Brother my Brother

Verdict. Judgment. Deliverance.

These are the words that are on Andelena's mind as she strikes at a training dummy in the Colosseum. It's known that she's started training here with Dolan outside of the Temple, picking up more in the way of offensive and defensive training than what she'd received previously as a Sunguard. Deliverance feels perfect in her hands, and the plate armor feels right today.

Her steel-grey gaze strays to a lock of red hair that's fallen into her face out of the ponytail that she currently wears, and she stops. Gone is the fighter who was striking so ferociously.

She takes in a deep breath. She brings the blade out in a sweeping motion. And then she strikes a /hard/ blow, but it doesn't destroy the training dummy. It bounces back just like before.

Andelena looks at it for a long moment and sighs. "Take a break," she tells herself, and she sheathes Deliverance. She walks away and sits down on a nearby bench, wiping her brow with a towel.

Andelena is not alone in the Colosseum. Not today. Though there are few enough training in the field, there are a few devout Angorites who are at it. It's easy then to spot someone who doesn't belong. A gentleman with short vibrantly red hair and blue eyes. He wears shades of blue and gray today, which bring out the brightness of his eyes and make his red hair stand out all the more. He even wears a fashionable hat which seems more fashion than practicality due to the way it fails to cover his ears. It might keep snowfall off his head though.

The gentleman's clothing is fine stuff, with stripes of gold embroidery wrought down his front, and even on his pants. He looks every bit the nobleman, which is perhaps why he stands out so much. Particularly among the bare-chested Angorites sweating in the cold. More, he seems quite lost, looking about the area and finally gathering the courage to walk up to one of the men and question him only to be rebuffed.

The gold on the coat and the pants is more than enough to catch Andelena's eye as she looks around. The shirtless Angorites hardly register for her at this point--you spend enough time around them and they kind of just become part of the scenery--but a foppish nobleman poking his nose where he doesn't belong sticks out like a sore thumb.

Then she catches the short red hair, and the blue eyes brought out by the blues and grays of his clothes. Her steel-grey eyes narrow. "Shit," she murmurs. "That better not be who I think it is."

She rises up to her full height and walks over, the sound of her armor announcing her approach. She stops just a few feet short and clears her throat, lifting her chin up a little as she looks down at him. (After all, she is the tallest of mother's children--the weed that grew up over the flowers.)

"You lost, Seb?" she asks, bluntly. Her steel-grey eyes are still narrow, like she's threatening to bore into him with them. Her arms fold across her chest. The generally foppish-looking young man looks around at the sound of armor and catches sight of Andelena before she actually reaches him. At first he smiles, a genuine welcoming thing that fades to a flash of something like disappointment when she greets him so. "Andie." His voice is a little more welcoming than his expression and he gives her a slightly cheeky smile. "You come all the way to Selentia and you don't even say 'hello'?"

There's a handful of seconds as Andelena regards him for a moment, an eyebrow rising just a tad on her face. But then she gets a look at the Angorites behind him, and she just sighs, taking her brother by the arm in a way that she's done since he was a toddler and she was a little girl. "This isn't really a place for talk," she says. "C'mon."

She leads him back out of the Colosseum. "First off, I didn't come back to Selentia for a homecoming. Mother was pretty damn clear I wasn't wanted, and judging by how you and father stood by while Gale grinned like the cat who caught the rat, I figured you agreed. The only reason I went there is because Mother decided she couldn't keep her hands out of my shit." She says all of this matter-of-factly as they walk.

Andelena stops at a quiet area not far from the Colosseum, as close to privacy as they'll get out in the open. "And I'm going to tell you right now--if you're here because Mother begged you to talk to me, I have nothing to say to you."

Her little brother allows her to drag him along, though he looks a bit perturbed that she's done so. It really is a blast from the past, that expression is the same one he'd given her when he was just a child. "Andie!" He protests and when she stops he pulls his arm back and rubs it as if she'd wounded him. Which she hasn't, but he rolls his eyes at her. "You're going too fast Andie. Mother doesn't even know I'm here. She'd have kittens if she did."

He offers her a slightly rougish grin, something that says that he's in a padded position as the youngest of the children and he knows it. "You really shouldn't talk about her like that. It's not right." He glances down and then shakes his head. "Please Andie, don't be mad. I just... I needed to talk to you. Things have been so different at home."

There's a small smirk on Andie's face that's there for a second as she observes Seb displaying his faux-injury. It's just a brief glimpse of fond nostalgia, but it melts away as Seb mentions that Mother doesn't know that he's here.

"You're not the one who was almost made to marry a man twice your age so your brothers could marry his rich daughters, Seb--and you sure as hell weren't torn out of the family when you insisted as an adult, you were allowed to say no to that kind of thing. I know you're her baby, but see it from my perspective."

Andelena watches Seb glancing down and pleading his case. And... she sighs. "Fine," she says. "You came all this way. It'd be shitty of me to turn you out on your ass back onto an airship."

"I have seen it from your perspective Andie." He glances down again and shrugs. "To be honest... I thought it was really brave of you to put your foot down like that. I wish that I could be that... But that's not important." Seb hefts a sigh and scrubs a hand over his head. Taking his hat off for a moment to do so. The hat goes back on and he looks at his sister seriously.

