their tragically broadcasted loss, not a single palace resident had seen the heir to the throne. And if the way they poked their head out of their bedchamber indicated anything about their intentions, it was that wherever they were sneaking off to would be completely uncharacteristic.

The Serullan winery was a place the Earis never dared to frequent before, not when a maid could do that job for them. But their head swirled with both exhaustion and sheer humiliation in what could only be an oncoming headache and in no universe would they bring themself to talk to anyone.

In there, the Earis had control. In there, a single bottle of their choosing could free them.

“What are you doing?”

The Earis’ hand slipped from the neck of the bottle they were about to grab, recoiling back as though the glass were poison. Zaros Atha’lin emerged from the darkness and into the candlelight, annoyingly reminiscent of the gothic novels they occasionally picked up.

“What is it, are you here to gloat?” They snatched their chosen poison from the rack, wishing the neck they were wrangling was really his.

Tugging the cork off, they commented, “I am not doing anything of interest, unlike those of us who choose to drink to excess.”

Zaros stepped forward. “Hm, drink to excess, you say? Then what are you holding, exactly?”

He was smirking.

He’s mocking you. He’s mocking you because he thinks you’re weak. Because you lost.

Their hand came down across his cheek faster than they could register, leaving a stinging tingle in their fingers they desperately wished to replicate. Zaros’ shock mirrored their own - for all the times the Earis had threatened harm upon the Atha’lin, they had never actually done anything to hurt him before.

His lips parted, for just a fleeting moment, before closing, and the heir to the throne annoyingly felt no relief in harming him.

Their bite failed. So they turned to their bark.

“How. How did you do it?” The Earis snapped. “You must— you must have rigged it! Yes, yes your pride could not handle the first two losses, so— so you paid the judges! You must have!”

Zaros’s hand reached out. “My Earis—“

“Do not call me by my title.” Shaking their head, the Earis swiped his hand away, far away, so that it could not do anything so sacrilegious as grabbing them.

The luxury to be held was not one the Earis deserved.

“Fight me.” Softly, like a whispered prayer to Iva.

They pushed him. Wine spilled tragically over their hands like the ink Zaros had used to tear apart their bond. It was sticky, and repulsive and red, so, so red—

“Fight me!” Louder now.

Now Zaros’ back hit the railed bottles. They clattered foolishly like how every Serullan clattered with excitement at their grand heir losing—

“Do it!” Tears streamed down, hot and angry down the Earis’ cheeks, and it burned. “I need you to— hit me back! Can you not summon Zýth’s strength? Are you a fool? How could you have possibly won the combat trial when you cannot even strike me?”

Their words hailed down on Zaros like a storm, every phrase a weapon because if they could not harm him in the trial then surely he must be wounded now?

Iva’s strength would save neither of them.

And oh, oh how Iva must have hated the Earis in that moment. Oh, how Uteus must have scorned them, how Zýth would have mocked their pathetic attempts at invoking an argument. Because Zaros Atha’lin’s expression did not contort into anger, and the Earis hated themself all the more for that.

“Hey. Hey.” He gripped their hands, or perhaps it was simply just a hold. “Look at me, I am not going to fight you. You are not in the right frame of— hey!”

Skin-on-skin contact broke as the Earis slunk further back into the shadows, attempting to stray just far enough from the caress of the candlelight so that they may spare themself the shame of looking into the emerald opium of his eyes. Without having realised, the bottle slipped from their grasp and rattled against the floor.

It rolled, spilling out hundreds of thousands of Rukl with it.

“Do you wish for every Serullan and their dog to hear this ruckus?” He said, but did not bother with picking it up either.

“Do not say it. Do not call me a spoiled brat. I know how to take a loss.”

“And this is what you call taking a loss?”

No.

If Zaros had acted this way, the Earis would have likely mocked him for it. But it was not so easy to label it a matter of pride.

Pride felt far too plain a word.

The Earis closed their eyes. Counted in for three. Breathe out. In. Out. Just like Shylis had taught them.

When their eyelids peeled back open, he was still standing there.

“Surely you must take pleasure in my shame being broadcasted across the Dominion, because I cannot fathom why you are still here.” They muttered.

“I am here to prevent you from drinking yourself into a stupor or getting into a fight.”

“Yes well that will not be happening tonight.” They kicked the bottle, only for the liquor to spill across their shoes. “It seems as though I am a failure both in combat and in drinking.”

The Earis slumped against the wall until their legs gave out. Hours of the limbs carrying their weary body had finally reached a boiling point.

“You,” Zaros sat down beside them. “the Earis, think you are a failure?”

They shot him a look, “Go on, mock me more then.”

“By Uteus, you are far from one.”

Pulling their knees up to their chest, the Earis shook their head. “My ability in combat is the only good thing about me. Was the only good thing about me. If I cannot beat someone then what good am I?”

Zaros hesitated before stating, “Losing the combat trial does not indicate your ability—“

“You do not understand!” They shot back. “Of course you cannot. Because you can do anything you desire. You are permitted to travel and meet all sorts of people, Serullan or otherwise and have gained a myriad of skills due to this. My ability to fight was the only thing that was my own, the only thing I could own, and of course you have stolen that from me as well, and in front of everyone!”

Wine and tears mixed into one as, like silver moondrops, their hands caught their tears, their evidence of weakness.

The Earis had rambled on, and yet they still continued. “I trained and trained and trained, and what has that given me? A humiliating loss in front of the entire country?”

Because if the meaning of pride was not built upon the foundation of validation from their mother, from the people, from him, then how useful were they truly?

“Who am I,” They whispered, and how they wished Zaros could not hear. “If not the reconstruction of other people’s opinions and validation?”

“You are more than the praise of others.” Zaros began softly, like he was treading on uncertain ground. “You are.. a person who cares strongly for fruits. Apples, specifically. You are a person who throws baby corils after debates you clearly have lost.”

A chuckle passed between them, and the remainder of the Earis’ tears dried up.

“And, most importantly,” He said, “You are your own person, and despite your flaws you.. prosper. I have seen it, your compassion for others, your compassion for your mother and your compassion for this country. You are recklessly stupid, more reckless than stupid. The kind of person that would fight a Spindling to save a child and I.”

“You are not an empty shell, ready to be fuelled by praise to help you function.” His hands closed around their trembling ones.

And somehow without a drop of alcohol in their system, the Earis had dissected themselves in front of Zaros, willingly, in a way that not even their mother had been a witness to. They had presented their palpitating heart out to them, and he had not even flinched at the way it was still beating.

It felt safe. And it felt wrong.

Iva, forgive me, they thought as the Earis tore their hands from Zaros’ safe embrace.

Ice bordered their tone as they stood up. “Are you entertained?”

“Entertained?” Zaros shot to his feet, looking wounded. “Is that what you thought this was?”

“It was the wine.” The Earis said, knowing full well that neither of them had drank a drop. “It was the wine and you heard nothing and you said nothing, and this conversation never happened. Leave.”

“My Earis—“

“Leave.” A second. Then they added, “Please.”

Their eyes were downcast, both to ignore Zaros’ longing look, and to hide their signs of weakness.

“Damn tears,” They whispered, screwing their eyes shut.

It was not until footsteps retreated to the edge of the room that the Earis’ vocal cords finally permitted itself to work again. “Congratulations on your win, Atha’lin.”

It felt like glass shredding their throat, so much so that they almost missed Zaros’ words.

“Sleep well, my Earis.”

And then the door closed, leaving behind a derelict heir, a spilled bottle, and a gaping wound neither of them could dare fix.