Chapter Text
To say it’s been nice living in the wizard tower they stole is the biggest understatement Cal can conceive. It’s been incredible. Rolan always said one day he was going to set them up for life. Neither Cal or Lia ever cared whether or not that would turn out true. They all just wanted better. Rolan seemed to have decided it was up to him to get it for them. His siblings never thought so. But then he actually went and did it.
It’s incredible. The size of it, the luxury. It’s the kind of place little urchins like them always looked up at from the ground. Not the kind of tower they’d ever dream of climbing. But they’re here. After all they’d been through. They clawed their stubborn way up to its top, and now. Now they’re safe.
They made it. And it’s been…
Strange.
Maybe everyone thought once all the fighting and the danger and the war were behind them, things would be perfect. That was the time for endings and etceteras. No one ever tells you that life has to crawl out of the rubble first. That happy ever after is work. But of course he’s beyond grateful, elated to have theirs. The whole time the only thing Cal had been so desperately afraid of was losing them. His only wish that dragged him through that evil death march was…exactly what he had now. All three of them, safe. Together. Alive. Living like royalty. …So why do they seem to be squabbling more than ever lately?
Cal knows he’s sensitive. Not in the way Lia is, in that a sharp word from the right mouth can cut to his core, but that he’s attuned to the moods of others. His siblings, more than most. He’s been doing everything he knows to do to lessen the tension, make them both feel more at ease. He cooks, handles chores, handles money. Makes sure the other two never know about any piss-ant wannabe sorcerers that come knocking while they’re away to demand rights to the tower. But everything he tries seems like patching holes in a leaking dam, and Cal is getting exhausted of trying to fight off a river.
It could be the newness of things, the shock of a different place. And it certainly wasn’t the most stable place. The tower of Ramazith is a wonder. The whole thing is bursting with strange magic, treasures, artefacts. Most of these are squirreled away on the top floor, the library. Then there are more ordinary settings; the lower levels accommodate kitchen, living spaces, bedrooms. As you ascend Ramazith tower you will find floor upon floor of increasingly novel spaces, many of which the siblings have not yet had time to investigate. Workshops, libraries, studies, vaults. Some places remain cut off, magically locked or trapped, or barred by some other mystery. Like the passageway on the fifth floor that looks like a wall made entirely of tree just grew into the corridor, blocking off whatever lie behind. Or the door made entirely of smooth iron with no handle or keyhole which is completely unbothered by Rolan’s unlocking spell. Then there are some areas they’ve barred themselves from until anyone can figure out what the bloody hell they’re for. All considered, it’s a miracle they’ve been thrust into. One none of them are adequately prepared for, and one they’re incredibly lucky to have.
The downside to this is their eldest sibling lording it over their heads every time he got the tiniest bit annoyed with them. Leave the breadbox open so that Rolan’s morning toast is stale? Get a lecture about living civilized. We’re not refugees anymore, stop living like one! And gods forbid you touch a dusty old scroll, particularly those sitting on velvet cushions. That sort of thing seemed to be at the heart of most incidents. Either Cal or Lia would stumble into an area they hadn’t cleared yet, or trip one of the tower’s defenses, or damage an ancient sapphire that was too shoddy to retain its magical properties if it sustained the tiniest scratch. Rolan's been working so hard at trying to dismantle this tower's secrets, its workings. It's like he thinks he's the only one in this. Like he's the only one who can possibly handle doing anything properly.
Sure, Rolan is the wizard. He's the expert, the master of the tower, the reason they’re all here. He found a home for them all—and not just any old cottage. But that’s also the problem. “His roof” looms always over their heads, and Cal is starting to feel as though he and Lia are less like Rolan’s siblings and more like his…tenants. Of course Lia has a fine time with these little clashes, because she’s never in her life had a problem snapping back at Rolan’s nagging. It never bothers her to call him up on it when he’s being an ass. But Cal is starting to find it…grating, to endure these scoldings while keeping up his usual pacific demeanor. He's always admired Rolan more than anyone, looked up to him, wanted him to...believe in him. He can only take so much of him treating him like a bumbling fool who can't be trusted to walk around his own home unattended.
