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Heir Presumptive. [Ahnkuri x Kadavro]

"Yah, no lack of a lump." The underwear might not have been translucent, but it did certainly stick to his brother's body when he lowered himself into the water. The drunkness apparently having left him over the night without much sigh in the way of a hangover. He imagined the hysteria was just a normal thing for him. "We can remove them at the end when I need to clean my back and belly." He flicked his large hand towards Ren, splashing him with a wave before rubbing his foot along his hip. "And no, I won't givee up until I have anyone I want, doing anything I want, whenever I want. And guess what I want you to be doing right now?" His big toe was pushing at the top of Ren's underwear while the other foot moved over his groin. He wasn't propositioning him for sex, but just figured that this way the most barriers would go down the soonest and he would be more comfortable with him, no longer needing to feel the need for modesty. Probably just trying to hide his own morning wood under there instead of asking him for assistance with it. "Come to me."
 
He twisted his knee over the space around his crotch when his brother confirmed his lump's existence so easily. Immodesty had its limits, especially for a royal such as himself. "Fine." He agreed with a shrug when his brother delayed the bandage-removal until they were nearly finished bathing. He expected the splashing, holding up an arm so that his eyes wouldn't be unnecessarily drenched before unleashing a wave in reply. The foot on his hip wasn't necessarily unwelcome, now that he could be certain the limb was clean. "Controlling everyone would be predictable." He set his chin on his arms, elbows hanging from the bent knee a bit above the surface. When two feet began actively fondling the top and center of his undergarments, he instinctively pushed the foot that was rubbing at his groin to the left before being sure the lingering warmth of the sensation didn't get noticed by crossing his knee over the space a bit more. "What are you trying at?" He arched an eyebrow. "If you're trying to get me as hard as you are out of embarrassment, consider the idea defeated as I haven't been too busy fighting wars to release." He waved his palm as if symbolically dismissing the notion that his older brother could turn him on, no matter how true it was. Perception was everything. When the strangely alluring command was given, he felt the need to dismantle even the simple three words. "What for?" Suspicion fell from his lips like venom, trickling down his chin and tainting the bathwater... potentially infecting them both. "You've changed your mind on the bandages? Or maybe you'd like to examine more of me as if to auction me to some passion-seeking lover?" The first question was an honest, rational one. The second was drenched in bitterness. Likely a defense mechanism against the onslaught of his brother's nudity and crudeness.
 
How adorable, he felt modest about his crotch while not seeming to mind his won. Should he feel special? "Controlling others might be predicable, but it is the only thing out Empire knows." He didn't try to sound like a lecturer, though there was the hint of condensation(Not the rain sort) to suggest that he was talking down to the other. "How else would you get your teas, your many finely furnished rooms, and your silken underwear." It was cotton, sure, but he didn't much care. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It was simply that cotton clothing was far more expensive than silken wares. "Do you know how far the tea needs to travel to get to your cup? How many people artisans who are kept cut off from others so that the secrets of glass of that quality are made and how they must pay out of their own wages if there is a single imperfection?" He took up a silver spoon from his tray and looked it over. "This looks like it came from a set used by the temples in Ceroinh to annoint their babies or to spoonfeed the ill with their hand made medicines. And your underwear. Slaves in the fields picking the cotton, indentured servants in warehouses picking the seeds out of the cotton balls, serfs raising and boiling silkworms after their towns were destroyed to make way for mulberry trees..." He then looked back down to the boy. "And you prefer all of this rather to a simple and filling meal that can be made locally. Why shouldn't you? You get first priority. Even if your underwear shrinks in this water it will be the laundreywomen who suffer the consequences, not you." He looked down at him for a bit more. "No, I just want you to help clean my legs so I don't need to try bending my back. You would be far too high maintance for a lover, unless I gagged you."
 
