Work Text:
What Daryun remembers most vividly of the day of his maiden battle is his own anticipation beforehand, and later his lord uncle's heavy hand on his shoulder, a comforting weight acknowledging Daryun's accomplishment; a rite of passage successfully completed. His body still not fully grown, Daryun nonetheless became a man that day, as was the Parsian way.
His prince enters his maiden battle a sweet, wide-eyed child, and emerges from it a sweet, wide-eyed child who has now seen murder and ruin, his pale cheeks awash with tears and Lusitanian blood.
Daryun aches, more than ever, to offer him words of comfort he's ill-equipped to provide. Not only has he never received them himself, but he can't recall ever needing them the way his prince so clearly does.
Prince Arslan has always been a strange one that way. Even now, at age fourteen, he shows no signs of shedding the delicate beauty inherited from his lady mother. His manner lacks the Queen's icy distance, though, as well the King's explosive anger and passion for battle. As far as Daryun can tell, he's much the same boy who used to totter after Daryun in the courtyard of the palace with big, curious eyes and an unguarded smile, starved for the attention and affection of anyone who would give him the time of the day.
The prince is full of questions Daryun has no way of answering truthfully. 'Are we going to be all right?' 'Do you think my lord father will reach the Royal Capital safely?' 'Why would Kharlan betray us in such a way?'
Daryun's own mind is racing with much the same questions and concerns, but as a Marzbān, he can't afford to let his doubts show, especially not in front of his charge.
Daryun does not consider himself a cruel man, but he is still a warrior raised by warriors. He can't advise his strange, kind-hearted prince any more than he can calm his emotional turmoil, but luckily, he knows just the man for the job.
“Let us look to my friend Narsus for assistance,” he tells the prince, hoping against hope that the smooth-talking bastard in question is still where he's supposed to be.