Send a ✏️ and I'll share a scenario or plot I want to explore.
Drautos only cared about his golden opportunity to put an end to the Lucis Caelum family line during the invasion of Tenebrae. He knew full well what the MT units were capable of and while he did not harbor any ill will towards the Mother-Oracle and her children, they were a potential sacrifice he was willing to overlook.
Queen Sylva shielded Ravus from the flames, using her body as a wall between the young boy and certain death. He had seen it countless times, countless ways. He was intimately familiar with the alarmingly sweet smell of charred meat and the acrid stench of burning hair— the sizzling hiss of internal fluids as exposed tissue burst open.
What he did was an act of mercy. Witnessing the woman being executed would leave scars, but it was preferable to more horrific visions of her screaming, clawing wildly at air and earth, twisting and spasming as the fire fed from her body.
He would willingly take on the weight of his budding hatred, would understand and stare knowingly back into Ravus' eyes at the time of his reckoning. For what else could a boy who'd lost everything cling to, what else could sate the endless agony and rage stirring in his soul?
The first mistake he had made was calling out to Regis, the foolish monarch fleeing with his son and Lunafreya while leaving the rest of Tenebrae behind.
The clawed gauntlet covering his hand seized Ravus by the back of the skull, twisting his wrist to force the prince to watch as the coward ran.
"He can save no one, least of all himself," he'd remarked coldly, releasing the boy (no, now a young man) to slump against the forest floor in abject despair.
"The only strength you can rely on is your own. Cultivate it. Hone the edge of your hatred into sharpened steel and take back what is yours."
[TL;DR: I can see Drautos pitying Ravus in his own fucked up way (hooray toxic masculinity), accepting that one day the Crown Prince might come for his life.
He wouldn't exactly be surprised to see Ravus enlist in the militia, as he had little by the way of options, but he would play the role as mentor and see to it that Ravus is fully prepared for his next steps. Not merely swordplay and takedowns, but strategy and tactical know-how, diplomacy. He would see to it that Ravus works for everything he needs and acquires it with his own hands, by his own merit.
Perhaps it works a little too well, as he appears noticeably alarmed when Ravus later tries to seize the power of the Ring of the Lucii for himself. That is a lesson hard-learned, but he'd probably respect the sheer audacity.
Drautos will pour all of his resentment, knowledge, and cunning into Ravus and help shape him into a force to be reckoned with- If not by Drautos' hand, then Ravus can be the instrument of Lucis' fall.]
