"Mother please," Aelfric wailed. "My robes are so pretty with color now!"
"Take it off!"
"I don't want to!"
"You didn't want to put it on before we left," Aeris shouted.
Ray could hear the argument through the old wooden door inside Hearst Castle. He rolled his eyes in annoyance. He was meant to make a huge show, as his own regent instructed him to about handing over his lands and titles...to Aelfric. Little Aelfric, who did not want to change into proper clothing, who was now arguing with the most powerful woman in the eighth realm.
"Little idiot couldn't have done me a favor and blossomed when his balls dropped at least," Ray muttered to himself.
His bright green hair was tied up that day, and he started to play with his bangs absentmindedly while he stood in the hallway, waiting for the argument to end, but it continued. In exasperation he huffed and left down the hallway off to find his partner in crime: Leofric. He found him in the courtyard with the rest of the nobility, drinking fizzy drinks and various desserts. Leofric's dull blue eyes had a flicker of curiousity spark when he saw Ray enter the courtyard.
"Why hello there former Grand Duke," Leofric said cheerfully.
Leofric had a giant, shit eating grin on his face while Ray shuffled over to his table.
"Only you would give someone bad news with a smile," Ray lamented.
"I do not enjoy this anymore than you do. Do not worry though. This perversion of the natural order will end eventually."
"You do not enjoy another man's suffering?"
"Cousin. Your suffering is my suffering. Are we not kinsmen?"
Ray eyed him with suspicion and Leofric laughed, hollow and loud.
"Come! Sit! The juice is good tonight."
"Oh gods you're drunk," Ray balked.
"Not drunk. Just a little silly is all!"
"Oh. Yes. Where is your second half, Godiva," Ray asked.
"I do not know. Am I my sister's keeper?"
Ray rolled his eyes again and sat at the knowing that he wasn't going to get any straight answers from Leofric that night about anything important. However, he was wondering what scheme he had in mind for Aelfric. Leofric never hid his displeasure of the youngest, even though he did not pose any threat to his status. Ray was the only one at that party who had reason to truly hate Aelfric. Yet he felt a strange sense of pity mixed with displeasure whenever he laid his eyes upon the boy.
Never hatred.
"I know its unbecoming of oneself to not follow tradition, especially since I know better," Ray began. "But..."
"But," Leofric implored him.
"Unfair is what it is. His ability is rare, his lineage more so; but I was here first."
"What are you going to do about it," Leofric asked.
"I...I don't know."
"You can just say no. You don't have to give it to him."
"If it were anyone else, yes," Ray shouted. "But Auntie made me!"
His fists slammed the table, shaking the cutlery, and the group of people at the table near them looked over in excitement. A new source of gossip was to be had for the next party, and they tried to pretend like they weren't listening.
"Mother can be quite...pushy...sometimes," Leofric admitted.
"No. It was a suggestion. Auntie would never force me to do something I don't want to do," Ray said uneasily.
He noticed the group of nobles, listening in, and knew that they would take any chance possible to live at the court, even if it meant spreading falsehoods and half-truths. The women sitting at the table started to get up and make their way towards Ray and Leofric, but then promptly sat back down when Godiva rushed toward Leofric.
"Oh, I've been looking for you everywhere," Godiva groaned. "Why are you drunk?!"
"I am not drunk. I am fine," Leofric slurred.
"My Lady, please do something with him, you are his keeper, after all," Ray said quietly.
"With pleasure."
Godiva yanked Leofric's long black hair to force him to sit upright, and the ladies at the table nearby started twittering, creating more stories in their minds more elaborate than the actual conversation.
"Damn you, leave me be," Leofric said.
"Oh, don't worry, Ray is coming too. He needs to rehearse a few times before we bring out Little 'Fric."
"Stop calling him that. Stop calling me Big 'Fric. I hate it," Leofric replied.
"You hate many a things and yet you do nothing about them. Strange," Godiva mused.
She yanked his hair again until he stood up and led Leofric and Ray back into the castle, away from the music and lights of freedom.
====================================
Ray was willing to do many things for the sake of peace, but one thing he was unwilling to do was to bow to a child.
There was no reason for him to bow beforehand, as Aelfric was a child, unlanded, and an implied claim. A claim that no one expected him to have, because everyone expected Ray's ability to come forth before Aelfric's.
