Post Notes: Hey look! An update! :) Also, I have no idea what happened to the Lady Solidor. What you will find below is complete speculation on my part.

Prompt: Face.

Character(s): Vayne. Larsa.

Noisome Incendiaries: Face.

There will come a day when Vayne Carudas Solidor shall reap all that he has sown.

It is the Writ course of Man.

And of this simple truth, he is well aware. For be they the seeds of discord or seeds of influence, Vayne will – Vayne must - account for any and all fruit they should bear. Be they Emperor or Kin Slayer. Dynast-King or Occurian plaything. Vayne Solidor understands that they are his and his alone.

"She leapt." The whispering evening breeze is cool on his skin, a welcome break amid the customary Archadian humidity.

Fairy lights and magicked crystals illuminate the open-air drawing room in which the sole surviving heirs of House Solidor currently reside. Larsa, seated on a cushioned chair near the arched entryway, a tome open in his hands and Vayne, much closer to the edge, by all appearances taking in the sweeping city view.

Lulled by their previous state of silence, Larsa can only offer a reflexive, "Beg pardon?"

Events subsequent to his retrieval from the holy mountain Bur-Omisace and the united deaths of Judge Drace and their father, has left Larsa distinctly hesitant towards the prospect of solitude. Instead the boy has been, in his own tactful fashion, seeking out company. Most notably by way of Judge Gabranth and Vayne.

…Vayne, in spite of the very fact that he may well be the one whom has rendered himself and Larsa orphan. Of course, this has never been explicitly stated. Not by either party.

"What Father told the People. What Father told you as you grew from infancy. It is a lie. There was nothing at all faulty about the railing. She. Leapt." The man does not turn to face the boy, eyes scanning the horizon line for something only he can see, only something he knows, continuing, "Out of despair. Possibly contempt, though I find that rather doubtful. Had she been able to properly peg the emotion as it was, she would, in all likelihood, be among us at present. Yet, she is not. And that is because, Larsa, she could not come to terms. She could not make up her mind."

"Brother?" A rustling of pages, the sound of book being shut.

The man simply clasps his hands behind his back, "How could she, by any means, continue to love the one who slew two of her beloved sons? Comparatively, as the perpetrator was of her own blood and body, how could she yet afford to hate him?"

"…The tragedies of which you speak…those were accidents. I have read the reports issued by yourself and by the soldiers accompanying you." Though spoken as a statement, Vayne can hear the hesitance – and the question – in Larsa’s words.

"Accidents…accidents most fell, indeed. Tell me, Larsa, how closely do you believe accidents correlate with necessity? And how often does necessity breed accidents?"

Though Larsa shall never profess to understand his brother, he knows enough of his brother to recognize when he is being teased, "Vayne."

A momentary duck of the elder's dark head, "My apologies." and Larsa can almost feel the small smile accompanying the words. Then he watches as the muscles of Vayne's back tighten and stiffen beneath his many layers, though his tone remains ever conversational,

"...She struck me, you know, in the confusion and aftermath to follow. I felt it. Mark my words, when she struck me across the face, I felt it. For all my battles waged and all those yet to be fought, I do not believe any blow has or ever shall pierce me as deeply as that one did then. And her cries as the guard wretched her away from me…she loathed me. In that instant she loathed me with every fiber of her being, every fragment of her soul.

"Only…" he muses, "only she loved me too. Our mother loved me, Larsa. She hated me and she loved me until the very end and that is why she leapt."

There is a beat of silence before Larsa’s voice carries over to where his brother stands, "I do not believe you. What you say about her end. I do not believe you."

And now Vayne does turn to face his last remaining blood.

Larsa sits with spine ramrod straight. His chin held high and gaze resolute as identical sets of eyes meet and lock across the distance separating them. It cannot be said, not even by Larsa years later, what it is Vayne searches for in that instant between heartbeats. Nor can it be said what it is he finds.

All Larsa will ever know is that his findings, whatever they may be, cause the elder to quietly chuckle and turn away once more, "Very well. Believe what you will, child."

Vayne turns away and it is, at the end of things, Larsa's undoing. For it brings Larsa to his feet, all Solidor temper, all fire – no more the tamed docile pup than Fenrir is – Ferrinas – the sacred beast for which he is named. Grief wrought and frustrated and still too young to understand – still young enough to believe that his brother may yet be -

"Why!" He demands, gloved hands forming fists at his side, "Why are you telling me this? What causes you to say such things?"

Vayne whirls and for one wild second Larsa regrets his anger. In three strides the distance between them is as nothing, and Vayne is folding his long frame in upon itself until they are eye level. "We alone do House Solidor make." His voice is tight and his grip on Larsa's shoulders is tighter still, "I swore an oath, long ago, to protect you. From every threat and from everyone. Of these hazards, never have I failed to include myself among the figures. The sooner you understand the better, child – Larsa – one cannot be of two minds and yet still thrive. We shall always reap that which we sow, for this is the Writ course of Man."

With Vayne's face, so like his own, only inches away, Larsa will later recall this to be the exact second in which two irrevocable revelations are made.

The first being that Vayne harbors within himself an honest affection for his younger sibling. For all the man is and for all he is not, as well as he possibly can, Vayne loves him.

The other will remain to be the moment in which the theory Larsa has never wanted to admit – the one naming Vayne beyond saving – becomes terrifyingly real.

Noisome Incendiaries: Face: End.