Cal can’t stop thinking lately about the journey getting here. Horrible, awful struggle. But at least when they were huddling together around the hearth of Last Light, they all felt equal. Felt closer. There for each other, and they all knew that staying together was the most important thing. After all that, all they’d been through together, how could Rolan now be so clueless as to start acting like a…an “arrogant dickhead.”
The memory of his own words makes him wince. There’d been a little…spike, this morning, when Cal had come down from his room to find Rolan perched on a kitchen chair with crossed arms and legs and a glare that could curdle milk, and thought, ‘Oh, here we go.’
Apparently, his great sin of the day had been displacing a magic item while cooking dinner the night before. Knocked it down onto the floor while rifling around in a high cabinet, looking for the blasted salt. And Rolan, incensed that Cal would discard his instructions to never touch any of the magic items in the tower unless he were present, was none too pleased.
It’s not like Cal to raise his voice. He can always be counted on to smooth tempers, not have one of his own—and certainly not to lose it. Perhaps that’s what surprised Rolan enough to vacate the tower for the rest of the morning, huffing off to who knows where. ...Fine. Let him sulk somewhere else. It isn’t Cal’s fault that a magic wand was tossed in amongst the ladles and breadknives in this convoluted place.
So, Cal had been left on his own for the morning. Lia would be at work. Bonking pickpockets on the head with a wooden club or whatever Fists do these days. Cal, insofar, had not found employment. Not to say that he’d even really…looked. He’d never been driven towards it, plus, well. It’s not like they were hurting for coin any more. He could live like a housecat if he felt like it. Maybe he deserves that for a while. Honestly, for the past few dismal months Cal had never really given much thought to how he would live. Living, itself, seemed like a miracle. All of the things they’d had to go through…who had time to think about anything beyond survival?
If he thinks about it too much, he’s going to start seeing it, hearing it again. So Cal sets to distracting himself, exploring some more of this weird tower. He’s not wandering aimlessly; Cal has his sights set on something. He’s been keeping track of where they’ve already been and areas they can’t yet get into, or ones daunting enough that they’d decided they should all go together. But fuck that, Rolan’s an ass, and if he has his way Cal would never set foot anywhere in their new “home” except the damn kitchen.
In the top floor, just across from that stupid book throne, is a place that seems inaccessible by ordinary means. A lower level just below the floor. Here Cal leans over the railing and stretches his neck to see as much of it as he can. He hadn’t seen this before, but there looks to be a potential path down there in the form of some floating furniture and odd debris. A smirk comes over his face. Yep. Yeah.
He feels the wardrobe wobble as he lands on it and immediately crouches down, waiting for it to steady. When he’s pretty sure it isn’t going to just drop out of the air, he laughs to himself. Archwizard who? He doesn’t need one of those.
A few hops down and he lands on a sort of raised outer ring of the floor. All around it are bookshelves and pedestals with buttons. He wonders vaguely if pressing one might actually give Rolan an aneurism, wherever he’s at. For now though, Cal’s attention is on the center of the floor, where a hole can be found beneath a shimmering flat surface of what looks like magical light.
Cal approaches very cautiously, because no he’s not stupid, he’s actually very careful and one day Lia is going to appreciate that—oh, and there’s something down there. Beneath the magic floor, a circular platform, and Cal’s face lights up when he sees what it holds. That’s it. Real treasure—the kind the adventurers would go for. They must have missed it before their doomsday fight with the brain. Well, they’d managed fine without it.
Cal sees a splendid robe, a glowing staff, and laughs, "Ohhhh, hell yes." The look on Rolan’s dumb, smarmy, stuck up little face when he returns from his little pouting session and walks in to see Cal with the staple pieces of an archmage’s gear held in each hand. Here you go, Rolan, figured the master of Ramazith Tower might need a decent staff. Maybe the robe is enchanted with something to make you less obnoxious!
