Fire in a Hearth

There had always been a gentle peace to his memory of the forest. An easy one. Soft, like the yellow leaves that fluttered from the limbs like flowers. Like fairies, perhaps, gathering to watch him as they play, spinning and dancing in the wind around the tree and the warm glow of the sun.

He’d felt it. The touch of bark and moss below. The breeze across his dry tongue. The sweet scent of the air. A patience had settled in him, and as real as the weight against his waist.

Growing over him.

Tiring him.

He remembered closing his eyes to sleep.

He’d long since abandoned his fear and wonder of whether he would wake again. Under the forest light, he rested, free to embrace his final dream.

When he opened his eyes, it came at the hand of the world returning. He found himself waiting below a silhouette of radiant daylight. The beams of white had bent its figure, washing it with a gleaming haze of elegant brightness. From the shape it made, he saw how it was turned towards him, and how it leaned with its hands on its knees and a cascading curtain of hair around its face.

This was his shadow, moving to bring itself closer to him.

Rohan could only breathe as it approached.

Years would pass from then, and on a day of no importance, he would get his earliest murmurs of an apology. Angus had felt so bad jamming the stick into Rohan’s lip. Not so bad that he didn’t do it, but enough that it was done lightly at first. Rohan had looked serene, and it’d been a shame rousing him, but Angus needed to check that he was dead before going through his pockets.

He wasn’t, as it turned out. Angus dropped the stick. But rather than being disappointed or afraid, Angus was delighted by this discovery.

At six years old, Rohan nearly died, trapped under a tree.

At seven, Angus had found him, and thought it was worth pulling him out from there.

Lugad, for all the occasions they’d been pitted against each other, had never once poked Rohan in the mouth with a stick. The closest his brother – half-brother, Lugad said – came to such a thing was when they duelled under those special rules using their magic pikes.

It wasn’t a kindness; Lugad simply broke any stick he tried to grab. This was why, when choosing something to rip from the ground and throw at Rohan’s head, his brother – half-brother – picked the nearest tree and uprooted it. They’d made several new clearings this way, and saved some villagers from felling those trees themselves. More importantly, Rohan had ducked them all so far. Unfortunately, Lugad was getting more pointed with his aim.

A game, Rohan claimed it as. Brothers – half-brothers – trying to bond. It kept the others quiet over this, especially as Nemain’s forces were growing. Peace with Temra was surely at hand with Maeve off in exile, but their mother’s absence – half-mother – left room for her former teacher to step in. They would need Lugad’s strength on their side, if only to keep it from their enemies.

But maybe...

Well – he didn’t know. But he’d thought this would be their opportunity.

Rohan and Lugad hadn’t grown up together, but they were family. Now that they were together, Lugad found everything to do with the thought to be smothering. Questions about his childhood got answered once with, “Tower.” Interest in his hobbies earned, “Axe.” Walks were too much talking. Training was too much talking. Fishing was too much waiting around and silence to imply more talking. There’d been no winning, and even less progress in the months since Rohan brought Lugad back to Kells.

He wasn’t giving up. Sooner or later, he’d crack through his brother’s – half-brother’s – yellow shell.

Someway.

He assumed he would, at least.

“You can’t force him to like you,” Deirdre said, speaking across the throne room’s table. She’d been sympathetic, certainly, but she was little use in the way of relevant advice. “He’s his own person. If he doesn’t want to be your brother, then even if he’s related to you by blood, he doesn’t have to be.” Her crown glimmered as a careful reminder of whose throne room this was. “Why not meet him at his level instead? Let him choose how he wants to approach being family. You haven’t had the best luck with it yourself.” She brought herself up short. “I mean Maeve. Not us. We’re family. Good family. Not that your mother isn’t good family. Except...”

“You need to assert yourself as the older brother,” Ivar said. He’d been much more equipped to advise, and did so with a convincing grip on his trident. “Once you start to negotiate with them, you’ve proven yourself as weak. They’ll know your compliance can be bought. If it can be bought, it can be ransomed. Every secret you have will be turned to mine its most tactical contribution to obedience. They’ll even be able to invent new secrets for you. After that, you’d be better leaving on a quest to another land.”

“Sisters,” Garrett clarified. “I know the beasts.” He leaned in, clasping his hands together in an educated posture. “But with brothers, you barter. Choose the value you’ll provide, and steel yourself against any encroachment from the rest. Once you’ve established your role, they’ll be forced to acknowledge you as the master of it. You’ll have to acknowledge their mastery too, even if they’ve chosen incompetence, but that’s the trade we have to make.” He lifted a finger, pausing any scheduled interruptions. “Make sure you’re never the most incompetent. You only have the one, which means second place counts as last. So long as you always set the game to play by your rules, you can tip the balance to your strengths.”

“That’s the scheme of a younger sibling,” Ivar turned in the chair to say. “Not very applicable.”

“It’s the structure of a family with men,” Garrett said, “and thinking it’s only younger siblings who scheme is an older sibling’s incompetence.”

His friends were wise – and Deirdre was trying – but it felt like he’d failed to do anything with it. Asserting himself meant Lugad asserted right back. Bartering didn’t work if Lugad wasn’t interesting in what Rohan had. And this, to be honest, felt like scheming, and trying to trick Lugad into a role he didn’t fit. Mapping from Ivar’s and Garrett’s knowledge, that meant Rohan was being a little sister. He didn’t feel evil, so he supposed he’d have to do something else.

