Chapter Text
Seven years old.
The wooden sword thwacked against Sebastian’s shoulder. The splintering slap of carved lumber against his skin sent waves of dry, reddening pain all across his back. His tired little legs gave out, unable to stand against both the sting of the sword and his fatigue. His knees and palms thudded against the grainy courtyard grass.
“Aha, I’ve got you now!” cried a voice from behind. Sebastian hunched over and cringed at the domineering sound of his second older brother–Damian Vael, the middle child–approaching. His shadow cast far over him as he came closer. “Do you submit?” he asked. His brother’s voice was eager and blazen, his words always hot and lashing. Sebastian could feel the spiteful smirk on his face, his words as slick as his dark hair and clever gaze. Happy to see little brother fail, as always.
With a small pooling of strength, Sebastian cupped his face in his hands. He turned and looked at his brother through the spaces between his fingers. Damian towered over him. His gloved hands clenched against the handle of his sword, ready to strike again.
“Well?” he said with an impatient tap.
“I…” Sebastian tried to speak through clogged, closing throat, but meager whimpers were all he could push out. His eyes welled up and he closed his fingers over his face like shutters, so Damian wouldn’t see. But he knew, he could always tell.
“Maker’s breath! Are you crying again?” he scoffed. “You always do this!”
“You did hit him rather hard,” inserted Baldwin, the eldest Vael child. He stepped in from the side after watching. His voice was calmer than Damian’s, but distant. He looked down upon Sebastian with a glazed stare. His pale blue eyes were like a frosted, indifferent ocean. His shadow reached even further than Damian’s.
“That’s how the blasted game is played,” Damian sneered with flared lip and glinting eyes. “I pursue until my enemy says he submits. Maybe if Sebastian actually listened, or Maker forbid he fight back.”
“Y, you hit me,” Sebastian murmured.
“What was that?” asked Damian.
Sebastian sniffled and smudged the tears on his flushed face. Sight filtered by water and irritation, but he could still clearly see the annoyance in his two brothers, so with wobbling legs, he hurriedly stood himself up.
“I said you hit me,” he belted out. “You gave me a sword, but I didn’t want to play. Then, then when you made me, you just batted your sword at my hand so, so I’d drop my sword.”
“So you do know how to speak,” said Baldwin. “And yes, now that I remember, I did see you do that, Damian.”
“Well, so what?” he countered. “War’s aren’t won by playing nice, Sebastian. And you can’t cry and run to Nana or one of the maids when you lose. Obviously I’d want you to drop your sword so you’d be no challenge. You should have seen it coming.”
“True,” said Baldwin. “It was an obvious tactic, perhaps too obvious.” Damian growled at the remark, but the eldest Vael gave no mind. “Any half decent swordsperson would have seen it coming and countered.”
“But I didn’t want to play at all,” Sebastian cried.
“It’s for your own good.”
“You think I want to do this with you?” said Damian. His teeth flashed as they grit together, every muscle in his bronze face twitched with anger.
“If you can’t fight, then you’re worthless to this family. Mother and father will send you away to the Chantry. Is that what you want?”
Sebastian gasped; the very word, the very thought of a closed off cloister, dark and waxy and away from all he ever knew, pinged his whole body with shudders. “N, no,” he whimpered.
“Then you should take our training seriously. We’re doing you a favor, Sebastian. It’s not as though you have any other talents.”
“What’s this I hear about training?” The boys’ grandfather and former Prince, Camillus Vael, walked into the courtyard. His face was creased with bags and wrinkles, his hair thinned and silver, but his visage remained proud, with firm jaw and sharp cheekbones. His back was hunched, and he supported his walk with a cane, yet he still towered, still walked with purpose. His voice was weary, yet still boomed. He walked towards the boys, smiling, but as he drew closer, and Sebastian’s teary eyes and pained expression became clearer, his smile disappeared. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. The two older sons became stiff and silent. “I asked a question, and I know you heard me.” Still no answer. He walked to Sebastian and turned to inspect the blooming bruise where the sword hit him. “Andraste’s blood! You two have been torturing Sebastian again! After I specifically told you not to!”
“We were training him!” Damian barked.
“The purpose of training someone is to educate them, so that they take the proper steps and make fewer mistakes. All you have been teaching Sebastian is that you are a cruel, unloving brother.”
“It’s just a wooden sword, it doesn’t even hurt that much!”
Camillus scoffed, a solemn huff that made the two brothers shudder. He took his cane and struck it against Damian’s ankle. It snapped against his skin, and Damian hopped, cradling his leg in pain. “Still smarts, doesn’t it? And you…” He turned to Baldwin. The eldest son gulped, knowing it was his turn. “You were just watching Damian do it, weren’t you? What kind of ruler do you hope to be, if the weakest and smallest of your people suffer? If all you do is watch when they need help most?”
Baldwin was silent at first, collecting words to piece together an argument. He answered slowly, “I… cannot afford a weak army. If Sebastian can’t learn to fight, then he…”
“He is not a soldier, he is a boy.” Grandfather Vael’s voice was as heavy and steadfast as steel, crushing the eldest son’s words beneath his own. “And so are you, as this display proves.”
Baldwin’s eyes went wide, mouth twitched. “You, you cannot speak to me that way! I am Prince of Starkhaven!”
“You are not. You are merely the Prince’s eldest son. If you continue this way, the throne will never be handed to you.”
“Are you suggesting Damian will become Prince?”
“Maker forbid,” sneered Damian under his breath, rolling his eyes.
“Perhaps, although as of now he’s no better than you. It may even go to Sebastian.”
The two older sons guffawed. “Sebastian?” cried Damian, “he’s just a runt! Look at him, he’s practically wetting himself!”
“He could not lead a fish to water,” stated Baldwin, “I will be Prince, as father said I would be, as I’ve been trained to be. You… you have no idea what you’re talking about, Grandfather.”
Camillus loomed over his oldest grandson, casting a long shadow and stony gaze upon him, blocking out the bright sun. Baldwin tried to keep composure under the pressure of his grandfather’s presence, but gave out a pitiful squeak when he met his eyes. “I will have to speak with your father about the hatred in your heart. Perhaps it is you we should send to the Chantry.”
“Y, you wouldn’t!”
“Oh? It’s a long standing tradition of the Vaels to send a child to their services, one each generation. It does not truly matter which one.”
Sebastian kept quiet, standing away from the others, inching farther away, his head down. He hopped in place when his grandfather called for him.
“You do not care much for swords, do you, Sebastian?”
“No, Grandfather.”
“I see.” Camillus tucked his fingers under his youngest grandson’s chin, so that he would look at him as his scowl melted away. “Come with me, my boy,” he said as he patted Sebastian’s back, leading him out of the courtyard. “I have something I think will suit you better than a blade.”