Work Text:
Zane is thirteen when his brother died.
They say he was riding ahead, and he fell when the bridge collapsed. They say the couldn’t find the body, but that there’s no way he survived. That he’s gone now.
Zane said nothing.
He supposes he’s grieving. He should be, at least, he knows that. Garroth had been sure to tell Zane that morning that he loved him. It would be sweet, if not hauntingly tragic.
There’s a certain weight to the world after someone’s died. The click of his shoes passing Garroth’s door sound impossibly loud compared to anywhere else. Maybe it’s a magic unknown, maybe it‘s simply in his head. Whichever answer Zane isn’t sure. He doesn’t really care.
While Zane hadn’t reacted, Vylad certainly had. He screamed, and he cried, and he screamed some more, until the priest had to put him to sleep, and mother stayed up all night by his bedside, waiting for him to wake. If the way Garroth had died wasn’t pathetic enough, that certainly mace it so.
Zane thought Garroth to be infallible. The greatest fighter to exist, the one who would slay thousands in battle and come out unharmed, though Garroth wouldn’ve never killed. His honor wouldn’t have allowed it. No matter how many times he fell in training, he simply got back up and kept going like nothing happened at all. It was infuriating. It was inspiring.
Garroth got top of every list in guard school. Not a single person could beat him, though they all certainly tried. He tried to teach Zane once. It didn’t go very well. That was the first and last time Zane saw father get angry at Garroth, even if it was through only one eye.
What is an immortal to time, in the end? It didn’t even take very long. There was no warning, not even a hint of one. A whisper in the wind that it would be the final day. All it was, nothing. Just like he is now. Nothing at all.
It was pathetic. The greatest fighter, died to a bridge? It sounds like a farce, a silly little joke they’d tell in the plays.
Zane doesn’t think Garroth pathetic, though. He never could, despite how weak the man really was. All that strength, and none of the drive to use it. No, Garroth strong. He was weak-willed and sappy, but strong.
It was no use, looking up to him. Zane wasn’t naturally strong, nor did he have the capability to get there. He was smart, though, and that’s all he needed. Looking up to Garroth simply made him want for things that weren’t possible, so he cut it off. Vylad got both mother’s brains and his mystery father’s physique, yet decided to stubbornly try to be like Garroth anyway. Zane is a bit jealous, if he’s being honest. Being able to keep everything, even the useless things, sounds fun.
Fortunately, Zane is not an honest boy. That jealousy is useless, so out it goes.
He’d long since shed any affections for Vylad, curiosity getting the better of him as a child. He was but five, he didn’t know much of marriages, or bastards. He simply knew his mother gave birth, therefore the child was his brother. The foolish things the youth believe.
Killing him was easy enough, after that.
It was harder getting rid of the care for mother. Sure, she favored Vylad, and doted on Garroth after all of his lessons, but she was still his mother. It was only after Vylad died that he was able to. She was weak, in both body and mind, spending all her days and nights in his room or by his grave. It was sickening.
Part of him wished she died with him. He thinks she wanted for that too.
Garroth is… harder. He may have openly cared for Vylad more, but he never neglected time with Zane for it, unlike mother. His relentless pride over every small accomplishment may have been annoying, but in face of father’s disappointment and mother’s apathy, it was a nice lie to believe in.
He had tried, before.
When Garroth went to Guard Academy, it felt like the right time to cut their strings. He would be leaving for two years, after all. And what kind of older brother leaves his little brothers? It was the natural end to things. Then the first letter came. Then, they wouldn’t stop.
It was all sorts of things, from the silly journeys he and the other boys went on, to the intriguing classes that Zane was sure he didn’t care at all for. Garroth was nothing if not stubborn.
Then, Garroth came back, and Zane still found himself plagued by the pesky emotions that came with maintaining a bond. Father had taught him that it was much easier to discard pawns with no attachment, and he was right, of course. Zane was both lucky and unlucky to still keep his baby face after all these years. After all, when a cute young prince boy says he has a secret to show you, who could ever resist?
It was a constant nightmare to be taken seriously.
Now that Garroth’s dead, it’s much easier to shed the attachment. After all, a dead man can’t renew a bond with bull-headed persistance. He’s dead.
And just like that, his care is gone, into the wind, into the stream. Taken to a place anywhere but here.
Zane finds himself feeling… not better. Emptier. Colder. Alas, a necessary sacrifice. He can’t exactly go about replacing Garroth if he’s sapping about all the time, now can he? Unfeeling is better, it allows him to think clearer.
It’s not like caring for Garroth was even logical in the first place.
It had cost him an eye, after all.
Zane doesn’t know why he’s sitting here, by the broken bridge. He isn’t upset, he didn’t even cry before he’d cast his feelings aside. But he knows for certain Garroth would have sat here for him.
And maybe, just a moment ago, Zane would’ve sat here with him too.