#letting astrid and eodwulf stew in wondering whether he knows it was them or if he thinks caleb got out of his own

[yfere]

if they’ve been resisting all along: more unhinged blumendrei talk

this is sort of a quasi-speculation potential AU I’ve been daydreaming about but..... look, I’m increasingly attached to the idea that what if Caleb’s breakout was a sort of botched rescue attempt from astrid and eodwulf. and trent knows and found out about it, and is using that knowledge to fuck with all three of them.

so consider: looking at the mechanism of how the scourger abuse seems to work, I don’t imagine it would have been long before astrid and eodwulf discovered or were told the truth of what they did. Maybe a year, maybe less? It’s just to compound on the shame and isolation from having traitor parents, from killing those parents..... to finding out that they were lied to from the start, and are just criminals, dogs to the assembly whose crimes can be brought out to light at any time to sunder them from society completely. by the time astrid and eodwulf would have found this out, they would have still been far too powerless to do anything about it. Trent is an old man, but he also has connections, an insane amount of political and personal power. Enough magic to squash them like little bugs with but a word.

not only that, but at this point trent has bren. a person who they love, maybe the only one left, who broke, and who would function as good as a hostage for their continued good behavior. I imagine astrid and eodwulf confronted with this situation, their impotent fury (that astrid admits to harboring in her conversation with caleb), and I think they thought something along the lines of what abuse survivors like josefina rivera or the like may have thought--they’re gonna play by the rules. In fact, they’re gonna be the best goddamn proteges trent could ever hope for, his best friends, most relied-upon associates.... they will do this, acquire power, and from there put themselves in a position where they can tear his whole world down around his ears. It is, in a sense, the power game and dependence trent was going for all along, and is encouraging still with caleb. but it’s also in many ways the clearest and best path ahead of them, given their situation, the circumstances they were presented with.

so they work hard, they gain power. it’s probably not an accident eodwulf gets himself involved with the experiments at the asylum. he’s there most likely because bren is there, and if there’s one thing they need to do to get the upper hand on trent, it’s to rescue the hostage he’s been dangling just out of their reach for so long. maybe they tried a rescue before, and failed. maybe they tried several. they work hard, and then they do it, and--

things go wrong. or right? their calculations likely didn’t account for how their bren would react to all of this, how he would want to fight and hide, how it wouldn’t make sense or cross his mind to play the social chameleon by trent’s side. it goes maybe half-wrong and then bren is in the wind, not quite under trent’s thumb but also not safe, and not with them. astrid has a burn scar on her neck--when did she get it, exactly? and trent finds out, because of course he does, and finds out about caleb too. and it’s the same thing again but also not, and then....

bren comes roaring back into their lives.