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For several tendays now, Lia’s forced herself to learn the value of patience. In order to take care of Cal and Rolan, to keep the last of their dwindling family alive, she’s not allowed herself the beauty of choice, or of losing her temper.
The endless march of tearing leather soles on unpaved roads, the blisters, the cold nights, the bug bites and the fear, oh the fear, ever-present, ever-waiting—all of those, she endures, for her family.
Sure, when Rolan is around, she allows herself to relax on occasion, let down her hair, so-to-speak, and to breathe. An argument and some bickering among siblings--as a treat, she tells Cal, who scoffs that it’s not exactly his idea of a treat.
Watching Cal be dragged through the dirt by Absolute cultists—hearing him beg, and scream, and plead for them to do anything, anything at all to him, but please, spare Lia, Gods spare his sister! …She feels deep shame and anger that she can do nothing to comfort him and tell him not to even think about trading his life for hers.
But still, she resists the urge to punch cultist faces first and ask questions later. She does it for him, because the moment she follows her instincts, he’ll be killed.
For the sake of her family, she exercises patience.
…The problem is that Rolan is not around. And Lia’s just about reached the end of her patience. She feels it in the way Cal watches her while she polishes the sword given to her for her first day of work—the angry movements of her hands, faster, harder as she thinks of Rolan, how just yesterday that bastard Lorroakan told them that he couldn’t speak right now, he has much work to do—
Until she hears Cal suck in a breath behind her and say her name with some alarm. She nearly snaps at him to go elsewhere if he’s going to distract her…Except she realizes belatedly why he gasped, as it turns out she’s cut her hand on sharp steel without noticing it.
Cal spends the better part of the day stitching up her hand and chiding her for not paying more attention working around sharp edges, and still, Lia bites her tongue. Because it’s not Cal’s fault that Rolan is an idiot.
The screams, oh the screams, she thought those were the worst to come. Locked behind bars, watching the dwindling refugees, dragged kicking from their cells off to some bastard named Balthazar, for who knows what. She knows that when their number is pulled, nothing she does will save them. She’ll be screaming, too, when they drag Cal away from her clawed grip, because the sick fuck seems to prefer the men to the women.
Selfishly, she prays that Danis’ time will come first, so she can spend just a little bit longer with Cal. She dreams of it—begs a pantheon of gods for it. And still, her patience holds, because she won’t waste her last moments with her brother on anything but memorizing his voice and his presence.
…But it’s not the screams that wear on Lia's patience the most. It’s the silence.
Because never, not once in all the time since their mother’s death, has it ever been quiet. Wherever they went, whatever terrible things happened--at night, over dinner, Rolan was always there to bicker with, and Cal never sat at the counter biting his nails and wringing his hands. He was always there as well, giggling and rolling his eyes and telling them how stupid they were, why were they arguing when they were all here, together, and happy? And Lia and Rolan both tore themselves away from their petty huffing and puffing to eat.
Because no matter what, you never, ever, missed dinner as a family and let a warm meal go cold.
…But none of that was happening now. Instead, even above a gods damned bar of all things, Lia only heard her own maddening, repetitive thoughts, and the dull sound of tavern din down below. It was enough to tear at her, more than anything that had come before. And somewhere, distantly, she almost preferred the screaming.
She had too much time to think—why wouldn’t Rolan come see them? Come visit them? Why would he leave them to the torture of the silence, after everything they’d been through?
Why didn’t he come home for dinner?
The selfish cock, staying in his cozy little tower by himself. Didn’t he know how dangerous that was? Any number of things could happen to him by himself, and in a city like Baldur’s Gate, Cal and Lia may never know.
-----
Cal and Lia share a small bedroom. All they could afford, really—a small room with a kitchen, amazingly enough, bought on that bastard Lorroakan’s dime. A room only big enough for one bed and a couple of their bed rolls spread on the ground. With Rolan…Gone, Cal and Lia switched between the bed and the floor, not without protest from Cal, to which Lia scoffed and told him that if he tried to baby him she’d lock the front door while he was out to market, and he could sleep down in the bar. That shut him up fast.
Tonight, it was Lia’s turn on the floor.
She was awake tonight—first with her own thoughts, and then when she realized it, with the subtle sound of near-rhythmic footsteps just outside their door.