“Why don’t you try sharing things with him from your childhood?” Ivar and Garrett seemed to agree they had to stop inviting her, but the look of murder in her eye at any rebellion kept her seat in Rohan’s council secured. Blissfully, she continued. “He grew up in a tower alone. He doesn’t know what it’s like having a sibling – or even friends. Maybe you could use stories from own your life to explain what a brother be. Or maybe you can try being friends with him. Siblings are friends, but ones that share your parents.”

“I’ve got it,” Garrett said. “You’re a middle child.”

“Yes, excellent,” Ivar said. “That’s exactly what he is.”

Rohan took notes.

Being a middle child meant a different strategy than being the oldest or the youngest. The pendulum of how he behaved had to swing to account for the other two. If one was more visibly responsible, he needed to compensate by being lax. If one was already lax, it was his duty to be ‘the good one.’

Rohan stopped them to ask, “Who decides that?”

“There is no ‘good one,’” Deirdre insisted.

“Your parents, usually,” said Garrett.

“For instance, you were the reason your mother was banished,” Ivar said. “We can assume that for now, Lugad is ‘the good one’.”

“But Lugad helped with that,” Rohan protested.

“Lugad is your younger brother,” Ivar reminded him. “When there’s a tie, it’s the youngest that wins.”

“It’s true with twins as well. My cousins were moments apart,” Garrett said, “yet we know precisely who was first.”

He was learning so much. Truly, he was grateful for this. It left him feeling foolish at having to pause again and ask them, “Doesn’t a middle child mean... ‘middle’?” They stared at him, so he went on. “An older sibling and a younger one. Does it work if I only have Lugad?”

The three began to explain, but an awkward note crept into it. Through a silent exchange that Rohan wasn’t royal enough to enter yet, they conferred among themselves before outwardly agreeing with Rohan’s observation.

“We thought,” Deirdre said, “we might expand it to cover Angus.”

Rohan felt his eyebrows raise slightly. The others watched it in expectation.

“Angus,” he replied, obliging them by talking first, “has always been my best friend. I love him, of course, and he’s family, but I wouldn’t say he’s my ‘brother’ in the way Lugad’s meant to be.”

“The two of you grew up together,” Deirdre said.

“That doesn’t mean we’re brothers,” he explained. He tried not to speak too slowly, as she hated that, but it was a bit like telling a fish how to build a hut. “There’s more to having brothers than simply existing around each other.”

“Oh, right,” Deirdre snapped. “My apologies. I forgot a sibling’s sole purpose was to scheme and barter.”

Ivar, Garrett, and Rohan shook their heads. How unlucky for Deirdre to have to live with only imagining it.

“Scheming and bartering is how you survive your siblings,” Garrett elaborated. “It isn’t a sibling’s purpose.”

Rohan at least had the sense not to speak that slowly.

“The oldest protects their younger ones,” Ivar said. “They take on the world to spare the others its harshest lessons, shaping them as they grow.”

Ivar did not provide a purpose for younger ones. Humility, perhaps. But then again, there was Garrett.

“Lugad’s already grown,” Rohan said, “and it wasn’t Angus protecting me. We looked after each other, but I was the one getting him out of trouble. Lugad doesn’t antagonize every guard he passes. And perhaps he grew up in a tower, but he stayed long enough to call it a home if he cares to. Angus was forcing us to move from village to village over tiny things he’d suddenly hate in the morning.”

He didn’t mean it any sort of bitter way. He and Angus were boys and they’d been on their own. With the hard times they’d had to survive by themselves, it’d been natural depending on each other. But Angus was still Angus. Even today, his best friend could be a little selfish. Back when they’d been young and desperate, that selfish streak had had no reins. Rohan had his selfish ways too, as all children really did, but that was the difference between a best friend and a brother: he and Angus were two kids that happened to meet. It wasn’t like that with him and Lugad.

The others didn’t look convinced.

“All right,” Rohan said. “The food.”

As kids, they hadn’t had much of it. For two years, they’d lived in hunger. Sometimes, in the pain of that, Angus would let it get the best of him. He would eat his entire share and leave Rohan stuck with whatever scraps were left after coming ‘home’ to split it. In a way, it was funny, thinking back on it now. Rohan remembered being eight and knowing how bad it was, seeing as Angus wouldn’t pretend at being subtle. It wouldn’t’ve helped, but it would’ve been more polite.

Now and then, his friend would get hauled away by the guards for stealing. He’d be off in a jail for some days. Magically, throughout the whole time Angus was gone, there’d be enough food for Rohan to finally eat a proper meal. Then Angus would return and the shares would dwindle again. He’d never lost that appetite either; Angus still ate everything around him, and stored more like a squirrel hoarding it for winter.

“Then there was ‘home’,” he went on.

This one, Rohan felt less forgiveness for. He wasn’t angry, as Angus had been so young, but Rohan had been a year younger and filled with annoyance for all the moving. Angus always found something to want to pack up on a whim over. Something big, something small, mostly something imagined, but enough to insist their present space was unbearable. And Angus would start to go off on his own if Rohan suggested they stay. It haunted him through his first winter with Cathbad. Angus had disappeared to his own places for shelter, and Rohan laid awake in his new apprentice’s bed, wondering if he’d have a best friend come spring.

He did. Every spring, Angus would be there. Every winter as well, sneaking in when it got too cold to hide in a barn. Rohan would stuff him under the bed for as long as it took Cathbad to leave. It was just as well, since they’d been done with every village in Kells by then. The water was even colder than the land, but unless Angus had planned on swimming to warmer weather, he was trapped in the village where Rohan would eventually build their hut.