One moment persuading lust and the next a lecture on how abusive and selfish the royals were. He sat still, listening. The sensation beneath his hips faded away, as did his interest and anxiety. He uncrossed his knee, letting his leg fold out and rest at the floor of the tub. He knew all of what his older brother was saying already, so it didn't seem such a shock. "What are you saying?" He said abruptly after a long pause once his older brother had finished ranting. "Are you saying that I should get to manipulating people, or that I already am? Should I rejoice in it or disdain it? Are you trying to justify your desires for power, or acknowledging them as something completely involuntary, instilled in your blood?" He unleashed the barrage of questions without ill-intent or anger. Just curiosity as to what his older brother was attempting to make him feel. He rolled his eyes at the gagging comment, moving closer and taking the sponge away from Garold, rubbing it along his calves with good pressure. It was no longer an issue to avoid staring at his brother's erection, because after all the talk he no longer cared to single it out as something pressing and urgent. "High maintenance, maybe." He shrugged. He could agree with that. Not that he considered himself fully to blame-- it was how he was crafted. It was his soul, his persona, his ego. Characteristics were like fetishes. Couldn't kick yourself for having them.
 
Seemed to be that his little brother was slightly perturbed with him and decided to act the philosipher. "I am not saying saying anything of the sort." Though he hadn't really caught all the questions and his little lecture came out of nowhere he decided to just play along. "While you might see yourself as manipulating others that it because you are a tad too brash. You have not needed subtely in life. Neither have I, so I won't try to cut you down to size on something I am even worse at." He watched his brother's eyes as he futilely tried to clean his legs below the water. "It might be better if I stand for that." He got out of the tub, water dripping off of him as he stood next to Ren, waiting for him to help clean that area. Maybe he should have just drained the tub and let him clean him that way.. Seriously though, using a sponge underwater? His brother obviously never tried to clean someone else before. "It is really not about you manipulating people, whether conciously or unconciously. It is about appreciating the good things in life and the people who help make them possible."
 
He laughed. "Subtlety? That's what this is about? I've been subtle for years, and because you've caught me at a bad time you've lost the pleasure of noticing, not that you'd notice anyway, the way you are." He didn't mean it as an insult, but his older brother didn't take hints. It wasn't an opinion. "Had I not been subtle, I would've burned this palace to the ground long ago. Renounced my name before father disowned me. I would've run off to some small village to make a living selling my body because I don't have a single skill but self preservation at my disposal." It was clear he wasn't one to be subtle about a topic that lit him like a match to a fuse. He stood up to face his brother, although it obviously wasn't at eye level. "Appreciate this." He threw the sponge down and stepped out of the tub before walking to the open entryway, dripping wet. "A caged bird doesn't sing for others." He murmured before snapping his fingers. A servant appeared. "Help the man in the tub clean himself. Now." Ren didn't care whether he was only in his soaked underwear right now, or what the servant guy thought of him. Without a physical attraction to his older brother, what was left? Lectures on how he was acting poorly in the face of confinement?
 
Wow, the servant had good hearing. Probably hear every little thing and would be spreading it with the gossips even before he got dried and dressed. The tub being one thing, but refering to the Heir Apparent as "the man in the tub"? When he wasn't even in the tub? That couldn't go over well. Hopefully it didn't leak to his soldiers, who might not like the disrespectful additude. Garold nodded the the servant, showing the injured back. "I'll see you later then, Ren. You seem to have misheard what I said." Seriously, how had the brat gotten confused by him telling him to enjoy the good things in life and the people who provided them? Either way, he should be able to take advantage of it, so long as the rumor mill made it clear that his suggestion for Ren to be more grateful of the things he had and the people who provided them ended with him being laughed at, insulted, and told that his little brother might have contemplated becoming an arsonist or whore?
 
Ren always rebelled against criticism, whether it was meant to be destructive or the opposite. In the face of such a simple existence where he was to do one thing and one thing alone, a complex human couldn't possibly feel satisfied. This palace was a prison, and he'd been its unusually willing captive for much too long. Restlessness and wanderlust plagued every dream and bit at his heels as if pressing them to make longer strides, farther away from here. He honestly didn't care that the servant heard him. Maybe a rumor of insanity would cease the lustful stares. Still, having others talk about him--especially when they lived only because he'd personally hired each and every one of them--pissed him off as it would any. He groped through his wardrobe and changed quickly out of his dripping undergarments, adorning a luxurious, completely black outfit save for a brilliant moonstone in the center of the chest. His pants were of a trademark tightness, but the long-sleeved top was uncharacteristically un-revealing, crowning up against his jawline. He threw off the rubber gloves with little care as to where they went before tugging on a pair of boots. He left the room and shut it behind him, glancing about the faces of the servants and guards alike. He approached one who seemed shifty and curious, as though he'd heard something. Ren grabbed the man by the neck and leaned in. "Speak a word ill of me, and I'll have your tongue." He shoved the skinny man against the wall with a flick of his wrist. He turned on his heel and glared at the armored men before deciding whatever he'd thought to say wasn't worth the effort. He descended the grand staircase, plucking a cloak from a hook nearest the double doors, and left the palace. He walked into the clearing of cobblestone and glanced at the sky. What the time of day was had escaped him already. Not like it mattered. Dark grey and utter darkness were the only two times. A peculiar smile lit his lips.
 
