#firmly told nono to put his prejudice against xanxus

[secret-engima]

Finds and Feathers Drabble: Drautos

*throws this on here* Ow, my hands. This is over 2.5k words when it was meant to be maybe 1k but its done now so enjoy it. I hereby blame @oliverslewty @yudu097 and @faeconstellation for this. XDD Look at what got resurrected and merged with Fangs and Feathers verse.

BEHOLD the thing that y’all did the vote for *waggles eyebrows*.

...

-Titus has several reasons to hate the royal family. King Mors pulled back the Wall, which allowed his parents and uncles to be murdered when Niflheim invaded, leaving only him and his older sister alive (and even then, Titus was only alive because of Regis and his sister was only alive because she had moved to Lestallum three years prior). Regis had promised Titus aid and vengeance, but as the years went by, Titus’s homeland was never reclaimed.

-Then there was the Glauca suit.

-Titus had not wanted the thing now sitting under his skin, he had fought every step of the way through his capture and experimentation and their attempts to TURN him, make him betray Lucis in favor of the people who had burned his home.

-If he hadn’t had a sister to go home to, he thinks he would have listened to them.

-If he hadn’t had a sister who Titus had learned was with child right before his capture, he thinks he might have listened anyway, or at least not been as desperately reckless to escape. He would have taken his time to plot a way out, played obedient puppet to lower their guard rather than fighting his way out using the THING they had burrowed under his skin, even if it almost killed him.

-The Crownsguard hadn’t even noticed he was gone, and of course, what the Crownsguard didn’t report, Regis was too busy to notice.

-Worthless king. Spineless king. Selfish lying king who deserved to WAtCh hIs KInGdOm BUrN-

-It was only his sister’s horrified intervention in the height of his vitriol that clued him in on the fact that his thoughts were no longer completely his own. The suit, the armor, the thing that breathed and hungered and hated under his skin was connected to his mind so that he could command it at will, but that connection was two way, and its hate kept trying to bleed over into his own thoughts.

-Titus made a point to twist his spite and direct it at Niflheim whenever his thoughts strayed. True, he might hate the royal line for their failures, but he hated Niflheim MORE. Regis might not be the warrior king Lucis needed but at least he wasn’t the Emperor (at least he was a good man, even if good men made bad kings). On and on his thoughts spun in endless circles, a tug of war between two different kinds of spite and anger in the background of his everyday life that frankly made every day exhausting. It would have been so much easier to let the two thought processes combine and carry him away into a secret, righteous crusade against Lucis. So much easier to claim the power Niflheim had burrowed under his skin.

-He didn’t. Because of his sister. More than her…

-Because of his nephew. Because his nephew had no father figure to speak of (his sister had looked so worried when she told him of her one night stand with a nameless, pretty-eyed stranger that had made her pregnant despite protection) and had been born with fury under his skin, branded into his being just like the birthmarks that stretched across his face and body like jagged scars. SOMEONE had to teach his nephew to control the fury that seemed to have been molded into the boy’s soul from the womb, and Titus was the only one around to do that.

-Then one day when his nephew was seven years old and throwing a tantrum, the apartment shook and his nephew froze in astonishment at the bright, red-amber fire licking over his hands. In the stunned silence that had followed, his nephew had looked up at him with blood red eyes (his nephew’s eyes were washed out blue like his, not red, not RED-) and Titus had one more reason to hate Lucis Caelums.

-He never told Regis. Never dared. Regis was a man who loved children, and even in his blackest moments Titus would never suspect the man of being capable of harming a child, but Regis was married. Married to a wife he adored, a wife who had just recently had a son of her own. The scandal it would cause if Titus’s nephew was known, the strife that would erupt between Regis, Aulea, and Titus’s sister-. He couldn’t risk it.

-He had never been so glad that Regis had given him magic as a trusted member of his Retinue. A way to teach his nephew how to hide the magic burning under his skin and how to temper the wrath that threatened to shake the walls at any given moment (because his nephew was always angry, even when he was content and smiling and laughing with his mother, there was a tiny spark of anger lurking there, like the world had wronged him and he hated it).

-He still kept the secret even after Aulea died. Because Regis was grieving, and for all the bitterness that was both his and the suit’s, he wouldn’t inflict that kind of drama on the man while he was grieving.

