Our name now (If you'll take it)

“You’ll get it. Just relax, Hyun.”

Brutus felt the plant twitch under Hyun’s control as he growled, tensed. Wind whistled through the terrace, bringing the sharp scent of redspire sap with it. It mixed with the honey-like scent of the chimeflower branch her apprentice was trying to manipulate

The area was sheltered by carved stone pillars. A ceiling of ivy hung above them where dappled sunlight fell through and warmed Brutus’s wool.

Hyun’s claws clicked against the mosaic tiled floors as he adjusted his stance again.

“Relax,” Brutus huffed. “Just focus on –“

“I AM hokking focusing on the stupid –“

She felt the instant his concentration slipped.

The chimeflowers bloomed. Too fast, much too fast.

The keyaa powering their growth spasmed and caused them to wilt, the bark cracking and dying under the pressure of the energy rushing, unchecked, through the tiny lifeform. The waves of energy pressed in sharp waves against Brutus before sputtering out completely.

Brutus swallowed a sigh, trying to keep her expression neutral.

“Hokk!” Hyun’s curse was followed by the snap of brittle wood, him kicking the plant. Along with some high-pitched, frustrated chittering.

Even though it wasn’t herself struggling, Brutus felt something sink within her nonetheless. More than anyone else at Pyridekk, she understood how exhausting magic-recovery could be.  She wished she could help more than just offering patience.

“It’s okay, kesska.” Brutus said. “Flowering plants are delicate, they’re hard to control.”

“Yeah I know,” Hyun chittered, his tail swishing against the stone. “I know, I used to be able to do it, and it was easy.” He kicked the crumbled heap again for good measure. “It was so easy, and I used to be able to do fruits and, and big bushes, trees – and now I can’t even do a zeitty hokking flower. And I’m…”

Brutus’s face fell when she heard him sniffle.

“I’m tired.” Hyun admitted. “And my horn hurts.”

His voice was weak. Like the flower, like all the energy had drained out of him.

And that wouldn’t do at all, no way.

 Wordlessly, Brutus kicked the plant debris out of the way and stood firmly Infront of it, hoping she was blocking it from his sight. This was enough suffering for one day, Brutus was now on cheer-up-kid duty.

“Hey, what have I told you before.” She said softly, knocking one of her hooves against his arm.

Hyun sniffed again. His keyaa-silhouette was small, like he was all curled up on himself.

“… Progress isn’t linear.” He said.

“Mmm-hmm, exactly. And it,” Brutus chuckled, “I won’t lie it hokking sucks, but it’s true. Yeah? It’s frustrating. I know. And that’s why I’m so proud of you, Hyun, I’m so proud – you’ve made so much progress – you couldn’t even grow a sprout two months ago, remember?”

(Brutus kept hir voice steady, reassuring. Yet just thinking about that period, after Hyun’s horn-injury had healed enough him to be coherent again, was awful. Before, Hyun had been so full of energy, yammering on about whatever, a grin often in his voice. After, he was nearly immobile. Silent. Apart from pained whimpers as he clutched weakly onto hir arm, his face crusted with dried tears.)

 (For weeks. For weeks, Brutus could do nothing but hold his hand in hirs as he healed. Brush his hair from his face, careful not to even bump his bandaged horn. Brutus had felt helpless. Xe still did. If xe could fix all of Hyun’s hurts, xe would. In a heartbeat, xe would.)

“I – yeah. I guess.” His voice wavered.

“No, no ‘I guess’. That’s hokking amazing, Hyun. Because I know it’s frustrating and it – it hurts,” More than just physically, she knew it hurt, “but you keep trying, and I’m so proud of you for that. You should be proud of yourself for that too. Yeah?”

Hyun gave a humm.

She couldn’t tell if she was reaching him in any way, and felt her chest cinch painfully with the failure. But she pushed down the feeling quickly, rubbing her hoofs up and down Hyun’s forelimbs instead, hoping it was comforting.

Ugh, they couldn’t both be sad and tired. She needed to fix this. But what –

Brutus jolted slightly as Hyun leaned into her touch, his head falling onto her chest. His muzzle probably getting lost in the wool.

“’an we g’back to your place.” He asked, muffled, and heartachingly quiet.

“Yeah,” Brutus slung an arm over his back and held him for a moment, “yeah of course. I could play something for you if you want?”

Hyun made a sad little sound. “No, m’head hurts.”

She held him closer. “That’s okay, that’s okay, uhm. Well, for one, we can get back and shift so I can hug you better. And then, maybe, I can get some of those burstberry tarts with the salted bread that you like. And we can sit on the couch with that ratty blanket you won’t let me get rid of –“

“s’good blanket, it’s red n’ powerful.”

