Chapter Text
“You want to pull them out of school?!”
“Just until my dad, you know.” Sebek’s father retorted, oblivious to his three children sitting outside the room with their ears pressed to the door.
“Are they fighting?” Sebek whispered to the older two.
“Seb, shut up.” His brother whispered. Becky shook her head, before lifting her finger to her lips. Sebek decided to be quiet.
“Des, love, I understand this is an awful time. It really is. But we can’t just uproot the entire family to the Queendom of Roses.” Their mother continued, her tone harsh. The sound of the taps being turned off was the only other sound in the room.
“I can’t just not go. You know how busy my brother is with the bakery, I can’t just make him handle all of this by himself. My dad doesn’t even have a will.”
The Zigvolt family were a close-knit one. The two dentists, though busy, tried to make as much time for their children as possible. Cedric, at seventeen, was a prodigy in maths and science, and well on his way to working in the medical field himself. Young Rebecca, fourteen, was a social butterfly, excelling in social sciences and humanities, and the top of her debate team.
Then there was their youngest.
Sebek.
An underachiever in every sense of the word. No matter how hard he worked.
Classmates described his personality as horrible, teachers described him as… overzealous. He had no luck with sports, no luck with people, and just barely passed all of his classes.
People often looked at him and thought, just for a moment… that he was missing something.
Though no one could say what.
Yet, despite all of Sebek’s perceived failings, he still had his family.
His parents doted on him, his siblings took him under their wings. He was spoiled rotten, loved more than he knew what to do with.
And that was more than enough.
Until the family had gotten a call to say that their father’s father wasn’t going to survive the year, and there was no one else to look after him.
That they were the only ones in the entire extended family with the financial stability to uproot themselves and move to the Queendom of Roses, of all places.
So the trio of Zigvolt youths were eavesdropping at the door, trying to guess if their lives were ruined or not.
“But Cedric and Rebecca are just starting their exams. How could we pull them away?”
“We could stay by ourselves.” Cedric grumbled. Sebek and Becky nodded.
“I heard that!” Their mother hollered.
“Busted.” Becky winced.
“Kids.” Their father sighed, before pulling the door open. The trio promptly fell in, the younger two crushing Cedric. “What have we told you about eavesdropping?”
“Not to get caught?” The eldest suggested. Desmond Zigvolt turned to his wife with a reprehending stare. Belette shrugged.
“Are we moving?” Sebek asked, scrambling to his knees, and kicking his brother several times in the process.
“Ow!”
“Well.” Belette sighed. “I think Cedric and Rebecca could stay here on their own. Look after themselves. Mind the house. I already spoke to Mr Geronomi next door, and he said he has no issues checking in with you both every day.”
“You did?” Their father blinked.
“So we don’t have to move?!” Becky grinned, bouncing to her feet, and similarly kicking her brother.
“Ow!”
“No.” Their mother sighed.
“But…” Sebek began. He looked between his parents. “What about me?”
“You don’t want to come with us?” His father asked, placing a hand on the short boy’s shoulder.
“I don’t want to move countries!” He exclaimed, pushing the man’s hand away. “This isn’t fair! Why do they get to stay and I don’t!?”
“Because you’re ten.” His mother said plainly. Sebek felt fit to explode.
“And Becky’s only fourteen!”
“If you were in secondary school, we might have considered it, but you’re not.” She folded her arms. Sebek’s mother was a giantess of a woman, and he was small for his age. The rest of the average height members of the Zigvolt clan watched the two argue with wariness, craning their necks back and forth to keep up with each retort.
“I’m not going! I refuse! I’ll… I’ll burn my passport! And hide all the suitcases!” He declared.
His mother stared down at him.
“I…” He stammered.
She kept staring.
Tears welled in his eyes.
“It’s not fair!” He declared with a final sneer, repeating his initial argument before turning on his heel and bolting up the stairs.
Perhaps that was the problem with wanting for nothing for your entire childhood.
It’s not as though he got everything he wanted. Just new books when they came out, trips to the park when he asked, reasonable things. His parents never said no to he and his siblings, and he and his siblings weren’t the kind of kids to take advantage of that. But he could still admit they’d been pampered.
But now?
He slammed his door, jumping into his bed and pulling the duvet over his head as he faced the wall.
How could they do this to him? He demanded internally. How could they separate him from Ced and Becky? What had he done to deserve this?