Garrett understood. Ivar conceded. Deirdre surrendered as well, noting Angus started the quest for Draganta from out of her father’s dungeon.

“That’s my point,” Rohan said. “So, no. I don’t think I want Angus for lessons on being an older brother.”

The five of them gathered in the throne room that evening for dinner, knowing Lugad preferred to eat alone. As if meaning to prove Rohan’s point, Angus had no trouble with the dinner’s company, and happily served himself off of Rohan’s plate. He couldn’t be bothered reaching down the table when one of their arms were longer, and ‘Rohan was Draganta’ anyway. Which, apparently, mattered. But to prove his other point, Rohan didn’t mind these things. The cooks had gotten too fancy and prepared the platters with foods that everyone claimed to enjoy, but that he wasn’t going to finish beyond a nibble. Over to Angus with those, merrily.

Sharing was easier when they didn’t have to ration. Growing up, Rohan said as the conversation drifted back to it, would have been nice if they’d had some parts go differently. Most of his complaints would vanish if they hadn’t been on their own. Angus helpfully noted that Rohan’s mother was still evil, but other than that, for all the frustration, there’d always been more good to come of it than not.

He didn’t mean to make it sound as though Angus had driven him crazy.

“What did I do?”

“The moving,” Rohan said. “Going from village to village so much.”

“Oh.” Angus snorted past a mouthful of grey... fish. “Aye, that was a pain.”

“But it had some good to it,” Rohan said, pushing the rest of that into Angus’ corner. “If you hadn’t been so picky, I never would’ve been where I needed to be to discover my destiny as Draganta.”

“And that you had an evil mum,” Angus said. “Get me more of this, Draganta.”

To be honest, the moving itself wasn’t so bad. It’d been enough that Angus shut up when they made it to the next village, as he’d be sick of walking for days. But in the middle of it, while they were on their journey, they would camp in forests, tall grass, and caves. Under the stars or the purple shadow of the trees, it would feel like they were moving into another world – one just for them. He had Angus to thank for it. For being picky, yes, but mostly for spending it telling Rohan story after story until they’d fallen asleep.

It’d been peaceful.

Rohan remembered waking for moments during the night, only to hear it’d been Angus still going on with the story. They were long but Rohan knew most of them, with how vivid their telling would be. And he missed it. Those had been their simpler days. It was too bad Angus hated sleeping on the ground, or they could try it again without their hunger.

“What were the stories?”

Rohan couldn’t tell them half as well as Angus, but he couldn’t deny his princess an answer.

“All sorts,” he said. “There was one about a clumsy bunny with magic rings. It wanted to wear them on its paws, but the rings were too large, so it wore them on its tail. They dropped when it hopped back home. And there was a knight, out guarding a field of golden grass. He had to chase away the sheep that were eating it, but they’d hear him coming as he crashed through the field in his armour. They would hide until he’d stomped somewhere else, and eat until they jingled like coins. And there was one with you –” Well. With ‘the princess’. They hadn’t known Deirdre’s name before coming to Kells. “You’d been trying to pluck out a plate of silver from a waterfall of brass, and whenever you reached out a hand, the brass would splash out on the ground. You thought that eventually, if you kept splashing, all that’d be left was your silver plate. So you splashed.”

He didn’t know if she ever got it. Rohan was always asleep by then.

“I sound very determined,” Deirdre said, amused by his recounting.

Amused.

“Aye. Well...” He cleared his throat, and spoke a little deeper. “There were others, but they’re for children. You’d have to be outside to really feel it. And I skipped a bunch.”

“M’impressed you even remembered that,” Angus said.

“Yeah!” He cleared his throat again. “You took the time to tell them. Of course I remember.” Angus made a sound that seemed to approve, but was buried in his gnawing at a chicken leg. “In fact...” Since they were talking about it, Rohan might as well ask. “... the only part I don’t remember is why we left those villages.”

Angus continued to eat.

“So...” He tried for a second time. “What was it really that you hated so much?”

“Yes,” Ivar added, pointedly intrigued. “Rohan says that as a child, you had remarkably refined and exacting tastes.”

Angus dropped the naked bone on his plate and loudly sucked the grease off his fingers, staring back. Ivar grinned.

“Really,” Rohan insisted. “What was it?”

“What was what? The villages?” Angus was about to ignore him for more food, but Rohan moved his plate away. That did it, as Angus finally looked up. “Why’d we leave?” Rohan nodded. “I dunno. Had to?”

“Don’t say it like it’s a question,” Rohan scolded. “You dragged me with you a couple of times. But all you said was, ‘I don’t like the clouds’ or ‘The pigs are too pink.’”

“I don’t like pink on pigs. It’s pretentious.” Just before Rohan frowned and told him off, Angus cut back in. “All right, fine. I don’t know. Maybe it had to do with them burning down. But...” Angus held up the chicken bone. “I got you here, didn’t I? What a fine meal you get to enjoy.”

His pockets looked stuffed with snacks for later already.

“Hold on –” The topic nearly changed too quickly. Rohan returned to where they were, pulling on Angus’ shoulder. “What do you mean they burned down?”

“I –” Angus blinked. “You’re the Mystic Knight of Fire. I’ve gotta tell you how it works?”

“The villages burned down?” Ivar’s brow was furrowed, but he looked as surprised as everyone. “All of them?”

“Yeah. I mean – unless it was raining,” Angus said. “Then I think they just got smashed.” He’d started going for Rohan’s plate again, but held back enough to blink at the entire table. “There was a war. Villages get attacked. If you’re stunned by that, wait ‘til you hear about a place called ‘Temra’.”

