The feeling that overtakes Koumei when he reunites with Kouen cannot easily be described, but can, perhaps, best be likened to the first full breath of air after one spends far too long underwater. Just a month– just one month, such an incomparably small time– since he’s last seen his brother, to his understanding, but it feels like it’s been a year. There’s been so much to learn and adapt to, all with no information on the wellbeing of his family.
His family that, to his understanding, had been poised to race headlong into war without him. But with Kouen here, it’s yet a different scenario entirely. He thinks the world of Kouha and Kougyoku, but…
Eyes closed for all of the two seconds it takes to bow, he takes a deep breath. It quivers a little, but he maintains his composure. (And really, even that much is embarrassing.) Truthfully, he’s relieved above all else– and perhaps that’s the best word for it, after all. But even as that overwhelming feeling passes, his brain is already leaps and bounds ahead of him.
(War? What war is there left to fight? Perhaps this way, their younger siblings will simply be allowed to walk away. He doesn’t suspect so, but then, perhaps there’s an even more important piece of that puzzle held firmly in the teeth of Kouen’s statements…)
Questions? Of course he has questions. A hundred, a thousand, and more, after he fully registers what his elder brother has said. He builds his own picture in his head, but why bother with theorizing when the answers are only a conversation away? Why even expend the energy on speculation when he needs only to ask?
❝My brother and king, I’ve been scouring this city for any and all information I can get my hands on, trying to make sense of it.❞ He pauses, considering how best to phrase some of the things he wants to say the most. He’s sure he wears the hallmarks of his sleepless research like a proud uniform, as ever. He feels it too, lurking at the edges of his vision, pressing down on his shoulders, turning his blood to sludge in his veins.
Someday, when there’s more hours in the day, he’ll learn not to let study be self destruction. Until then, he’s thankful to be used to it, at least.
❝I think I’m beginning to understand the way things work, so… I’ll be direct. Just how long have you been here?❞
That odd feeling returned. How long had it been since he was addressed as such? Brow furrowed as he considered the situation, and he considered what to say. Firstly, he supposed, he could answer question. Yes, he supposed, that was a good place to start.
“Hm. A few years now - with some absence in between. It is a unique place, with reading from myriad countries - and worlds.” He scratched his chin. The usual demeanor of the king would certainly seem different to his sibling and advisor, whose exhausting is worn upon him like a cowl. En looks at him, and shakes his head. “And no matter what your research will uncover, something new and unexpected will happen. There have been alternate renditions of ourselves, scenes in the woods in which we were forced to live out the worst moments of our lives - and the lives of others. This place is an island of colliding worlds. Each new person you meet will have a different tale, a different source, a different language.”
“You will find yourself drained of power - sometimes given it back - and the island will relinquish its grip in time. Faces from home will come and go, with very little notice.” He is speaking a lot, he realizes, but that discomfort with speaking at length did not come to the surface with Koumei. “I bide my time to reclaim what I have lost, I forestall conquering because of what I have lost - but to understand this place is to understand that you will never know all of this enemy.”
