#in which Sau realizes he totally forgot to come out of the closet to his family

[fireintheforest]

Negotiations

Ganra should be here by now, Saufinril mused, making his anxiety and excitement increase. He’d rented a private room at an inn, where he was at right now. The only furniture in it was the table and chairs and the big window that allowed him to see the side of the inn (probably a room for private reunions), the docks and the people walking around Anvil. Whenever he thought he saw a glimpse of golden blond hair, he’d stand up from his seat and sharpened his gaze to see if it was Ganra. It never was. What would he look like, anyways? The last time he saw him he was 19, and on the same night he finally left his house. It’s not like he was going to change his face completely. But he was still curious.

Footsteps approached the room and the voice of the innkeeper came along. Saufinril turned to the sound of the noises, was it heading his direction?

They were, oh Mara they were. He could feel his heartbeat increase drastically. And that’s when the door opened. A grown mer’s voice with Saufinril’s same accent thanked whoever had guided him, and that’s when Ganra stepped in the room. The Imperial lady left them alone, Ganra closed the door behind him as Saufinril stood up. Neither brother moved while they took in how much their sibling had changed in 32 years.

He was so…buff. And taller than him for some 2 or 3 inches. He still had the elegance of the race, but he also had the straight back and neutral demeanor of a Warrior, which undoubtedly all the men here saw. For Altmer standards, his brother had developed a lot of muscle. But the heart shaped face that was their father’s was still there, as were the eyes everyone said were like his, emerald green, but for him had always been a dark yellow. Ganra looked older, definitely freshly turned 51. The goatee was new, and the hair was shorter than the last time he’d seen him, but it was him. It was his little brother. The first thing that escaped Saufinril was a smile, imitated by his brother, then both went to each other.

“Look at you!” Ganra exclaimed with a voice deeper than the last time Saufinril had heard him as they hugged (too tightly but the years called for it). Ganra lifted Saufinril some inches from the ground while still embracing him, “You’re so thin!”

“Hey hey, ground. Ground. I’m your older brother, come on.” Saufinril protested. Ganra put him back down and they both broke the hug. Saufinril looked up to Ganra and smiled again, “It’s so good to see you again.”

“It is! Look at you, how have you been? Where have you been this whole time?” both brothers headed to the table where the wine and food awaited.

“Hoo, where do you want me to start?” Saufinril asked, serving Ganra, “I’m good, I’ve been living between Skyrim and Valenwood for a while.”

“You mentioned you were heading to Valenwood after today. What even is there?”

“My patron, his business. I travel back and forth with him. I did have to ask him for a day here to meet, and afterwards I continue south. But look at you, you enlisted? When? How did they even let you come?”

“I did, last year. Not too long ago. It’s been going well, mother and Mithras are very happy with this choice, and I am too.” Ganra watched as Saufinril pressed his lips lightly and passed the drink to him before serving himself, “Thank you. Well, what is this patron? What does he do?...why are you not spouting ice randomly?”

“Because I grew up. I wasn’t going to be the same little Finn that one day couldn’t do magic and the next was setting the kitchen table on fire.”

“You’re not my brother. The real Saufinril is a menace with his magika.”

“Fuck off, I’m 52. I had to control that sometime.”

“How did you control it?”

“Eh,” Saufinril waved his hand vaguely, as if it was an insignificant detail, “a lot of practice, reading endless amounts of tomes at night, day, during slow business hours, a lot of times where I thought I had it right and then electrocuted someone. I think being busy helped. It stopped happening around the time I was 30.”

“That’s good.”

“Thanks.” The silence fell between the brothers for some seconds before Ganra asked, “So, this patron. You didn’t answer me, what does he do?”

“Mm.” Saufinril finished the sip of wine and swallowed, “He has business in Skyrim and Valenwood. A store and a bar, respectively. He’s like a tutor to me.”

“Since when?” the tone of Ganra’s voice made Saufinril turn to look at him.

“Hm?”

“Since when is he a tutor? You had tutors back home. And you had Mithras. Why is he the one that helped?”

“I don’t know, Ganra.” Saufinril lied, “I just know it did. He has a lot of experience, he’s travelled Tamriel, he’s seen and lived a lot.”

“So?”

“So, he has knowledge that maybe those tutors or Graywatch didn’t have.”

“At the time.”

“Or at all.”

Ganra observed his brother take another drink. He observed their mother’s factions in him: the high cheekbones, the narrow jaw, the overall face structure so similar to Kusunna’s, the effect broken only by the blond hair and the emerald green eyes.

“Now that your magic is…stable. Will you come back?”

Saufinril immediately began to choke on the wine, putting the wine glass down and coughing. Ganra rolled his eyes but patted Saufinril’s back.

