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He didn’t quite know what time it was. He knew it was late, judging from how he kept rubbing his eyes, but Rahn didn’t want to go to bed just yet. Not yet, just a little longer. If he could only grasp the spell’s concept and casting, then he could go to bed.
A noise came from the door and his ear twitched. Rahn looked over his shoulder to see his father leaning against the door jamb. “Rahn, it’s two in the morning.”
The teenager said nothing; he stared into his father’s red, red eyes and wished, for the millionth time, that he had two red eyes. His ears twitched again and then he turned back to his desk. “I didn’t think it was that late.”
G’raha came over and sat on the spare stool Rahn kept in case one of his sisters decided to come in. Marigold, who was ten, still liked it when he braided her hair, after all. “Son, it’s two am. You’re eighteen, far too young to be up at all hours.”
“I’m almost finished,” he protested, and ran a hand through his pale red hair. “Just this last spell—”
“Rahn Fey, you won’t even remember the spell in the morning,” G’raha scolded. “What has gotten into you? You were always a quiet child, but this—” he gestured to the desk piled with books and paper, “—this is too much. I know better than your mother about what it’s like to study, but I don’t understand the drive to do this. You already mastered archery and white magic, son; why are you trying to learn summoning—” he moved one book, “—black magic—” he moved another, “—and red magic at the same time?”
Rahn looked away and mumbled, “I’m studying lancing and two different types of swordplay too.” He winced when he heard his father groan and put his head in his hands. It was probably a good thing he didn’t remind him that he’d mastered dancing by the time he was ten.
“Rahn, you’re going to kill yourself if you try studying all of this at once. Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll tell your mother this is the fifth time I’ve caught you staying up late this week.” The blood-red eyes he looked up to so much stared him down.
“I want to be enough.” He rubbed his eye and tried again to make the spell make sense. It still didn’t. “I just want to prove I can do it too.” Realization was beginning to dawn in his father’s eyes, he could see it. “All of my sisters were born with two Allagan Eyes, while I only have one, and you still won’t awaken the other one.”
His father let out a great sigh. “And hurt your mother’s feelings?” G’raha covered his own left eye, which piqued Rahn’s curiosity. “Your mother was excited to see that you have both our eyes, Rahn, but I do know how it feels. I wasn’t born with two red eyes, you know.”
That was new information. “How have I been alive eighteen years and never knew? Is this why we’ve never visited the Gryphon tribe?”
G’raha gripped his eye socket and gritted his teeth. “No, we never see them because I will not watch my children be shunned like I was.” He let go to put a hand on Rahn’s shoulder. “You and your sisters are a mixture of sun and moon clans, and you were not born from a Nunh, which is not a good thing in our ancestral tribe. Plus, you all have the same father, which is looked down upon among your mother’s people.”
“Uncle Alphinaud said you deserve to be called Nunh. I heard him once.” He agreed; by any stretch of the imagination, the Crystarium on the First was new territory.
G’raha chuckled and rubbed his son’s ears affectionately, eliciting a tired purr. “I gave up that life. Even if I had been, I wouldn’t be a Nunh now. So no, Rahn, you never meet your cousins because I want to spare you the pain I suffered.”
“That doesn’t explain how you never told me you had another eye once upon a time.” Rahn tucked a bookmark in the pages and shut his book. His father was right; he’d never remember what he read at this point, and he would much rather learn it the first time.
“We didn’t want to get your hopes up, son. My blood was strengthened by a quirk of fate, not because I wished it to. We knew you would beg for me to change your eyes.”
“Would that be so bad?” He hated the way his voice cracked.
Pain filled G’raha’s eyes, but he shook his head. “What kind of example would that set, if any of your younger siblings were born with green eyes?”
“Oh, gods—Father, please tell me you and Mother aren’t expecting another sister.” He gripped his hair and cringed at the thought of yet another sister. Rahn loved his sisters dearly, but being the only boy could drive him crazy sometimes.
His father laughed and quickly put a hand to his mouth to cover the sound. “No, we’re not. Marigold is most likely our last.” He ignored Rahn’s muttering and went on, “And it would set a bad example for your children, too, Rahn, not just your sisters. Your mother and I love you for who you are, and your ability to control the Crystal Tower has nothing to do with it.”
Rahn looked away and covered his left eye, the green one. It wasn’t a bad color; it was his mother’s after all. But he still wanted something different. “You should see the way they look at me, Father. At the Crystarium… Everyone wishes I were you.”
“You are you, Rahn. Awakening the other eye will only fuel their wish that you were me.” He squeezed the teenager’s shoulder, hoping he would understand. “You cannot replace me, Rahn. You are far too special for that.”
“I still wish I could help them like you did. I wish I didn’t stand out in our family. That’s why…”
“Why you’re staying up every night like this?” G’raha finished. “Rahn, I don’t think you thought that through, because that’s only going to make you stand out more.”
Rahn gave his father a look. “Father, look at me. Do you honestly think I stand out, even knowing that?”
G’raha had to admit his son had a point. Rahn was short for a male miqo’te, although he was the tallest in their family, having inherited some of his mother’s genes. He still had round cheeks that his mother called “squishy,” and his expression was generally neutral. In general, Rahn was one of the crowd, and he used it to his best advantage when he wanted to. No one would have suspected that he had any talent at all. “Perhaps not,” he allowed. “But you still need to go to bed.”
He wanted to resist—that spell was in his hands, he just knew it—but he decided to obey. His parents were gentle, but if pushed enough, they would strictly discipline him and he would rather avoid that. As Rahn got to his feet to shuffle over to his bed, a thought came to him. “Wait, why are you awake?”
G’raha stood up as well, grinning cheekily. “Because of your mother.”
“Father!”
Again, he smothered a laugh at his son’s expense. “I’m teasing you.” Rahn did not, for a single moment, think he was purely teasing. “Never mind why I’m awake, Rahn; just go to bed and don’t stay up this late again.”
Rahn tossed his shirt off and climbed into bed. Tomorrow. He could master the spell tomorrow. “Good night, Father.”
G’raha extinguished the lamp and just before the door shut, he said, “Good night, Rahn.”