@flcos (cont.)
------------- For a moment, he almost thinks himself thrown back in time. For a moment, he is eleven again, sitting in the grass with a dejected, heartbroken little brother, weeping over destiny lost and confidence lying in tatters at his feet. Marcel picks a green blade of grass, twists it around his finger, just like he used to; but he is no longer a child trying to comfort his little brother. ThiS time, Marcel is an adult, trying to comfort someone else’s brother. He hopes there is not much difference between the two scenarios.
“Now, what makes you say that?” A smile, patient and amused (but serious - always take children’s woes seriously; Marcel knows this too well), curls up the corner of his lips; cat-like, he observes, gauges, curious. From one generation of Warrior candidates to the next, patterns repeat themselves, dynamics so uncannily recognisable, he would laugh at it, if it weren’t so puzzling. But it is amusing. They traded one pair of brothers for another - if Falco is nothing like his own brother, he cannot help the pang of nostalgia whenever his eyes trail on Colt and his younger sibling; too familiar with the protectiveness, the lion’s instinct to watch out for their own, the worried gaze following the youngling everywhere. Of course Marcel Galliard would take a particular liking to these two. How couldn’t he? Kinship forms in the most unlikely places; but older brothers can never look away from the little ones. Even those who aren’t their own.
“There’s only five of you candidates left. You were hundreds when you started the programme, weren’t you?” He remembers it like yesteray; the new cohort, the new batch, hundreds of children led onto the training field and dragged into the mud until only the best could stand on their own two feet. Off to Paradis, he hadn’t seen them hatch from their shell and go through their first baptisms of fire and dirt; but what he sees now is not too different from what he saw then, when he was just about Falco’s age. “No one who is weak would have been able to make it this far, Falco. Whatever happens now, you’ve already proved yourself to be among the strongest. That’s why you still have that yellow armband, and hundreds of others don’t.” He commands himself encouraging, reassuring; ignores the bile that pools in his stomach. Keep your opinions to yourself, Galliard. “Did Gabi say something again?” Doesn’t that ring a bell too. Truly, children never change.
