Black Stag

Lions

The Blacks were royal descendants. Regulus-and his brother alike-had never seemed to bother losing sleep over being incredibly distantly related to Queen Elizabeth, for it had been likely that the vast majority of the British generation were, in some way or another, connected. They were undoubtedly closer than that majority. However, it was hardly as close as their mother and father thought them to be. They weren't in close contact with the monarchy-- or at least most of them, anyhow. In fact, the number of descendants is essentially endless. It had long been customary for royalty to intermarry into their own class, the upper upper class.The type of class that 'upper class' wasn't even deemed good enough; the type their parents quite commonly referred to as 'The Elite'; they were aristocrats and socialites, the blue-blooded citizens of the country. In order to intermarry within this group, you weren't simply going to be marrying those rather distant relatives, it would be second and third cousins (sometimes, on the most desperate occasions, first cousins- that time resulted in their Uncle Cygnus being born with an extra toe). The type of person you have most likely, if not certainly, seen a brief glimpse of at a previous family event or social gathering. This belief had unfortunately only seemed to strengthen over time, which Regulus found wildly strange during a time of social reform. It appeared that his relatives had observed the rise in gender equality and decided, "Let's fight back by making everything worse."Royalty allied with royalty and if you so chose to disobey that, then so help you, God.

This is why, whenever an important holiday neared its date, Regulus was sent into a full-fledged panic. There were always particular standards he, and his brother, had to uphold, and due to his brother deciding to be particularly defiant, he always had to worry for the two of them, because it had seemed that Sirius didn't care to worry for himself.

Regulus had been crying. He hadn't cried in front of anybody in a long time, aside from Pandora. It somehow felt different with her. Sometimes they cry together. Because they share similar emotions that he wasn't quite sure anybody else held, maybe, if they were lucky, the world would forget they both ever existed. Forget entirely. That way, they'd be able to wash away any pain they'd ever felt.

"Go and speak to him, Reg." Pandora fiddled with the green silk that hung over his bed post.

"I'd rather not be told to piss off right now."

"But..." She twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. Her hair was white-spun sun and wintry boughs twisted together into pale blonde. She occasionally picked at it when she was about to say something she knew the other person wouldn't like. "We have similar families, but I think sometimes it's better when there's that one person who just gets it, you know? Like when I want to talk about Xneo, I don't come and splurge all my lovey-dovey stuff on you because you won't understand, like say... I don't know... Anastasia would. I know that's a very watered down analogy, but... what I'm trying to say is that you and Sirius have the same family, which means you have the same struggles with them."

"He thinks I don't, though."

"Well, maybe not exactly the same." She weaved and sewed her next words around in her head, "Let's stick to my terrible analogy, alright? Please bear with me. So, Anastasia has a crush on Barty--Oh. " She paled.

"What?" Regulus' jaw went slack, "She does?" He sniffed away the snot that had built up in his nose. Pandora handed him a tissue from her pocket before continuing. She somehow had everything stored inside one tiny pocket.

"Ignore that, please. She'll actually kill me. I know Barty is having like self-esteem issues right now and that might boost them, but, please do not tell him. Just ignore what I said. Anastasia has a crush on a different boy, that's not Xneo. But we both have a crush on a boy. So we can both relate to that, but we can't relate to the exact same thing, because it's different boys comprende? "