Brutus smiled at the tiny spark of energy that had returned to Hyun’s voice and pressed her cheek to his headfur, “And, how about this, I won’t even complain when you hokking hog the blanket and leave me all cold and miserable.”

“You do complain a lot, don’t you.”

Brutus laughed gently. “How does that sound, kesska.”

He nodded.

“Alright.” Brutus gave him a final squeeze, then let him go.

-x-

When they got back to Brutus’s place, Hyun shifted to his gentle-form, then face-planted into the couch with a whine. His head throbbed something fierce with the impact, but simply shifting tamped down the pain a bit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shimmery, dust-like keyaa particles from his shift cloud outward, then melt away into the air. Similarly, he melted into the cushions. Shifting always made him feel looser, all his senses were quieted as if under a thin sheet.

Eyes closed, he nuzzled into Brutus’s stupid mossy-smelling couch. Not a bad mossy, but definitely mossy. His toes curled into the coilgrass carpet below, which was weirdly warm.

All of Brutus’s place was covered in plants, the walls spiderwebbed with branches, the ceiling hanging with shineberry vines, lichen and moss on whatever surface. Somehow, xe kept it clean, free of bugs and muck and all that, so it was nice. It helped hir get around better, Brutus, having all the plants around, since xe could see their keyaa and that.

As Hyun adjusted his position a bit, pain shot through his head again, and he was suddenly reminded that he was super sad and pissed off. But in that half-numb kind of way. It was like he had swallowed this huge boulder and it was sitting in his chest, getting heavier and heavier the more he focused on it.

Dishes clinked softly as Brutus puttered around the kitchen.

Xe had shifted too, the clack of hir hooves replaced by muffled footfalls. Hyun turned towards the noise, and the spark and fwoom of the stove lighting met his ears.

“You want any tea? Or anything? I’m making something for myself.”

Hyun just gave a humm.

There was a pause. “I’m gonna make you something if you don’t say no, Hyun.” Xe was teasing, but in the way where xe actually meant it, unfortunately.

Hyun gave a more drawn out, whiny humm, yet one that still wasn’t definitively a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He felt too tired to make decisions right now.

“Looks like I’m making you something then,” xe said, and the smile in hir voice just made Hyun feel all the more terrible.

He didn’t know why Brutus still put up with him.

After everything, it would make much more sense for Brutus to just…

Avoid him? Leave? At the very least, find someone else to babysit him.

Xe put in all this time, a stupid amount of time, of effort, nursing him back to health after Chrrris broke his horn. Sleepless nights holding his hand, bringing him treats he liked, adjusted his pillows and bedding to keep him comfortable.

And for what?

For nothing.

For absolutely hokking nothing.

He still couldn’t cast magic even half as good as he could before – which wasn’t terribly good anyways.

And now he could barely help Brutus with non-magic related things, his near constant headaches making every task so much more exhausting and confusing. Try reading anything when it felt like there was a hokking huge knife dancing around in your skull, not fun. Not to mention the random dizzy spells and general bouts of fatigue – the way his heart jumped whenever he had to go down stairs was so hokking pathetic.

He couldn’t do anything.

Not for Brutus, not even for himself.

His back hurt now too.

It was this stinging, pulsing in his shoulder blades that worsened whenever the fabric of his shirt rubbed against them. And he couldn’t even complain about that one, so that sucked even more.

(And that was a whole other can of whistleworms, the fact that Brutus still didn’t know about his wings. Yet Ame did. A can of whistleworms that was permanently shrieking in the back of his head, and that seemed particularly loud on days like this.)

(Shrieking and cooing and rattling – just tell hir already, the longer it goes on the worse the reveal will be, the more angry Brutus will be, betrayed, offended – after all xe’s done for you and you told Ame before hir?)

So in conclusion: everything sucked. Sucked huge horrible balls in fact.

The couch dipped beside him.

“Drink up, child.”

Hyun opened his eyes. There were two mugs on the table in front of them. Ceramic, one green with a chipped lip, and the other a deep red. The aroma of ginger and mint had filled the room while Hyun had been lost in his thoughts. As he sat up, he took a deep breath and let the scent settle like a blanket in his lungs, thick and comforting.

Then tears pricked his eyes.

Carefully, he took the green mug in his palms. Though the ceramic was nearly burning, he clutched it tighter. The burn was anchoring.

This tea was meant to help with headaches. It didn’t really, but one time, Hyun had lied and said it did. Since then, Brutus had made it whenever Hyun complained of headaches.

He smiled weakly. He was getting sick of it if he was honest, the tea, it tasted a bit ass.

He took a sip.

