#Tiny baby Silvaineaux at the end

[houserosaire]

Prompt #20: Duel

The taller man ought to have had the advantage of reach. Severin had cause to know he had certainly had the advantage of training. Yet he was a beat slow, sluggish, as if his head were still clouded with the previous night’s drink. Each time his opponent’s sword rang against his it was a nearer thing. And he was already bleeding from a cut on his left arm. 

If the object had been first blood the duel would have been over almost as soon as it began, but it was not. And so Severin stood and watched as the smaller of the two men fought rings around the other. The shorter man was not sluggish. He fought as if he had spent his entire life waiting for this moment. Severin was certain he had spent the better part of the last few weeks awaiting it.

His fingers tightened on the scabbard of his own sword, until the embossed leather printed itself on his palm, and Severin watched that taller man dance nearer and nearer to his own end. 

He fought like a drunkard. He fought like a laggard. He fought as if the Fury herself had abandoned him because She knew his opponent’s cause was the just one. 

That was a terrible thing to think of one’s own brother. 

But that did not make it any less true. 

Severin did not know everything of the path that had brought Alderic to this pass, but he knew enough to know that it had always been going to end something like this. None of that knowing did anything to help when he watched the smaller man feint neatly, and then drive his sword home past his brother’s diverted guard.

Severin did not look at the other man as he pulled back the blade and stepped back. He had eyes only for his little brother as Alderic looked down at his bleeding chest in surprise and then tumbled to the stone like a felled tree. Severin rushed forward to join him, dropping to his knees at his side. He reached out to close his own hands around the bloodied one his brother was pressing vainly to his chest. Alderic’s eyes turned toward him, wide with a sudden panic as if only now, far too late, he had realized his errors.

“It’s alright.” Severin lied, squeezing a hand that was already cooling in his own. 

“Messed up, didn’t I?” Alderic said, and coughed.

Severin nodded, as he had done every other time his brother said those words, but this time he could not find any words of his own to follow it with.

“It’s alright.” Alderic repeated, the yellow green of his eyes too bright as they met his, his voice soft and wheezing over the words. Blood bubbled on his lips. “Be easier for you. I was always messing up.”

“You were always my brother.” Severin said, because it was as true as Alderic’s words.

Alderic nodded, but then convulsed, body arching up, the hand in his briefly tightening until his fingers ached. He took two more rasping breaths and then stopped altogether. 

Severin didn’t let go of his hand until Athenais' smaller ones came to pry his fingers loose, heedless of both the blood that stained them and the way they shook when she closed hers around them instead.

***

A tiny hand closed around his finger. Severin had almost forgotten that a baby could be so very small. But that little hand was strong, and his youngest son’s eyes were bright despite their odd hues. He ran his thumb over every tiny finger and smiled. “He’ll be a strong boy.” He said quietly.

“He already is.” Athenais said, fondly watching the two of them. 

Severin nodded. “We’ll be careful not to spoil him too much.” He said quietly. “So he learns to be responsible, and a good man.” His wife’s hand closed over the muscles of his forearm where they had gone rigid. “We will. He will be fine, I promise.”