Blood of my Brother

Moving Beyond

"What do you do about it?"

The warrior looked over at him. "Go on anyways."

"What?"

He sighed. "When the Brotherhood split up, I didn't know what to do. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. I tried to ignore it by applying myself that much harder to guarding the moonstone. It was my way of coping. But when I went to Old Corona and saw Quirin's body... well, that was one of the worst moments of my life. I honestly thought that would break me. That's when I started asking questions. I wanted to find out what happened so I could get closure. That led me to you, and then I had a whole new problem to worry about. Crap! Not that you're a problem; just... I was so busy trying to protect you it helped me get out of my own head. I moved on because I had to. It still hurts, and if I stopped to think about it, I'd probably do something stupid. But I had a reason to move on. Someone to take responsibility for." He allowed a small smile to creep onto his face. "Saving you saved me."

Varian tilted his head. He truthfully had had no idea Hector had felt that way. "Then is it wrong to grieve?"

The warrior raised his eyebrows. "Of course not! It's natural to grieve. You're supposed to. You need to. We need to. There's a balance between grieving and moving on. You can't forget the past and the people who meant so much to you, and you shouldn't. But you shouldn't let that loss take everything else away from you, including the future. Hold on to the memories, but don't try to relive the past."

Varian pulled his knees up to his chest. "I thought I could get him back," he whispered. "I thought maybe he was still alive. That if I could try hard enough, I could save him. Part of me still hopes that's true, but I couldn't take it if I was wrong. I can't have that hope."

Hector didn't respond. He finished cleaning the deer and prepared to cook sections of it over the fire. After a lengthy pause, he asked, "Hey, kid, can I ask you a question? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"Sure."

"It's about what you said earlier. About the princess."

At the words, Varian drew into himself. His shoulders hunched, and he wrapped his arms around his knees.

Hector winced. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget it."

"No, it's... it's fine." He forced himself to relax. "I'm assuming you want me to explain what I said about her abandoning me."

Hector's guilty look was answer enough.

Varian took a deep breath. This was a leap of faith. This was explaining everything he had withheld from the one person who deserved to know. "She came to me asking about her hair. Then we started investigating the black rocks. I wanted to help. I wanted to do something instead of just sitting back helplessly like—like I thought my dad was doing. I suppose he knew more than he let on, though."

Hector scoffed playfully. "Yeah, he never said anything unless he had to. That was always annoying. Had to drag information out of him."

"Yeah. Anyway, I started investigating, and she promised to help me. She said I wouldn't be on my own. I trusted her... But yeah, when my dad told me to stop messing with the rocks, I didn't listen. I kept experimenting. Then that... that one experiment went wrong, and he saw what happened and pushed me out of the way, but he got stuck, and I went to the palace for help, but there was a blizzard—"

"You went to the palace in a blizzard?"

"Yeah. And came back in it. It was a state of emergency there, and she couldn't help, and then I got thrown out by the guards—"