Garold had no time for his bitchy brother's pouting. If he wanted to through a tantrum and hear words that he hadn't said, then fine. He watched as his brother stripped down through the door into the other room, eyeing what he saw hidden below. After seeing the likely scars or spanks he waited as he was scrubbed down then dried, musing over his brother's choice in clothes. 'Those pants couldn't be good for his balls. Probably like a corset, keeping things to have the width that they should be.' He strode out of the room to find the man who was shoved to the wall dizzilly collapse to the floor, a pinkish smear on the wall as he did so. "Minister, are you alright?" Garold asked as he left the room with only casual, non-armoured uniform on. For someone who had handpicked each servant one would have thought that he would have recognized the odd man out. Ren was lucky that the soldiers where supposed to guard him and that the injuries to the man weren't obvious at first. The chaplain blinked and tried saying something but only released rasps.
 
Ren sat here for a solid two minutes before growing entirely bored of his thoughts, and of himself. The sense of imprisonment was sickening, and he wished never to think of it again. So he went back to his palace for what he had decided would be the very last time, grabbed up three bottles of vodka and the most expensive jewels he could think to take before arming himself more properly. Screw the dagger his older brother had taken from him-- he could get full swords whenever he wanted. He grabbed two of the more well-decorated sheaths lined on a sword rack in one of the deeper rooms on the middle floor, fastening them on his hips. He took his sack of priceless gems and alcohol and left, not bothering to silence any who saw him on the way out. He went to the stables behind the palace and hitched the saddle on his favorite horse, a beautiful black color with a contrasting white mane and tail, Prescilla, before climbing onto it and letting his heels drive her forward. He didn't bother taking the normal route, instead taking the stone path behind the castle that lead to the northern mountains, a region not heavily populated but known for having a semi-thriving marketplace at which he would sell what he needed to sell and get a detailed map to lead him wherever he intended to go. He wasn't filled with regret, just hope.
 
Inside some men were looking over maps of the region, having heard of the monster attacks and trying to see why they were all an hour or two, as the crow flies, in every direction from the town besides south, which they had come from. "The attacks seem to keep themselves away from the more heavilly traveled roads, excluding one heading north. It may be that the creatures have problems catching up to those on stone roads when they themselves are bogged down in the mud. We can't rule out anything though, as the flooding of most roads have meant that travelers would be slown down to a-" The Prince burst in, grabbing the man used for punishments. "Find the Prince. The runt. Bring him to me, Naked. Then flog him." Outside the men had already signalled for when they saw the suspicious actions of the pasty pretty boy who kept attacking their men. Horsemen soon followed after Ren across the soaked land.
 
He knew his domineering brother would be after him, likely to punish him for acting in such a brash manner. Prescilla was the fastest horse in the stables... and unfortunately, the most distinctive. He didn't enjoy galloping.. it made him feel unstable, as if he was trying to run from some crazy monster biting at his heels. But maybe he was? And he had to go his fastest nonetheless. He made it to the village closest to the palace within several hours-- it was nearly evening now. After selling his prized horse at an unreasonably low but acceptable by circumstance price he bought up a boring, average horse that seemed to be a capable speed and in good health. It couldn't possibly be identified from the other brown horses in the collection. Then, he went to the market and sold all of the gems in his bag. Good prices. Good enough to last him a humble lifetime on his own. He brought the horse to a gallop and got the hell out of there, stopping by the next, slightly more wealthy village another few hours away to sell his luxurious clothes and replace them with drab garments that somehow still suited him. He grew incredibly uneasy as he shoved a handful of dirt in his hair and shook most of it out. He had to look filthy.. like a peasant. He hated that word, rubbing mud on his arms and legs and getting as much of it off as he could while maintaining a working sense of low-class. He took off on his horse further north. Once he was at the mountains, being spotted wouldn't be an issue. Most didn't dare go to the mountains ever since the attack. But hell, it only happened once. Only one dead body. What were the odds that he'd run into the creature?
 