He is going to get past this forcefield if it kills him.
But it won’t, because he’s got something else he’s not supposed to have. He pulls a wooden case from his pocket and opens the lid to reveal that damn stick that started this whole mess. “A wand of Dispel Magic,” Rolan had announced, turning the polished length of hawthorn over in his fingers to check it for damage, before placing it back in its very fancy box. “A spell to end other spells. Still a few charges left, I think. Sure to come in handy for disarming the security measures around here—if no one breaks it, that is.”
Cal stares at the wand, imitating the way Rolan had held it precisely. Or pretty closely, anyway. Handy for disarming magic traps, huh. And what is this right in front of him? …It will be fine. Cal has seen magic wands before. He knows they’re made perfectly safe to be used by non-casters, that they’re no more frightening than any other tool of a trade. A chef wouldn’t be afraid of a carpenter’s chisel just because he’s used to a frying pan.
Cal turns his attention to the glowing surface of force and light, rolling his eyes at himself. He doesn’t need Rolan for everything. Or Lia. In fact those two would be astonished at just how many things he does without them, how much he looks after them behind their backs. Neither of the stubborn idiots ever want to think they’ve been helped, so he has to do it in secret. Cal never could understand that. He loves being fawned over.
Bracing himself with a wide-set stance, Cal aims the wand at the forcefield. He double checks to make sure he’s pointing it the right way round. And…
…And. Nothing happens.
Cal huffs, holding the stupid thing up for closer inspection. All that fuss, and it doesn’t even work. Feeling more than a bit foolish and glad after all that he didn’t call anyone to witness his little pantomime, Cal casts a disdainful glance at the forcefield and turns away. He goes to toss the wand back in the box, but as he does, notices that a few words are carved onto the lid.
That’s it. Every time Rolan casts a spell more difficult than their light show, he has to speak some sort of phrase. That overdone theatrical voice he’s spent all these years perfecting certainly lent itself well to encanting. Cal studies the phrase, making sure he’s definitely NOT holding the wand while he gives it a few practice recitals.
Alright. This time for sure.
He lifts the wand, aims, and in the most eloquent voice he can muster, cries, “Ahn-mystryl, finis!”
It’s so bright. He doesn’t remember how he ended up on the floor. Hells, what is that god-awful burning smell?
He realizes the ringing in his ears first, then a stinging acrid kind of smoke he’s never smelled the likes of before. The light is coming from the forcefield. His heart leaps in panic as he scrambles back across the floor, dragging himself away from the center of the room. The blinding white light has been slowly fading in the aftermath of whatever magic explosion just went off. On the floor all around it, there is a blackened ring of strange marks still crackling with red energy. Everything that had been around the area was…ash. Particles. Heaps of tiny granules on the floor where furniture and railing once had been. Not burned, not gone, just. In bits.
Cal can feel nothing except his own violent trembling. He spends a good long while just sitting, huddled up with his knees in his chest, staring at the marks on the floor. He’s back in the dark. He’s in that god damn cell again. But no Lia this time. No band of indomitable underdogs with a trusty hammer, no godkissed heroes on the way. He is alone.
In the blank white void of his mind, eventually a thought flits through and alights on the wand. It’s missing. He doesn’t know why, but he starts to panic at having lost it. His eyes dart around frantically in search, but he doesn’t have to look far. It’s on the ground a few feet away, scoured by burns as well. Cal squeaks out a soft “No, no—” as he reaches for it—then finds a bigger problem.
His hand, that had been holding the wand. He can’t move it. He. Can’t even feel it.
----------
This is actually so bad.
You know how you hope that if you just wait a while the problem will go away on its own? Cal does, very well, and you’d think that by now he’d realize it nearly never works. Any problem he couldn’t solve he always knew he could take to Lia or Rolan, but Lia wasn’t home yet and Rolan…no.
