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Rain poured in relentless sheets, another unwelcome gift from Nethryl Mire. Here, it never truly stopped. Cold, unending, heavy enough to drown thoughts if you let it.
But not enough to drown the wails of the drow.
Khavren stood motionless beneath the twisted limbs of an ancient tree, hood drawn low to shadow his face. His gaze tracked a small group trekking through the mire, their movements awkward and halting.
Outsiders.
Humans, by the look of them. Likely from the capital, Hyacinth Glades. Polished boots sank deep into the muck with every step, and they stumbled along the half-formed trail like startled fawns, blissfully unaware of how exposed they were.
He moved when instinct told him to. Quick. Silent. A glint of steel was all it took. No struggle, no cries. Just trembling hands, surrendering coin purses, eyes wide with fear. Then he was gone, swallowed by the shadows of the underbrush before their voices could return.
The walk home was uneventful, marked only by the constant percussion of rain and the faint jingle of stolen coin in his pockets.
One silver, two, not enough for Vel’s medicine.
His path wound through forest he knew better than his own heartbeat, a hidden, overgrown route no one else bothered to use.
Their house sat low among the thickets, weathered and nearly invisible. One bedroom, a rotting outhouse, small, but theirs. A poor substitute for the home they’d lost in their old village, yet dry enough to survive in. Land this close to Veythra, the largest city, was expensive, and the Mire born could barely afford food as it was, but it was perfect for catching travelers who mistook proximity to the city for safety.
Still, it was home. And inside waited Vel, his brother, the only soul in this rotting world who still mattered. If not for them, he might have let the fire claim him, as it had claimed their parents. But Vel needed him. And, though he’d never say it aloud, he needed Vel just as much.
He shoved the door open, hinges groaning under rust and water. The scent of stew drifted toward him, herbs, broth and depression.
Vel sat by the hearth, hunched slightly, bathed in firelight. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss. He moved past to hang his cloak, rainwater dripping from his hair to soak into the rotten floorboards.
A tremor. A shiver.
His eyes sharpened. Vel’s hair was damp.
He’d been outside.
And he thought he wouldn’t notice.
Khavren crouched before him, head tilting just enough to be unsettling. His stare was level, expression unreadable. His fingers found his chin with quiet force, lifting it until his eyes met.
“Where have you been?” His voice was low, steady. “And I suggest you be truthful, Vel.”
Vel shifted awkwardly, unable to keep his older brother’s gaze. “Um… no where..?”
Khavren’s grip tightened just slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to communicate the weight of his question. His pale blue eyes, usually so cold and unreadable, now flickered with something sharper, something taut. Vel’s hesitation was an answer in itself. The boy had never been good at lying to him, those doe eyes always gave him away, flickering toward escape routes or excuses like he was mapping out an alibi before the truth even left his lips. And that mop of curls, still damp from the rain, was proof enough
Vel swallowed, pressing his lips together before answering. "I-I wasn’t doing anything bad!" he insisted, voice wavering at the edges. He tried to pull away, but Khavren didn’t let go. If anything, his hold steadied, thumb pressing just a little firmer against the underside of Vel’s jaw. "Just… some kids were playing near the old bridge, and I-I wanted to see if they had any of that honey paste from Sunspire.”
Honey paste.
The words made Khavren’ stomach twist. He knew what that meant: traders sometimes slipped through Veythra’s outskirts, selling remedies burned off carts from the Hyacinth Glades, herbal balms, honey drenched syrups that soothed coughs, things their own land no longer had in abundance. And Vel, stupidly hopeful, always thought he could beg or trade for scraps. But it was dangerous. Too close to patrol routes. Too close to where people disappeared. Got shot.
A muscle feathered in Khavren’s jaw. He exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. "You went alone."
Flat. Just a fact.
Vel looked down, fingers tugging at the frayed edge of his tunic. "I… I didn’t go that far."
Khavren didn’t respond right away. The quiet between them thickened, the only sounds being the crackling of the fire and the distant drum of rain against the roof. He finally released Vel’s face, but his voice dropped lower, colder, the way it did when he was holding back something worse. "You know what happens if they grab you."