-When his nephew was ten, Titus got a call from his sister, frantic and confused over her nephew, who had been watching a broadcast about the Oracle’s children when he suddenly passed out with a fever. Titus claimed a sick day and rushed to Lestallum to check on his nephew, found him already up and about a day after his mysterious collapse.

-His eyes were red and there was bitterness there.

-They didn’t stop being red even after Titus held him close and calmed the buzzing rage he could feel under his nephew’s skin.

-“I’m King Regis’s spawn, aren’t I?”

-Titus stiffened at the wording, glanced up at his sister as she pet her son’s hair and breathed, “You are my beloved son. Who your father is doesn’t matter to us.”

-His nephew laughed and the sound was broken. Then he pulled away and summoned fire to his hands so he could stare at his magic. When he looked up at his mother, his eyes were still the color of fresh blood, “I don’t like my name. I want to change it.”

-Titus and his sister had exchanged worried looks, but out of fear of a magic-fueled tantrum, Titus asked, “What name do you want?”

-A sharp, bitter sort of smile more at home on the face of a soldier than a child, “Xanxus. My name is Xanxus.”

-And that was that. His nephew stopped responding to his given name, only answered to the one he had given himself. He was different now, from whatever had happened, and Titus wished he could ask Regis about magic without raising suspicions, because was this normal for Lucis Caelums? This sudden change in name and development of a too-old (too bloodthirsty) personality?

-Xanxus’s eyes never did turn back to blue. Titus suspected there was too much anger there, lurking just beneath the surface as his nephew went out and picked fights with the street rats of Lestallum, as he ran off to join the Hunters at fifteen, adding yet another concern to Titus’s life in between his duties as Captain of the Kingsglaive, the suit constantly prodding his thoughts, and Prince Noctis (who had taken to trailing him around with big blue eyes that made it impossible to hate the brat) and his crazy pet Galahdian who had apparently taken a shine to him because he wasn’t “a useless herbivore” (whatever that meant).

-Titus should have known something would break someday. The tenuous secrecy and balance couldn’t last forever. Not with Xanxus’s temper and Titus’s terrible luck in regards to Lucis Caelums.

-Four months after Xanxus turned sixteen, Titus got a report from the front lines. A base of Kingsglaive had nearly been overrun by a Niflheim assault until an unknown teenager with magic had intervened and shot down the gunships with a combination of over-powered, red-tinted fire spells and guns that seemed to fire bullets of pure magic.

-Titus could do nothing to stop the report from reaching Regis, because several Crownsguard had been at the base at the time to refuel their truck on the way back to Insomnia and they had already reported the incident to the Marshal.

-Titus stood at a twitching Regis’s side, face frozen in neutrality that he didn’t feel as the throne room doors got flung open and his nephew was escorted inside by several glaives. Xanxus eyed Regis with contempt, his magic swirling openly around him like biting embers of anger and King Regis flinched at the feel of it before stepped forward, “You are-”

-“Your illegitimate spawn,” sneered Titus’s nephew and Titus inwardly groaned, “so what? Gonna try to lock me in your pretty Citadel so I don’t go around shaming your line?”

-Regis recoiled like he’d been physically punched and Titus openly winced and resisted the urge to tell Xanxus to do his breathing exercises, “No!” Sputtered the king Titus had a constant loyalty-hate relationship with, “I would never hold you here against your will!”

-“So you’ll just offer a lot of incentives for me to stay  and more incentives for me to not dare leave.” Retorted Titus’s living headache, “Don’t try the playing the nice sham you old b-.”

-That was enough of that, “Xanxus Certus Drautos, watch your tongue. I can still hold you down and wash that mouth of yours out with soap.”

-All eyes snapped to Titus while Xanxus made a face and a rude gesture and Titus sighed at the unspoken, panicky question in Regis’s eyes, “He’s my nephew. Yes, I’ve known about his magic for a long time.”

-Regis’s expression was so genuinely wounded Titus felt bad, “Then why did you never…?”

-Titus looked away, unable to withstand the hurt in the eyes of the man Titus thought was a bad king but knew was a good man (which was what made him a bad king), “We didn’t find out until the year Prince Noctis was born. I didn’t want my sister or nephew … or you … to suffer the scandal it would cause if he became known. And after the Queen died … there was never a good time.”

