#feel like ive got a glowtoad on the end of my line wonder if ill get a bite

[jelzorz]

196.

With a very vague reference to 191.

Soren jokes because it's how he deals with things. It's how he's always dealt with things, and things in his life have not been easy. His mother left and he became a clown for Claudia. His father treated him poorly and he used humour to pretend it was okay. Queen Zubeia went missing once, and he spent the entire search being an idiot and annoying Corvus to keep things light.

Things have been bad before. They've been downright horrible before, and he's pulled through, and pulled others through by being ridiculous and stupid and funny.

It's pretty hard to imagine worse than this, though.

It's only been a couple of days since the attack on the castle. He and the other soldiers have moved the surviving civilians from the temples to the Banther Lodge where they'll stay until they can sort something else out, and in the distance, the ruins are still smouldering, still a grim reminder of dragon fire and destruction and death. Soren's gone back a few times already to look for more survivors, to help dig bodies out of the rubble, to salvage what little they can and it hasn't gotten easier. He can't imagine that it will.

And then Callum and Rayla had come back with—

He shakes his head. He's already had to speak to Opeli about this because she'd been furious about it, and Soren had tried to understand Callum and Rayla's perspective, he really had, especially considering that he's just lost his own dad, however complicated and messy all that was in the first place, but this? This is different.

This feels like an insult.

This is rubbing salt in an already festering wound.

The Kingslayer sits at their table and Soren can't help but be bitter about it, especially when a Skywing elf by the name of Astrid arrives to deliver more bad news.

Of course he turns to humour. Of course he makes jokes. Of course he's an idiot to defuse the tension that stretches over the dinner table, taut as bowstring and ready to snap. And of course—

"Do you think you can stop being an idiot for, like, a second?"

Soren turns to Callum, his jaw tight. "Excuse me."

Callum scowls back. "All this and Aaravos is out anyway. The castle's gone. People have died. And you're, what, making jokes? Seriously?"

Soren snaps back before he can stop himself. "Sorry," he drawls. "Are we supposed to be as angsty about this as you?"

"You can get your priorities straight at a minimum—"

"Priorities!" Soren actually laughs. "We're gonna talk about priorities? Okay. Where the fuck were you when all this happened, huh? What were you doing while I was here dealing with a dragon attack on our home?"

Callum has the audacity to snarl. "I was helping Rayla—"

"Bring back the elf that murdered your step-dad and who would have murdered Ezran too, right? Because we all know how you sort your priorities."

Silence falls over the table. Callum snaps his mouth shut. Rayla has the decency to flush.

Soren pushes his seat back and gets up. "Sorry for trying to keep everyone together," he says acidly. "Some of us have different priorities to you."

He stalks away. One by one, the others do too. For once, there is nothing to say and no joke to make it better.