Vel flinched. He knew. Everyone knew. Dark elves didn’t come back from the patrol's custody, and someone sick like him? They’d call him a burden on the system, unclean, a blight. They wouldn’t even bother with an arrest before firing a bolt between his ribs and kicking him into the mire’s embrace.
Khavren stood, turning toward the stew pot with his back to his brother. He stirred it absently, the movement rigid, like every muscle in his body was strung tight with dread and a quiet, burning fury.
"You don’t leave this house without me again."
Simple. Absolute. No room for debate.
Vel didn’t argue. He knew better. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his knees, fingers brushing the little wooden trinket tied around his wrist, a crude charm Khavren had carved for him moons ago, after he’d heard the local elders mutter about spirits warding off coughs.
But when the next breath shuddered out of Vel, it came with a sharp hitch, then another. Then the dry, rasping crack of a cough buried too long.
Khavren’ shoulders tensed, his movements stilled entirely. He didn’t need to look. He knew the sound of it. He turned back just as Vel doubled forward, hands bracing against the floor, fingers clawing at the rough wood like he could tear open his own chest to make space for air.
Damn it.
Khavren moved before Vel could choke out the next wheezing breath. Hands clamped around his shoulders, pulling him up, pressing him back against the wall to keep him upright. Already, Khavren could see the feverish flush beneath his brother’s skin, the way his lips tinged blue.
Stupid. Reckless. Idiot.
But none of the accusations made it past his lips. Instead, he reached for the clay jar tucked in the corner, the homemade remedy of crushed roots and stolen poppy sap.
When he tipped it against Vel’s lips, his fingers, usually so ruthless and calloused, shook.
Vel gagged, trying to glare at his older brother but instead coming off as a pout. “That tastes like shit!”
Khavren didn’t so much as blink at the curse. His expression remained an impenetrable mask as he tilted the jar again with the stubborn precision of a man who had long learned to weather Vel’s theatrics.
"It’s supposed to taste like shit," he answered flatly, holding Vel’s chin steady with one hand while the other kept the rim of the jar pressed to the boy’s lips. "That’s how you know it’s working."
Vel coughed again, spluttering, but he swallowed it down. The liquid was thick, bitter enough to make his tongue go numb, with the faintest metallic tang of iron from whatever strange root Khavren had scavenged this time.
"If you weren’t stupid enough to go out and get soaked like some half-drowned rat," Khavren muttered, watching the way Vel shivered even now, "you wouldn’t be choking down anything at all."
A swirl of emotions flitted across Vel’s face,, defiance, resentment, but none of it could outweigh the simple fact that he needed the remedy. So he drank, scrunching his nose like a child, his fingers fisting in the fabric of his tunic.
The minute the last of it was gone, Khavren jerked the jar away, turning back toward the fire to set it down. His movements were sharp, decisive, but there was tension in every line of him, in the way his knuckles whitened around the clay.
Vel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, wincing. "Just because it tastes horrible doesn't mean it’s actually good for me."
"It keeps you alive." Khavren’s voice was ice. "And that’s better than whatever those Sunspire traders were peddling today."
Vel huffed, sinking back against the wall. He knew arguing was pointless, but irritation still pricked at him. "I wasn’t going to buy anything. I just wanted to see-"
Khavren turned on him so fast that Vel instinctively pressed further into the wood behind him. His brother’s eyes burned with something, something close to fury, and when he spoke again, it was in a low, deliberate whisper, the tone he only used when things were dangerous.
"If one of those patrols sees you, if they think they hear you speaking the old tongue, if they hear you cough, what do you think happens next,Vel?"
Silence.
Vel looked away, fingers twisting in the too long sleeves of his tunic. They both knew the answer.
Khavren exhaled, forcing himself to step back. His jaw worked, clamping down on the frustration twisting like barbed wire in his chest. The last thing Vel needed was another coughing fit from arguing back.
"...Mama was right when she said you look like an old marsh-hog when you're mad." Vel huffed, as if he were not nineteen but nine. "All you're missing is the tail."