He thought of everything he might’ve done over the past few months that could be considered an infraction, anything that could’ve upset them so egregiously that they had to uproot his entire life.
Perhaps he hadn’t taken out the rubbish that once, or neglected to brush his teeth before going to bed… but…
A sniffle forced itself from his nose before he could stop himself.
His duvet was too warm. The air was balmy with the early autumn heat, summer yet to let go of its grasp on the town. He would call his tears sweat if anyone dared to see him like this.
He rolled onto his back.
He didn’t know anything about the Queendom of Roses. Except that they really loved their queen. And tea.
His father didn’t often talk about his life there. Mostly just an insistence on escaping his fate of being a baker, like everyone else in his family. Sebek was sure there were very few people in this world whose true passion lay in the field of teeth, but his father sure was one of them. He couldn’t imagine getting up one day and leaving his family just to avoid… making cupcakes? Inheriting a successful catering empire?
Though, if his parents wanted him to be a dentist because it was the family trade, he couldn’t imagine taking that lying down either.
He wanted to be more.
He just… wasn’t motivated.
If he had something to fight for, someone to fight for, he knew he could achieve greatness.
But there was nothing.
No one who understood him.
Just his family, and even then, he felt more than they humoured him because they loved him, not because they had any real vested interest in who he was as a person.
The darkened ceiling stared back at him.
The ten year old closed his eyes and sighed.
Footsteps approached his doorway. He quickly shuffled again, turning to the wall and making sure his duvet was tight around him.
The steps stopped.
His father cleared his throat.
“Beck?” The man called from the hall.
Sebek did not reply, furiously pulling his duvet tighter.
“Baby, can we come in?” His father continued.
“Go away.” He sniffled harshly.
“Okay. But come get us when you feel up for talking, okay? Me and Mum want to make this better, Beck.”
The footsteps retreated from his doorway.
He ran through the sentence in his head.
He jumped to his feet, keeping his duvet around his shoulders like a cape.
This was it!
Yanking the door open, he bowled down the hallway, narrowly avoiding Ced and Becky, who were standing in Ced’s door with nervous looks on their faces. His blanket got tangled around his feet just before he got to the stairs, and he shed it as he continued his quest for retribution.
They wanted to make it better. Obviously they had reconsidered his stance as ‘too young’. He was a very mature ten and a half. Not a measly toddler like they so stupidly assumed.
His haughtiness continued as he reached the bottom of the stairs and pivoted into the kitchen on one heel, only to see his parents sitting at the island, looking even more worried than before.
He paused, a question on his lips, but his mother beat him to it.
“So.” She began.
Sebek hurried over, standing between the two. His father smoothed his hair back. His mother turned her gaze to the kitchen window, where the distant skyline of Faeburg lit up the black abyss of space hanging overhead, blotting out the stars.
“Dad and I had a talk.”
“I knew you would reconsider.” He smirked, folding his arms.
His mother squirmed.
“Beck.” His father sighed, before pulling out one of the stools tucked under the table, and sitting down. He was leaning on the island to keep himself up. “We… There are two options.”
“Wait. What?” He blinked, looking between the two.
“You can either come with us to the Queendom of Roses,” His mother stood to her full height. Sebek stiffened. “Or, you can move in with your grandfather. My father. In Faeburg.”
“WHAT?!” He baulked. “Surely Ced and Becky would be going too?!”
“No.” His father shook his head. “Just you.”
Sebek couldn’t believe it.
None of them had spoken to his grandfather in years. Not since Sebek was a baby. The man had disowned them in a fit of pique, according to his mother. He was a traditional old fool who didn’t have a kind word for anybody, and constantly fought with Sebek’s father, much to the plight of his only daughter. The man had a foul temper, a voice like thunder, and a cruelty that struck like lightning.
AND THEY WERE GOING TO SEND SEBEK TO LIVE WITH HIM?!
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” He shrieked, clutching his hair.
Both of his parents winced. They probably considered their forceful relocation as a lesser of two evils.
He didn’t care if Grandfather was the cruelest, most unkind, traditional jerk on this side of the universe. He wasn’t going to let them win this!
“So, you’re coming with us?” His mother sighed, her tone rife with relief.
He stepped back, pivoting on his heel, and pointed to the two with more conviction than he’d ever possessed in his entire life.
“I’M GOING TO FAEBURG!” He declared.