He is currently bent over the kitchen basin full of cool water, where his hand is submerged. He can’t feel any pain in it, but the scorch marks and blisters tell him it’s burned. He’d hoped that maybe in time the feeling would start to come back again. He lifts his hand out of the water and holds it up, feeling his stomach sink as it flops like a dead fish.
He’s in so much trouble.
Cal wraps the hand in a towel and stares straight ahead out the tiny kitchen window, watching the soft cream-and-pink curtains move in the breeze. He’ll pace around for a bit, come back and stare outside, then go back to pacing. He can’t sort out his thoughts. Prioritize. He hasn’t even decided if he’s going to tell him yet. Maybe he can just. Fix this. And Rolan will never know. Because if he does know that the exact thing he’s so afraid of happening has happened, that river is going to burst through.
Gods, the fact that he was right! Not only does Cal feel like a moron, but that small pocket of pride he keeps in his heart has been stabbed clean through. Rolan was being an ass about it, but he was still right. What did it matter if he didn’t say it nicely? Cal still should have listened. Oh, he’s going to hear about this for months. Rolan's never going to see him as anything but his useless little brother. He's...never going to be more than that.
…And what about his hand!?
Cal lets out a long groan of quickly-boiling frustration and runs his left hand through his hair, leaning his forehead against the wall. For a little bit, he just stands there, contemplating his life. And trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do now.
Why is he dealing with this!? Why is he always in completely ridiculous situations! It’s so fucking weird and unfair—god damnit things are supposed to be easier now!
Keys in the front door. Shit.
Cal practically leaps across the kitchen, diving for the wand he left sitting on the kitchen table. He can hear the door opening and he’s got about seven seconds to get it back in its place. He scrabbles for the cupboard as footsteps that very clearly are not Lia shuffle down the entryway hall.
He gets the damn thing back where it’s supposed to be, but in the process knocks out a cascade of bowls and cups that go tumbling onto the countertop and all across the floor. For ever. What the hell do they have legs or something!? Stop bouncing!
“…What are you doing.”
Rolan’s there. Standing in the kitchen doorway, a look on his face as blank and dull as a shark.
“Nothing! Just.” He snatches up one of the bowls that had fallen and clacks it down on the counter in front of him. Then quickly arms himself with a nearby fork. “Ma-making lunch.”
“Ah…I see.”
Normally this is the part where Rolan wanders off somewhere to wait until the food is ready and Cal calls everyone down. But he lingers, and Cal can feel his eyes on his back while he fumbles with an egg, trying to crack it with one hand. He’s good at that, actually. Just not with his left hand. He keeps his right on the counter, positioned in a way that looks like it’s just keeping the bowl steady.
Behind him, he can hear Rolan shuffle his feet.
“I’m only just starting. So. Don’t wait around.” He doesn’t intend to be snippy, but. It happens.
“O-oh, I, just…” Rolan clears his throat. “Well I wanted to…offer to help.”
…For all goodness sake. Of all the times for Rolan to come over guilty. It has to be now. Can’t he just apologize like anyone else? No. He has to do something about it, not say something. He’s always been like that. But why right now?
“Uhhm, that’s alright. I’m fine,” he chirps, fighting not to grind his teeth as he reaches into the vegetable crate. But keeping his hand on the bowl means that it’s just out of reach.
Rolan notices. Of course he does. And the instant he clocks on to a helpful task he can complete, he leaps at it.
“Ah—let me. What are you after?”
Cal clenches his fist and holds it to his forehead. He doesn’t know! Nothing! He’s not fucking cooking anything! “Just. Uh, tomatoes. I guess.”
Rolan quirks a brow—because what on earth could he be making out of a bowl full of tomatoes and eggs—but given that he’s helping out of apology, thinks better of questioning the chef. “What do you need done with them?”
