( firstborn. )

it hardly phased her that karl did not like her.. like father, like son. though, ludd rarely hid it unless he was around her brother or her father. karl was far more calculated in how he acted but it was no secret to her that his dislike of her stemmed from the time she spent with ebbert and torrhen. gryff was the final straw, it seemed;  not that he had ever shown much of a likening to her.

           ❛ hm ? boring me, you say ? only one. ❜

the smile she shared with him was radiant; though,   he’d deserve nothing of her kindness, she still held a modicum of respect for the eldest whitehill. he was better than their lord after all… hazel eyes lifted to matched his evenly, not a flicker of defiance within, merely warm and bright.

A smile she wore ( he hated that fucking SMILE of hers, wanted to tear it from her pretty face ) but words were barbed. She could play games with everyone else, but it was HIM who saw through. HIM who knew something else lay beneath the brightness and the sunshine of her eyes. Was she dark like him? He had yet to discover the Degore’s true intent, but he craved such answers.

Edie annoyed him — though he’d never admit it aloud. Admitting would be a weakness, a hole in his steely, mechanical demeanor. He would not allow her to wiggle though, to pierce him. The armor he wore was as strong as her SMILE.

“Of course you do.”

Of course she enjoyed the attention. She was a woman after all, and wasn’t that what all women desired? The attentions of every man in the room? Ebbert — that frightened rabbit of a boy – was drawn to her kindness. Torrhen had also fallen prey, though Karl’s hold on him would never be shaken. He knew it would not be.

Karl stepped closer to her — he wanted to see those eyes up close. To see if he could catch the lies they held. Edie did not scare easily. She was a Degore after all. Raised to be a Warrior. Not a special woman by any means, but one he could not underestimate.

Sara Bareilles - Sweet As Whole

He can’t stop being afraid, even with Karl suffering from greyscale, his brother can still terrify him.

Gryff wants to say is this the day Karl dies and Gryff can finally be free of him, but he doesn’t, because he knows what those words would bring.

      “No…what…what day is today?”

Karl remembers the day — Ebbert had refused to leave her side, only once Father had forced him out of the room. Torrhen was despondent. Gwyn — only a child. Karl took to looking after her while the others were occupied. He did not see MOTHER ill, did not know she’d died until Father gathered them to announce it.

“He is angry over nothing more than rumors.” He stated, tone heavy with a thick sort of despair as he held his tongue from freeing a list of many reason’s, drilled into his head, as to why he would be beaten like a crippled pup.

Now this piqued his interest. He often heard Father barking his damn head about something having to do with Ebbert — knew he disliked him the least out of all of them ( even the DEMON had found its way into the FUCK’s favor ). Ebbert lacked skill with a sword, but made up for it with his intelligence. How could Father not see brain as useful a skill as brawn? —- Perhaps because the old bastard had none.

“What sort of rumors, brother?” Karl stood still, head tilted as he inquired. He wondered if Ebbert would divulge such a thing, or if he’d stay quiet, continue to MOPE like a child. “You know if someone is making a mockery of this family I will not stand for it.”

Scowling, he shielded the babe further and shot his brother a look. “Doesn’t matter who the mother is,” he muttered under his breath. 

“She’s nobody. Besides, if I did tell you who she was you’d hunt her down and fuck her just like you did with Isabel and Alanna.” The thirdborn was finding his footing now. Gods forbid, but if Karl took offence Torrhen would easily be able to dispatch him. In that state, the eldest brother was weak and broken, but Torrhen still didn’t want to hurt him. Karl was supposed to be his friend, why didn’t he understand?

A frown then at the mention of the two women. Was he still upset about that? Painting him the villain though his precious IsabelandAlanna had not rejected Karl’s advances. Women were not pure like Torrhen wanted to believe. Every woman was not MOTHER.

He’d learn someday.

“Father will take the news better if he heard it from me anyway.” His words are laced with malice though his expression hardly changes. Face had always been unreadable even before the greyscale began eating away at it. “I’ll tell him how kind you’re being by taking the bastard in.”

Ludd had accepted Alanna into their home all those years ago — though Karl was sure MOTHER had something to do with it as well. A weakness for children was something Torrhen and her shared in common.

Torrhen had been hoping to bring the babe to Ebbert or Gwyn so they could check her over for any signs of illness or other maladies before letting the  likes of father or Karl know about it. With Gwyn and Ebbert, he’d have people on side to vouch for the baby.

He was lucky he hadn’t run into Gryff, because that would have seven different hells in itself, but Karl was hardly any better - his piercing, icy stare bore into the skull of Torrhen’s daughter, prompting him to shift the blankets around the babe as if to shield her face.

“This is…” he gulped. “This is Roslin. Snow. My daughter. I’m going to be looking after her because her mother can’t. Hopefully that’s not a problem, brother.”

Eyebrow twitches as his brother shifts blankets to hide the babe from him. The bastard was already turning him soft. This would not do — not at all. What possessed Torrhen to do such a thing? If he were thinking he’d have left the creature with its mother and be done with it.

“Who is she? Some tavern whore?”

Leave it to a whore, shoving her unwanted child onto another. And Torrhen had fallen for her lies as quickly as he’d fallen into her bed. Women could not be trusted — his brother should’ve known that.