“But how many villages?” Deirdre was struggling to keep her horror from her face. “Rohan made it sound as if you were moving to one every week.”

Angus shrugged.

“We’d bounce back and forth,” his friend said. “You know the Temrans: always promising something and never paying up – until they do.” He shrugged again. “I agree: it was a pain. Worst part of gettin’ over a hill after two days of ‘camping’ was going, ‘Right, Rohan, we’re headed back. Just remembered the pigs were too pink at that one – not good.’” Then he laughed. “Well, they weren’t pink after. But – y’know.”

That...

“We weren’t attacked,” Rohan said, finding the words.

“And you’re welcome,” Angus said. To the others: “You should’ve heard him whining over it. You think he’s bad today?”

“We weren’t attacked,” Rohan repeated himself.

“How did you avoid it?” Deirdre was halfway to asking for war strategies. She’d sat up straight and attentive, leaning in to hear, though still with widened eyes. “Was there someone who’d warn you?”

Angus looked pleased.

“There were signs,” he coyly said. “I’d hear rumours, but there were always those. Then I’d start seeing different soldiers. Not the ones that patrol, but the ones that’d give you a ‘polite’ smack to the head – ‘cause they’re from the castle, so they’re used to seein’ royal kids running through. Can’t risk hittin’ those too hard.” At the same time, Angus shot a look at a guard posted by the throne room’s back entrance. “Really, it was all in their pockets. When a man’s going into battle, he’s lookin’ up and straight ahead. There’s no worrying that a villager’s been hangin’ about their feet.”

“You bet your lives on how easy it was stealing from soldiers,” Garrett said.

“And it worked every time,” Angus chirped.

He’d taken Rohan’s plate.

Angus relented enough after that to switch to assuring them it’d been fine; it was simply life along the border back then. The trick was to constantly move, which they did, and it was how he’d even met Rohan. After leaving one village that’d been attacked, Angus cut through a forest and found a lump stuck under a tree.

“Poked ‘im with a stick, and a friendship was born,” Angus said.

“We were never attacked.”

Angus took the moment to finish his drink, but answered Rohan in agreement afterwards nonetheless.

“We’d be a night ahead of it whenever it happened,” Angus declared.

Rohan didn’t accept that. He said as much, and added, “How could you know?”

“You’d hear it,” Angus said. Like Rohan was a fool. “Off where it was. We’d be over in the forest. It’s not as though we’d get far on the first night. Little legs.”

“I never heard a thing.”

Angus squinted at him.

Rohan relaxed his hand out of the grip he hadn’t noticed he’d clenched it into, and took it off of the table. Perhaps his tone was sharp, but he meant what he’d told them. Not everything had to be turned to a joke–

“The stories,” Angus said slowly, “were me covering it up.”

There was the faintest hint of his lip curling into a smirk.

As if it was funny.

As if Angus was talking to a child.

The stories had a pattern, Angus explained, and he made Rohan go through them. After the sixth that Rohan described, Angus stopped him and asked if he’d noticed it.

“Metal,” said Angus, when Rohan didn’t. “It was metal crashing on metal. The rings, the sheep, the rest – that all was to cover the soldiers. They’d be bangin’ around the whole night. I’m sure I told you something to mix up the screams.”

The others didn’t talk as they took this in. In the silence born of Rohan’s concentration, Angus returned to assuring them –

“The wolves that couldn’t howl.” He had gotten Angus’ attention again. “No. They could howl. But they were terrible at it. And they’d had to keep practising or else they’d never...”

... They’d never get the royal cook to stop throwing pots to scare them away.

“There,” Angus said. “Somehow that put you to sleep. One of us had to get some, though, and it wasn’t going to be me.”

As if it was cause to celebrate, the others started chatting excitedly. Questions, thoughts, and even compliments poured in, until Ivar was bold enough to say, “I suppose you were wrong about who was protecting who.”

“Hang on,” Rohan snapped, interrupting everything. He pulled Angus’ shoulder again, forcing his friend to turn towards him. “What does that mean? You slept constantly. That’s why it took us two days to get up a hill.”

Angus... chuckled. It sounded tight. He patted Rohan’s hand as well, before subtly trying to lift it away. He chuckled more when Rohan’s hand stayed exactly where it was. Eventually, he had to move along to his answer.

“I’d sleep in the day,” it went, “but I’d be awake at night.”

The Temrans would strike under the cover of darkness. Back then, the fear of an attack meant as much as actually attacking. But it was fine, he assured them, because he would nap in the morning.

“Helped the hunger anyhow,” Angus lazily threw in.

Rohan did not move his hand. That meant when Angus tried to turn away, he failed at it. Rohan wasn’t finished with this yet, and the disrespectful mess he was hearing was enough of an insult to need to finish this right now – with everyone. With Angus’ audience.

“I never took naps,” Rohan bit out, ruining whatever game Angus thought he was playing. “I ate less than you, and I was always awake in the day.” True, staying awake hadn’t been easy, but it’d never been so horrible that he’d needed to sleep through. And at Angus’ curious glance, as though suggesting he didn’t understand, Rohan spelled it out completely for him. “I managed to be awake, even though someone didn’t keep to their share of the food.”

Well. He got what he wanted. Angus turned by grabbing his chair, lifting it up, and slamming it back on the floor to face Rohan directly. There was one word to follow from his friend at that moment.

“When.”

