#mxrtyred

“If I was so smart I wouldn’t have you as my court wizard now would I?”

He’d struggled to fall asleep -- the night air had been still and stifling, no hint of a breeze to relieve it. Eventually, he’d settled into uneasy dozing, asleep but somehow still aware of his discomfort.

The voice, he presumes, is part of some vivid dream, the almost feverish heat pulling phantoms from his dreams and into the dark. So when he opens his eyes and just about makes out the shadowy figure by his bed, there’s a moment of pure disorientation.

He’s too weary to do anything much more than reach up and dig the heels of his palms into eyes gritty with heat and exhaustion.

    “You won’t die.”

Here, where late blurs into early and even the moon is tucked behind a cloud, asleep, it sounds almost like reassurance. Almost fatherly.

          “You’re a good soldier. Good soldiers survive.”

The words are slurred, but not cruel or patronising. They’re truthful, if blunt. He yawns, and -- giving up on sleep -- swings himself to sitting. He focuses on his son in the blackness, made a ghost by the night, and pushes away some uneasy tendril of premonition that he dismisses as pure weariness.

     “You think you can get away from me that easily?” he smiles,     tired and not at all derisive. “You owe me another twenty-four     years, boy. Then you can die or retire as you choose. Until     then -- I forbid it.”

A half-cocked smile, and a hand rakes through sweat-damp hair.

He’s drunk when Callan finds him and really, that’s notsurprising at all. Still, he does a surprisingly convincing impression of a manwho hasn’t noticed that there’s anyone else in the room.

Not convincing enough, though, especially after Callan grabshim arm and Lothar manages to shake himself free.

“You weren’t there,” Callan says, bluntly. Ah, his father thinks, no messing around. Straight for the throat.There’s something there that might even be a glimmer of pride in it.

“Apparently not.” He meets Callan’s eyes as he drains thelast of his ale. “I was busy.”

A lie, and they both know it.

Twice a year, the King oversees the swearing in of therecruits who have finished their training – accepts their oaths of fealty andproclaims the official soldiers of the realm. Today, the recruits in questionmay have noticed the conspicuous absence of their commander. Callan certainlyhad.

“Fuck you,” Callan says, with feeling.

“Don’t talk to your commander that way.” Lothar says, almost sing-song in his mockery.

Callan considers saying that he’s not talking to hiscommander: he’s talking to his father. Instead, he says “Why? What’s mycommander going to do about it?”

He’s desperate to get a rise, to provoke some kind ofreaction from his father. He’s disappointed; his father dismisses him out ofhand, as is his habit.

“Go home,” is all he says, turning away after a snort oflaughter that carries a hurtfully derisive edge to it. Anger flares in Callan’sgut, foreign to his usually gentle nature.

It’s almost an out of body experience, the way one handcatches his father’s arm to pull him back around, the way his other fist swingaround, unchecked, to connect with the hard line of his jaw.

Lothar catches himself on the bar top, but only just; hadhis arm not managed its wild grip, he would have ended on the floor. He curses,spits, and when he pulls himself to standing, there’s blood on his lip.

Callan’s aware, as his father catches hold of him, hoistshim almost up off his feet, that he’s by far the smaller of the two. He’s seenhis father fight, and train, and doesn’t doubt for a second that if he had amind to, he could tan his hide raw quite effortlessly.

Lothar draws back his fist, retaliation clenched in hisfist, and then hesitates. Callan doesn’t even flinch.

“Go on.” With his jaw set and defiance in his eyes, he lookslike his father. “You’d have any of your men on the floor for that. If you won’ttreat me as your son, you can at least do the courtesy of treating me like oneof them.”

It’s the proof Lothar had never asked for (or wanted) thathis son is clever enough to know exactly what’s going on in his father’s mind.

Because it’s true: Lothar does not treat the boy as a fathertreats a son. To look at him is to look at Cally, and everything he’s lost. IfCallan didn’t exist, she would not have died, and that truth is and always hasbeen indisputable.

 Here, with his arm drawn back and lip bleeding and the boyrefusing to cower, not even an inch, doubt begins to creep in.

This is me, Lothar thinks. This is me at seventeen oreighteen, all empty assurance and such a firm idea of wrong and right and whatI know to be true.

Callan is a good soldier. He trains hard and fights hard andthinks hard, and if he were anyone else, Lothar would have earmarked him as oneto watch.

All this he thinks in a split second, swiftly followed bythe realisation that the last piece of Cally left in this world has strapped asword to his hip and called himself a soldier.

Soldiers fight, and die, and are lost forever.

He drops his fist, and resumes his seat at the bar.

“Not today. Today, you’re my son.” He glances at Callan oncemore, and repeats himself. “Go home.”

He half expects Callan to fight. Instead after a longhesitation, he turns to leave. Lothar can’t help but notice that the boy looksdisappointed.

Omg, Lex, I am Andre, and we have t-shirts. 

I have so many blogs... it’s insane. I open my window and blogs go everywhere! Usually I end up not logging on some for months at a time though if I get unmotivated or the muse vanishes honestly.