The second the words left Vel’s mouth, Khavren’s whole body locked. His breath hitched, not enough for most to notice, but obvious to someone who knew him like Vel did. The scarred muscle of his jaw flexed under his skin, his fingers twitching once, briefly, near the hilt of his knife, before forcing himself still.
Their mother had said that. Spoken it in the old tongue, laughing as she pinched a teenage Khavren’s cheeks while he scowled, her voice still dripping with teasing warmth even as she scolded him for growing too serious too young.
For a heartbeat, the entire hut seemed to flicker, like the fire itself had stuttered at the mention of her.
Then sharp fingers dug into the crown of Vel’s head, mussing his curls with deliberate roughness. "And you look like a half-drowned sewer rat." Khavren’s voice was gruff, quieter than before, his usual frost edged with something uneven. He flicked Vel’s ear, earning an indignant yelp before turning sharply back toward the pot of stew. "Now eat. Before it burns."
It wasn’t an apology. It wasn't a softer tone. But the tension in his shoulders had eased, just slightly.
Vel rubbed his ear, but the instinctive retort died when he caught the way Khavren free hand lingered for half a second at his ribs. Right where their mother used to poke him in reprimand, right where a strip of scar tissue now ran jagged between his ribs, souvenirs of the night they'd lost everything.
Vel shuffled closer to the other drow, picking up the chipped wooden bowl Khavren had already left out for him.
“You’re just jealous because Papa said I was his cute little duckling.”
Cute little duckling. They’d been his words, affectionate and effortless, usually muttered as he scooped a giggling, squirming Vel out of mud puddles or detangled him from fishing nets he’d gotten himself stuck in. The words came back too easily, and with them;
Their father’s face in the firelight, fingers sticky with sap for Vel’s cough.
Their mother humming, braiding lavender into Khavren’s hair because although he refused to let her do his braids anymore, he loved the feeling of her hands stroking his hair.
Khavren exhaled slowly through his nose. Then, "Papa also called you a dirt dabber when you ate mud. Or did you forget that too?"
His tone was flat, but something in it had fractured, just barely. A crack even Vel might not catch. He kept his back turned as he ladled more stew into Vel’s bowl, movements too methodical to be natural.
"If you’re a duckling," Khavren added, low and rough, “then you're the kind that falls into cooking pots."
He punctuated the jab with a flick to Vel’s forehead before slumping onto the stool across from him. The firelight carved hollows under his eyes, deepening the tired slant of his shoulders. He didn’t eat, just watched Vel with that unreadable stare, something that only ever surfaced in stolen moments like this.
Vel poked at the stew, steam curling around his fingers. He knew better than to push further. Khavren scars weren’t the kind that stayed on the skin; they were the kind that wound deep, barbed and unspoken. Still, he couldn’t resist grumbling under his breath, "Ducks float, genius. They don’t drown."
Khavren’s mouth twitched, almost a smirk, though he’d never admit it. "Tell that to the one you tried to rescue last monsoon," he muttered. "Legs dangling, screaming like a banshee-”
"I was eight!-"
"-still screaming when I hauled you back to shore." Khavren leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the ghost of amusement flickering beneath the exhaustion. "So eat. Or I’ll chop you up and eat you myself.”
—-----------------------
The dim morning light filtered through the perpetual mist of Veythra’s marketplace as the two brothers set up their worn wooden stall. Khavren moved with his usual silent efficiency, arranging the meager offerings: a sparse collection of radishes pulled from their tiny garden patch, a few hand-carved wooden charms whittled during sleepless nights, and some foraged swamp herbs that healers sometimes bought. His sharp blue eyes kept flickering up, scanning the crowd with the vigilance of a wolf scenting danger.
Vel, perched on a wobbly stool with all the enthusiasm of a festival vendor, leaned forward eagerly when the first potential customer, a hunched old dark elf woman, paused at their stand. "Eight copper for fresh radishes!" he chirped, flashing a too bright grin that was more nerves than charm. His fingers tapped the edge of the stall like restless birds. "Or five if you throw in a good swamp story!"
