2Forsaken
"Truly what I see before me is naught but illusion." The younger brother tilted his chin back down towards the black and white pieces that lay scattered with purpose before him, a smile touching his wan features. "You've come to play a round against me, knowing that you cannot possibly push through my vanguard?"
"You presume I only wanted to challenge you. Am not I allowed to spend time with you, as a brother ought?" Lorian moved a pawn idly forwards, watching his brother's frown. He had no idea that the frown wasn't for his thoughtless movement of the chess piece, but for the truth behind his comment.
"If you are here before me, who is taking your place on the outside?" A dull pain coursed in Lothric's temples, pulsing behind his eyes. Patiently he allowed this to pass before speaking again, giving no indication of his minute of suffering. "It matters not. I would rather have my sword where it belongs." Blinking, he saw only darkness, but again did not complain.
"Lordling?" Lorian asked quietly, vexed by his brother's silence. After a moment he understood and rushed his gaze down to the chessboard once more, knowing full well not to ask if there was anything he could do.
There was nothing, after all.
Footfalls, nearly silent, filled the halls, growing closer until they stopped. Perfume touched Lothric's nose, followed by the scent of rose tea and the odor of fresh blood coursing through veins. A woman that he could not see gently placed a cup of tea at his left hand and turned with the swishing of robes. He waited for the maid to leave, puzzled after a few seconds of silence.
His waning vision dared to dip back, bringing the form of his brother back before him and the maid to his side. "You are still here, servant?" His words were heavy with the pride of stature, though his tone towards the servants remained as gentle as the tone reserved for his own sibling. It was not in his nature to abuse power.
That cruelty was for the gods.
There wasn't a bit of timidity within her. Lorian saw the vague movement of her turning to face him, gripping her tea tray flat against her bodice."…You've left the window to your sleeping quarters open once again, Milord. Forgive me, but your health is my utmost concern and-…"
Lorian held up a hand to silence her. "Perhaps it is best you mind your station."
A fire erupted in the woman's heart, her pulse so violently enraged that Lothric felt the strain of laughter taunt the back of his throat, daring to pass through his lips. Instead he merely looked away, his smile invisible.
'I am minding my station, you ignorant, base-bred fop.' Lothric heard her words clearly and worried for a moment that she had actually spoken them aloud. He was relieved that the woman hadn't, but oh my, the secrets this curse allotted him were truly something else. He only turned his gaze back towards his brother after she was clear out of earshot.
"Why have you pulled a face, Lordling?" Lorian asked, his tone accusatory.
"It is nothing, dear Brother. Her tea is always foul and rife with herbs to bolster my strength. It makes teatime a miserable experience."
"I see." Lorian claimed a pawn, only vaguely listening.
Lothric's next sentence elicited a bit more of a response. "Your tainted blood is scorching her veins."
Lorian sat upright slowly, moving his fingers from another pawn to rest on the table between them. Meeting his brother's gaze was easy, but determining whether or not there was an answer for his statement was truly difficult. "…Do you…" the questions he longed to ask were ones that he dared not.
"In which way did you err, Brother? Was there a mistake?"
Lorian's mouth formed a hard line. "My decision was not a wrong one, but it certainly was not a calculated one. My err was a desire to play at being human. At normalcy. At wanting an heir." He admitted this not with shame, but with a severe inflection that brought to Lothric's mind the image of his brother dueling the Demon Prince. It was in Lorian's nature to mete out judgment, to right the wrongs of the world. His comprehension of justice was a thing of beauty, a beacon of radiance. Of righteousness.
Unfortunately, Lothric often found himself having to remind his older brother that justice and righteousness had been snuffed out. Ah, how he longed to be human, to pretend that the curse would not lead them to a fate far worse than death. He longed to simply congratulate his brother, as a sibling ought.
"You know I desire nothing more than for our bloodline to end, Lorian. You allow the lifeblood of our namesake to carry on when it was so near to being dead? For what, pray tell? Love? Ambition? These are things that are not afforded to the likes of Us."
"I would strike down any who intend to repeat what has been done to you, my Brother. The cycle of Lothric will not continue. Do you not trust me?"
"You intend to…" Lothric fell silent, silver locks falling over his gaunt shoulders as he shook his head. "You do realize that you will become a father who cannot speak? An abomination who minds as a nameless sword, scraping his belly along the earth like a low-slung beast? And when this curse touches our minds, so too will our bodies no longer be as they are. It exists to impose, to oppress, to make one's will as giant as their being will become."
"Should I be mute and blind and bestial, not even then would I be the abomination of our Father and his fathers. You remain the hand that steers the sword. I will not lose myself."
Lothric closed his eyes once more, growing weary. They so often had this same argument. Lothric, shriveled and cursed, burdened by the selflessness of a brother who so easily shared in the curse. For Lothric's sake. It made him feel sick.
So this time, just this once, he appeased his brother. "You are free from this curse. Freed from it by my will and acceptance of its horrors entirely. My dear Lorian, the grandest knight to greet this world, ruling as the next King. He stands untainted and beautiful, making a commoner as his uncompromising queen and his kind children as his legacy. His strength would be unparalleled. His justice unquestionable."
"It is a wondrous daydream, but it is only just that. This curse has written our fate. I'm foolish to defy it."
"Yes, I understand." Lothric offered a smile. "But are the forsaken not at least afforded daydreams?"
