After dinner, Nerluce went to his rooms - they seemed so dramatically large now - and changed out of his father's old robes and back into the clothes he'd worn on the ride. They were dirty and probably smelled, but Nerluce could not manage another moment in those robes. Strange looks be damned, he didn't care anymore.

With his robes successfully changed, Nerluce went to find Coam.

She wasn't all that hard to track down. There were only ever three places she'd be. The gardens, the stables, or her own chambers. Checking the other two first, Nerluce was forced to knock on the door of a room he hadn't been into in well over seven years. He didn't even know what it would look like.

Coam opened the door, eyes widening when she saw him.

"Nerluce," she said. "What do you want?"

"To come in," Nerluce said.

Coam narrowed her eyes then snorted, letting him into her room. It was different than how Nerluce remembered it. It was now the room of a woman, not a girl. Coam collected swords instead of dolls and displayed them above the place she slept with pride. Nerluce felt bad for any partner she brought in here to share her bed.

Not all of it was different, though. The walls were still all painted white and the views out the windows had not changed all that much. There was still the same silk divider, embroidered with cranes mid-flight. Nerluce could remember hiding behind the divider once when he was playing with Coam. He smiled at it fondly before sitting down at a table that replaced a dollhouse. The chairs were all carved with cranes.

"Alright, now that you're in my room, what do you want?" Coam asked, sitting down at the table next to him. "You want to knock something over."

"A bit," Nerluce said. "For old time's sake."

Coam snorted again before she set an elegantly folded paper crane on the table. Nerluce looked at it and then looked at her before batting it off. They both smiled and Coam picked up the paper crane from the floor and put it back into a jar containing what must've been hundreds maybe even thousands of them in all different colors.

"I didn't know you liked origami," Nerluce said.

"I didn't know you liked fans," Coam countered.

"I have one."

"It was the only thing you brought home with you from Ethera," Coam said. "It must be pretty important to you."

Yeah, it was an important reminder not to be nice to anyone unless he wanted to be fed to the wolves, quite literally. Nerluce ought to have burned the thing a long time ago but... it was still a very, very pretty fan. One of the nicest that he'd ever seen. And whenever he thought about burning it... he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"When did you learn?" Nerluce asked.

"After you left," Coam said which made Nerluce feel a little better. "I kept having... I had trouble sleeping. Making these helped calm me down enough so that I could go back to sleep whenever I woke up in the middle of the night. And then... I guess I just kept making them in the day." She smiled. "It's so... static here compared to the front. I never feel like I'm doing anything or I'm not doing enough things."

"Yeah," Nerluce said. "They don't have servants in Ethera."

"I've heard," Coam said. "A couple of the elite soldiers we sent with you came back whining about that." She rolled her eyes. "Lady Mother was convinced you'd be home any day back then."

"I can do chores," Nerluce said.

"I did them some on the front," Coam said. "Sometimes it would help me thing. Sometimes it would just make me more upset."

"They always upset me."

Coam laughed a bit and Nerluce smiled.

"Can you make other things?" Nerluce found himself asking, gesturing to the jar of paper cranes. "Or is it just cranes?"

"Probably, if I tried," Coam said. "I have a book but... I like cranes. Also, the book says if I fold a thousand of them, my wish will be granted by the gods."

"How many have you folded?"

Coam shrugged.

Nerluce snorted. "What would you wish?"

"Right now? Probably that Tilica just... leaves us alone." Coam sighed, her shoulders slumping. "They broke the peace treaty again. We'll kick their ass again. And then one of the royals will say it wasn't really Tilica but terrorists flying Tilica's flag and say we were the ones who really broke the peace treaty and ought to be responsible for the damages." Coam scoffed. "This shit just... gets old after a while."

"It... sounds like it," Nerluce said. "Do you think we'll fight Tilica forever?"

"Maybe," Coam said. "Or maybe the Chosen Light will save the world." She rolled her eyes. "Who can say. That baby seems to like you, though."

"Kierli," Nerluce said. "She's sweet."

"You like kids?" Coam asked.

Nerluce gave a half-hearted shrug.

"Well one of us is going to have to have kids to carry on the family name and it would be better if it was the one who liked kids," Coam said.

"You're not planning to have any children?" Nerluce asked.

"I will if duty demands it," Coam said. "But I'd prefer not to. It's not that I don't like kids but..." She sighed and shook her head. "I would much rather have a niece or nephew as an heir. But... not if you hate kids."

