╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ @bardicchord's alistair and cailan, via a dialogue prompt: "i don't want you to think all i ever went through was misery."
they were supposed to be collecting downed wood for the fire. somehow, in the midst of hauling pieces into their arms, the pair of brothers had settled on a discussion neither of them had really expected. one topic led to another, a backhanded comment about alistair's time in redcliffe that gave cailan pause. the king had asked for clarification because perhaps, maybe, he hadn't heard him right.
but, no. cailan had heard him rightly.
between then and now, they'd found a rotting log to perch on, one running parallel to a stream, rushing clear and cold with melted frostback snow. the chunks of wood, what little they could find that were dry enough and hadn't turned to pulp in the frigid wet winter-turned-spring, have been piled up neatly. and there those twin piles sit, untouched for the duration of their conversation, side by side.
i don't want you to think all i ever went through was misery. the uncomfortable knot that has settled low in the pit of cailan's stomach lessens so very little.
the statement would be innocuous for most others. perhaps, most might have even believed it. that maybe, the life of the bastard son of the king of ferelden wasn't all bad — how bad could it have been, really? besides the forced distance between alistair and the court, and besides the glaring absence in the wake of his submission into the monastery, he'd lived in redcliffe castle as the nephew of an arl. perhaps, maybe, others might even assume he'd a warm bed and ate at the same table, the same meals as his guardian, their uncle, did. all assumptions, sure, but understanding ones, well-meaning ones. the same ones that cailan himself had made a long time ago.
but most others did not know eamon. and apparently, neither did cailan.
far be it from him to be surprised, really, that his brother might be capable of seeing the bright side in most situations. even further, still, that alistair might attempt to comfort him in such an admission. and he'd been so brave about it, even as he course corrected and lessened the blow. yet cailan cannot help but stare into the rushing water some meters away, brows knit, unmoving, and wonder why his brother even felt the need.
why must alistair spare him, of all people? or is he sparing himself the realization that cailan had been quickly coming to terms with himself: that he'd been willfully neglected by the man he'd been entrusted to as an infant? for the sake of an image still so fragile, something so fresh in the face of a recovered ferelden? for what else, beyond the honor of his mother?
was that what his mother would have wanted? a child, innocent in the makings of his own birth, sent out to live with the dogs in her honor?
cailan straightens. ❛ alistair. ❜ if the disquiet in his tone comes off as a reprimand, an admonishment, he does not mean for it to. much to his credit, at least, cailan realizes it quickly, and the hush of apologetic shame befalls him for a few contemplative moments further. choosing his words carefully, correcting his tone would do them both well. it is hardly alistair's fault. he had been a child born — literally and figuratively — into a set of circumstances he would have never asked for himself.
but there is hardly a thing they can do about it now, is there, besides acknowledging it? treating him like a still-swaddled, naive little boy would do his brother so little justice in the end. alistair is a grown man, and his own man. a warden, to boot. he deserved to be treated as such.
❛ even if it wasn't all misery, you need not soften it for my sake. ❜ if he wasn't, well, he prayed to the prophet andraste or the maker himself, whoever was listening, that his younger brother would forgive him his self-important assumptions. ❛ you slept in the kennels. eamon treated you like a mutt dog. he shipped you off to the chantry to sever any ounce of legitimacy you had to your name like a mutt dog. and father, he … he let him. ❜
and cailan himself did not go without fault. he barely saw past his own nose to notice the criminal shortcomings afforded his brother in the first place. the thought makes him sick to his stomach, sick enough to purse his lips with a stiff shake of his head. the sole of his boot scuffs in the mud as he straightens his leg and bends it again at the knee, fist clenched atop it. movement, something, anything to break the band of vulnerability stretched tight between them. ❛ unruly child or otherwise, no soul deserves that. ❜