Baffled. Outraged. Not a question, but a hissed threat. It was to the point that Angus nearly forgot to add that he meant ‘back then,’ ‘cause he still snuck bits from Rohan. Draganta always ‘hogged’ the good stuff, apparently.

“You would wait,” Rohan shot back, meeting Angus’ eyes like a hammer on steel. “As soon as I was somewhere else, you’d help yourself to what we had, eat ‘your share,’ and leave barely enough for me to not have to nap. Then I’d smack you for it, you’d say wouldn’t do it again, but then the next time –”

Angus was squinting at him.

Rohan ignored it.

“The next time –”

Angus was starting to smile.

Why?

“Rohan,” his thief-friend said, back to talking like he would to children. “Did y’ever see me eat ‘my share’?”

“No!” And that was what Rohan was telling him! “You’d wait until I left –”

“Aye, that’s it,” Angus broke in. “I’d wait until you left.”

“Yes,” Rohan said. But it felt like he’d just been leaning on a wall that disappeared. “You’d wait until I left. Then you’d eat everything.”

“You’d leave,” Angus said, while tapping out a map of the steps to it onto the table. “You’d come back. If you found more food, we’d split what we had. If you didn’t...” Tap, tap, tap. “... I’d tell you I ate.”

... Whatever feeling Rohan had tingling in his limbs, it was too late to go somewhere else and voice it privately. He’d committed to doing it in front of the others – and in front of Deirdre. He’d have to manage the rest, and did so by making his voice calm. Steady, light, and just on the edge of its own border.

“Angus,” Rohan said, using his own tone for children. Angus looked more amused by that anything else, and Rohan swept his rush of embarrassed, panicked anger under his calm front too. “Angus, that isn’t true. Every time I’d come back, there’d be less than when I went out.”

“Remember that time it’d been over a day, but all you and I found were three apples?” The instant clarity of that time stunned Rohan with its crispness. “Remember how you said, ‘best friends would split it’? Then you went off for more, came back empty-handed, and threw me in the leaves ‘cause I’d eaten two while you were gone?”

Rohan replied, “Yes.”

“And you remember,” Angus said, “when I found another apple that evening, and told you it was only fair to have it since I’d already eaten mine?”

“It was fair.”

“It was,” Angus agreed. Looking smugger than Garrett on his first day in Kells, he folded his hands in lap and shuffled forward in his seat. “So do you remember how in the morning, even though I hadn’t gone anywhere, I’d somehow found another apple, and we split that?”

Rohan said he wasn’t sure.

Because he wasn’t.

Barking in laughter, Angus spun himself back to facing the others. There’d never be enough for them both, but ‘This One’ was always begging to split things evenly. Eventually, Angus got sick of explaining that would leave them both going hungry. So he took the food, let ‘This One’ get mad about it, and fed it back to Rohan later anyway – split fairly, not evenly, like it should’ve been without the whining.

“Two boys out there, nothing around,” he snorted, “and I still had him eating twice a day.”

As for Angus, he would wait to go ‘fishing’ in somebody’s hut.

But that... wasn’t...

“That can’t be true,” Rohan said. His calm front was beginning bow to a numb force of shock. “If you weren’t taking the food every night, why was there suddenly enough for me when the guards took you to jail?”

Angus, who’d had his cup refilled, snorted the nectar he’d been drinking back into it. Only Rohan didn’t feel the same hot sting of anger he would’ve a moment ago. He felt a chill in himself instead. A weight. Growing over him.

“Mate, you’ve been in the castle too long,” Angus giggled. “We were living in villages. What guards? What jail?” In the first act of mercy since starting this, Rohan wasn’t expected to answer. “I’d go away, and there’d be food left behind when I did. What’d the villages get after me for? Stealing? And there’d be enough for you to eat, suddenly? Funny, that.”

“But you were taken somewhere,” Ivar observed.

“Aw, I’d be hiding from whoever tried catching me,” Angus said. “Villages deal with things themselves. When they catch you, they beat you half to death, and you limp back when you’re good enough to walk.” The bitterness of what he’d shared wasn’t as simple to mask as the rest, and from the frozen look briefly on his face, Angus knew that. Without letting the room absorb the words more than they already had, he bowed his head and sombrely confessed, “This might be a good time to say it was me last week with the Dragonbow.”

“Angus –”

“I was a hungry child, limping back to my poor, worried friend, Garrett,” Angus snapped. “Doesn’t that matter more to you than a couple of scratches from the same tree I hit the first time? By the way, it was me hittin’ the tree that first time as well.”

“Stop.”

Rohan couldn’t guess if he’d meant to say it angrily or coldly. Or worriedly. Or anything. He’d put his hand on Angus’ shoulder and pulled again, but not even that had the urgency from before. He wasn’t looking at Angus yet either. As though what he wanted to say had been plated out on the table, Rohan’s gaze fell scattered over it. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes until he’d managed to stitch a thought together.

“Are you telling us –” Telling Rohan. “– that you wouldn’t eat, because you’d give me your food, and sleep through the day as we ran from village to village, avoiding Temra’s attacks?”

Angus thought about this.

Angus sipped from his cup.

Angus made a face like he was really working it over.

“Yup.” Shrug. “Kind’f surprised you’re only learning this now. I thought you knew. Why else would you follow me around?”

“Because we were friends,” Rohan shouted.

Angus considered that, too.

Calm. Steady.

Then he shrugged and said, “Fair enough,” and went back to regaling the others with lighter subjects.

