#marcassin

He scoffs in response, taking his hand back and shoving it in his pocket when it becomes clear Marcassin does not need his help. "Right." The tone sends a pang through Marcassin's throat.

"Prince Marcassin!" Oliver calls, jogging over to him with a furrowed brow. "A-Are you alright?"

"Perfectly fine, Oliver," Marcassin grinds out, "thank you."

"Didn't look alright, sunshine," Drippy says flatly, forever present next to Oliver. "Looked like you ignored Ollie-boy here. Again."

Marcassin did not ignore Oliver. Marcassin heard the sharp whistle and saw the hand signal and did exactly what he thought was best in the moment. Did he complete the action he set out to do? No. Did he get knocked down halfway through the rune for Ward by a very simple blast of dark magic? Maybe.

"Maybe we should run through all-outs again," Gascon suggests, tone dripping with undisguised frustration.

Oliver opens his mouth to possibly even take the suggestion, which Marcassin truly believes would cause the death of the pure-hearted one to be at his hands. "No, that's alright," he says, cutting Oliver off with a strained smile. "I'm already familiar with all-outs, thank you."

"Could've fooled me," Drippy mutters under his breath.

"I thought," Marcassin says loudly, "that there was time to cast Ward before it hit. There was not. My sincerest apologies."

A beat of silence. "R-Right," Oliver says, nodding, cringing, "um, just, usually when I call all-out defense, it means you should..."

"Defend first, cast spells later," Gascon shortens for him.

Marcassin rolls his jaw. "I will keep that in mind."

"Oliver!" Esther calls, standing up from where she was checking that the person she knocked out still has a pulse, "I found food!"

Oliver turns around. "Huh? Really? Does it look okay?"

Drippy is already sprinting over to her. "Do not flipping eat that! Are you out of youer mind!?"

Oliver leaves to follow Drippy, as he usually does, presumably to help stop Esther from eating a cheeseburger that has been almost certainly infested with ash. Marcassin is left standing with Gascon, trying very hard to ignore his festering frustration.

He wasn't lying. He does know what an all-out call means; he's known since he was four years old, when Gascon had first begun teaching him, and he hadn't been able to really teach him magic, so they started with other combat skills. Defending, dodging, and what was apparently one of Father's tactics: the calls for all-out attack and all-out defense. Calls meaning "attack with everything you have, there's no danger" and "back away, something big is coming". Gascon had drilled them into him until he'd started flinching when he heard the guards whistling in the hallway. When Gascon had, back then, called all-out defense when they were out in the field, he had trusted him without a second thought, stepping back and curling his arms around his face to protect himself the best he could.

They hadn't had much of a teambuilding exercise when Marcassin had insisted on coming along with the group. Oliver had given him a brief rundown, rattled off what the callouts mean, told him he could try bonding with some of the familiars in his retreat if he wanted (he stuck with Joules), and then they didn't have time for anything else because there were people suffering in Ding Dong Dell. Perhaps it is for this reason that when Marcassin hears Oliver call for an all-out defense, there is a moment where he thinks, are you sure? and often that moment is all that is needed for him to be knocked to the ground.

Or perhaps it is the idea of taking orders from a smaller-than-average thirteen-year-old child. Oliver isn't even that good of a wizard; pure power carries him through sloppily drawn runes, speaking no incantations when casting. It's very clear he has not been practicing magic for long, and even more so, that he has only practiced it out of necessity.

So Marcassin hears the callouts in a child's voice and thinks no, I have time. Perhaps this is why he is not the one calling them.

What he was honestly shocked by was the fact his brother wasn't the one calling the shots. On the Iron Wyvern, when it had become clear Marcassin was expected to follow Oliver's orders, he had pulled Gascon aside and asked why in the world that was the case. Gascon had raised an eyebrow, and replied, "Are you kidding? He's a far better tactician than me."

"But," Marcassin had said incredulously, "you're the adult."

He'd gotten a shrug in response. "If we're going by age, Drippy would be the one doing it," Gascon had joked. "How do you feel about taking orders from him?"

Very bad, Marcassin had concluded.

Maybe, he thinks, he should be the one calling orders. He is the leader of an empire, after all, even if that continues to be a very foreign concept, not helped by his years of brokenheartedness. If he is meant to be the emperor, perhaps he should act like it? It is, of course, ridiculous for an emperor (such as him) to be taking orders from a teenager, no matter how tactically sound the orders are, and doing it scrapes at the insecurity that still sits nestled around where the hole in his heart used to be. If he's not fit to be the leader of a small squadron like this, how is he supposed to effectively lead Hamelin?

Yet, of course, he cannot simply saunter into the group and declare himself leader. Therefore, he concludes, knowing he's being childish, he should only have to take orders from the one he will listen to: Gascon.

The man in question sighs beside him. "Look, just..." he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "try to listen out for it, alright?"

Marcassin takes a breath in. "I will," he says around the lump in his throat.

Gascon nods, slightly awkward, hovering, before he walks off to go talk to the other three. Marcassin stands there for a while longer, staring at them all.

Of course, he has no right to make any changes to the way they do things. He is a wrench in this machine, he knows. The four of them have been working together for so long that he can feel his presence encroaching on the way they even talk to each other. And Gascon chose this, after all, over staying in Hamelin with him, part of his brain whispers; he chose these people who make fun of him, who work with him so well, who call him by a different name. Chose following the orders of a child over giving orders to Marcassin. And Marcassin, meanwhile, is an imposter of an emperor, a worse one than Gascon would have ever been, as well as an intruder in his brother's new life without him.

"Marcassin!" Esther calls, and he blinks at her, coming out of his little spiral. "Come on, we're going!"

My back hurts from drawing this for multiple hours without break but ough... Marcassin... I love him

I don't have much to say about this piece other than I'd like to kiss this man and this was fun to draw. Idgaf about the background I used all my brain power on the everything else