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The door closes behind Dika and Tim draws a deep breath. This is not the chamber in which he stayed during his earlier sojourn with the House of Varius during his father's...illness. This is the room set apart for the First Son.
The First Son of the First House.
What truly makes Gotham unique is that her people come from no one people or land. From every corner of the known world, children of men came to the forbidding shores of the empty, shadowed islands and built a civilization there. Few of the Fair Folk or their kin came and of those that did, few were friendly to men. They only brought with them death and more darkness.
At first, when the city of Gotham was but a mere harbor village, the settlement was disorganized and rough, ruled by any with the ability to enforce their will upon others. Those who could offer protection from the Old Folk that hunted in the shadows.
And then one day a ship docked in the harbor and from that ship came a man who united the people of the Islands into one people. Nervus Varius.
He rallied about him six others and between them, they led the people against the dangers of the night and overcame, building a town where the village had been, then a city. Each man of the six became lord of a House, the Princes of the Seven Islands. Prince Varius, chief among them, ruled the great island upon which the city sat.
Tim knows the history of the Islands so well he could recite it in his sleep. Which is probably why it runs through his mind now, pattering on silent memory-feet and the nasal voice of his old tutor, despite the years that have passed since the lessons themselves.
And so for a time the Islands prospered. They became a center of trade in the civilized world, their great markets seeing the most exotic and sought after of wares, from spices to fabrics to slaves to jewels to beasts. The Seven Royal Houses grew great among the nation, their names known far and wide. Other Houses rose up as well, many formed the High Council, which even now rules us in the absence of our Princes. Others were renowned as scholars and merchants and craftsmen, if not as rulers.
One such House is the House of Drakon.
He kneels before his single trunk of personal belongings, resting on the intricately woven rug where Dika had placed it in silence and opens it as if in a dream, feeling disconnected from his own movements, ignoring the hushed sounds from outside the door as the household gathers in concern. He does not know what Brutus has done with the other trunk, the box that contains some of the more valuable and sacred of his House's treasures. All else has been seized by the Council under the guise of aiding the orphaned heir. Brutus says he means to reclaim much of what had been taken but in the meantime there is only him. Him and a single trunk. A sad legacy for his House.
The House of Drakon may not be one of the Royal Houses, not like the House Varius, the Tribe Sh'niyut (from whence your mother comes, Young Sir), or the lost House of Coronus. But they are an old House, and few have such a great history.
It is at that point that the remembered lectures of his tutor fade and are replaced by the memory of his grandfather, telling him the line and secrets of their House.
It was Timotheus, your namesake, who dared challenge the great Fire Drake of the hidden cove and outwitt the cunning creature and slew it, freeing Mystiko, least of the Islands from its reign. This is known to all for truth. But what most only know as a whisper or a rumor is this, that Timotheus not only defeated the monster through strength of arms that day but ere he weilded his spear he spoke to the great serpent. For the greater part of the day they had striven with words and the young man's true victory that day was won before ever blood was drawn. He, and he alone of mortal men, has ever defeated a drake in a battle of wits.
Tim loved his father but he was not deaf to the whispers in the Courts and in the market. There were many who held Isodorus Drakon to be no true heir of his house. For surely no such man would suffer the misfortunes that had befallen them during the time when the earth was broken beneath them and Island Mystiko was swallowed by the sea.
When the House of Coronus was lost, stewardship of their lands was given to the son of the one who had liberated them from the terror that had dwelt there. The son of Timotheus who had been given the name of Drakon. And since that time the island and the people thereon have been ours to care for. And though it is the smallest of the Islands in size, it is great in heart and history. And we are the children of the man who outwitted the Fire Drake. Are we not up to the task?
And what is he now? An heir without an inheritance. A steward without a protectorate. A boy without a House.
A murderer. His mind hisses at him and his soul crumples within him, his forehead resting on the edge of the opened trunk.
This is not as it was when his mother was killed and the healers did not known if his father would ever wake from the deep sleep he had fallen into. This is different. This time, he had knelt beside his father's body, in a pool of his father's blood, and known it was his fault.
If only he hadn't been Robin. If he had been content to be Timotheus Drakon, had not needed to be more. All ills had befallen his house after he had joined Lord Varius on his crusade to hold back the darkness. Perhaps it was the judgement of the gods, or of the strange God of his mother's people.
My fault. And now I am the last of my House. My fault.
My fault.