“I sent for someone to get the pastries.” Brutus’s arm bumped gently against his shoulder, then curled around him, squeezing. Hyun scooted into hir side, but kept his neck straight (no matter how much he itched to lean further and bury his face into Brutus’s shoulder, forget the rest of the world for a moment), not wanting to worsen his headache. “They should be here twenty minutes tops.”

The boulder in his chest seemed to sink lower. Brutus didn’t like to send for others to get hir stuff, always said it made hir feel uppity.

“Mkay.”

A beat of silence passed.

 Brutus’s hand rubbed his shoulder, and Hyun watched as the shineberries flickered from the ceiling, mind empty.

They looked like stars. With their muted, golden light.

“I was thinking –“ Brutus started, but was interrupted by the window hatch snapping open.

A message-moth fluttered frantically into the room and settled on its designated post, then the post, sensing the pressure and motion, started chiming. It was a shrill, trilling tune that did wonders for Hyun’s head, but thankfully stopped after a few moments.

“You got mothed.” Hyun said helpfully, though with significantly less smug enthusiasm than usual. Gotta keep up the charm.

Brutus’s faced screwed up. “Yup, mothed. What color is it, I don’t want to get up.”

“Uh,” Hyun squinted,” Dunno. Like, grey and… eough, dusty. Deities, its wings even look tattered, that’s one cheap moth. Definitely not Renfinus’s , dear Renfi wouldn’t be caught dead with that…”

Hir voice trailed off, because weirdly, Brutus’s face had brightened, and xe quickly got up, plucking the moth from its post and bringing the it back with hir to the couch.

“What – who is it? Why are you excited?”

Brutus held the echanti in one hand while xe detangled its wire limbs from the message capsule with the other. The capsule looked like it was made of shellshreiker carapace, dark red and shiny, and there was a design carved into its side. Brutus trailed hir fingers over the capsule until xe found it, then smiled, circling hir thumb over the engraving.

“Bruuuutuuuuss,” Hyun whined. “If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna assume it’s from your super secret lover who you don’t want me to know about.”

Brutus’s ear flicked as xe popped the capsule open. “Hush, child, I haven’t even read it yet.”

“Don’t hush me. You hokk. I won’t be hushed.”

Brutus rolled out the scroll, careful with it despite it looking sturdier than most of the parchment messages that moths regularly carried. Once fully rolled, it revealed an orderly smattering of raised red dots. Braille.

Hyun blinked. Though sometimes Brutus received braille messages, most weren’t, and xe had to use a read-aloud spell on them. Xe said it was annoying, especially if xe didn’t want others to hear it. Also unnecessarily draining on hir magic reserves if the message was long.

Brutus didn’t know, but Hyun had been teaching himself braille. He wasn’t very good yet but…

his cheeks heated.

 He looked away anyways, waiting as Brutus trailed hir fingers over the letter, reading.

               Eventually, Brutus stilled, hir hand falling away from the parchment to rest on hir leg, yet hir brow was still furrowed, still thinking about something.

               Hyun was suddenly too tired to pester hir further, so he just waited for hir to think whatever xe was thinking and leaned back against the couch, shutting his eyes for a moment. It probably wouldn’t have anything to do with him anyways.

               “Would you like to come visit my family, Hyun?”

               His eyes snapped open.

               “Wh – huh? What?”

               He turned to Brutus, wondering If he’d misheard. Brutus’s face was open, though xe was fiddling with the cuff of hir sleeve.

               “This is from my mother,” xe held up the letter, “and, well. I only visit them a couple of times a year. They’re in Raarkajkr, it’s a bit of a journey. So I get if you don’t want to come, because of that, or for any reason really. But.”

Xe leaned back into the couch now, let out a sigh, “It’d be a nice change from all this, I think. Some time to relax. Which we could both hokking use,” xe chuckled wearily.

Relax? That did not sound relaxing in any hokking way – meeting Brutus’s family?? That’s Brutus’s family. That’s hir born-clan.

Hyun briefly imagined being surrounded by Brutus multiplied by 4, (x4 Brutuses, no Bruti), all huge and horned and angry, except they have no reason to like him like Brutus does for some reason – actually NEGATIVE reasons to like him.

He’s such a zeit kesska, he has absolutely nothing to impress them with, and has been terrible for Brutus, their sibling/child. Sweat trickled down his neck, and he quickly shoved that nightmare scenario into a box where he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.

“-Hyun?” Brutus asked, though clearly xe had said a couple other things Hyun had missed. Then in a whisper, “Did… Did you fall asleep?”

“No.” Hyun said, so very calmly and nonchalantly and not at all like he was digging his nails into his thighs.

There was a heavy pause.

“You’re upset.” Hir voice was flat, confused. “Why’re you upset?”

“I’m not upset, it’s cool, I’ll go.”