Cal has to fight the urge to bang his forehead against the cabinet. Yep. This is happening.
“Diced, I suppose...” he mutters. He’s actually lucky Rolan thinks he’s angry with him, because it’s his only cover for why he’s being so weird. Cal, world’s worst actor.
Rolan’s set himself up with a cutting board and is busy taking the tomatoes off their stems while Cal glares at his left hand clumsily trying to whisk eggs.
“Pass me that knife?”
Cal follows his gaze to the knifeblock. It’s on his right-hand side, because god hates him. He hesitates. Then silently hands Rolan the fork with which he was whisking. His left hand now free, Cal reaches across himself with it, toward the knife. It’s barely out of reach, he has to stretch and lean over on one foot to get to it. Finally he manages to grab the damn thing and passes it over. Rolan takes it, without a word, and then Cal plucks the fork back out of his hand. He does not look at Rolan’s face as he goes back to decimating his bowl of eggs.
“Cal.”
“Mm?”
“What’s wrong with your hand.”
“Just. Burned it. On the—last night, on the steam from straining the pasta.”
“…Did we have pasta last night?”
“I-I need some garlic chopped, too. Please.”
Rolan’s eyes narrow and linger on his brother, even as he turns toward the vegetable bin again. Cal grabs for the chopping board. While Rolan’s back is turned, he repositions his dead hand on top of the board, so that it can scoop all the tomatoes into the bowl when he tilts it. It’s foolproof, he’s a genius.
Rolan returns with a fistful of garlic and watches Cal swipe half the tomatoes onto the counter next to the bowl. They both stare at the mess, and Cal slowly lowers the chopping board back down and places it in front of Rolan.
“What are we, ah…making, Cal?”
“New recipe.”
“New one, is it?”
“Mhm.” He is now mashing all the tomatoes against the sides of the bowl and blending them into the eggs. “Got it from Cerys the other night.”
“Mm. Known for her cooking skills, Cerys.”
Gods, why. He could have said Lakrissa, he could have said anyone but Cerys. She could turn turnip soup into a sapient ooze.
“Will you be needing a pan for those eggs, or are we to whisk them into a smoothie?”
Cal stretches a smile onto his face. “The cast iron, please.” With which he can just knock Rolan out before he clocks on. Bam, problem solved.
Rolan places it on the stovetop and steps back, his hands behind his back as he watches. And now Cal feels the hot water start to boil around him. He nods, grinding his teeth in secret as he picks up the bowl. He can hide his right hand underneath it. We’re still good. We’re still good! He begins to carefully pour the concoction into the frying pan while Rolan kneels down to open the stove belly and light the wood inside. Yes. He’s doing it. He is getting away with this.
“Look out!”
The warning in Rolan’s voice is a million times more convincing than any of Cal’s acting. That, and his jumpiness, and the sudden burst of orange light that comes from inside the stove makes him leap into the astral plane. In the panic, Cal instinctively tries to grab onto the bowl with his right hand, and instead smacks it out of his left. The egg-tomato paste flies out in an arc, splattering countertop and floor and wall. Some of it ends up on the ceiling. There is no fire.
“Rolan!”
“What’swrongwithyourhand!”
“Nothing!”
“Give here.” He lunges and grabs for Cal’s hand, missing as his little brother snatches it away. Rolan follows, and thus begins the weirdest bout of Keep-Away they’ve ever played. And they’ve played many, over the years.
“Rolan, stop it! You’re being insane!”
“Give! The—damn—hand! AUGH. You utter child; come here!”
Cal gives it a very, very good effort. But between Rolan and the several mage hands he casts, Cal finds his wrist snared by a ghostly apparition of a fist. Rolan bids his little magic helper to drag his obstinate brother forward so that he can inspect the damage. Cal’s hand is burned, but not by any steam. The marks are distinctly arcane in every way. That aside, there is also the fact that it’s hanging like a wet rag from his arm, entirely paralyzed.