But it did not.
Ray, the late bloomer, was less than enthused when he had to rehearse "lines", given to him by his aunt on what to say and do in front of the crowd. She told Ray that "Aelfric is just a shy thing. Give him some time to sort himself."
The shy thing stumbled over his words while they sat together in the study, the two of them, getting to know each other. That was the excuse Godiva gave when she and Leofric skulked out of the room to escape the dreadful affair.
After the fifth time of Aelfric failing to get the words right, Ray stood up from the creme chaise to leave the study, and Aelfric panicked.
"Where are you going," he asked. "I haven't prepared!"
"You can't prepare for every moment of life. You certainly couldn't for the ceremony earlier, and you had a week. Why go through this again," Ray replied.
"Because mother said image is everything!"
"Well, mother doesn't know everything!"
Aelfric gasped, and Ray's eyes widened when he realized what he had said.
"Take that back," Aelfric shouted.
Ray knew that questioning his aunt's authority, even in private, was the fastest way to an early grave. But who would believe anything if it were just the two of them in the study? He opened his mouth and was shocked at himself for the words that started to pour freely from his mouth.
"...no..."
Aelfric gasped again and then covered his own mouth, as if he would start saying something improper because Ray was.
"You don't deserve this," Ray said.
"I do! I do," Aelfric wailed.
"You can barely even handle this ceremony. I have been training in all fields to be the best representative of Rex. But due to chance, pure chance, you are to take my lands from me?"
"Mother says sharing is hard sometimes," said Aelfric.
"Your mother hasn't had to share a damn thing in her life."
Aelfric would not let the dishonor stand! He ran over to Ray and pushed him as hard as he could, but missed. Ray took two steps back, dodging him, but fell down anyway, onto the old creme chaise. He screamed in pain as a nail, a singular, solitary nail jutting out from the side of the couch, tore into his left hand. The lights flickered in the room from the injection of pain, and the rune on the wall lit a dim purple while Ray clutched his hand.
"You little bastard," Ray screamed.
"I am not! Bow!"
"Never."
Ray stood up, wobbly, and he felt the ground beneath him move. His mouth tasted of dull copper, and his vision started to cloud. He blacked out for a split second, and then the lights in the room returned to his vision twice as strong. The longer he clutched his hand the odder it started to feel. He closed his eyes, trying to block out everything, and he opened them again; they were black.
A long, winding trail of blood from his hand started to thicken and lengthen, and instead of blood, it appeared as if multiple fine strings were coming out of his hand.
"W-w-what's happening," Ray said. "I haven't had anything to drink."
"Stop trying to scare me with your ability," Aelfric pleaded. "Stop!"
"I don't have a-"
Ray stopped himself.
"Yes. Yes, this is my punishment, is it not? To have become a man today, when I must relinquish myself to you."
His voice cracked, and small tears formed. He tried not to cry, but he crumpled to the ground, the cruelty too much to bear. He cried quietly on the wooden floor, unable to concede power. Aelfric walked over, cautiously, and tried to hug him, console him the only way he knew how.
With a swift smack, Aelfric was now on the ground too, and both of them were crying.
"I hate you," Aelfric cried.
"You make my heart warm!"
"I hope it burns forever!"
Aelfric ran out of the study, crying, and on his way out, Leofric came in, with another giant shit eating grin on his face.
"What happened," Leofric asked.
Ray said nothing. He sat on the floor, his back turned to Leofric, trying to cover his shame.
"Did the little monster make you too angry to speak," Leofric asked.
Ray's silence continued, making Leofric's smile widen even more.
"Godiva was right about earlier, you know. I complain about a lot of things, but do nothing about them. I think that should change. Starting with it."
All pretense, all formality had been thrown out the window when Leofric could tell that someone else now hated his brother as much, maybe even more than he did.
"He's so small, you know. Accidents can happen. He's so trusting too; anyone could take the poor thing," Leofric said.
Ray shivered in disgust. The words were said so happily, and Leofric continued, describing the many tragedies that could befall one at such a young age. And as he continued, Ray's tears dried, and his disgust turned into curiosity at all the things that could happen to one but never did.
"Things like that-getting lost, befalling a tragedy. That happens to children," Ray said. "That won't happen to him. He's not a child."