Brutus frowned. “No just – I don’t want you to just agree, Hyun, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

Then hir voice softened in that way where xe was a bit sad but didn’t want to let on about it, making Hyun feel even worse. “Could you at least tell me why though? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me,” Hyun said, because that was the easy part. He brought his knees to his chest. “I’m… I don’t want…” His throat felt tight.

Brutus gave an encouraging humm.

Hyun bit his lip. “Well they’re your family, yeah?”

“…Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you’re all good at magic, and your family is too probably. And I’m not. Not anymore, because I’m me.”

(And not only that, but he’s Hyun. Loud and scrappy and messy and forgetful. Not bringing a lot of good to the table, not very likable at all, really.)

“Oh Hyun, I’m literally the only magician in the family, – they couldn’t care less about your magical ability, they’d love you even if you were completely magic-less.

They’d love you, Hyun grimaced. Maybe they’d fake it for Brutus’s sake or to not make things awkward but… that was almost worse wasn’t it.

“Look, you don’t have to go, I absolutely won’t be mad about it if you don’t go. But I think it would be good for you. To have a break, yeah? And there are some cool things in Raarkajkr I can show you. My mom wants to make you her kitefly pie so bad, she literally mentions it every hokking letter. If you come and eat it, she’ll stop saying it, please Hyun.”

Just as Hyun was about to retort, his brain stuttered. “Your mom? Wait – your mom knows about me? You… you write about me to your family?”

Brutus’s head tilted, confused, and xe said “Yeah, of course,” like it was a given, like the sky was blue.

Oh.

Then xe continued, giving Hyun’s fragile heart no time to process that. “They’ve been asking to meet you for forever. I think you’d get on with Florin well,” xe smiled, “She’ll want to introduce you to her shroomspiders. And you can help me bully Reb. He’s a nerd. Huge nerd. Absolute loser.”

Hyun curled his fingers into the blanket on his lap, thinking. His heart was doing funny, nauseous, things in his chest. Brutus simply waited.

(For him. Xe always waited.)

“How long would we be there,” Hyun asked, voice measured.

Brutus straightened up, betraying hir excitement, despite hir still speaking normally. “A week. Maybe two. The travel is four days, so it’s not worth it staying any less than a week.”

Hyun was twirling a strand of loose yarn from the blanket around his finger. He tugged on it, letting it constrict, tight, against his skin and bone.

There was the issue of his wings. (that was always the issue, wasn’t it)

Keeping them a secret, obviously. And that’d mean not letting them out for two whole weeks… Three, actually, if adding the eight days of travel there and back. Hyun’s back twinged at the thought.

He’d just gotten used to letting his wings out more often, at Ame’s nagging about how it was healthier, ew. And okay, the lack of constant aching and stinging in his back was nice. And his wings not burning and bleeding every-hokking-where when he let them out now was cool, less cleaning and throwing away ruined shirts for sure.

But. Hyun had kept them in longer before. Much longer. He was tough, it was no big.

Yeah, it was fine. He could definitely do that again.

 It would be fine.

“Okay.” Hyun said.

“Okay? Okay, as in, you want to go?”

The hesitant happiness in Brutus’s words infected Hyun, making him feel warm even with that stupid boulder still sinking within him. That happiness was because of him, and he chased after it.

Always, he chased after it, he couldn’t stop himself,

(even when it hurt him)

And he smiled, “Yeah, I want to go.”

-x-

Brutus debated not taking it.

Maybe it wasn’t the time.

Maybe it would be too much all at once.

Slowly, black and forth, the pads of hir fingers ran over hir nails. The glossy texture did little to calm hir.

And xe didn’t want that, xe didn’t want that for Hyun, for hir kesska.

Leaning against the door of hir room, the item seemed to radiate a presence, though hidden. Xe felt the weight of it. Tucked in the drawer in the corner. Remembered how it felt in hir hands the hours xe labored over it.

A shuddering breath squeezed out of hir chest, and xe clasped hir hands together.

Xe wanted Hyun to have it. Xe wanted it so badly.

To have it, the Suneyashaad xe had poured all of hirself into, with every stitch hir fondness, every twined thread hir trust, every drop of dye, carved bead, hir devotion, hir respect, hir laughter, hir pride, hir love, hir love, hir love –

But more than anything, xe wanted Hyun to have hir. To have hir clan-name.

Being hir kesska was one thing, but that would make them family. Officially, undeniably.

And xe was sure Hyun wanted that too. Not 100%, but it was enough to hope, just enough to hope.

(And if Hyun said no, xe would accept that. But it would hurt, by the gods it would hurt. The mere thought of made hir limbs feel weak.)

Biting down hir hesitation, xe rushed forward and dug out the Suneyashaad from the drawer. Then carefully, xe packed it among hir other belongings for the trip.