#he had enough of my extended family misgendering me. so he LOUDLY told them that i was a HE and that they should call me by that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fallenidol-453 · 7 years

Text

Title: Wisdom in Denial

Rating: PG

@beccaylaa @luxxyb

so i cannot title to save my life, and the contents definitely do not match the title. this is a discarded idea that’s not canon in this verse by any means, but i wanted to write it.

also i just might scream if i misgendered my own oc.

Note: Erlas = queen, Tereco = prince

Amaranth slammed her cup down on the side table. Wine sloshed up the rim and splattered her sleeve.

"I've been--thinking," she muttered. "We can't use our gryphons in combat unless it's--"

She faltered and gestured wildly, nearly spilling her cup as she struggled to find the right words.

"Spying or guerilla warfare?" Kilain supplied.

"Right!" Amaranth exclaimed.

Kilain grabbed her cup and held it close to him until Amaranth stopped flailing her arms. He contemplated grabbing the jug as well, but holding the half full container and Amaranth’s nearly empty cup at the same time might strain his remaining hand.

“…Border guards. Border guards! That’s it!” Amaranth announced loudly. She accentuated her last statement by stamping her feet, and Kilain hoped her mother wasn’t sleeping on the floor above them.

“Amaranth, be quiet!” Kilain hissed. He pushed her cup back into her hands. “Do you mean border guards along the entire Caervan border? Or the border not surrounded by the Invictus Mountains? The wild gryphons are a fairly effective deterrent along the mountain border.”

Amaranth fell silent for a minute, then she drained her cup and slammed it back down on the table.

“This is too much. Where’s my map?” she grumbled. She stood up and swayed; Kilain leapt out of his chair and steadied her. “…I can’t feel my cheeks. I can’t feel anything.”

“Go to bed. We can talk about this tomorrow,” Kilain insisted.

“But—” Amaranth whined.

“No buts. You’ll have a clearer head when you wake up,” Kilain interrupted.

Amaranth’s face changed into an ugly grimace, but Kilain turned her around and guided her to their bedroom. She stumbled the short distance from the door to their bed and managed to successfully lay down on top of the covers. With a sigh of relief, Kilain managed to remove her boots and set them aside, and then through sheer force of will he managed to wrestle the covers out from under Amaranth’s prone form and cover her from the cold. She was a stout woman, but he did not want to wake up in the middle of the night and hear her angrily complain about the cold.

Kilain shut the door behind him quietly and walked back to the small sitting room. The fire was dying but he had no heart to bring it back up to a steady blaze, and there was barely enough wine to enjoy another cup. Still, he grabbed the jug—

And heard a small noise coming inside from the sideboard.

Kilain released the jug and eyed the sideboard. One of the drawers was open just a crack. It was small and mostly empty on the inside; hardly anyone could fit inside there comfortably unless they were Adelos or flexible enough. No one was supposed to know that this room was connected to the main palace by a secret underground passage, but the entrance to there wasn’t the sideboard. Anyone who wanted to see Amaranth had to take the long way around, which included leaving the palace and having a cold trek up one of the mountain trails.

This left only one person who knew about the passage. Kilain heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“I know you’re there, Kielos,” he said. He watched them tumble ungracefully out of the sideboard, the door banging against the wood. “Were you spying on us?”

It took a few moments for Kielos to straighten themselves out from their fall, but they shrugged in response to Kilain’s question. Sitting down on the rug, legs stretched out before them, they refused to meet Kilain’s eyes and picked at a loose strand in the woven rug.

“Hardly. I have a question,” they finally replied.

“Before you ask, is any of this going back to Erlas-Consort Florin?” Kilain asked.

“I just told you. I’m not spying and none of this is going back to him. I promise.”

Kilain looked at them doubtfully, but held his tongue. “All right. What’s your question?”

It was a long time before Kielos granted him an answer. They drew their knees up to their chest and rested their chin on top, their long and unkempt black hair falling around their shoulders. Their eyelids were coated in eye makeup of a garish green color. Meanwhile, Kilain finally gave into temptation and poured the last of the wine into his cup and drank it in a gulp. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

“Your wife might be knowledgeable about this,” they finally said.

“Damn it—never mind. I can try to help, Kielos,” Kilain responded. “I’m just as deep in as Amaranth when it comes to gryphons.”

Kielos looked up at him, doubtful. After a moment, he sighed heavily.

“Fine. Can anyone be… be a Gryphon Knight?”

Kilain choked.

“Are you—“ he sputtered.

“No. I’m asking about my partner. I’d say I was asking for him… but he doesn’t know I’m here,” Kielos interrupted.

It took a minute for Kilain to gather his thoughts and get his breathing back to normal. Kielos – a Gryphon Knight?! He was glad the spy wasn’t volunteering themselves for the cause, they would be a terrible fit for the group.

“Uhm. Right. Amaranth looks for people who can use weapons, generally promising military recruits,” he began. “There’s a very small number of gryphons available, so she has stringent recruitment requirements. There are exceptions, such as Tereco Ariyos and Adelos, but as I said, they are exceptions.”

“Are the Knights involved in the main military?” Kielos asked.

“As long as Amaranth has her way, no. Her uncle, on the other hand, wants them to,” Kilain replied. He settled more comfortably in his chair; he had a feeling this was going to take a while. “But that’s a story for another time. Why do you want your partner to join our group?”

