My darling Aldish Captain

Indeed. Duane was shipped to Fachlyne - the plaguelands. He spent however many years there enforcing the quarantine, routing bad actors, and having terrible, horrible military adventures before he was promoted and able to score a transfer to Chinoll, where Lemuel was.

Lemuel doesn't seem as shocked as he could be afterwards, you think? Perhaps he's spent the last almost seven years waiting for the past to catch up with him. He never truly believed he'd not see his brother again. There was never any closure, never any real judgment.

But he has a family to protect, so he's never going to turn into a soppy and accommodating mess over Duane's state. He has to protect them from him - and even protect his long term goals from him, if necessary. It's not fair, it's cruel, it's cold, but Lemuel has never shied away from making even the hardest personal sacrifices.

Long hair on a dude has a certain connotation in Alderode. Alds sacrifice locks of their hair when they make requests of the gods or Ssael or the Vaosa or even the khert, which some do pray to like a lesser deity. You'll see this in a sec.

Long hair on a dude connotes that they don't ask for shit. It's kinda impious and as a priest, Duane doesn't really approve of it! He gave Amadwe's silver braid the side-eye once and that was really the end of whatever good will saving Will had engendered.

Lemuel also just really liked it long and he liked to swap stories with his daughter while she tied it up in ribbons.

Lemuel says it's nothing personal, Simon is just so weird. He sits in a corner of the flat all day and builds models. He hates going outdoors and is rubbish at stickfighting.

Very hard to capture a VITS official alive. They always travel with kill switches.

Lem's only a prisoner because he was knocked out during the battle. Cresce had no particular desire to keep him around and have probably already executed him for the comfort and healing of the Grenzlan assault victims o7

We must not compare the babies, the two of them are going down different paths in their training. Mikaila doesn't have the upper body strength to handle much weaponry so Lemuel has been teaching her more like a vliegeng pilot: acrobatics, aerial fighting, and unarmed combat. She's studied how to augment both with pymary, redistributing her weight as needed and minimizing showy attacks that can make her a target. A lifetime of having to hide her spellcasting has definitely shaped her style.

But that little punch redirection she did on Will is some of her bread and butter. Her timing and twitch reflexes have gotten pretty lethal.

They would make Silver babies!

But no, Lemuel is Dad's Friend. I guess, to Will, Lemuel is an older and cooler chad that he doesn't really have any desire to emulate but whom he also is intimidated by. Will doesn't want to intimidate anyone; he wants to live up to his responsibilities, be a fine paladin and Ssaelit, marry some highborn woman and then take over for dad.

Gotta hand this one to Lemuel. She just spent a year at his side, and Lemuel did not coddle her. It did her self-esteem and confidence up a treat. Once you win a few fights and learn how to knock people down, you start to carry yourself a little differently.

Claggart still would be a Jet and still controlled by the curse, so he'd go for Foi-Hellick over Will in any situation. Will's only still alive today because the Adeliers were Soud, and had the available agency to pick him over the Etalarche.

It's a little weird. Will's dad developed a dad-crush on Lemuel pretty quickly after he joined the Lions, so Lemuel is strictly "Father's Friend," in Will's head. This only deepened when Duane died and Lemuel became Mikaila's dad and even more dad-coded.

Simon has a picture in his head of the man, but it's one informed by things his mom and dad and sister have told him, and nothing he's able to conjure from memory. Simon's old enough that he's started to develop a lot of resentment towards Duane. Everyone expects him to follow in his footsteps, but Simon really doesn't have much interest in pymary or even in the priesthood. His financier uncle is more compelling. How luxurious to sit in a beautiful and warm building all day, in control of so much wealth, never breaking a sweat or putting yourself at risk while everyone from almost every walk of life comes to you to kiss your butt and beg for access?