Cal can practically watch Rolan’s anxiety bloom like the worst, ugliest flower. Corpse flower. Something that grows in the shadow-lands. His eyes begin to glow with purple light before he closes them, muttering command words. Cal holds still, daring to hope that it will really be this simple. But no feeling returns to his hand, and Rolan is still casting.
Eventually he can’t take it any more and starts to ask, “What are y—”
“Disintegrate.” Rolan’s eyes open as the purple light fades, but he keeps them locked on Cal’s hand and won’t look up.
“What?”
“The name of the spell, which you narrowly avoided, is Disintegrate.”
Cal bites his lip. “That. Is definitely appropriate.”
Rolan smiles. “Calendula.”
“Oh, not my government name…”
“Is it that you want me to experience a cardiac event, or is this simply your way of telling me you don’t value a thing I say?”
Cal clicks his tongue and puffs out a short breath through his teeth, yanking his hand away from the mage hand as it vanishes into the air. “How is it that we adopt you and then you want to play the overdramatic parent?”
“YOU WERE NEARLY. DISINTEGRATED.”
“…Alright, maybe you were the right amount of dramatic.”
Rolan’s eyes shrink the way they only do when he’s either incensed or panicked. “What happened. Are you injured? Tell me exactly what happened, right now, and do not lie.”
Cal knows he’s done for. With Rolan, once you’ve been caught out, lying further will only make it worse. He gives a quick and smooth explanation of the forcefield, and the wand, and the explosion, but judging by the way Rolan’s face pales, it doesn’t seem that any of his sugar-coating or ribbon-tying is making it go down any smoother.
At the end of it, he produces the wand, which is covered in scorch marks matching the ones on his hand. Rolan holds the wand delicately in both hands as he studies it. “This wand. Is the only reason you did not die on the spot. Cal? I need you to understand that. You would have—”
Then he closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths. Without a word, he walks very slowly to the kitchen table, kicks out a chair, and twirls it in Cal’s direction. “Sit. Down.”
Cal trudges over meekly and obeys, his hands grasping the seat as his feet hook around the chair legs. Rolan stands in front of him, holding out a hand. Which Cal does not look at. He stares off at the baseboards of the wall. He’s only got one strategy that could get him out of this now, and it’s never failed him before.
“M’sorry. I just. Wanted to help. Be useful.”
Rolan doesn’t respond for a moment, but his breathing gets steadier. He makes a ‘gimme’ motion with his outstretched hand. “Well? Do you want me to fix it?”
Cal looks up at him under his lashes and fights to keep intent out of his pitiful expression. It works. Always works. Rolan’s stern gaze cracks like a window shutter opening. He turns his rising laugh into his best imitation of an exasperated sigh.
“You’re not ten anymore, Calendula. The puppy eyes aren’t going to work forever.”
“But. It hurts, Rolan…” Cal mutters sullenly, cradling his limp hand.
“It does?” His voice goes much softer and he kneels down. “Let me see.”
Cal pauses for effect, then slowly raises his hand up, dangling from his wrist. It’s totally dead, still—he’s lying about pain, he can’t feel it at all. He looks at it sadly, then up at Rolan, and watches his brother melt.
As much as Cal likes to be fretted over, Rolan likes to fix problems. To feel like he’s saved the day. He needs that. Cal sees the satisfied pride of that role seep into Rolan’s eyes as he gently cradles his injured hand. And, in secret, Cal is proud, too.
“Oh, this is nothing at all.”
“Nothing?” Cal balks. “I’m paralyzed! Oh gods, what if it’s permanent…”
“Oh, yes, for any half-rate enchanter this would be quite the hurdle. Fortunately, you’ve the archmage of Ramazith's Tower at your disposal.”
Rolan’s eyes go glassy and distant just before they light up, a white glow illuminating both their faces. It’s different colors for every kind of spell, he’s noticed. Rolan begins chanting, and the hand holding Cal’s begins to feel warm. Oh—he can feel that. Cal twitches a finger and it stiffly obeys.
