The door opened again, before closing and I turned.
Paeris and Brick were still outside. Brick was standing with his arm around Paeris protectively, but he wasn’t glaring at me oddly enough.
“We were all a bit emotional, but please just consider what you grandfather said before we left. I know I wasn’t around when everything went down but he’s part of the reason I came with you. He wanted to make sure someone had your back.”
“You revealing things is having my back?”
He ignored my question.
“Your grandfather regretted what happened with your aunt. He brought it up to me a couple times. If nothing else, consider what that means.”
They went inside after that.
He has my back?
I picked up my broken spear shaft and chucked it into the woods.
Who does Paeris think he is?
Aunt Darshi messed up on her own and got unlucky.
I kicked my spear head across the yard.
Sure, it worked with my parents. They had always been honest with each other, even with school. It was easy for them to trust each other. But the problem was solved between them and my uncles. Why should they tell their younger sister about it?
Grandfather was right in keeping it from her… but why was Paeris so sure he wasn’t.
What did he say before we left?
I plopped down on the ground, laying on my back looking up at the blue sky.
He was pushing for my reasoning for leaving… right? He wouldn’t have brought family stuff up in front of Paeris.
….
No, he would’ve. Paeris is like family at this point.
I slapped my hands onto my face and groaned into them.
Did I really tell him he wasn’t family?
But even then, grandfather hasn’t been that open right?
I thought back on things. It wasn’t until my aunt died that he even talked about my parents’ marriage. I knew about it earlier because my parents and my mom’s siblings were way more open about things than my dad’s side.
But that changed when Aunt Darshi died…
What did he say when we were leaving?
He was talking about me being the heir… But wasn’t that just to dissuade me from leaving?
No, Paeris wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t say something else.
It felt like the same thing he always said. He talked about how he was glad I’d be a good heir. That we were similar. But…. But what?
Paeris said it wasn’t a good thing that we were similar. But how could it not be? Grandfather was a great man.
“Sailhin, you and I are similar but….” I trailed off trying to mimic his baritone.
I felt like I was stopping myself from saying something.
I sat up shook my head.
No just say whatever comes to mind.
I closed my eyes and tried again.
“Sailhin, you and I are similar, but sometimes I wish you were more like your dad.”
Right, he always made comments about how he wished my dad could’ve been his heir. But why? That would’ve happened if uncle was the one to marry into mom’s family. So, wouldn’t he have disapproved my father’s decision? But he never seemed that way…
When did he start saying that?
“Chuv’mourche” I swore.
He started after Aunt Darshi died. Ugh I’m so stupid.
He wasn’t saying that dad should’ve been his heir, he was saying he regretted not being like my dad.
But why did he regret not telling Aunt Darshi? What would’ve changed… she was still in love with that bastard.
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But would that have happened if she was warned to be wary of families like his?
How could I be that blind?
Grandfather practically told me what to do and yet I ignored him.
All this time I thought he regretted making me heir.
I punched the ground.
A glaring mistake, I’ve been friends with Paeris for almost a hundred years and yet I pulled my spear on him. How could I do that to someone who’s practically family?
No, he is family. And I acted just like his blood.
I stood up and headed inside. I wasn’t expecting them to all be in the living room.
And it was just Lefty, Dot, Paeris and Brick. I heard something crash beneath us. That must’ve been Dodger helping Quartz blow off steam.
I walked in front of them and bowed at my hips.
“I apologize for my harsh words and for failing to see my own faults in the situation. And I didn’t mean what I said Paeris, you are family. I can’t believe I said otherwise.”
I stood upright.
“Dot, you’re correct. I should’ve told you. I’ve been keeping you all at arms length thinking the less you knew, the easier it’d be to keep you from getting wrapped up in everything. I trust and care about you, even though we haven’t spent much time together. Keeping things from you was my way of caring. But I can see that from your perspective it simply showed that I didn’t trust you.
“If I had shared even a small amount earlier, I would’ve properly shown my trust for you, but now I’ll have to reveal more than I’d like to in order to prove what I failed at previously. Even though we were speaking in ijanoin I said some harsh things towards the rest of you that you didn’t deserve.”
I bowed yet again.
“I made assumptions about you and that could’ve been construed as intentional disdain. I was acting in defense and acting on emotions that were brought up by the confrontation with my cousin. That doesn’t excuse things, but I just want to provide context.”
I stood up right again and glanced at Dot and Lefty quickly, but avoided eye contact. It didn’t seem like they didn’t believe me.
