#aritian

“Elven wine,” he explained, tipping the jug so it sloshed in the crook of his arm. “Want some?”

“Now doesn’t really seem like the time to be drinking,” she said. In her voice he heard the memory of him and Day being reckless with pixie concoctions back at the pub in Astrazalian. That was on them—but he knew this alcohol was safe.

“Suit yourself.” 

Aritian gave the tiniest smile while he pretended not to listen, gaze cast into the wilderness. It must’ve looked disingenuous or comical to him, Cihro offering alcohol as olive branches to people he had unstable relationships with. He couldn’t help it—it was one of his ways of bonding. He didn’t need the alcohol as a bridge, but it helped—loosened the tongue and inhibitions and all that, even if a little. Cihro only needed a little wiggle room.

He corked the jug and replaced it in the bag of holding, then made his way across the fire to Theotae and sat cross-legged next to her. He gave her more distance than he’d give his friends, and she shifted slightly, more upright. Behind her, a twig snapped under Symania's foot as she turned.

“I wanted to talk to you, actually,” he said. “You’ve been really quiet for a lot of the journey. I wanted to ask how you were feeling about things.”

Theotae levelled him with a calculative look. “I didn’t think you had much respect or care for my opinion.”

“Depends on the opinion,” Cihro said. “Most of them I don’t, but I know you’re not stupid. You just put value on different things.”

“We’ve lived different lives,” she said. Cihro tipped his flask to her and drank in agreement. She blew out a long, slow sigh, indicative of someone who'd been holding on to a number of thoughts. Cihro wasn’t sure if it was a dismissal or agreement until she said, “We weren’t sure if you were all coming back when Lady Shandria sent you off.”

“Neither did we,” Cihro said, cracking a half-grin. 

“There’s nothing I hate more than being forced to put my life in someone else’s hands.” She tossed a line of hair over her shoulder. “We were starting to consider escape options when you returned. I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for death instead of meeting it myself.” She paused. “But you all proved capable, in the end.”

“We try. We’re kind of constantly sent into deadly fights that aren’t always ours.” His eyes dropped to his lap, where his hands folded his flask side over side. He was reluctant to share with her before now, too scared to see a callous indifference about it. “Success for us hasn’t always been as easy as it was with the leviathan. It’s not a yes or no. Day and me died, before we came here.”

She said nothing. He glanced up to see her brows knotted with a quiet, ruminative intensity. He shook his head, mostly at himself—he didn’t know why he was sharing. Maybe he just wanted to see if she actually cared for them, but he didn’t know why it was important to him that she did. He couldn’t see his answer, either. The set of her brow could’ve meant a lot of things.

“For Day it was a few seconds, but for me it was hours,” he continued. “And this whole time we’ve been here, every time we go out, I just think about how it could happen again, before we find our mom.” 

“That would be...unfortunate,” Theotae decided, choosing her words precisely. “I had the same thought when your group was gone.”

“Yeah.” They lapsed into silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it also wasn’t pleasant. Cihro sipped at his wine again. He made a quick scan of the treeline around their clearing, heard and saw nothing but bramble and the button lights of fireflies. Symania had wandered off to the opposite side of their camp, behind Aritian to a place where she could see them but lend them some privacy. 

“I didn’t like how you suggested I should bargain some of my life for this,” Theotae said after the lull. “To Queen Titania.”

“I was feeling a little desperate,” Cihro admitted. “Surprised you weren’t.”

“Our mother’s been gone far longer for me than she has for you.” Theotae shifted again, propping her lower back to rest against a mossy rock and crossing her arms. “If you were really desperate, you could’ve given your own. What you and Kishore said applies to me as well—and not only people, but civic responsibilities.” 

Cihro could’ve rolled his eyes, but he resisted. 

“So. A brother-in-law?” she asked, gesturing to Cihro’s hand with hers. 

“Didn’t wanna mention it,” Cihro said, rolling his ring between his fingers. “You barely accept us as brothers, I didn’t think you’d care about a third.”

“Well, like you two, it makes him a brother whether I like it or not,” she said. 

“He knows about you,” Cihro said. The urge to withhold info on Talsin was harder to suppress than an eyeroll—he wanted to gush and brag about his husband, especially with someone hard to impress like his sister, but she would dismiss his praise for Talsin until she saw it for herself. “He’s agreed to be civil so long as you are.”

“I’m perfectly civil.”

“I wish.” Cihro tucked away his flask. “And what about the stuff with being Queen Titania’s great grand-daughter?”

“What about it?”

“What do you think?”

Theotae shrugged, an unimpressed look falling over his face like a fine mist. She stared into the fire and the flames danced in her eyes, a shadow of their mother Cihro saw from the illusion. 

“I suppose I could find a way to add it to my title,” she mused, half-serious. “But really, I don’t think it makes much of a difference. We were who we were before we came here—there’s little to no archfey in our blood. These are different domains, and our connection to her is so thin we can’t do much with it.”

“Seems reasonable,” Cihro said. “I think a part of me is holding out hope that I get to live a bit longer, though.”

“You mentioned your husband out-living you,” she stated. Cihro was making a joke—he didn’t expect her to unknowingly twist a knife he’d lodged in himself. “What is he?”

“He’s an elf,” Cihro said with some irritability, but it didn’t last for more than a second. 

“Interesting. From Syngorn?”

“Oh, hell no.”

Theotae snorted, but it was less derisive, more ‘that sounds about right.’

Cihro wasn’t sure what kind of note to end on. He’d hoped over the course of their trip she’d open up more, but she still hadn’t come forward with an apology and Day hadn’t spoken with her. There was time, but a lot of it had passed with her at a distance. She watched their backs from a place where they couldn’t see. They were separated both by choice and the influence of higher powers lording over them in the Feywild.

He clapped his hands to his thighs and rose to his feet. “Well. We’re here, you know. I don’t always wanna be the one reaching out.”

“I never asked you to,” she said, eyes flicking to him without moving her head.

“No, but that’s what makes me decent, I think.” He dusted his pants. “Besides, I know what it’s like to want to open up but not being able to for whatever reason.” 

“Don’t pretend I don’t know that, brother,” she cautioned, and though his eyeline was above hers, she still sounded like she was talking down her nose. “You don’t know what’s going on with me.”

“I know. That’s the point. I can only make assumptions ‘til you talk.” 

They stared in silence, trying to find faults in each other’s armour. Cihro thought he saw tension in her shoulders, a trace of tiredness under her eyes, of wanting everything to be over and decided—but it was still conjecture on his part. Whatever his guess, he thought he could relate to her. She just needed to reach out. 

She looked away first, back into the flames. “Thank you,” she said softly. “There’ll be more danger soon. Keep your guard up and your wits about you.”

“I’m trying.”