“It’s not that bad, come on. Your patron will understand. What do you do with him, anyways? Whatever you do, you can get a much better position in the Isles. You can enlist to train as a Battlemage, even, like Gilan. You can-” Saufinril held a hand up, stabilizing again before turning to his brother.

“Gunny,” he cleared his throat, “one is not returning to the Isles.”

“What? Why not?”

“Why would one? One is happy here.”

“Because it’s not your home. Your home is in the Isles. And don’t talk to me with ‘one’, I’m your brother, not some stranger.”

“Well, I think I know where my home is. And it’s here.”

“Not with your brother?” Ganra asked, looking and sounding genuinely hurt, “Or your mother or Mithras?”

“It’s not that, Ganra,-”

“Then why don’t you return?”

“Bec-”

“What is there here that you don’t want to be with your family? Do you not love us?”

“Ganra, of course I love you. You’re my brother.”

“Then why is it so hard for you to come back?” Ganra demanded, slamming an open hand at the table. The glasses clinked and Saufinril involuntarily tensed up, then glared at Ganra, who was glaring back.

“Keep your fucking goblin antics down.” Saufinril hissed, “I have my reasons.”

“Which are?”

“Mine. That’s what they are.”

“What could possibly be more important than us? Is it this tutor, this patron?”

“I-partly, yes.” Saufinril admitted, “There’s not much back there for me. Listen, here I make good money, I have a job, I have my social circle, my patron-”

“Everything you described, Saufinril, you have back in Cloudrest. Your old friends? Remember them? They’re back in Cloudrest. You can get a better job, you can get more money, you can find a wife and get married and have children,” Saufinril avoided Ganra’s gaze and shuffled in his seat, “Like I said, you can enlist and become a Battlemage. You can have your own business and not work for some patron. You can be back with your family. Us. Mother, Mithras, me.”

“Ganra, I said no. I am not returning to the isles.” Saufinril stated.  Ganra leaned back.

“This is unbelievable. After everything that’s happened with mother and Mithras, everything they went through and everything you put us through, you won’t come back? After everything both mother and Mithras did for us?”

“Watch your tongue.”

“Why? I was there, I saw it.”

“You didn’t see anything, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking like this.”

“You’re just so comfortable living in Cyrodiil, right? Having everything handed to you,” Ganra stood up, slamming his hands at the table again, “You’re so selfish. You didn’t have to watch Mithras lose nights of sleep trying to figure out how to prevent the invasion from killing everyone in your hometown, you weren’t there when we all thought he was going to die and mother couldn’t handle losing another husband.”

“No, but I wish I had.”

“Unbelievable, you never even visited or-or contact our parents! You weren’t there, you weren’t there for me! You have no filial duty, you don’t care!”

“I could say the same about you!” Saufinril now stood up, “Why are you only coming over here after thirty-two years? Huh? And what about mother? She could’ve come. So much for being my ‘family’.” He air-quoted the last part, “You all are a bunch of hypocrites that only care about what others will say, so don’t come to me talking about family when you don’t know what that means! Mother hardly knows what that means!”

“You just don’t want to take any responsibility. You’re ungrateful and a coward! A vagabond! You have no respect for all that your own people, your own family, has gone through! I shouldn’t have to beg you to come back to your family if you really loved us!”

“Is that so? You’re delusional, Ganra. You choose to call an egomaniac control freak your father when we both know we’re not his sons and our real father would’ve never done anything that he’s done! You’re an ignorant and an idiot! But go! Keep your fucking cult to Graywatch.”

“You’re pathetic, did you know that?”

“Oh, fuck off Ganra. Do you even know what kind of mer he is?”

“Yes I do, because we grew up together, Saufinril. I thought that meant something to you.”

“I thought the same.”

Another bout of silence fell. They both kept the hard stares on the other until Ganra shook his head and headed to the door.

“Where are you going?” Saufinril asked.

“Far from you. I’m going back home. I don’t need this.” Ganra turned to Saufinril, “I don’t need to hear you disrespecting my parents and everything they’ve done for their country and their children. Especially for someone that wants a mediocre life, and that clearly doesn’t want to be around me.”

No. No this couldn’t end like this. He hadn’t seen his little brother in 32 years, was he going to let this meeting end like this? All the anger he was feeling melted. That’s not true, Ganra. He wanted to follow him, to pull him into a hug and say he was sorry, that he was going home if it made him happy, that he never meant any ill to happen to him after all these years, that he just wanted to stop feeling so trapped and alone… but his ego was what planted him in place and shut his mouth. Ganra opened the door and left. Saufinril sighed and passed a hand through his hair.