Rolan sits back, smirk plastered on his face like floral wallpaper. “There. As good as new.”
Cal turns his hand over and back, flexing his fingers. He sees Rolan is watching for his reaction. A delighted laugh, a relieved thank you, glowing praise. Cal doesn’t know why he can’t conjure any of it.
“What’s the matter?” Rolan’s smug look falters. “That should have done it… I. Yes, that was definitely the right—”
“Sorry I called you a dickhead.”
Rolan freezes, then scoffs. “I have never heard you employ such language.”
Cal’s gaze flicks down again. “Dunno how. It was loud enough.”
“Hardly. Your tongue would shrivel up and fall off.” Rolan braces his hands on his knees and rises with a groan like he’s seen fifty years, not thirty.
He starts to walk away, but Cal tugs his shirt, and Rolan stops. “Cal, what. I need to go and see if anything else has been damaged up there.”
“Let it wait. I want to talk.” Cal tugs again, insistent, until he’s gotten Rolan to take a seat next to him.
“Cal, it’s fine. We don’t need to—"
"Look, I didn't mean it. You’re not. Nn, well, not always.”
Rolan stares at the wall, holding very still.
“You're just... Well, do you have to be so much on our cases all the time? It's too much to take. Aren't we in this together? All three of us? Not just...just you on one side, yelling, and us on the other, pressing mysterious buttons that may or may not cast a fireball."
He'd expected to pry a laugh, however grudgingly, but Rolan just shakes his head short and rapid. “Cal, I am merely.” He grimaces, uncomfortable. “Afraid.”
If Rolan ever admitted to an emotion, you knew things were bad. Cal fidgets, trying to make sense of it. This isn't...he's not just worried about all the magic in the tower. It's not just about breaking artefacts and triggering traps. Is it.
“We’re safe now, Rolan. I mean. It's over.”
“Yes. I know. For heaven’s sake, I know.”
“…Yeah.” Cal scoots his chair closer and leans toward him, their shoulders bumping. “Me too.”
The brothers let themselves breathe for a moment. To feel. Cal watches the dust motes doing aerial ballets in the sunbeams out of the tiny kitchen window. In the quiet, he notices dull exhaustion ringing in his ears.
“When…do you think we’ll actually. Feel safe?”
Rolan shakes his head. He looks...young. Familiar. “Soon. I hope. Surely.”
It’s been a matter of months. The city is rebuilding itself. People are, too. He's wrong, he realizes: it isn't over. Ordeal doesn't die with the thing that made it. Heroes kill monsters, and everyone else takes up the mundane, dreadfully slow task of putting back all the things that got knocked out of their places in the fight.
“If I could just…” Rolan tries, then shakes his head and re-starts. “Alright. Listen. This place is ours. But we don’t understand it. I am....making progress with the books, but I don’t yet know the extent of what h…what measures were placed here. Or where. Do you understand? Investigating it alone, prodding where we ought not to, it’s dangerous.”
Another break of silence allows Cal time enough to think of something he’d forgotten to consider in all this. It clicks like a gut punch. Good god. The only dickhead in this tower is himself. “…I supposed he got quite angry if you touched anything.” It’s quiet, sad. A realization, not a question.
Rolan grimaces. It’s clear, anytime Lorroakan is brought up, that what he feels most is shame. Like he’s the one at fault for what he’d gone through. Until now, Cal hadn’t seen that beneath that layer of humiliation…Rolan had also been afraid.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, twisting the broken magic wand around in his fingers. “I shouldn’t allow anything I let him do to me affect either of you. And I certainly shouldn’t…emulate it.”
“You didn’t let him, Rolan.”
