You are not so unfamiliar with aching.
Aching in the form of longing, aching in the form of waiting for spring — you bloom best under summer skies, and you find yourself often awaiting them, longing to spread your petals and grasp your little piece of sunlight. Aching is a wistful thing, a song to remind you that you can always do better, and aching is a memory, a decision to always stand beside those with no one else.
(Sometimes, you think about how you began to doubt Lord Ares, in the space between letters and the turn of seasons, and the way you think he is sturdier than you could ever hope to be.)
The ache that starts in your chest, then, feels of little consequence. It digs a hole there and sits nicely nestled beside other feelings, feelings like selfishness and pretending and inferiority. You could grow a garden of these feelings if you wished.
(Sometimes, you think about a thing that Lord Leif said, something that shouldn't have stuck so strongly in your head at all — "I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get annoyed once, Diarmuid." )
You don't like self-pity. You don't much care for pity at all. You try very hard to not be pitied, to not fall short in those moments where you could be pitied — you try very hard to be someone worthy of being who you are. You try very hard to make it look like you don't have to try so desperately to give what you give. You don't like pity, after all.
(Sometimes, you think about dancing with Nanna, and the way you think she is better at being a sister than you are at being a brother.)
You view your family with a quiet reverence, and they are the only selfishness you allow yourself — untouchable, a goal to ever-strive for.
In the library, Diarmuid sits next to a stack of books. It's a scene so simple it could be nothing at all — a low-burning candle, the scratch of a quill across a page, a few propped open to various pages. It's a tedious act of cross-reference and reminding, but it is one he bears gladly. Agustria does not hold itself properly in his, in any of their, absences.
It is not solely his duty to bear, but he bears it gladly.
Tired as he is, the footsteps nearly escape his notice — nearly, but not quite, if only for the familiar shape they take. Were he to not notice, it would be — well, there's no use dreading such what-ifs. He knows those footsteps surely, and so he raises his head, and wax drips down the candle, and he thinks —
(You are so tired. Wouldn't it be easier to rid yourself of this?)
A scrabbled-for correction. Oh, how it frustrates him how difficult the simple request is! Stubbornness runs in both of their veins, a complement and a curse, but the easy smile that Diarmuid offers his cousin is one surely inherited from his mother.
"What brings you here at this hour?"
(You could do this duty better without something in your way.)
You do not want to ignore him, but the aching is sharp and loud in your ears like the adrenaline and bloodlust.
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