The Butler's Master

Understandings and Endings - Part 3

[Understandings and Endings – Part 3]

"A butler's weakness is his master's weakness. If you don't want to be Brandon and Miss Louise's weakness, then you need to stop letting this take you down." Keyron was not usually a person who required saying encouraging words to himself through the mirror, but he felt as if he needed those words spoken to him at the moment.

He currently stood alone in the washroom, his hands propped against the sink and his weight leaned upon them as he stared at the man who stared back at him. Nothing about the image of the man in the mirror looked like the famed Butler in White of the Greaves-Crawford family. Nothing about the man in front of him looked as if he belonged as a man in the Reyes family.

"You are a Reyes man, Keyron Reyes. If you let this take you down, then you will be letting everyone down." If it was Keyron years ago, he would have been surprised to find himself requiring a self-prep talk. Unfortunately, he would have never imagined that he would be standing in alone in the washroom of the vacation house of the Greaves-Crawford Household, having excused himself urgently to clean himself up when he had started coughing up blood in the middle of their horse-riding session.

"A butler's strength is also his master's strength." The replying sentence came just as the door to the washroom opened, and in walked a man who made the movement look so natural as if there was absolutely nothing wrong in his presence within the walls of a building belonging to the Greaves-Crawford conglomerate. "Your master and mistress are strong, and so you will be equally strong."

"Not as strong as you are." Keyron answered his twin brother, watching Kyrano through the mirror.

Like him, Kyrano was not dressed in his butler's uniform –not that there was any real need for Kyrano to ever don on that uniform again. Still, now that they stood side-by-side in casual clothes, Keyron could see much clearly where their physical features seemed to overlap, and where they seemed to differ. True to them being identical twins, they had retained some similarity despite growing up in vastly different backgrounds.

But no matter how similar they looked, Keyron was not blind in one eye like his brother, and Kyrano did not had a pallid cancer-ridden face-color like him.

"Not the strongest man alive." Kyrano corrected with an emphasis. "But you have the luxury of working under Mr. Brandon, and he is easily considered the strongest man alive."

"Him?" Keyron could not help but lapse temporarily back into his position as the man's childhood friend rather than the subservient Head Butler. "He couldn't even hold the bow for longer than the duration of a standard archery competition."

"Archery has indeed never been his forte." Kyrano agreed with the slightest hint of a smile, finally taking steps closer to him as if their casual conversation was an implicit go-ahead from his brother to stand closer. "But there is little worry for the Greaves-Crawford conglomerate; it appears that Miss Louise has retained her archery skills despite years out of practice. Miss Kaylen also seems to have taken greatly to Mr. Brandon's stories about Miss Louise's archery skills while in the Rose Academy of St. Clair. She certainly would not be a fair throw from her mother's skills if she continues to receive the close guidance of your sons and her mother."

"Kyren better pick something good up, or he might end up like his father; relying on his younger sister to represent the Greaves-Crawford at archery competitions." Keyron mused with a smile at the imagination of his young master being slighted in favor of the young and bright-faced Miss Kaylen during archery competitions.

The amusement did not last long before Keyron himself was interrupted by another bout of explosive coughs, and he preoccupied himself quickly by directing the spray of blood towards the sink rather than on the floor. The spirits that were only just beginning to lift fell once again as Keyron watched bright red splatters appear on white porcelain of the sink.