"I don't hate them," Nerluce said.

Coam rolled her eyes. "Do you want to have kids someday?"

"I guess," Nerluce said.

He'd... loved Kierli. He still did love her! Though he didn't know when or if he'd ever see her again. He supposed that if he had his own daughter or son he'd love them just as much if not more than her. Even if they were uglier. He'd love them and raise them with all the love he could. He liked the idea of telling them stories every night and playing with them in the day.

It was a possible dream. Coam would be in charge of running the Clan and he might help her ought some but he wasn't required to do too much. He could spend his days lounging and drinking and playing and his nights lounging and drinking and telling stories. A soft, lazy life for a soft, lazy man. And yet... a part of him itched with the desire to do something, to be something. Something like Taayir and something like Aristide.

"Well, I think it's better that a kid is born to parents who want them because they want kids," Coam said, "not just because their parents need an heir or don't know how to use a condom."

Nerluce nearly choked. "Coam!"

"What?" Coam asked. "Do you not know what a condom is?"

"I do!" Nerluce exclaimed. "You just usually aren't so vulgar!"

"How is condom a vulgar word?" Coam asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "I also have to make sure those people at Ethera taught you about important things, like dental dams."

"I don't want to talk about this with my sister!"

Coam laughed, clearly amused by all of his squirming sufferings. She was... awful. She was embarrassing and strange and everything that Nerluce remembered her as. She was his sister. The real one. Not the perfect image he'd conjured of her in his head. She was a bit rougher around the edges now, yeah, and she'd picked up some new hobbies, but she was still Coam.

Smiling, she asked, "You finally want to tell me why you came to visit?"

"I..." No. Nerluce really didn't want to but... Well, the words just came spilling out of him. "I haven't seen you in years."

"I know," Coam said and she really did know.

"You're different."

"You are too," she said.

It hadn't occurred to Nerluce that Coam might be assessing him in the same way that he was assessing her. She had probably come to the same conclusion if the ease of her posture was anything to go by.

"Thank you," Nerluce said.

"For what?" Coam asked.

"For... stopping me. At dinner," Nerluce said. "I don't... I don't know why I started to say those things back there..."

Coam hummed. "You're pissed."

"I'm not," Nerluce said.

"Yes, you are," Coam said, pointing at him. "You're pissed at Lord Father. I think you might even be pissed at me."

"I'm not," Nerluce said again but his voice trembled.

Coam cocked a brow.

Nerluce sighed, caving in. "I was... upset with you. I think I might've been upset with you for years now," he said. "Coam, you don't understand. Everyone compared me to you. They all wanted to know why I wasn't like you. Why I wasn't some great war hero too. Why I couldn't do Magick or learn things or whatever else like you." He looked down. "You're... perfect. And yeah, that pisses me off a bit."

"I'm not perfect," Coam said.

"Yes, you are," Nerluce insisted. "You were so good at everything and so I thought... you never had to be subject to Lord Father's ire like I was. You never suffered like I did."

"Luce..."

"I know it's not true," Nerluce said.

"It's not," Coam said.

"I just... don't think I really realized it until now. Until I realized you were protecting me and weren't just... oblivious."

Coam nodded. "I am not perfect, Luce," she said. "But I have been trained to be so." She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. "I have always had to be the best. A great Magickian. A great soldier. A great daughter." Her crimson eyes were dark as they fixed on Nerluce. "Because I was the heir."

"And I'm the spare," Nerluce finished.

She hummed, softly. "I tried my best. Gods, I really did. I tried to convince Lord Father to let you be... I tried to protect you but I was just a kid and pretty helpless... I thought maybe if I was good enough, if I did well enough, they'd leave you alone. They would see that they don't need a spare."

"Oh," Nerluce said.

"Pretty dumb right?" Coam asked.

"Really, super dumb," Nerluce agreed.

"I never wanted to be the reason you suffered," Coam said. "I'm so sorry, Luce. I tried. I tried so hard. I never wanted-"

"It's okay," Nerluce said, not believing his own words. "It's okay."

"I'm sorry," Coam whispered again.

"I am too," Nerluce said. "They hurt you too." Probably worse. Suffering was what soaked the Hebikoti banners red, after all. "I'm sorry I didn't notice before. I was a stupid kid too. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The two strangers traded whispered apologies for the rest of the night so that when dawn broke and they woke they were strangers no more, but siblings.