In some part of his mind, Rohan understood what was happening. It was the part of him that also noticed Angus hadn’t shaken Rohan’s hand off his shoulder yet. It was being left there purposely, either as a sort of anchor or a sign Angus expected Rohan to keep pulling at him.

Both were...

But neither were...

“Rohan?” Deirdre’s voice caused everyone to turn. “Are you standing for... something?”

Not consciously. He didn’t realize he’d been standing until she mentioned it. His hand was still on Angus’ shoulder, and Angus apparently had turned to grab Rohan’s arm in response. But it’d been quietly done. There was no sound from any of them. A ringing was in his ears, but the shuffle of the others jumping up was a silent play of the light.

He knew he was frowning, though. His face was trapped in thought.

Because he was.

He was trapped, and his vision blurred. It faded around the edges, bending the yellow hues of the throne room into a smoking haze. The light from the windows angled and stretched for the corners. The hands on him shifted, moving faster than they felt, and the floor rose to cradle his head as they lowered him onto it.

This was embarrassing. Wasn’t he embarrassed? He didn’t know. He assumed he was. But familiarity brought with it its own sense of peace. The figure kneeling over him had its hand on his shoulder, gripping it like he was in the forest. As it cleared, as the stars stopped sparkling in his eyes, its face returned to take its shape again.

Angus looked worried. It was so different from the child who’d been grinning in amazement and delight.

“I’m going to the hut,” Rohan made sure he explained. “I’m sorry for this. I didn’t mean it.”

They allowed him to leave with little fanfare. He supposed there was always a bright side.

Angus took a while getting back that night. Rohan didn’t blame him for it.

What he did blame Angus for was how he had eventually returned: poking in a glance at first, barely lifting the flap to the hut, then trying to squeeze his face inside without giving himself away. Rohan was sitting at their table, watching this. At the moment their eyes connected, Angus froze, and Rohan saw him working on whether to run or approach.

Angus chose ‘approach’ and did so, ducking his head and keeping it ducked even after stepping in. The hut they’d shared for long enough to finally call their home was small, but he shrank farther from it as though it’d been set to collapse on them. For the two steps he needed to to stand by Rohan’s seat, he dragged his heels along the floor, wearing something in the middle of a grimace and a twitching smile. Then he stopped, waiting for Rohan to talk first. When he figured out Rohan wouldn’t, Angus shifted into a sharp wince.

“Sorry.” His voice had an edge of muffled, frantic laughter. Nervousness, guilt, surprise – they’d all have a similar echo. It meant Angus was straining himself to not make a joke of this. “... Really thought you knew.”

Rohan hadn’t done much as he waited for Angus that evening. He’d wanted to busy his hands, but the hut wasn’t hard to tidy. He got distracted as well by the shirt he’d thrown onto Angus’ side that morning. It had a hole in his arm, so it was there for his friend to mend it. Angus had steadier stitches, they’d both agreed. They’d shown off to Deirdre when they were younger once, when she’d left her needlework behind. Angus did a bit, and Rohan kept an ear out the next day to hear whether she’d get any compliments. No, but no insults either, which Angus took for a win.

He’d always been sneaking in things like that. Little things. All for fun. Never anything to matter.

“Brought you a present.”

Rohan looked up, and saw Angus staring down. He was still fighting the worst smile, failing any chance at seeming innocent. Without needing to break their stare, Angus fished through one of his dozens of pockets. He put whatever he took from it onto the table, then did break their stare to gesture for Rohan to look.

So Rohan looked.

On the table were three apples.

“Figured y’can have ‘em all at once this time,” he heard Angus say.

It was a peace offering. From Angus to Rohan. And Angus was twisting there, waiting for Rohan to take it and forgive him.

“You can’t help yourself, can you,” Rohan wanted to fondly reply.

What emerged from him instead was a grieving sob he’d never guessed he could make. He wasn’t sure it was even right to call this ‘crying’. His eyes were dry, and no sooner had the sound started than it became a wracked, wheezing slurry of words that had him doubled-over on his seat.

He was trying to put any sense to it, trying to say he was sorry, he’d been the one to abandon his best friend – barely older than him – to care for them both. And he’d called Angus ‘selfish’ for that. His whole life, how could he not have known? He’d done next to nothing but look at a shirt that evening and think, and he’d found a hundred memories in him that he’d ignored, all proving that this had been happening while he complained about how many naps Angus took –

It was the floor again. He’d slid there. Angus was stood over, trying to get him back up, but Rohan couldn’t move anywhere else. Angus couldn’t move either; in the months or decades that passed as Rohan sat and wept, he’d been crying into Angus’ shoulder and clutching at his sleeve. His grip might’ve been enough to tear it, meaning even now, Rohan wouldn’t stop causing more work.

It was only when his back hit the edge of his cot that he realized Angus had been handling him towards it. With ages of unspoken practice, Rohan got shuffled to give enough room for his friend to cram in behind.

Angus propped up himself against the leg of the cot, and propped Rohan up against him. Rohan fell into the form of it so smoothly that it took another moment to understand why: this was exactly as they’d sat for all those nights outside. Rohan would rest below Angus’ chin, and Angus would rest on Rohan’s head. As a child, he’d said it was the best way to know when Rohan rushed off in the morning, since Angus would be going in the dirt once Rohan wasn’t there. But now he recognized the vantage that it gave as well, with Angus perched to endlessly scan for shadows in the trees.

“Want a story?”

“No.”