A thief perhaps, she thought to herself.
She slid her hand beneath her pillow to the knife she kept near always—a habit now deeply ingrained in her, first from their time on the road, and then, from the ever-looming threat of cultist loons.
She would be remiss to show her hand too early. These creaky wood floors squealed with such reckless abandon that she expected even the bar patrons below could hear them. So she waits for the telltale sound of lockpicking, ready to jump up—
But instead, feels her heart jump into her throat. The sound of a key sliding into the lock sends her AND Cal sitting up in comical unison.
“Rolan….?” Cal mumbles—and Lia wonders how long he’s been awake.
She was stupid to think he could still fall asleep easily, after all they’d been through.
And finally—the deafening sound of silence shattering as the door inches open, and two guilty yellow eyes beg for forgiveness before anyone says a single word.
-----
“You fucking idiot, what were you thinking?! You should have come back on day FUCKING one! I would have gone there and wrung his wretched, slimy throat myself!”
“And do what, pray tell, you idiot?! Get fired, imprisoned, accosted by the gods damned sellswords you just found yourself in the employ of?! What exactly were your plans after that, hm?! Did you even think of that, you short-sighted buffoon?!”
“Who CARES, I don’t need to—to think further than my FIST to beat the ever-loving HELL out of him! If the Fist even dared to get in the way of me MURDERING that—that self-absorbed, pathetic, brother-beater of a man—”
“Lia, I can take care of myself! Thank you!”
“And look where trying that got you!” Lia cries out—her patience cracking and breaking away to nothing— “We’ve spent so many fucking nights worrying about you, not able to talk to you, not able to know that you’re EVEN ALIVE outside of letters because that—that fucker Lorroakan will hardly let us even see you—and you come back…With your face like this…” Mournfully, Lia touches Rolan’s cheek, running her fingers over the bruised ridges and wondering idly what would their mother think if she saw him in this state....? And Rolan winces, though whether to her touch or to her perceiving him, she could not say. “Do you know how that makes Cal and I feel, you fucking putrid week old goblin codpiece!”
“...D...Did you just call me a...”
Behind them, Cal snorts into his hand, and wheezes with such ferocity that Lia almost stops to check if he’s okay. Almost.
But instead she watches Rolan’s face–his bruised, gaunt, sleepless, tormented face, searching for anything quite as scathing as that, and come back short, his own vernacular not nearly accomplished enough to outdo Lia at her angriest.
She feels much of the anger melt away as finally lays into Rolan and everything he loves for the first time in weeks.
“……I’m sorry.” he whispers finally—and weak to the look on his face, uncharacteristically disheveled and so fucking sad, she relents, just a bit.
“You're sorry?" she asks incredulously--
She's never known Rolan to apologize. To eat his pride, and admit fault, show vulnerability, and the soft interior that underlaid his ego and his anger to be laid bare to them.
(But then, he's shown a lot more of that ever since that hero of theirs came into the fold.)
Lia breathes in slowly, eyebrows furrowing, her stubborn personality slower to yield, apparently, than Rolan's.
"…You’re not forgiven, you fucking dunce.” Lia mumbles stubbornly. “Not by a long shot…The fact that you let that same damned selfless band of misfits save our family again instead of--relying on your family for even just this single thing. And you know, you didn’t even let me get in a single punch to that bastard's face…! Gods I’ll never forgive you. Ever.”
“That’s—”
“Not in a million gods damned years, Rolan.”
“…That’s fair…” Rolan finishes, shoulders falling, hands flexing and unflexing at his sides, not knowing what to do with them as he looks down at the floor. “…I suppose I wouldn’t forgive me, either.”
“….You know…” Cal shifts from one foot to another. “There’s that saying—oh what was it. A brilliant little ditty that I think sums up this situation perfectly…. Oh, Right! All’s well that ends...Not as bad as it could've...?”
He looks between the two of them as they shift and huff, looking away from each other—Lia’s aware that even the tavern din has silenced to nothing, and she can practically hear the town gossips craning their ears to hear.
“You can’t just wave away all we’ve been through, and—and the fact that he hurt you and you didn’t think to say a single thing to your only family, Rolan. Not that easily.” Lia says stubbornly, and Cal breathes out, hiding a smile of disbelief as he shakes his head. “Not in a million years.”