"He pawned off the Royal Spinel?" Garold practically growled as he was fitted into a non-golden suit of armor. The scouts had returned and there could be no doubting it. People believed that either the Prince had been robbed or that he was running away. There was only so many gems one could sell before it got suspicious, which happened to be one. The horse was retrieved, the seller noticing the saddle nervously saying how he had 'retrieved it' so that the robber would get further away with it. A curfew was taken into effect for the main street through the village, with everyone to either get inside, out of the way, or jut get back to work on the raised platforms some had begun to build allow crossing to other buildings when there were floods and they couldn't risk openeing the sealed first-floor doors. Garold headed off as he was told more information at each village he went, keeping himself incospicious so that they wouldn't know that even one Prince was out and about. Some forest rangers and mountaineers had been explaining the mountain paths and features to his officers, and it looked as if the moron was headed straight for one of their dens.
 
As time passed and passed some more, it seemed like he would be coming to a grinding halt against the steep and utterly impossible-to-climb mountains... That is, until a valley appeared between two mountains a couple hours separate from the cobblestone path. There was a stunning hot spring in the very center, and little houses made of warm, light-colored wood all around it... as if they lived by collecting its warmth. He found himself somewhat inspired by the symmetry and the thought it must've taken to organize the village as he rode in and hopped off his horse. He figured the village chief would be the one house at the northern-most end of the circle, so he knocked on the door. "Hello? I'm a nomad seeking shelter." He called. He felt ridiculous saying such a thing, but this entire thing felt ridiculous.. and somehow amazing. When no one answered, he moved along to the next house, and the next, and the next, until he found absolutely no one was home. Or they weren't answering. He glared at the hot springs. Despite the thick collection of steam, he could assume no one was present by the way the water was incredibly still and silent. Ren bit his lip. What was happening? He went to the presumed chief's home and kicked the door in, wandering around. He had no need to steal from these commoners, but he was definitely curious as to where the hell they were. He walked into every room, finding nothing.. saving the bedroom for last. He let the door creak open to display a scene most troubling. The alleged chief was lying on his bed, absent skin. The blankets were a bloody mess, and massive claw marks decorated the walls. "...what kind of demon-" He brought his hand to his mouth. The smell was absolutely sickening. He fled from the house and got onto his horse and moved passed the village, deeper into the valley. He didn't know where the beasts were, but he couldn't afford to back-step.
 
He didn't seem to have much luck covering up trackers. His bodyguards, minus the injured man who might or might not have been one, were retrieved from their vacation, looking rather miffed that he had escaped so soon after leaving their sight. Though it would probably point to their services being essential and maybe get some increased lands from the deal. Horns from across the valleys signaled when the scouts had either found trace of something or had found no news of a traveler going through the area. With this they narrowed their searching, Dozens of horsemen congregating like a hail of arrows towards a mountain pass. A mountaineer managed to get them through a small mountain pass without too many injured horses and they were on their way, picking up momentum as they headed down, doing their best to avoid the mud and rocks senting them rolling, which several more failed at. They were closing in.
 
Ren continued on with his dreary-looking horse through the valley until reaching the other side, which was. Odd. The valley lead into what seemed to be a massive cave, the perfect place for a brutal end. Shivers traced his entire body at the mere sight of the seemingly endless darkness within. Going in was just asking to be slaughtered. Too many red flags had been ignored already. He needed to test this one... The horse would do. He climbed off of the beast and grabbed a rather large few rocks before hiking atop the cave's immense entrance. He threw the first rock, hitting the horse's ass perfectly-- it sped into the cave making all kinds of noise. He waited. Without a proper mount he wouldn't be able to go very far, but these mountains had to have some village with actual living, flesh-wearing humans in it, right? Wait, how long had it been? If that fucking horse had stopped and stayed quiet, Ren would be fuming right now. He shut his eyes, letting out a sigh of relief that was interrupted by the shrill and swift shriek of the horse within. He bit his lip to keep from uttering a single sound. He heard footsteps.. Could they be called feet when they sounded that insanely large? Out came the monster, as feared. Blood coated the slits that were the beast's nostrils, as well as its entire face.. No, with all that scent, Ren wouldn't be tracked. It seemed to be wearing the flesh of the humans it slaughtered, a patchy collection of colors that didn't match. Its face, however, was exposed. He didn't spot the eyes, but the flesh of the face overall looked like burned flesh. Leathery and red. Its mouth was massive, with teeth that hung in multiple directions, all as devastating as any dagger. It roared, a high-pitched croon, before battering the flesh it didn't own on its chest and darting back into the cave. The stench was putrid. He stayed put for now. He couldn't think to move.
 