Khavren barely suppressed a groan. "Vel." His voice was low and warning. "No haggling down." He nudged the price marker more visibly toward the radishes, a small scrap of slate with the number 8 etched roughly into it. Beside it, a second sign in his sharper lettering read: NO CHARITY. PAY IN FULL.
But the old woman only chuckled, her milky eyes crinkling. "A story, hm? I know plenty." She leaned in conspiratorially, fingers ghosting over the produce. "You hear about the patrols last night? Dragged off Seris, the butcher’s boy. Said he was singing the fisher’s hymn too loud."
Khavren tensed, his grip tightening on the hunting knife at his belt, hidden beneath the table. "We’re just selling radishes," he said flatly. "Eight copper."
Vel, though, had gone rigid. He hated hearing about the arrests. Hated the way his chest would tighten with helpless anger, hated the way Khavren’s expression shut down completely.
He forced himself to breathe before his lungs could rebel. "He was twelve," Vel muttered, almost to himself.
The woman dropped five tarnished coins on the table with a click. "Take it. And keep your stories quieter than your prices, duckling."She winked at Vel before shuffling away, radishes tucked into her woven sack.
Khavren exhaled sharply through his nose, counting the coins and tucking them into a concealed pocket in his tunic. "We needed eight," he muttered.
Vel kicked his heel against the stool leg. "Thought we were charging extra for your personality."
Khavren flicked a wood shaving at him, deadpan. "Quiet, or I’ll tell the nearest patrol you’re a halfling." The joke, if it could even be called that, was so dark it nearly didn’t land. But Vel smirked anyway.
And then the first cough ripped out of him. Sudden, wet, and uncontrollable.
Khavren was halfway around the stall before Vel hunched over entirely, one hand braced on the table. His brother’s rough palm hit his back instinctively. "Breathe," Khavren ordered, voice low and shielded from eavesdroppers.
Vel tried. But the air wouldn’t cooperate, and the echo of the woman’s words ‘You hear about the patrols last night?’ coiled in his lungs like smoke.
"K-Kha-"
"I know." A pause. Then, quieter, more gravel than voice: "Eli’s boy?"
Vel nodded jerkily.
Khavren exhaled through his nose. Then, with a glance toward the marketplace crowd, he reached beneath the stall and slid his backup dagger into Vel’s belt, hidden beneath his tunic. He didn't explain. Didn't need to.
"...Eight copper for radishes," Khavren called to the next passerby, voice a cold, steady counterpoint to the sickness and despair thickening between them. "..Fresh."
..shit.
A group of male high elves walked past, checking Vel out and whispering in their language. They shouldn't even be here, but some pretentious elves loved to make fun of the lower class Mire born.
Khavren’s hand twitched towards the knife at his belt before freezing mid motion, his fingers curling into a tight fist against his thigh. "Vel," he growled low under his breath, a warning, a plea, a do not engage.
But the Gods loved cursing them.
The light elves, a trio with pristine high-collared robes and upturned noses, halted at the stall. The tallest one, with hair like spun gold and a smirk sharp enough to cut, picked up the carved sparrow with delicate disdain.
He said something in the lyrical, lilting tongue of the Golden Coast, and the others snickered. Then his fingers, smooth and uncalloused, traced the wooden bird’s wings before deliberately snapping one off with a crisp snap.
"Oh." He dropped the broken carving back onto the table. "Clumsy me." His Common was flawless, crisp with condescension.
Vel stared at the broken sparrow, his smile faltering. "You…you broke it."
The second elf, shorter with a birthmark slashing across his cheekbone, leaned forward. "We could break worse things," he murmured in Mire dialect, an ugly, harsh mimicry of their speech. A mocking accent.
His hand reached out, fingers ghosting over Vel’s wrist, where his wooden bracelet dangled. "Dark little swamp things like you."
The moment his fingers brushed Vel’s pulse point, Khavren’s vision tunneled to red. Every muscle in his body burned with the need to smash their perfect teeth in, to leave them choking on mud and blood where they stood.
But…
A patrol turned the corner.
Sunspire guards. Armed. Watching.
Khavren’s jaw locked so tightly he could feel his teeth ache. His fingers dug bloody crescents into his palm. But he didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not without getting them both dragged out of the market by their throats.
