#*twinnies

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10. Who do you think has the best relationship with Lucien? Who has the worst relationship with Lucien? Explain why and how for both

ronan (rip) had the best relationship with lucien. he's the sixth-born son of beron and amalia and closest in age to lucien. even though he was an adult when lucien was born, i think he took an immediate liking to this new little bundle. he never knew any of his brothers as children; he never knew them soft and innocent. he only ever knew them as sharp-edged adults, embroiled in schemes and machinations that he could not quite understand, even when he tried to. so lucien was a novel, precious thing in his life, and he kept that sentiment even after lucien grew up. which makes it all the more devastating that silas convinced ronan (and marius) to go after lucien post-jesminda — ronan had a secret lover of his own; ronan was so afraid after he watched his father torture lucien's; ronan wanted to protect himself by showing his father how vile he thought lucien's actions were; ronan died speared through by tamlin's claws with an apology on his mouth. on account of silas, the fourth-born son of beron and amalia and older twin to marius, dying at lucien's hand in front of marius, i'd say marius has the worst relationship with lucien. he will never, ever forgive lucien for ultimately being the one to take the other half of his soul away from him. because of lucien, he now goes through life as a cleaved version of himself. he looks in the mirror and sees silas before he sees his own face, so the reminder never goes away that silas is not there, not anymore. his magic feels — wrong. hollow. like dropping something down a well and never hearing it reach the bottom. for years afterwards, his mother cannot look at him without her eyes welling up with tears. and he knows, logically, always so logically, that what happened to lucien was unfair. that what happened to lucien was beron's fault. that lucien had to protect himself. but he can never forget what it felt like, to feel silas crumple beneath lucien's blow, to feel the heart stop as though it was his own, then feel the pain of his heart keep beating. so ... marius really does not like lucien.

11. Who do you think has the best relationship with Eris? Who has the worst relationship with Eris? Explain why for both

marius has the best relationship with eris by far. marius is the fifth-born son of beron and amalia, the younger of the twin brothers. he's definitely the most scholarly of the brood. (how i imagine eris would have been if he had the opportunity to keep his nose in a book for longer.) he is adept with his flame, but where he excels is in runic magic and charms. (this is pretty rare for autumn fae, but being a vanserra, he had access to tomes and scrolls commonfolk could never dream of seeing.) he also rules the province just beside eris's. well — rules is a loose term, because he provides eris with whatever charmed things eris needs in exchange for eris largely overseeing all matters of governance in his province, which he has little interest in. promptly. without asking any questions. most of the time. (fun fact: he's who made azriel's necklace in eiteio!) this is honestly a win-win situation for eris, who obviously plans rule all of autumn eventually anyway and is able to expand his influence without anyone being the wiser for it. they have a pretty cordial relationship, even if it functions more like a business arrangement than a brotherhood, and they interact the most of the siblings. oh man, emile and eris break my heart all the time. emile is the second-born son of beron and amalia, and he serves as the court spymaster by virtue of his affinity for smoke. (works kinda similarly to azriel's shadows, minus the secrets / being able to communicate with the smoke. cannot conjure flame to save his life but can literally just . become smoke. also able to suffocate up to hundreds of people at once if he wants and leave no trace. very cool honestly.) issue with this is that he has a massive, massive inferiority complex because 1. his abilities are constantly clowned on by beron and his brothers and 2. he is not heir, assumedly because of this inherent defect in his power. he is so incredibly desperate for beron's approval, for his father to look at him with anything other than disgust. he takes this out heavy on eris. like, where eris is jealous of lucien for being the easily loved-by-all sunshine boy, emile is jealous of eris for being the assured-of-power heir. because eris is beron's favorite son, as much as beron torments eris, and emile is neither his mother nor his father's favorite. he is in fact the biggest disappointment to both in trying so hard to be beron's favorite and still never quite managing it. so he is a huge thorn in eris's side. constant attempts at undermining eris; uses his spy network to watch eris and make eris's maneuvering all the more difficult; fully subscribes to the cruelties expected of him, antagonistic towards all of the brothers, which makes him an even greater threat to eris, who wants only to protect them all; has made multiple attempts on eris's life; only respects displays of violence because violence = power for him. yikes.

40. Do any of the brothers side with Eris and want him to be High Lord?

i KNOW!!! he’s fine shit too. i mourn him as deeply as marius does i can’t even front on that one. i think the latter because i think it’s hotter to play out :•) it didn’t happen often enough to become A Thing, but there were ladies who would detail to their closest, most trusted confidants the sordid details of having two of the vanserra brothers at once, the same-faced ones, with the smooth tongues and the— yes, they were good with their tongues, let me finish!

they sure have!!! it’s never crossed physical boundaries with each other, but they love a good threesome. it’s like. very interesting (to me) because it really is just a product of them sharing everything. there’s no sexual attraction to each other ykwim? and it never strikes them as strange or perverse. it’s literally just that pleasure for one is gratifying for the other because they’re always as one. i like to conceptualize them as like—marius is able to be passive because silas is active; marius is able to be covert because silas is overt. they’re each one half of a complementary whole. marius doesn’t have to extend himself because silas knows intrinsically what he wants and includes him in all his choices.

omg thank you so much wtf!!! that means a lot to me. (also i'd very much love to hear about your oc if you feel like sharin👀)

the only reason marius made it back to the forest house at all was because he needed to kill beron. he tried to revive silas at first, the loss inconceivable. he could see silas' heart through the hole in his chest, and it was not beating, but that didn't make any sense. he tried to pour his magic into his twin, but it just. wouldn't work. then he tried to go after tamlin and lucien, but there were sentries on the border, and even after he killed them, spring itself would not let him through. it closed up every path he could have taken. someone has to pay. he'll run the full gamut of blame in the months and years to come: beron, tamlin, lucien, eris, silas, emile, himself, himself, himself. but beron is the most obvious target for his bloodlust.

so the first thing he does is make an attempt on beron's life. he nearly succeeds, too. silas had always been the more aggressive one; marius was no coward, but he was content to let silas take the lead while he thought things through. beron just didn't expect marius to do something so bold. marius would have succeeded were this not the moment he reached across the carranam bond and felt only death reach back. silas was not there. silas was not anywhere. silas was gone. then everything went black. even when it wasn't black anymore, everything was hazy. they had him on sedatives to manage the pain of beron's retribution, but they'd never been permitted such relief before; the real reason was because he was such a danger to himself and everyone around him.