“…A million years, hm.” Rolan mumbles. “…I suppose I’d best get started, then. It will take quite a bit of effort to get you to forgive me in our lifetimes…Would a late dinner and some drinks suffice for a start?” He looks at her, eyebrows furrowed, searching for a little give, almost begging for it.
And when her shoulders unclench, and she looks him over—he gets it, as she breathes out and unwraps her arms, hands resting on her hips.
“….A start.” She agrees. “But only just that.”
She pauses.
“And I want first pick of our new bedrooms.”
Rolan stares at her for some time in surprise–perhaps not expecting her to ease up on him at all. But in that moment, where the chaotic storm of familiar sibling fighting hardly gives her the time and space to think, Lia finds so much relief.
“…That, I most assuredly can do, sister.”
-----
"Ramazith's Tower...What a truly magnificent view..."
"You're telling me," Lia grins, watching Cal's face, absolutely mesmerized by the city slowly being engulfed by the purples of the brand new day.
"Did you ever think we'd look out over the city with a view quite like this, Lia?" Cal grins at her, and she swears, she sees his eyes glimmer in a way she's not seen since they were children on their birthday.
"Oh, sure," Lia nods to him convincingly, and when that doesn't quite take, and he gives her a look, she grins with mischief. "From out over like...A bridge, or something."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Cal cackles back, glancing over at Rolan, engrossed in a letter as he unwraps a care package.
Their brother has an uncharacteristic smile on his face as he pulls out a beautiful bottle of Arabellan Dry. Not exactly the drink of choice for a grand celebration, but a drink for a tiefling celebration, nevertheless.
"What's got you so smiley, Rolan?"
"I'm not smiley." Rolan chuckles, eyes not leaving the parchment as he passes the bottle to Lia.
Cal and Lia share a look, the sort that can only pass between twins, and one which Rolan commonly laments is the cause of all of his daily headaches.
Lia reaches for the bottle, fumbling it for just a moment, one long enough for Rolan to look up to ensure he doesn't drop the precious cargo--
And the moment is all they need, because as soon as his eyes are off the letter, Cal snatches it with one clean, perfected motion, "H--Hey!," Ignoring Rolan's gasp as he shoves it between himself and Lia protectively.
"Ohhhh, and what is this, hm?" Lia grins, ducking down to see the delicate wax seal, bearing an infernal letter 'T'.
"Not for you ungrateful, uncivilized animals!" Rolan gasps, trying to get it back--
But Cal is a good deal wider than him, and he doesn't need to do more than turn his back to him to banish him from the precious parchment entirely.
"To my dearest friend Rolan, the new Master of Ramazith's Tower," Cal grins, and Lia gasps.
"Dearest friend, since when do you have friends, Rolan?!"
"NEVER, not since a pair of truly contemptible miscreants scared them all off!" Rolan gnashes his teeth, trying to now duck around Cal, who just turns with him quite easily, grinning.
"That's a lie, you don't have friends."
"Wow, thank you, truly."
"I know who he's friends with," Cal whispers, voice conspiratorial, to which Lia grins in anticipation. "Though I wouldn't use the word friend, exactly..."
"I absolutely DETEST both of you, and I have half a mind to show you just how far down the ground is from here!"
Lia, ignoring the outburst, taps her chin thoughtfully a moment--and then gasps.
"Not our grand hero...!"
"Mm-hmm. Don't tell me you haven't noticed?"
"Well--of course I have! But I didn't think they'd be so bold as to send wine this early!...I thought we were at least a few weeks away from such scandalous courting rituals."
She peeks over Cal's shoulder at Rolan, who, having given up, silently fumed, red all the way to his ears.
"Thank you both for such--rousing displays of callous humiliation." Rolan grumbles, glaring up at her.
"Now, if it's all the same to you, may I, the person whom the letter is addressed to, finish reading it, you horse's arse?"
Lia gives him a dismissive look, humming and examining her nails, and then the letter--just long enough to hear Rolan huff and puff, and she's quite certain if she goes longer, he'll start stamping his foot--before passing it back.
"....Only if you invite them home for dinner."