Vel must have sensed it, the fury rolling off his brother, because he swallowed hard and pulled his wrist back, forcing a thin, wobbly smile. "M-Maybe just stick to window shopping next time."
The elves exchanged viciously amused glances. The shortest one flicked a single copper onto the table, an insult, of payment for the destroyed sparrow. "For your troubles," he purred.
Vel could only stare at the coin with shaking hands.
“Forget the wood.” The tallest elf sneered in a saccharine sweet tone. “He’s cute. How much does the little gutter rat cost? I’d pay two gold sovereigns to have him as my service pet.”
A crack splintered through the air, Khavren’s knuckles slamming onto the table as he stood in one fluid motion.
"Leave." The single word was less speech and more slow and deliberate, promising ruin.
Vel jerked in his seat. His fingers knotted together under the table, spine rigid. He should be scared (he was) but more than fear, there was something worse: a flicker of consideration. "T-Two gold..." he whispered.
"Vel." Khavren didn’t look at him. His stare remained locked on the offending elf. "Shut. Up."
The tallest elf smirked wider, charmed by Khavren’s seething stillness. "Oh?” A glance at the guards, still loitering, yet still watching, before leaning forward. "Come on, gutter rat." His palm pressed a gleaming sovereign onto the wood. "First coin upfront."
Vel hesitated.
Two gold coins could buy medicine through the winter. Salves for Khavren’s scars. Enough rice that they wouldn’t have to pick worms out of it. Real blankets.
A breath hitched in his throat just as Khavren’s hand locked around the back of his tunic, yanking him closer. "I said leave," Khavren snarled.
The elf sighed dramatically, plucking his coin back. "Pity." His fingers trailed a last, taunting brush along Vel collarbone.
"But for the future; what's your name, Mire scum?"
Legally, any human or light elf could demand a dark elf's name or ID, and the drow would have to give it. A backwards law they had to follow, the only reason for it being control.
Khavren’s fingers tightened on Vel’s tunic like iron shackles. His silent fury was a living thing in the air between them, the kind of quiet that came before slaughter.
With utter stillness, Khavren bared his teeth. "Khavren Vei’hin," he bit out, the words scalding his tongue as they left him. A lie. A half-truth. His surname was Vehn'ir in the Mire dialect, but the registry had scribbled it into their ledgers wrong years ago, and they’d let the error stay. If some arrogant light elf wanted his legal name, he’d get whatever scraps Khavren decided to toss him.
The tall elf smirked, scribbling it down on a slip of parchment with deliberate slowness. "Khavren. How... plebeian." Then his gaze slid to Vel. "And you?"
Vel swallowed hard. The old rule his Papa drilled into him burned in his ears:
Names have power,Velkyn. Never give yours to an enemy.
But the law didn’t care about old superstitions. If he refused, they’d drag him off right then for questioning. His fingers curled into fists.
"Vel Vei’hin," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. Even now, he clung to the lie of their shared false surname, some fragile attempt at rebellion.
The elf arched a brow. "That’s not a Mire name." A statement. An accusation.
Vel’s throat clenched. "It’s…it's what I go by."
The elf looked Vel up and down, considering. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tore the parchment in half ,keeping Vel’s name, tossing Khavren’s half into the mud. "Vei’hin, then. I’ll look for you." His grin was all teeth. “Both of you. When you least expect it.”
And with that, they left, sauntering off like conquerors scenting prey.
The second they were out of earshot, Khavren’s grip on Vel’s tunic loosened, only to lock around his chest in an embrace.
“Why are they allowed to enter Veythra so easily?” Vel whispered. “They don't even get ID’d or anything..”
Khavren exhaled a slow, measured breath through his nose like he was forcing down the urge to snap the market table in half with his bare hands. His grip around Vel was less restraint now and more a grounding weight, something to keep them both from unraveling right there in the dirt.
"Veythra isn't theirs," he muttered, low enough that only Vel could hear. "But it belongs to their kingdom. Their laws. Their gold. Patrols know they're here. They don’t stop them because whoever sent them wants them here. They're eyes for the Citadel. Spies.”