“From one sib to another, do you promise not to laugh?” Kielos asked.

“We’re not related, Kielos, we were just raised together,” Kilain reminded them. “But have you ever taken me for someone to laugh at something personal?”

“…Fine. I want to protect him. He’s run afoul of a gang from the Northern Quarter after he stopped them from beating some whore to death,” Kielos explained. They grimaced. “He had no business being over there in the first place. He can’t go back home to Trovska and he can’t face his parents after what he did.”

“Why doesn’t he leave Caerva altogether?” Kilain inquired. Kielos made a rude face.

“He doesn’t want to leave me behind.”

“How—“

“Don’t you dare say adorable, honorable, or noble,” Kielos spat. “Me possibly getting him into the Gryphon Knights is a compromise, even if he doesn’t know I’m doing this.”

Kilain settled back into his chair. His head swam with what Kielos had told him—what would he say? He wasn’t sure about extending an invitation to this man, taking someone in to protect them was bound to invite problems – problems he wasn’t interested in contemplating or dealing with. He wished Amaranth was awake. And sober.

“Before we go on, who is your partner?” he finally asked.

“…Shia,” Kielos mumbled. They looked away from Kilain.

“Is this the same Shia you met when you ran away to Trovska years ago?” Kilain couldn’t help but sound amused.

“…Yes,” Kielos grudgingly admitted. They still refused to meet Kilain’s eyes, and Kilain bit back a chuckle. It sounded like his former adopted sibling was admitting to a crush.

“All right – what did Shia do in Trovska that was bad enough to not face his parents afterward?” Kilain asked. He purposefully kept his voice as pleasant as possible; he didn’t want to offend Kielos with a possible teasing tone, and he wanted the spy looking at him again.

Kielos looked up at him, which was encouraging. Until they opened their mouth.

“He deserted his post in Trovska’s army and ran off. He—“

“Hold on. Amaranth will not accept anyone who is a deserter,” Kilain interrupted. “I’m sorry Kielos, but I can’t bend the rules.”

“There’s a reason behind this, if you let me explain!” Kielos snapped. Kilain shot them a heated look and sighed ruefully.

“Because you’re my family, I’m going to let you explain,” he said tightly. “But I mean it when I say Amaranth won’t allow deserters.”

“To make a long story short, Shia’s grandparents spent all of the family fortune. Their son managed to marry an heiress, but her dowry wasn’t enough to cover the debts. To increase their standing and pay off more debts, they coerced Shia to join the royal militia. However, he deserted a year later because he couldn’t take it anymore.”

“How old was Shia when he deserted?” Kilain asked.

“Fifteen… sixteen maybe,” Kielos replied. “He’s twenty-four now, and still just as much of a soft-hearted idiot as the day I ran into him again a few years ago.”

“Why is Shia, in your words, a soft-hearted idiot?”

“He was in a few gangs or mercenary groups for a few years before we met up. They either kicked him out because he refused to carry out a heinous task, he showed mercy to a prisoner and let them go, or he wouldn’t help out on a job if it conflicted with his tender moral compass,” Kielos said savagely.

“If he’s that weak toward the hardships of living in the slums and on the run, why do you stay with him? He seems the type you’d knife in the dark without a second thought.”

“Shia’s like your wife. He’s built like a brick shithouse and could probably match her in a fight,” Kielos said. “But it’s his heart that won’t harden up.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“I—“

“Kielos.”

They looked away from Kilain, pouting.

“Fine,” they spat out. “I care about him. Deeply.”

Kilain sighed. It was a start.

A long silence enveloped them both after that. Kilain finally got up from his chair and carefully added another log to the fire, carefully stoking it back up to a full flame and then sitting back down. Kielos stretched their long legs out, their fingers digging into the thick rug fibers. Occasionally, they ran their fingers across the surface.

Kilain spoke first.

“Kielos, I—“

“What?”

“I can’t promise anything. I’ll forward your request to Amaranth… but there’s a very high chance she’ll reject it,” Kilain said regretfully. “You’re more than welcome to come speak to her personally, but as I said earlier, I can’t promise anything.”

“I’d rather kill everyone in that gang anyway. It’s better than running away or forcing him to flee without me,” Kielos replied hotly.

“Then why don’t you do it?” Kilain inquired.

“Florin doesn’t want me murdering people outside of the ones I’m supposed to kill,” Kielos answered. They grimaced. “Though I’ve disobeyed him before.”

Kilain shrugged. “What’s stopping you from disobeying him?”

“If he finds out I’ve been going against orders, he’ll likely cut my pay,” Kielos replied. “But it’s only if I get caught. He… does have eyes all over the winter capital though, and most of them will happily stab each other in the back. Including mine.”

“Kielos, you’re his—“

Kielos held up a hand. “Don’t say it. I refuse to be formally acknowledged. The Erlas knows of my existence, and lets me go through her makeup collection every now and then, but I don’t want to usurp her brother’s position as heir simply because I’m older than him.”

“I see,” Kilain replied. “I say go ahead and kill them all. I’d help, but…”

“You have a reputation to uphold and you’re missing your right hand,” Kielos mocked. They smirked. “Shia’ll be more than happy to help, I think.”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s back in our hideout, worried out of his mind. He’ll take any chance to get rid of worries.”

#julia's writing adventures #my writing #writing #amaranth #kilain #reyes #shia

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