“Yes you do,” Angus sang. He gave Rohan a squeeze in his arms, ignoring that Rohan was still too big to fit perfectly. Their answer as children was just to have Rohan curl into a blind and ignorant pile, leaving the eight-year-old to fend for them both on his own. “Come on. You’re sure? You said you missed this.”

Rohan hadn’t known what he missed.

“All right,” he said. Out of instinct, he nearly closed eyes and settled in, but they weren’t children any longer. “Tell me a story.”

There was a voice that Angus used for stories to feel like half a dream. Rohan couldn’t help his instinct this time. It eased him, even while revealing this as the story of a boy named Schmangus.

Schmangus, apparently, had had a hard life growing up. It’d been filled with war and hunger and cold, and the awful things that those would do. Words wouldn’t hide it: Schmangus had been terrified. Around every corner was something to fear, and he’d had no choice but facing it anyway if he wanted to live.

Then one day, Schmangus found himself facing a corpse in the middle of a dead forest. Except it wasn’t a corpse, despite its best efforts at getting trapped alone under a tree. The corpse even had its own name: Schmohan.

Schmangus and Schmohan – Rohan could’ve hit Angus if these stupid names weren’t so badly what he needed now – became best friends that went everywhere together. Schmangus hadn’t asked; Schmohan simply happened to be sticky and hard to lose on purpose. But eventually, Schmangus would admit that he liked having Schmohan around, and wanted him to stay.

The trouble, Angus explained, was Schmohan had the brains of a child who would get trapped alone in a forest for fun. So Schmohan was doing things like sharing food that wasn’t enough to be shared, and running after every tree that didn’t move to fight it with a dinky sword he’d presumably brought from the womb. That meant it was up to Schmangus to keep them alive, and he had to lie about it or Schmohan would go be ‘himself’.

It wasn’t so hard. Schmohan was six when they met, so all Schmangus had to do was be a year smarter than him. It started small, with splitting food while Schmohan was away, and getting Schmohan to sleep on the inner side of their shelter, and telling him those smacks to Schmangus’ head were from an angry fish in a pond. Then it’d get bigger, like with telling Schmohan he should fight the fish, since that was only way Schmangus could dunk him into some sort of bath –

“I bathed,” Rohan groused into Angus’ arm.

“Aye, you did, and you did so well at it, Rohan,” Angus cooed. “Schmohan, though. That boy stank worse than the pigs. He’d take a bath and run right off to go headbutt a goat.”

“... I didn’t headbutt it.”

Schmohan had. Allegedly.

Schmangus had to lie and the lies had to grow, because the things he had to keep away from them were growing as well. Getting somewhere safe turned out to be the simplest part. Schmangus would start to leave, and Schmohan would follow. But the journey was the tricky half. Schmangus couldn’t avoid it, and trying to meant that a couple of times, he’d taken too long to get them started on their way. They were never caught, but they didn’t walk far enough away from the sounds of everything.

Or the smells of it.

Angus lingered there. He returned right as Rohan had shifted, moving on without a break in the tale and paying Rohan no mind.

The sounds were bad. The smells were worse. The two were lucky at staying upwind, but Schmohan had a fun habit of chasing anything ‘interesting’. So Schmangus, doing what he did best, told Schmohan a few more lies.

These were interesting ones. They were stories Schmangus made to explain the noises, giving them sensible, obvious reasons for why they rang out. Schmohan, shockingly, seemed to enjoy them. He’d fall asleep while listening, in a stinky, bath-less ball. That was good, seeing as there would be noises later in the night, and Schmohan would start to wake. A few more minutes of a story would have it handled, and Schmangus, perhaps, could’ve done it forever. But he wasn’t alone anymore, and he needed a place for Schmohan to be free, and to tackle all the goats he wanted without worrying over more than that one goat that got him back.

Schmangus made up his mind: no more villages by the border. He was tired of them anyway. He’d take Schmohan towards the castle. It’d have those crusty, soft-handed soldiers who probably wouldn’t recognize Schmangus, and it’d have the prettiest princess Schmohan could ever be losing to Prince Schmarrett.

Rohan sat up, looking Angus directly in his eyes.

“We’re calling him that from now on.”

Angus agreed. It was only after Rohan had gotten comfortable again that he realized he hadn’t complained about the part on ‘losing the princess’. To be fair, that was Schmohan anyway. Rohan let it go.

Schmangus and Schmohan’s road to the castle was harder going than the ones between the villages. Things that used to happen only at night stretched later into dawn when it managed to reach so far into the kingdom. Schmangus had made up his mind that the castle was where to go, but he had a new fear to face: one of being wrong.

He couldn’t ask Schmohan what to do, when Schmohan’s idea of fear was a boar getting away before he could fell it. So Schmangus decided that if he was wrong, he’d tell Schmohan that suddenly every pig in Ireland was too pink. Then they’d have to go somewhere else.

Perhaps, maybe, Schmohan might question why the colour of the pigs had anything to do with where they lived. But Schmangus, having been one year smarter, was sure that’d only happen in –

“How old are you?”

“Twenty now,” Rohan said, smiling into it.

Unbelievably, that was exactly how long it’d take Schmohan to ask. But Schmangus wasn’t bothered, since he’d gotten away with the pig thing four times. He figured he’d be fine with a fifth, and it wouldn’t matter if he turned out to be right in the first place.

“And he was,” Angus said. “The end.”

Rohan snorted a drowsy laugh, and dug his elbow into Angus’ side.

“That’s not the end.”

“It used to be.” A pause. “At least it’s where I always left it. I didn’t say it’d be a good story. That ending’s why. It’s boring.”