Khavren waited until the nearest guards had pivoted away before leaning down to retrieve the crumpled scrap bearing his false name. He tore it once more before flicking it into the gutter.
Vel picked listlessly at the broken sparrow on the table, its snapped wing dangling by a splinter.
"We need to be careful."
Khavren nodded.
"And you’re not leaving the house without me again. Ever."
Vel didn’t argue. For once, he just sat in silence.
"Th’ dark blesses ya, Misters!" A voice called out after a few moments of painstaking quiet.
Nythl. A half breed six year old with browner eyes and lighter hair. Poor thing was shunned by half the village, though it wasn't his fault his mother was assaulted by a high elven merchant.
The boy's ears, higher than a dark elf’s but sharper than a human’s, twitched anxiously under his tangle of charcoal-brown hair.
Vel, despite the lingering tension, perked up instantly. "Nythl!" He reached under the table before Khavren could stop him and pulled out a small, roughly carved turtle, one Khavren had whittled last night when sleep refused to come. "Here. Yours today. No charge."
Khavren’s jaw tensed. The turtle had been meant to sell for at least seven copper.
But when Nythl's face lit up like dawn breaking over the mire, starved fingers clutching the carving like it was actual gold, Khavren couldn’t bring himself to scold. Instead, he scanned the crowd (who let a half-breed kid wander alone where patrols prowled?) before gruffly sliding two radishes across the table.
"Eat them both. All of it," he muttered, eyeing how the boy's collarbones jutted sharply above the neckline of his patched shirt. "And don’t let Garel the fisherman catch you taking handouts again."
Nythl clutched the gifts to his chest, wide eyes flicking between them. "Fanks," he mumbled.
He hesitated before shuffling closer to Vel, lowering his voice. "Garel says th’ lordlings are lookin' f’ halfs. Maskin’ as a full-blooded darky helps, but…”
Darky. The word hit Khavren like a slap. Too small to be blasphemy, too ugly to be accidental.
Vel stiffened, fingers curling around Nythl’s wrist, not tight, just there. "They’d kill you on sight if they knew," he said, too quiet for passing ears.
Nythl shrugged. "Oh well." He rocked back on bare, mud-caked feet. "They’s checkin’ under collars now, though. For..." His fingers brushed the base of his own ear, where the cartilage wasn’t as thick as a pureblood’s.
Khavren exhaled sharply, dug five copper from his belt, and pressed them into Nythl’s palm. "Go tell Garel to get you a hooded tunic from the Kelmish merchant. Heavy wool."
Nythl’s bravado flickered. "Mister Vei’hin," he started, but Khavren cut him off.
"Go. Now."
"Please.. not now...Can't I sit with you? Please, misters?" Nythl asked with teary eyes. "I have no friends... the kids at school throw stones at me... mama doesn't care either."
Khavren closed his eyes for a brief second, his breath leaving him with the weight of something far heavier than market taxes or broken sparrows. When he opened them again, his expression was steel, but the line of his shoulders had softened, just barely.
"...Sit under the table," he muttered, jerking his chin toward the stall’s blanketed underside. "If the guards come by, you vanish before they see you. You don’t talk, you don’t cough, you don’t breathe too loud. Understood?"
Nythl beamed like he’d been handed the moon, scrambling beneath the wooden stall with such speed that his knee knocked the side of the stall. Khavren grimaced but said nothing, adjusting the draped cloth over the edge to better shield the boy from view.
Vel exhaled shakily, casting a glance behind them. Still no patrols, but it was only a matter of time. "Kha’..."
"Not here," Khavren cut him off, voice low but final. "Not now."
Minutes passed in tense silence. The market hummed around them like a living thing, full of barked prices and haggling voices, but nothing felt safe anymore. Not truly. Not in hundreds of years.
Every rustle of fabric, laugh made Vel’s shoulders tense.
Beneath the table, Nythl shifted. Then, in a whisper almost too faint to catch: "Mister Vel? There’s a worm ‘n your radish basket."
Vel blinked. Looked down. "...What?"
