Qeya River mockingbird

got carried away yolo

blackfell halts.

more.

better.

there is a visible twitch where his jaw tightens. crimson eyes dark beneath the weight of thought. his brother speaks—insolence, a fool!—and he rounds on the boy once more. this is the final time. the final time he will make any attempt at reason. but what he sees stills him, and steals breath from his lungs.

he sees in veksar's eyes something he has tried to ignore, to kill, to let rot beneath the ice. but it does not die. now blackfell speaks in a slow, enunciated manner; each syllable given it's own breath. 

i am not heir. low, voice tempered with age and wisdom his brother does not yet possess. i am no king. because to be a king was to reject all which their father had stood for. and i will not be a king. and he is firm in this much. thoughts flicker to the conversation with gjalla—and he can almost taste the sweet kiss of her words as they were licked by the flames of ambition—and he knows that is not what he wants.

he knows that he loves gjalla, but to go back to the endless toil of thrones and courts—fuck that.

his breath comes heavier now, his shoulders squared, the full weight of him bearing down like a storm on the horizon. but—

and he fixes his brother with a stern look, eyes widening and then narrowing as if to say listen, and listen well. you must give up this boyish fascination you have of morwenna. that woman is gone. she is lanzadoii now. and at the very least, blackfell can respect that. it might sicken his breath to see her grovel at the behest of an arrogant man, but sun eater has done no wrong. committed no act that is punishable—and blackfell shall not act irrationally. he was the bigger man.

the better man.

i have not told you this—but there is more than just us. our cousin has settled in the glacier. jora is with him. there is a pause, a beat, where he searches veksar's eyes to see if the weight of that sinks in. then a breath as he says: saatsine leave for their long march come spring time. when their cubs are weaned. they will go— his voice hushes, lowers, and he leans in closer towards veksar. and we will not.