This sat with them, looming in his mind as they shared their silence. Rohan, curled up and pressed against Angus’ shoulder, felt the studs from along the neck of Angus’ vest pushing jagged imprints of squares on his cheek. Angus simply held him, draping his arms over Rohan’s head absently. If someone hadn’t already heard the tale, it would look like Rohan was the one holding Angus up.

Or if they had heard, and had lived it, but were telling themselves they’d been two kids that happened to meet.

“I want the new ending,” Rohan said.

“It’s not as good.”

He didn’t care.

Schmohan got to live in the castle. The druid had taken him in. Schmangus lived outside, and that was fine. No worse than it was. Then the two of them stayed best friends, even going on a quest to find a warrior. A legendary warrior, in fact, according to a bit of paper from people living in a hole.

Schmohan, then, would go on to save the kingdom, seeing how he turned out to be that warrior. Schmangus would help, and he’d also be doing whatever it was he liked to do.

“What did like Schmangus like to do?

“That’s not a story for kids, Rohan,” Angus replied. “But trust me: his is brilliant.”

There was a dragon. Then another dragon. Then some monsters, and some... other monsters – lots of monsters, actually. Schmohan decided to be a prince too, calling how Schmangus found him under a tree further into concern. It’d done him nothing for getting closer to the princess either.

“Debatable –”

“It wasn’t.” Oh. Well. “And after that, Schmohan decided on having a brother –”

This was the part.

Angus continued, but Rohan’s chest had burned and twisted inside of him.

“It was nice,” the story declared, “since he’d been whining about that for years.”

It had been years.

“It was better than when he met his mother and...” Angus considered his options. “... I’m going to say, ‘declined’.”

Rohan had to speak.

“And he had lots of friends, and barely remembered anything from before they’d been in Kells,” Angus said, “and what he happened to remember was a version that was fine to do the work. It wasn’t as though knowing any better did Schmangus a favour, so Schmangus never brought it up. They were going to be fine like this for however long it took to matter.”

He refused that ending.

This time, when Rohan sat up, and pushed away to look at Angus at his level, he put the joke aside. He couldn’t risk this getting lost.

“You don’t think it mattered?”

He allowed Angus the grace to roll his eyes without it starting its own trouble.

“It mattered,” his friend said, with a voice saying otherwise. “I’m happy you’re happy. Assuming you’re happy. Are we all right?”

“No,” Rohan said, following it with, “Angus, you were seven when we met. You didn’t have to do this on your own.”

Rohan had to put a hand on him to stop Angus from squirming. Any trouble, and Angus was always switching to ‘run’.

“Sorry.”

“I’m saying thank you –”

“You’re welcome.” As if to completely brush it off, Angus muttered, “I’d do it different if I knew what I knew now. But as we’re sayin’, I was seven. I did my best. You’re not dead, despite your best. So if it matters, it’s – just...” Angus stopped with his fidgeting. He was straining himself again. “If it matters, it’s nice to know you didn’t think it was awful.” It wasn’t. “I figured you knew and were telling me it was only a step above being under your tree. Which would've explained why you were that focused on gettin’ crushed under the next big thing with teeth. And that means you really were trying to get yourself killed for fun.”

Rohan had to keep Angus in suspense on that note so he could think of his next move. Bravely, Angus didn’t jump up and go; he was tense, but he waited. He was letting Rohan choose their approach.

For Angus’ sake, Rohan wouldn’t call this a negotiation.

“Tell me more.”

“‘More’?”

Schmohan, he couldn’t speak for. Not for Schmangus either. But Rohan had grown up with Angus, and they’d been together too long for Rohan to not have learned to be sneaky as well. He pushed them back to where they’d been, against Angus’ shoulder with arms draped around Rohan’s head, and curled up as a legendary, princely, well-bathed ball that wanted the rest of his story.

“Schmohan has his other brother,” Rohan said, as sweet as any nectar. “I want to hear how that’s turning out.”

“‘Other brother.’”

“Aye. Schmohan’s a middle child, you know.” Everyone knew that. “His younger brother’s the one that’s tough getting along with. The older one’s fine.”

This was Angus’ language, and maybe – from the sound of things – he was only now learning Rohan had been fluent. It seemed Angus would be having his own memories to reassess with that knowledge. In the meantime, there was a story to tell.

“... I don’t... think I’ve heard that one.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Rohan said. “But we’ll have to figure it out soon. The younger brother’s got a terrible problem, and it might have Schmohan driving him back to their enemy’s side.”

Their peace was thoughtful.

“It’s that bad, is it?”

“Horrific,” Rohan said, as he felt Angus ease towards relaxing slightly. “Out of anyone, you’d understand the best.”

“Why?”

Rohan shrugged, and answered as slowly as he could.

“He’s really pink.”

Angus pulled him in, squeezing him. Rohan managed wrapping Angus up as well, squeezing back.

“That is the stupidest thing you have ever uttered,” he heard, “and I’m including the part where you summoned Tyrune.”

“Well,” Rohan said, “maybe someone shouldn’t’ve let me run off that morning.”

“I’m eating those apples.”

“They’re my apples –”

“I’m un-giving them to you.”

They didn’t move. That night, like they’d been under a forest of stars, they sat against the leg of Rohan’s cot and slept. There was daylight when Rohan opened his eyes again. The urge to start his morning was the freshest it’d been in years. What stayed him were the puffs of breath brushing the top of his head, and the telltale weight of his brother balanced on him.

Just the once, Rohan put his training off to go back to sleep. It was worth it to have this memory for the years to come.