"So, about that direction?" The echoes sent through the cave by the horse and monster were rather muffled by the rain, though still sending an echo that made it conswhat difficult to find which part of the valley it was in. "It is undisturbed, there are far more broken branches over here." The guide led them off to where the creature had earlier broken through, which had recently had ren using the same path. Not that they knew this for sure. Garold had looked into a house to a body about the size of Ren, relieved when he realised that the blood on it was a dry brown. Still, if Ren disappeared he could say that he had been killed by the monster, then slay the creature, get the glory, and have no compeitotr for the throne should he manage to make his brother disappear. The roar was tracked and soon the squad was approaching the cave. furniture from inside homes and bales of dried hay were brought up to the mouth of the cave, readyy to smoke the creature out. As this happened a woodsman came up behind the smaller Prince and dropped a noose around his neck, pulling like a leash.
 
The monster howled again when it saw the smoke polluting the air, diving into a tunnel system filled with skeletons of the unfortunate victims. Where the tunnel system went to couldn't be tracked, as, along the way, the creature clawed the tunnel to destruction after each step. It seemed to know when it couldn't emerge victorious, as unlikely as intelligence seemed for such a powerfully aggressive savage. Ren felt a weight lift from his chest when he heard the sounds of the creature die down-- until something wrapped about his neck and forced him into movement. He clambered to his feet and pulled out his sword, tearing the noose apart and separating it from his neck before pointing it at the woodsman. "Don't think me the fool. I'm going willingly. You touch me again, and I'll find a creative way to kill you." He glared. He may have been trembling all over, with goosebumps that wouldn't descend, but he wouldn't be treated like an animal. It would be ridiculous to rebel against this army. Why the hell did his brother overcompensate so much? What a waste of men. He climbed down the entrance to the cave and approached his brother as though possessed by the very monster he'd seen. His trembles stopped and his goosebumps lessened. "You could've let me go. You could've said I died. I wouldn't have argued." He dropped the sack of gold to the ground along with his weapons. "I couldn't have told you I was leaving. You would've chained me up more than father ever did. Am I so wrong to want freedom, to want to leave the palace and that silly village in search of the experiences I can't find within lavish walls and shackles of gemstone?"
 
"Shut your fucking mouth." He kicked at Ren's lower as he bent over to drop the things, then jumped off his horse as he loomed over the boy who mistook another one for himself. He wasn't wearing his show armor, instead using one that was made for speed, as well as mixing in with the other knights. "You have attacked two people, possibly killing one, stolen and hocked royal treausres-" He grabbed the boy from the back of his cheap shirt and and pants, lifting him a bit as he walked down the hill with him. The pants ripped a bit while as he did this, while Ren would need to abandon his shirt to even try to escape. Seriously though, how many people dressed that poorly in the rain? Even if the quality of the boots and the lack of callousses on the fingers didn't give it away his overlyblown poor choice of clothes would. "Do you know what would have happened to you if I hadn't come? What might have happened to the people you sold the jewels too or your servants?" He backhanded his pretty face, before tearing open a damaged door nearly from it's hinges before chucking the boy inside next to a body the same size as him. "You know what? Maybe you did die, you fucking bitch. And maybe you will get your punishment in the next life. Now get naked."
 