“Well I sure as hell didn’t stop him, did I?” He snaps, and the wand flies across the room, magic waves of force carrying it to shatter an earthen pot on the countertop. Cal’s no sooner flinched than Rolan stands and launches into a pacing, shouting tirade. “The minute he wouldn’t allow you both to move in should have been the end of it! All this time I convinced myself I was doing it for us, for our future. I can’t even keep you safe on the way there—and then what happens when we finally get to that future? Only I’m allowed in. And I, said, yes.”
Cal can only keep his silence, aching like a raw nerve as he watches his brother’s carefully maintained poise of strength and bearing collapse entirely. The river is here.
“After all that talk of my potential, my ‘destiny, I’ve done nothing but fail you. Both of you. Even now.” Rolan turns away with a groan of helpless frustration, his elbows on the kitchen counter, his head bowed. “Lia was right,” he croaks, his breath hitching as he presses his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “I’m only as selfish as I am stupid. Anything the bastard gave me, I deserved.”
Awful, ringing silence weighs in the air like static. He can’t think of anything to say; he can barely think at all. His heartbeat is too loud. Cal almost feels like he’s shrinking. Or that the room is expanding. It’s not just his hand that’s paralyzed. The whole of him is locked up. He is alone. And he’s leaving Rolan alone. He—
“Well.” The voice makes Cal jump, snapped back into place like a dislocated bone. Then he’s crushed by a flood of relief when she steps into the open doorway. “That’s not quite the way I’d hoped to hear you say the words ‘Lia was right’. Sucks. I can’t even enjoy them, asshole.”
Rolan only sighs, deep and shaking, and Cal claps his hands together in a silent prayer to big sister. She rolls her eyes his way as she strides right up to Rolan. Lia grabs him by the shoulder and tugs him off the counter, turning him into her. Just like they’re ten again, he won’t meet her eyes before he buries his face in her shoulder. Her hands slide up and down his back, slow and calm, one of the few manners she’d had time to mimic off their mother. Cal could cry. He won’t, but he could.
She grounds them both. She makes the world feel real.
After a few moments, Lia sighs, “It’ll only take time.”
Cal grunts in plain dissatisfaction. “Haven’t we waited enough already?”
“Don’t be whiny.”
“Whiny!? I got paralyzed today!”
“Then don’t touch things,” Rolan mutters into Lia’s shirt.
She had been swaying him side to side gently. But now she widens that motion until she’s almost swinging him about, a too-strong sort of manner that forces some of the heaviness out of everything. She soon tips them both off balance, and when Rolan stumbles out of her arms and shoves her away, he’s laughing. And Cal watches the whole world come back to its orbit.
He loves them, his family. So much. He’s so glad they’re here.
“Gods above, who taught you to give a hug?” Rolan chokes, grinning as he drags his sleeve across his eyes. “Does subtlety and restraint cause you physical pain, or are you just not capable of either?”
“Tch.” She crosses her arms, entirely unbothered. “Subtlety and restraint are your flaws, not mine.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just saying. This wouldn’t keep happening if either of you had the balls to face up to all the shitty feelings as they come. Stop hiding from it; we went through hell. Twice. And it’s still in us. And as long as you keep pretending it isn’t, you’ll keep fucking up.”
Rolan opens his mouth, but the fire in his belly fizzles out on the way up and ends as a helpless scoff. He glances at Cal. Neither of them have anything to say to that. She’s right.
“Reset?” Cal asks, shrugging.
That word makes Rolan break into a laugh, hiding his eyes in one hand.
A reset. Ever since he’d learned the word, Cal would call a reset whenever things weren’t going his way. If he was losing at tag. If he got caught sneaking extra sweets. If he saw an argument starting to break out between the other two. He just wanted things to stop, to go back to the start. Try again. And right now…he just needs some time to gather his nerve.
“Fine,” chuckles Rolan, “Perhaps a reset. We shall talk, later, mind you. But for today…let us just. Be.”
Just like that, they fall into place. This is how they…are. Will be. No matter where they are, at least they will be.
“And clean this shit up you losers. Eugh. What even is it..?”