October 26th, 513 CE

That night no shadow haunted my dreams, no pain disturbed me nor did any sound wake me from my slumber. I opened my eyes to find my brother slumped in a chair beside the hearth, dirt still clinging to the hems of his ragged trouser legs.

With cautious care I rose, sliding one leg from the table, then the other, surprised by the ease of each motion. My feet hit the floor with their usual grace, no hint of pain lining my pace as I stepped to my brother’s side and draped a blanket across his shoulders. It was so easy I almost could have imagined that it'd all been a nightmare, and that I was finally waking up.

The moment the cloth settled, my brother’s eyes shot wide, pale brown orbs piercing mine with a wakeful alertness I wasn’t prepared for. I jerked away, but before I could get far his hand darted forward, snatching my wrist and yanking me down into a rough embrace, pressing the breath from my lungs in one swift motion. Despite the four years between us, my younger brother had always been the stronger of us.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped out after a moment where I could finally catch my breath, to which Gwyn snorted and shoved me back so my butt met the table with a aching crack, pushing it a few centimeters across the floor, the loud rasp of wood scraping against wood making me wince.

“Gods damn you Bast,” Gwyn said, the words coming out in more a growl. “You fucking promised me you’d be safe.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again, feeling useless as I stared down at the ancient floorboards so long dead they’d gone from a healthy brown to an ashen gray. “I thought I would be. I guess I was wrong.”

He shrugged, eyeing me with a confused frown. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. You seem well enough.”

I blinked, then looked up to meet his gaze only to find it trained on the door. A taut line of silence hung between us for several long moments before I finally cleared my throat to cut the tension. “So, have you spoken with Lleu yet?”

A sigh was Gwyn’s first reply.

“I have,” he said.

“And?” I asked, my fingers curling tighter against the lip of the table as he returned his gaze to mine.

“And I don’t know,” he said with another sigh, and the look on his face only made my heart ache worse than before. “I don’t know what I should do, Bast.”

“You say no.” The words were out before I even had to think, and I didn’t regret it.

Gwyn groaned and shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Bast.”

“Of course it is,” I said, everything but the argument between us forgotten for the moment. “You aren't a prince anymore Gwyn. You’re a-”

“Of course I’m still a fucking prince.” Gwyn practically shouted the words at me, cutting me off along with any confidence I had in continuing my plan of attack. “I was born a prince, it’s not just something I stopped being when my family was killed or when I started plowing fields. I have gods’ blood in my veins, Bast. Don’t you understand what that means?”

“I don’t care what it means,” I said, my voice uncertain even to my own ears. “So some ancient priest said your family was descended from the divine when they took their throne, so what, that doesn’t mean it's true. It doesn’t mean you have to become king of a nation who abandoned you.”

My brother opened his mouth to retort, but was cut short as the door swung open and Osa stepped into the room, a scowl painted across of wool white features.

“If you’re well enough to be shouting at your brother you're well enough to pack your things and leave my home,” she said, not giving either of us a chance to say anything before she stormed away, leaving the door wide open behind her.

I gave Gwyn a glare, then silently pushed off the table and started towards the door, uncomfortably aware of my brother’s footsteps trailing after me as I moved towards our shared room.

His room now, I supposed.

The door was jammed as usual, but before I could shove it open my brother pushed me aside and shouldered it open it himself. I said nothing, and neither did he as we walked in and set about packing my scant belonging up in a frayed scrap of cloth barley as wide as my torso was long.

Five minutes later I was standing at the villa gate with my brother, small pack on my shoulder, knife at my belt, the simple wattle fence, barely tall enough to keep the chickens from wandering free, the only thing between me and my new solitary life. As my hand fell atop the thin gate Osa spoke from behind me.

“Bast.” A certain tremor in her voice made my name sound like something between a question and a command. I turned to find her with my harp held out awkwardly in her frail arms. “You’ll be needing this. I did what I could to replace the broken strings, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the frame.”

My heart ached as I looked over the battered instrument. The column and shoulder each were cracked, spider webbing lines of black cutting across the soft cream colored wood in sharp sinister arcs. A good thirds of the strings were an off color, but they seemed as if they’d work until I found something better. With surprisingly calm hands I took the instrument and cradled it in my arms, feeling an ounce of warmth and hope return to me.

If I had the harp then I could go anywhere.

“Thank you,” I said, bowing my head to her. As I turned away from her I caught Lleu standing in the villa door, watching with that calculating stare he’d always had before. I did my best to ignore him, pushing aside the gate and striding across the cobblestones, each step away sounding louder in my ears until a hand gripped my arm.

“Let me walk with you,” Gwyn said, and I smiled weakly.

“Sure.”

We were silent as we walked save for the sound of boots on gravel. He followed as I wandered through the tiny half abandoned town through the early morning gloom, unwittingly making my way towards the docks.

The morning air was cool as we walked, a soft breeze rustling the long yellow-green grass on either side of the rough gravel and stone path into the town proper. My steps felt heavy, the pack light on my shoulders, but the air hanging between my brother and I was simply unbearable.

“So, you’re going to leave Osa alone and go with Lleu then?” I said, unable to help the bitterness in my tone. Despite what she’d done, I was still worried about the young wise woman. The town had accepted her long before Gwyn or I were around, but travelers were not always so compassionate when they wake to find someone such as her tending to their injuries or ailments.

“I don’t want to,” Gwyn said after a long pause. “But Bast, I don’t belong here. I never have.”