He listened-- obviously, his brother wasn't in the mood to hear him speak. For whatever reason, he couldn't listen to rational ideas without focusing on the fact that he'd left. He didn't bother debating when he received the kick, and didn't bother struggling when his brother grabbed him from the back of his shirt. This peasant-wear was certainly cheap. Garbage. Maybe he had overdone the approach... He submitted to the backhand. He deserved it, a little. The sensible side of him said so, anyway. He listened to his older brother's loud voice with minor interest in actually hearing it. His eyes widened when he was thrown into the room with a corpse nearly the same height as he was. Maybe shorter. He forced himself to look away from it, hearing his brother's last command, a little astonished. Naked? "I'll never think rationally in a cell-- no matter how decorated the prison.. How you've reacted tells me you don't, or maybe can't, understand." He pulled a sheet over the dead body to keep him from being distracted, even if the stench was repelling. "Whatever you do to me, I'll have you know it can't be worse than anything I've been through." He took off his shirt, revealing a slightly dirty chest, pink nipples a strict contrast to the dark brown traces. He leisurely took off his pants, not in any rush to appear naked for whatever punishment he would be expected to endure, but not fighting it either. His legs were firm, but slender. The bandage-looking undergarment was slowly being unwrapped from the bottom up, revealing deep scar tissue on his upper thighs that looked to be from a set of claws. His older brother couldn't possibly have seen these scars while he was changing in his bedroom due to the angle. "If you must have me fully indecent, you may remove the rest yourself. Or rip it from my dead body." A strange smile lit his lips. "Why not just kill me? You'd get the throne. You'd get to be through with me. And I'd be free to extend to whatever likely neutral afterlife waits for me. Be warned; if I become a ghost, I'll be at your every footstep till death. Because you're the only one I'd care to haunt."
 
How, poetic. Truly the bastard had been making good use of his time. "Oh, your life is over alright." He smacked him again, as if deliberately trying to bruise up his face and break his cheeks. "You thought you had a jail? Have you ever been to an actual jail? They need to pay through the teeth to get what you had. Your house was larger than entire villages, you had all the food, books, and guests you could ask for. Real prisons have dozens crammed into rooms the size of your bathroom, PAYING for the privelege, whether they want to or not."He shoved him back onto the bed, elbowing him if he tried to avoid his grasp. "You... You've never worked a day in your life. You could have had any tutor come by to teach you a trade should you have liked to. But you wouldn't be bothered. Now though... You will get a job." Garold lay on him, sandwiching him between his heavy armor and the blanketted corpse, hot breathe seething onto the top of the boy's head. "Get new clothes on. Leave your shoes here. You are giong to be walking for a bit, BITCH. Congratulations, Ren. Body and soul you are mine. When you want to be the Prince again..." He pulled the blanket back a bit, nearing and nearing Ren's skin. "I think you will find the position was occupied. Bbut don't worry, they will all know how you died as a hero."
 
He rubbed the spot on his cheekbone where his brother had bashed him almost lovingly. "Paying for life isn't life, brother. You know that more than I, out on your adventures, conquering everything necessary, having experiences I couldn't imagine in my limited, confined mind." He allowed his body to collapse on the bed once again, placing a hand to his forehead mockingly as if to check his temperature, like that was his primary concern, before Garold got atop him, pressuring his body against the blanket-sheathed corpse. He closed his eyes as he felt the blanket moving beneath him. He feared nothing, felt nothing, as his brother spoke of him in such a crude manner. "Do whatever you want. You'll find control has its limits. My desires will never turn to you, and my soul won't either." He let out a soft laugh, as though this were such a delicate conversation in a pleasant arena. "Once you turn me into your slave, silly older brother, it won't be long before I kill myself. Or, better yet, force you to kill me. I'd like to see you drain the life from me, and at the same time realize you've ruined the only family member--hell, the only human in the world--that could ever find a reason to love you." He popped off his boots. "Now get off of me. Unless you'd like the corpse to come along? He must be lonely."
 
