@mercuryblcke
Lorian wakes up with the sun. Protecting his brother is clearly a thing to be approached with the same energy as a military campaign. He’s certainly spent too long in the army to approach it any other way. He gets ready for the day, gets a head start on packing up camp, gets a fire going, and starts cooking breakfast. They’re making good time, and he expects to cover a lot of ground today.
A golden flash startles him. Suddenly, Lothric is sitting next to him, sleepy and sluggish and still wrapped in a blanket. Divine feathers float lazily down from the sky, as is usual with the teleportation miracle. One of the feathers lands on the eggs Lorian is cooking. Another falls in the fire and incinerates, leaving behind not ash but golden sparks.
“You’re up early,” Lorian remarks. Lothric has never approached anything with the energy of a military campaign in his life. He was expected to follow a fairly rigid schedule back home, but now that he doesn’t have to worry about being punished for noncompliance, his interest in discipline fizzled and died almost immediately. Usually, Lorian brings Lothric breakfast to coax him into waking up, and after that he can be coaxed into leaving anywhere between a half hour and an hour and a half later.
“Might I ask for us to do something differently today?” Lothric says. He’s nervous, he’s speaking politely, but he also has a defensive hostility about him that Lorian is coming to recognize. He doesn’t expect for his opinion to have much weight, and he’s struggling to put in the work to voice it anyway. He’s already angry that it won’t work.
“What is it?” Lorian says. He can get so angry at his father and his court for doing this to his brother, conditioning him to keep silent and not have a voice in anything. He’s inclined to agree to the suggestion. They ought to be in this as equals, the last thing he wants is to position himself as leader and petty tyrant.
“I’d like to stay here for a day,” Lothric says, not meeting Lorian’s eye. “We are not in danger, and no one is following us. My life used to be very regular. I am not used to so much change, and it is starting to get quite overwhelming. I would, of course, understand if you thought it best to keep moving. But I would like time to stop and rest soon.”
Lorian frowns. The weight of the responsibility to protect Lothric is heavy indeed, and always being on the move makes him feel safer. Lorian isn’t nearly as outwardly skittish as Lothric, but he’s wrestling with a lot of fear, himself. When he’s done all he can and he’s still nervous, he looks to ‘ritual.’ If he can only follow the pattern that keeps them safe, and keep busy with perfecting it, nothing will hurt them. He knows it isn’t a guarantee of anything, but it’s easier to pretend than it is than to face the terrifying reality that they’re in a lot of danger and they can’t do anything about it. Always being on the move is part of the pattern. But if Lothric’s spent his whole life being told that his needs aren’t important, if it clearly took a lot of courage to even ask...
“Very well,” Lorian says.
Lothric ends up going back to sleep. Lorian balks at the thought of a lonely, empty day with nothing to protect him from his worries. He takes some time to practice with his weapons, and for a moment nothing can hurt him. But he can’t spend the whole day doing that without getting exhausted. Thankfully, Lothric is awake by the time he’s done. They end up going fishing. It’s... nice. Maybe they ought to do this more often. They’re in such an isolated location it’s not as if they’ll run into anybody if they take a moment to breathe.
