Moonspear split stones

Of the many things that Arcturus was blessed with, one of them was certainly the prevailing of a cooler head. He was right to believe that it was all childish, as it was. For as much as Dirge wanted to pull the fight fire with fire line from thin air, it would not have served him much purpose. Even he was unable to avoid the pull to stoop to Charon's level; his gaze wavered away as the boy pointed that they were supposed to be family only to be replaced with a thin smile at the jest.

He thought he would resume this another time, if the urge struck.

”You are right,” he said, ”on both accounts. Seems I've let this all get to me when I shouldn't have. It isn't the way a family should act,” and he did not let it slip that they were hardly a normal family. He of all knew this and kept such guarded closely, not that he had any reasons to believe the other half of his parentage was somehow a cut above the rest. They were just as bad, if not worse. Whatever family was supposed to be, Dirge refused to believe that this was truly it.

Yet he had nothing to base it from either, his own upbringing cruel and unusual on more than one account in his recollection. It was almost too easy to take that moment to dwell on it, but he pushed past it in favor of stabilizing his own place. His attention shifted back to Arcturus and he left the border and its markers behind with a shake of his coat. Things had been so much easier when he had nothing to worry about than the open road.

”Though I have to be honest since you want the why of things, but I'm not so sure your father would come for my head over this. I've done worse to his face. Family doesn't treat one another like afterthoughts or nuisances, like he did to us in the woods. I've had my share of being treated poorly even when I was your age and hoped for better here.” It seemed wrong to be so candid but he had become increasingly so in their company over the last few weeks. It almost came naturally now.

”Now normally I'd have gone my separate ways to avoid all this nasty business and the stress it brings, but I'm also not in the business of leaving those I'm fond of behind. Least of all your sister, or our children. I know a thing or two of that, too.” Charon may have thought him worthless, but Dirge believed he held onto a kind of integrity. It was bolstered with Hydra and what they set to achieve, but he would not speak of those things so easily.