-Xanxus snorted, “Whatever, just scrub the reports and he can keep his precious reputation untarnished and I can go back to Hunting. Say one of your pet glaives used a new magic spell or something.” The glaives bristled at the “pet” comment, but Titus was just glad he wasn’t slinging his favorite word around yet (he doubted Cor or anyone in the room would react well to Xanxus calling the king “trash”)

-Regis turned back to Xanxus, reached out a hesitant hand, “You don’t have to leave. I will not stop you if … if you truly wish to go but I would … I would be honored to get to know my son-.”

-Magic rippled out like blood and fury and Titus instinctively put himself between Regis and Xanxus as his nephew snarled “I don’t belong to you, Trash King. I’m not your son, I’m your mistake and I will not be caged just so you can pat yourself on the back and feel better about ‘repenting’ for your ‘mistakes’.” Xanxus shook off the glaives that reached for him, fire burning dangerously up his arms and shoulders as he leaned around Titus so he could bare his teeth at a shaking Regis, his armiger flickering in and out of existence in red-amber as he spat, “You leave me and my mother the pyre alone or so help me I’m gonna-.”

-From the doors of the throne room, another magic signature spiked and Titus swallowed his spit in dread.

-What was Prince Noctis doing down here?

-Xanxus’s eyes went wild and he spun on his heel and Titus had a horrifying mental image of either his nephew or his crown prince dead on the throne room floor and half-dived for his nephew. He slammed against the red-tinted magic shield that formed and pushed outward, knocking aside everyone that might have stopped him as Prince Noctis, with no self-preservation whatsoever, ran up to Xanxus and smiled, “Xanxus, you’re here!”

-Wait. How did Prince Noctis know Xanxus’s name?

-Xanxus stared down at the nine year old prince with a cocked head, confusion in the set of his shoulders for a moment before he … relaxed, “Small Trash?” There was genuine confusion, disbelief, as if he wasn’t expecting to see Prince Noctis here, but that made no sense because Xanxus had only ever been to Insomnia in his life ONCE before now and there was no way he’d met Prince Noctis then. … Right?

-Prince Noctis stared around them at the shield hemming them in, then fearlessly smiled and hugged Titus’s nephew, “I missed you!”

-Titus prepared to batter down the shield in hopes of preventing regicide.

-Xanxus just patted Prince Noctis’s hair, armiger fading out of existence and magic settling to something slightly below screaming wrath, “Figures you’d be here, Small Trash.”

-“My name is Noctis.”

-“Xanxus. Xanxus Drautos.”

-Prince Noctis leaned briefly around Xanxus to blink at Titus, then resumed smiling up at the half-brother he shouldn’t know existed, “Titus’s…?”

-“Nephew, Small Trash. I don’t have a father.”

-Regis made a strangled noise, tentatively resting a hand on the shield keeping him away from his two sons, “Noctis…”

-Prince Noctis looked at his father, blinked with that unique, far-off stare he got when his seer magic kicked in and Titus felt his teeth grind as the boy looked up at Xanxus, “…You’re my half-brother.”

-Xanxus’s shoulders tensed, “Small Trash…”

-Prince Noctis turned and hugged Xanxus again, “It’s okay. He’s a good dad, I promise. He’ll love you. Please stay.”

-A shaking breath that felt … vulnerable. More vulnerable than his nephew had been since he was ten and claimed a new name, “I’m illegitimate, Small Trash. We both know what that means to royalty.”

-Slender arms hugged tighter and Titus watched in awe as his volatile nephew did nothing to throw the boy away, “Dad is different. I love him, and he loves me. He loves you too already. I promise. And I never break my promises.”

-Xanxus sagged in place, muttered a few scathing curses Titus had never been able to train out of him, then reached down and effortlessly picked Prince Noctis up and propped him on his hip like the boy was three and not nine, “Fine, Small Trash. I’ll give him three months. If I don’t like him by then I’m gone.”

-The shield dissolved as Xanxus turned around, “You got that, Trash King? You want to prove you’re interested in me as family and not a tool, you got three months to do it. After that I’m gone and none of your men better try to stop me unless they want to be dead.”

-Regis agreed even as the Marshal growled at Xanxus’s wording, but Titus didn’t care to listen. Couldn’t really think past his surprise because … because…

-As his nephew looked down at the half-brother he apparently already knew in his arms, angry but in a more tired and indulgent way, for the first time in years…

-Xanxus’s eyes were their natural washed out blue again.

-Oh, thought Titus quietly as Prince Noctis beamed up at Xanxus with amber eyes, magic curling effortlessly around Xanxus’s in a way that filled in and smoothed over all the screaming, jagged edges.

-Oh.