"I don't know what brought you back home, but... Like I said. Everything has been different lately. Mother and Father have been fighting... Mostly about Gale and his fiancee. And Gale... I don't even understand what he sees in that girl he's been courting." Seb looks confused now; worried. "He used to only care about how pretty a girl was, how influential her family and now..."

Andelena's eyes actually widen with one particular phrase. "Wait. Mother and Father /fighting/? The old man just rolls over and does whatever she wants nine times out of ten," she exclaims, practically flabbergasted. "No--nineteen times out of twenty. If even that."

Her body language relaxes a little, too--as much as it can while wearing a suit of armor. Her hands relax, and the steel-grey eyes are less analytical and more... Well, it's more like the big sister he knows, from before she was thrown out of the family. "Tell me what the girl's like. I only learned of her existence yesterday. It seems like she and Mother have a connection of some sort."

Seb nods at Andelena's surprise, as if he too can hardly believe it. He smiles a little bit to see Andelena relax and then hesitates before actually replying to her inquiry. "I don't know... Mother seems to like her and hate her at the same time. She wouldn't normally give someone from that family the time of day, but she spends all her time talking about how happy she is that Gale is happy. The girl herself... Really she's nothing special?" He seems a little embarrassed to say this, waving a hand in the air.

"I don't mean to be insulting or anything. But she's just not Gale's type. She's plain-looking and she's... well she's smart. Very clever like her mother. And as I said, neither of them are from a noble family." He seems disquieted.

"Smart and clever, huh." Andelena looks contemplative for a long moment, then eventually raises a brow again. "Y'catch her name, exactly? I know her mom's called 'Lady' Aza Derwes--if she's not from a noble family, then the title's suspect--but I know nothing about the daughter."

She follows up on the question. "Furthermore, you know if maybe either the daughter or the mother have any kind of magical talent? Summoning, conjuring, anything like that?"

"That's just the thing Andie. Mistress Derwes is suspected of all sorts of things. Her family name isn't just common, it's bad." He's rubbing his fingers together a tale-tell sign that he's nervous. "Association with demons and devils. She's mostly known for her potions and unguents, but people say she's a worshiper of the dark gods. It's quiet. Real quiet, but it's there. So why is mother allowing Gale to court her daughter?"

He shrugs and looks up at Andelena. "As for the daughter. I haven't heard the same rumors about her, but she's a bit of an odd one. Her name is Rida, and to be honest... I don't even know who her father is. The 'lady' Derwes has never been married."

Andelena /stares/ at Seb for a long moment. "That makes... no godsdamned sense for Mother to let Gale marry someone like that. Not considering she disowned me for wanting to do something pretty similar. We know that Gale's always been her sweet little golden boy, but... Shit. No wonder why Father's fighting with her."

She puts her hand to her forehead and sighs. "Seb. I... Look, I know you care for Mother and Father. But if you really care about the family, then you need to know: something really fucking serious is going on there. And I could use your help if you want to prevent something awful from happening to all of us."

"You know... I would Andie but... I can't go against Mother." Seb seems uncomfortable with the shift in conversation and his fingers worry at one another furiously. "I mean if there's something I can do that isn't going to get me into a load of trouble... I'd be happy to, but I'm not going to be the one that rocks this boat you know?"

Andie looks at Seb for a long moment. Her steel-grey eyes look deadly serious. "Seb. I'm a Sunguard. What I'm about to say to you is nothing but the truth: the reason I came back to Selentia is because there's been demons coming after my fiance--the one who was courting me when Mother disowned me--and now they're targeting his family. We visited his folks and the demons jumped us. They tried to take his parents hostage."

She puts a hand on Seb's shoulder and looks him right in the eyes. "And his parents said that Mother visited them only two weeks before. She took an ivory-handled brush from the place."

There's a break in her voice, like she's about to get emotional. "Bry, my fiance--he's been through so much. So /goddamned/ much. The thought that this is all because Mother's struck some deal with a demon summoner is... I feel more awful than anything. Disown me, fine. Leave me with nothing but the first name she gave me at birth, fine. But to torture my man and his family? That's a line too fucking far. I need information. I... need an ally. Not asking you to take up arms against Mother, but I am asking you to report anything you see and hear to me."

For a long, long moment there's only silence from Seb. Only the sense that he's going to say 'no'. His face says it. His hands say it. "Okay Andie." Is what comes out of his mouth. He bites his lip and then takes her hand, holding it gently. "I love you big sis, and I know that you mean well for our family. I know you love this guy who has been courting you. To be honest I wish I was half as brave as you are... Anyways. I'll do what I can. Though I don't know what kind of information you expect from me."

Andie shakes her head, a smile blooming on her face, as well as a little laugh of sheer relief peeling from her lungs. "The fuck's this hand shit? C'mere, Seb," she says as she takes her little brother in a tight, familial hug. The first in years, and maybe not the last.

A hand goes to the hat on his head, both to keep it in place and just to keep him in the hug. "And what's with all of this 'not brave' shit, too?" she asks with another affectionate laugh. "You took a fucking airship all the way here? Without Mother knowing? To talk to your black sheep of a sister? Those are the actions of a fucking /brave/ man. I'm... I'm so damn proud of you."

Very, very rare tears bloom in her steel-grey eyes. "I thought all this time, you looked down at me like the rest of them. I can deal with Gale's pompous ass, and Mother and Father were a given--but it always bothered me that you would, Seb. Like, fuck, you're my baby /brother/." Her voice really does crack on the last word. "I'm so happy to be wrong."

-End