"I don't WANT your desire." Garold took Ren's jaw in his hand, forcing him look at him face to face. "You are my brother. You were supposed to be SAFE here." He looked down at him exasperated before releasing him. "It is not about paying for life. It is about gaining a bit of experience from those who have gained it through a long life. What am I supposed to do with you?" He really could not understand the boy, who he saw as being inconsistent in every manner possible, only wishing to compalin and bemoan his place in life. "You wish to go away from the Centre, and you do so, having your own home and a village with which to socialize with and to be lord of the manor to. You grow bored of that and try to escape constantly, ignoring the dangers and possible food shortages both to the locals and yourself, importing tea from far off and pawning jewels for prices that none can resist, leaving them with no ready gold for food. You come out here, then try to lure your pursuers into a cave with a man-skinning monster, then threaten the one who was trying to track it down." He looked out the door to the mountains around the valley and the waterfalls from the rains. "Then you suggest suicide or that I would want your body when I bring up what your actions could mean for yourself and others. Most importantly for others." He turned back to him with a look of pity one would give to someone who constantly bullied other kids, set their pets alight, then cried when caught. "I don't even see why I offered to let you fake your death. You don't really want to go out into the world, do you? The rocks in the mountains stand tall with beards of moss, giving direction for generation upon generation of those who grow lost in their lands. A stone in the stream falls and bashes with hundreds of others as they go down into a river, scraping and eating away at each other until they shrink to nothing. And love..." He didn't even want to get into this, as the boy had no idea what it truelly was by his actions. "Fine. Have your life." He walked over and took the bodiy, wrapping the sheet closer around it. He took a bag with the jewels collected and dropped them on the ground as he took the clothes Ren stripped off. "Follow us back if you want, I think I had enough of the rain for now. Go to the Centre, your palace, the border, wherever. It is not my problem. Despite how you feel I will always love you, brat that you are. I was trapped in the Centre until I proved to myself and others that I was ready to leave. Go. Do as you wish." He took off the chain tight around his neck with a bag meant to keep it from snagging the armor then tossed it down, wedding ring inside, before also adding a bag from his hip. "You have your chance. Pay your way if you wish, steal your way, work your way, it doesn't matter. You have enough for a hundred lifetimes. You can afford to fail a few times. Just don't prove that you should have been kept behind locked doors." And he left.
 
His jaw dropped when he heard Garold's monologue. That was what it had to be called. A monologue. It was that long, and so out of place after all they'd put each other through and all the mind games and all the utter nonsense. Ren was completely taken off guard, thinking he was dead one moment and the next getting just what he'd wanted his entire life? What reason did he have now to tie himself to his brother, if he could go off into the world, have his own adventures, and experience the pleasures and horrors outside of the barrier his father had forcibly placed around him? "You can't act the hero, and you can't act as though you know why I do everything that I do. I am someone you may never understand, by the way things have gone. You might think I act selfish, but all I've ever wanted was adventure. Everything else.. That palace, my tea, the silk. Those are all distractions to keep me from remembering what I'm meant for. And I refuse to look at everyone else-- and do you know why? It's because I was born into this. Just as they were born into their heritage. I won't apologize. It's hard to make a victim out of me in your mind... It's hard to pity a prince. But I've had this intense wanderlust that can't be satisfied within walls." He stopped talking, running over to his brother and grabbing his arm to keep him from leaving. "Tell me to go one more time, and I will." He looked his brother in the eye. "Or give me one good reason to come back with you. Please." Ren seemed sincere in the request. As sincere as one can be absent most of his clothes, covered in dirt, and sprinkled with dysfunction. "I can't find a single one. So help me, if you value my presence as much as you claim."
 
The cover over the body came open when Ren grabbed at Garold's face, opening it up and showing the face to him. "Excitement is for those who can afford it." Not that he cared overly for the peasantry, unless he was dealling with dissident- Of course. He should have just followed the changing weather when Ren ran. The ultimate test of loyalty in this land. "Then why didn't you simply ask? You had a chance with me, but you ran. I can not be sure if you have done it with others. "I did not say how much I valued your presence. It is your safety that matters." He looked down through the viser of his helmet especially built to keep off the rain. "What am I to do? How am I to say that should should come back with me? I will be leaving this land and head back to the borders if you do not, road permitting. I would like you to return with me, but I will not force you back into your prison. I will help find you scholars, craftsmen, or knights to apprentice you if you wish or to get you thrown out of the the Royal Succession so that you may do as you like, but I won't force you. We are camping here for the night to deal with the whatever is about before reinforcements come to flush out the vermin." Shame the boy was taking this route. It would have been comforting to know that someone was guarding the homefront while he guarded the warfront. "I will be near the center, after we have cleared the tourists bodies away." And got someone to go through the possessions, somone to give them last rites, someone to...
 
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