“You guys are a lot older than us. But its not like we aren’t adults. It felt like you didn’t think we were old enough to handle things. And it was fine earlier, but…” Dot trailed off.
“Quartz never gets that angry… I don’t really get all the context. Beastkin don’t get involved with elves all that much, but even we know that high elves are the ones that instigated the half elf ban.” Lefty finished.
“We’ve all got family problems. And I’m sure you were right about any guess you had about me. It’s just…. Winged Mercy….” Dot trailed off yet again.
“I know, I despise them. I didn’t know my cousins were even climbing. And it makes sense that they’d be with them. I just thought, that if I kept everything from you, you’d have plausible deniability. That you’d be able to use that in some way to keep you safe from things.”
I rubbed the back of my neck avoiding eye contact.
“I took this as a test run for my future and Paeris reminded me that I had it all wrong from the begining. So, I want to make it up to everyone. Fully explain things. I don’t expect any details from you in return. I just want to be the version of myself my grandfather wanted me to be.”
“Let’s talk over dinner,” Lefty said getting up “that’s the best way to keep Quartz calm, though Dodger seems to be trying to tire him out a little.”
“I’m going to talk to him before hand, if he wants to punch me so be it. I-“
“There’s a lot more he needs to tell us as well. And I don’t think his outburst was completely your fault.” Brick wrote, “It’s the end of the separate Fluffy supervision times, hopefully you sharing, will put him in a sharing mood too. Let him get his frustration out on his own.”
“Food first, always the best thing for muscle brained idiots,” Dot reassured.
I looked at them.
“but it’s-“
“We all need to eat,” Paeris said.
Dot and Lefty went into the kitchen, and I went upstairs to take a quick bath. Then I went back down to the kitchen. They planned something easy to eat and so I just helped set the table before Brick went off to get them from the basement.
Quartz looked a lot calmer by the time he entered, but he was drenched in sweat, and the two of them had their share of slight marks. Their clothes were covered in blood, but that was probably from his previously lopped off arm. Mezu was hanging off of Brick but sat mostly still in his lap once they took their seats.
“We’ll eat and talk, Sailhin’s got a lot to cover, so waiting to eat just seemed like a waste.”
I waited for everyone to sit before I sat down.
Food was passed around, and plates were full. After a few bites I looked over at Paeris, “ since you know my family’s troubles, where do you think I should start?”
“Start with why we’re here. I still don’t want to pry into your family issues,” Lefty said. “We can ask if we want to know later.”
“They are involved, but thanks, I appreciate it. I’ll bring up the small points when I get to anything that needs more context.”
I took a deep breath.
“Well, when Paeris and I graduated from the academy, we went to our own separate posts. Both Paeris and I moved south, I did dungeon raids, and he was doing research. About thirty years ago though, I got a letter from an upperclassman. He asked me to look into the situation of the nobles in the human lands.”
“More detail than that,” Paeris interrupted pointing his fork at me, “that’s about as much as I know, and it really isn’t much.”
I pursed my lips, I really wasn’t sure if I should….
“His identity is the issue. We’ll meet him on the fortieth floor, but revealing who he is outside of the tower….”
“If its against Winged Mercy, we won’t share it outside of us,” Lefty offered.
I didn’t know their reason for climbing, but at the very least it was due to one of the very questionable things Winged Mercy had done in the past.
But I was trying to be like my parents, I had to be honest. They never explained what their conversation was in detail, but they’ve never danced around topics when talking to me. I shouldn’t dance around this.
“I’m not sure his position within the guild since he didn’t specify in the letter, but outside of the tower… it’s Ylandyr.”
“Prince Ylandyr?! I knew you guys had done some classes together in the past and you were on that raid but” Paeris exclaimed.
“Wait you’re friends with an elf Prince?” Dodger interrupted loudly.
There was a kind of glimmer in her eyes I wasn’t expecting.
“Their friendship isn’t what’s important,” Dot shoved her own fork in her mouth as if to stop her from another needless interruption. “Why did he send you to check out the humans?”
“I’m honestly not too sure.”
I looked down at my plate and pushed around my food.
“He was very brief in his letter. He just asked for me to look into the history of the nobles and the tower and get as much info as I could before I entered the tower myself. He didn’t contact me again, and I always assumed I’d meet him somewhere here and give him the information in person. And when we came to Azmar, someone informed him, and Kayden helped us enter.”
“Kayden did? But the main guilds can’t have any posts outside the tower, right?” Brick asked.
“They can’t officially, but that doesn’t stop them from controlling things.” Dot stabbed her food aggressively, “Winged Mercy’s got quite a grip in Azmar.”