Songs of Souls

004: A Brother's Choice

"I'm going to join Zevas and the mercenaries," Deynfif declared. His grip tightened on his green plaid scarf, the familiar fabric feeling rough against his skin.

Silence followed his declaration, thick and suffocating. A log in the hearth shifted with a sharp crackle, sending sparks dancing upward. The sound was deafening in the silence of their home, the sparks seemed to prickle against his skin.

His mother, Moyra's teacup hovered in mid-air, a hand's breadth from her lips. A tremor rattled the saucer, the tea inside sloshing against ceramic.

His father, Pythair's boots thudded against the floorboards, every step was heavy, like rocks dropped onto packed earth. His father moved towards the wall, eyes fixated on a lone object: Fifbrith's Infusion Ice Sword. His fingers traced the sword's hilt, once hummed with power, it hung lifeless on the wall, the once-gleaming surface now dulled.

He twisted a loose thread of his scarf, the rough wool grounding him as the air in the room seemed to thin.

"Look at Fifbrith..." his father finally spoke. The words landed like stones, heavy and sharp. His voice, once strong and steady, was now rough and thin. Gaze lingered on the empty space beside him.

He flinched, the memory of his older brother, Fifbrith's empty eyes flashing before him like cracks spreading through sun-baked clay. A shiver ran through his hand, the same one that had held his brother's cold hand for the last time. "That's exactly why I'm going, Father. I've seen the aftermath – charred homes, the air still thick with the stench of blood. Families..." His throat constricted, like gravel grinding against solid stone. "They chip away at Craiddhol's foundations, like acid eating at bedrock. This... this cannot stand."

His mother reached out, placing a gentle hand on his father's arm. Her fingers trembled slightly. "Son," her voice wavered, a catch in her throat, "no matter what path you choose, we are human. Conflict is woven into the fabric of our being." She swallowed, a dry click in the silence. "You may quell this war, but another will surely rise from the ashes."

His eyes locked onto his mother's. The hearth's flickering light painted her face with shifting patterns of light and dark, her smile lines deepening into shadows that mirrored his own unease. The wind howled outside, a wild rhythm echoing the steady pulse in his chest. "Then I will fight them all, mother," his voice resonated with a newfound firmness. "Again and again, if that's what it takes."

The faintest spark in the depths of his father's aged eyes was the same spark that had always lived in Fifbrith, a flame now dimmed but still smoldering. Their gazes locked, a silent equation forming between them, angles shifting, lines converging towards a shared solution.

A hint of a smile touched his father's lips. "You are young, Deynfif," he sighed. "Your heart burns bright, but remember, wars are not won by passion alone. They demand cold logic, cunning strategies..." His father's words faded, leaving a silence that felt like a tightening in his chest. The room itself seemed to shrink, walls pressing inward.

"Logic dictates we act, father." His words were a whipcrack. "Each fallen village is a fist pounding against Eard's gates! We wait, and the echo grows louder. Shall we let the fire lick our own doorstep before we stir?"

His father's shoulders slumped, the weight of Craiddhol seemingly etched into every line of his face. Shadows clung to the hollows beneath his eyes, deepening with every shared glance towards his mother, whose cheek wet with a single path of tear.

He couldn't meet their eyes, the weight of their unspoken fears pressing down on him like a granite slab. The boy who once reveled in make-believe with friends was gone, replaced by a young man forged in the Empire's crucible of cruelty. He was now honed, each facet of his being sharp-edged, with a newfound purpose: to shield Craiddhol from the darkness he had witnessed. But the warmth in his father's eyes... could it be pride? A bittersweet pride in the man war had made him?