“Of course you be-” I began but he cut me off with a shake of his head.

“Listen to me, please,” he said in a pleading tone he rarely ever used, but which always made me shut up. “I’m not like you Bast. I can’t just move from one job to another so easily, I can’t get along with people whenever I want to, or even when I need to most of the time. Whenever I try I always end up at the head of the project, telling everyone else what to do.”

Gwyn looked up at me, a grief in his words written in the sorrowful set of his youthful features. “Bast, I spent most of my childhood being raised in a castle, being prepared to serve my people, to lead and protect them. I’m not meant for herding sheep or harvesting fields, or mending wounds. I just don’t belong in that kind of world.”

I was silent for a time, up until we reached the low wall surrounding the docks . Slowly I set my pack down and sat on the paving stones, swinging my harp into my lap and plucking at the strings as I tried to tune the thing, all the while memories from my time in TyrMab and Caer Llysbran.

“I think I understand,” I said finally, watching as a double masted galley with a dog's head dyed into the sails rowed into harbor. “Either way, it’s not up to me. I’m sorry for pressuring you to stay.”

“It’s fine,” Gwyn said, leaning against the stone wall beside me. After another moment he asked, “so, do you have any idea where you're going to go from here then?”

I shrugged, plucking a string and wincing at the sour note. “I think I’ll stay with Arminius for a bit, earn some coin at his tavern, then perhaps set sail, see the world.”

“That tavern owner,” Gwyn asked with a raised brow. “You really think he’d let you stay with him?”

I shrugged. “I think so, yeah. So long as I play for him and attract a crowd I can’t see why he’d have a reason to say no.”

Gwyn nodded at that, going silent again as the sailors and dockhands began throwing ropes to one another.

“You know, you could always come with Lleu and I,” Gwyn said after another moment, this time with a bit of forced nonchalance. I gave him a sad smile.

“You might not belong here, Gwyn, but I most certainly do not belong in TyrMab.”

“Why not?” He asked, frowning at me, and for the first time I realized that I’d never told him of my life before the attack.

“I was an unclaimed bastard there, Gwyn. Nobody wanted me around, at least not for long anyway.”

“So what?” He said sharply. “It's been eight years, nobody would remember, and besides, you’re my brother now. I need you.”

“I-” I said, unable to think up the right words to say. I took a deep breath of salty sea air and tried again. “Let me think about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. The noise of sailors and dockhands shouting to one another as they finished pulling the galley up to the docks filled the air as we sat in near silence, the only sound between us the sour song of my damaged harp.

“You’ll be at the Parvus Portus then?” Gwyn asked suddenly, and I nodded. “Alright then. I’ll stop by before we set out.” My brother turned to walk away, then paused and pulled something out of his belt pouch before turning back to me.

“Here,” he said, tossing the thing to me. “Lleu said he found it on you in the alley. I thought that maybe it’d be a good reminder.”

I caught the thing and stared down at the copper coin hanging from a thin leather cord. A flash of anger, fear, and hate flashed through me as, in my mind, I saw the coin roll across the cobbles, that man’s laugh lingering in the air. Before I could say anything Gwyn had already walked away, leaving me alone with the coin, my beat up harp and nearly empty pack.

Sighing, I slipped the cord strung coin around my neck. For once I couldn’t argue that perhaps my brother had a point.

I continued to sit there until near midday, playing and singing simple songs once my harp was finally tuned. A few passerbys dropped a handful of copper coins on the cobbles in front of me, and I shrugged. It would make for a meal at least. Slowly I stood, my back popped with the motion as I stretched and groaned, then I made my way towards the tavern.

As I pressed my hand against the old battered door it suddenly swung wide and a broad man in sailor garb pushed his way out, nearly knocking me down as he passed, laughing at something someone inside had said. Cautiously I poked my head in to find Arminius alone behind the counter.

“Bast!” He said, eyes wide and a welcoming smile on his face. “I didn’t expect you to be back for some time, what with the accident and all.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying and failing to mask my awkwardness. “It wasn’t that bad.” I glanced around the empty tavern and frowned. “Hey, are you open yet?”

“No, not for another few hours or so,” he said with a laid back shrug. “But you’re welcome to stay if you’d like.”

“Thanks, I might” I said, still frowning. “Um, if you’re closed, then who was that I ran into on my way in?”

Arminius blinked at me, frowned back, then his mouth fell open in an 'oh'. “Ah, that would be Brutus. He’s an old sailing friend of mine, from before I left the fleet. He and his crew are in town for the next day or two, so he was just stopping by to say hello while he could"

My frown deepened at the words, a ball of unease forming in my gut. "The roman fleet? What did he want?"

"It was nothing really. Just catching up. He’s in town on work apparently, looking for some noble kid who ran away from home or something. I laughed, told him I’d heard a dozen tales like that before.”

That ball of nervous fear solidified into a sear pit of dread drilling down into the depths of my fucking bowls. “He didn’t give you a description of this ‘kid,’ did he?” I hoped beyond hope that he couldn't pick up the tremor in my voice.

“Nah, he said he wasn’t allowed to say just yet,” Arminius said, setting a mug down and frowning at me. “Are you alright boy, you’re looking a bit pale there.”

“I’m fine,” I said, shaking a bit. “Just forgot something back at Osa’s. Uh, I’ll be right back.”

He tried to call out to me as I spun and flung the door open wide, but I was already outside and running into the cold morning light back towards Osa’s Villa.