A small, grubby finger poked out from the shadows, pointing toward the woven basket holding their produce. Sure enough, nestled among the dirtied roots, a fat earthworm wriggled lazily.
Nythl’s grin was audible. "Can I name ‘im?"
Vel laughed, genuinely, his earlier fear dissolving like mist under sunlight. "Go ahead."
Nythl's whisper was solemn. "His name’s Lord Squirmsby the Third."
Khavren rubbed his temples. "We’re not keeping it.”
And then the peacekeepers rounded the corner.
Khavren stiffened first, his hand snapping out to grip the back of Vel’s neck.
The guards moved slowly today, methodical. Checking stalls. Asking questions. Checking collars.
Vel swallowed hard. Opened his mouth-
"Stay. Quiet." Khavren’s voice was a blade’s edge.
“Identification and papers.” The Sunspire guard spat, musket raised to point at the two male drow.
Khavren didn’t flinch at the musket barrel leveled at him. He exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. Half a second, just long enough to calculate where the shadows fell, the nearest alley gap, the weight of the child beneath their table, before reaching into his tunic with measured slowness.
"Here." He passed over his papers, real, of course. It cost a few months wages and took ages for them to come through. Yet his free hand hadn’t left Vel’s nape. "Vel Vei’hin, same household. One permit for the stall. No goods requiring duty."
The guard, a meaty-jawed human with the dead-eyed stare of someone who enjoyed his job too much, snatched up the documents. His gaze lingered for too long on the marketplace pass before flicking down to Vel. "Too pretty for a rat-eater," he mused aloud, tapping the musket muzzle against Vel’s collarbone. "Lift your hair. Lemme see the ears."
Fuck.
Khavren inserted himself between them in a single motion. "Check the papers again," he said, planting his hand over the documents still in the guard’s grip, "You'll see his bloodline clearance."
But Vel, Gods damn him, was already shifting his curls aside with trembling fingers.
The guard leaned in, squinting.
A clatter echoed across the cobblestones. A small rock struck the radish basket with enough force to scatter them.
"Oi! Watch it!" Another guard, further down the row, barked at the disturbance.
In the chaos, Khavren jerked his chin toward the shadowed gap between stalls, signalling for a tiny figure to scramble into the murk.
The first guard, distracted, barely noticed when Vel dropped his hair again.
“Bloodline’s stamped," Khavren repeated firmly, louder this time. "Unless you’re accusing the office of forging crests now?"
The man snarled at him, "Keep your mouth shut, knife-ear.” ,before his eyes roamed over the two. "You look young for nineteen.” He said, leering at Vel. “Cute thing though. Could go for lots in Elowyn brothels."
Red hot fury exploded behind Khavren’s ribs, a wildfire barely contained beneath his skin. His fingers twitched toward his blade, only for Vel to intercept with a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He could see the calculation in Vel’s wide eyes: ‘Not here. Not with so many guards around’
Khavren exhaled, forcing his stance to loosen even as every muscle screamed.
"His age is verified by sanctuary records," he said, voice too level, like the calm before the storm. "Section twelve, line four." The specific citation rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. He’d memorized every loophole, every clause that gave them even a shred of protection.
The guard's lips curled, unimpressed. "Wouldn’t take much to get a pretty little swamp rat like you across the border. Lots of Sunspire nobles pay good coin for exotic pets."
Vel suppressed the urge to gag.
A clang of armor sounded at the next stall over.
"Captain's calling roll,” another guard snapped. "Move it."
The offending guard straightened, letting Vel’s collar go with obvious reluctance. "Next time, darling." he murmured directly into Vel’s ear,
Khavren waited until they'd rounded the corner before slamming his dagger into the table, the blade quivering between them like a lightning strike given form. Under different circumstances, Vel would’ve joked about him looking half-feral.
No jokes today.
"We’re going home.” Khavren bit out, already yanking their remaining wares into his pack. He didn’t look at Vel, didn’t trust himself to, not when his hands still shook with the ghost of violence.
"We’re taking the alley behind the burned down bakery."
When born in Nethryl Mire, you learned early: mercy got you killed.
—------