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“Stop whining, Marcassin!”
“I don’t want to!”
It’s rare that Marcassin refuses to listen to his brother—so rare, in fact, that even said brother seems a little stumped by it. Standing alone in the training hall, staff clutched tight to Marcassin’s chest, training dummies shoved to the wall, Gascon stares him down with a raised eyebrow.
“People do this all the time,” he groans, giving an overexaggerated gesture with his sword. “You know. Training together—sparring. Hell, we saw those trainees doing it earlier today, remember?”
In the artificial light of the room, blaring down from the ceiling like the whole place is a spotlight, Marcassin looks even tinier than usual. Anxious expression on his face, stood still, he curls into his staff like it’s a comforting stuffed animal and not a weapon. With no one else in the courtyard, no one watching, only the faint sounds of steam and clicking cogs muffled through the walls, it’s less like Gascon is facing his brother and more like he’s facing a skittish baby ulk.
“Can’t we go outside?” Marcassin asks, voice shaking a little, and Gascon’s other eyebrow raises to join the first one. Marcassin’s never asked to go outside the city walls before—in general, no matter how much he follows Gascon around like a lost puppy, (usually) following his every word, he’s always had that glint of trepidation in his eyes whenever they try magic lessons. Even more so now than ever before, since he began mucking up spells that he used to be able to do in his sleep, which Gascon just can’t understand heads or tails of.
Unfortunately, as much as Gascon would love to heed his request, he instead huffs and rolls his eyes. “We’re not allowed,” he scoffs. Not anymore, at least, since last week, when they’d scampered home with tails between their legs and Marcassin’s casting arm bent at a strange angle. He’s figuring out escape routes—he managed to steal the guards’ schedule from the barracks, so now it’s only a matter of time before he finds the perfect blind spot. But in the meantime... “So, this is the best we’ve got, right?”
Marcassin swallows, and shakes his head furiously. “I-I could hit one of the dummies!” he says, pointing to them with a tiny finger.
“They don’t move! Not much of a challenge, is it?”
“Yes they do!” He moves his point to the slits along parts of the ground, metal inset in the tile. “We can use the—the moving thing.”
Gascon rolls his eyes, putting his hands on his hips. “Come on, you need real movement. Those are only good for getting started—you could hit them easily.” Or, at least, he could, before he started doing this ”incapable” act. Gascon tears his eyes away from the bits of metal before he can start sketching ideas in his brain for how to make them move unpredictably. “A real opponent, like those creatures on the plain.”
His boots click on the hard floor as he steps back a bit, making a gesture at Marcassin to tell him to get on with it. His ability is only going to diminish further the less he uses it—he can’t afford to wait for Gascon to find a way out of the city. Maybe he understands this; maybe he just finally gives into what he’s being told, but either way, Marcassin hesitantly, slightly, unfolds himself in the centre of the hall, shakily holding his staff out to draw a rune. Whispers of magic gather at his feet, teal and purple and gold, reaching up to swirl around his arm and to his hand; the symbol that forms from the tip of his staff is a dark blue, reflecting on his face, light eclipsing the artificial ones dotted on the ceiling. The rune for Arrow of Light slowly takes shape, drawn with slow, shaky hands, and Gascon watches and tenses and closes his eyes as the bright light zips towards him, and—
There’s a bang on the wall behind him, and he opens his eyes to find crackling traces of energy still next to him, streaks of glowing paint quickly fading. There’s a new black mark on the wall; considering the amount of them already there from weapons testing, he doesn’t think anyone will notice. Snarling, he whips back to Marcassin and hisses, “What was that?”
Marcassin swallows, shoulders tense and up to his ears. “I did my best, Gascon...”
“Like hell you did!” he snaps. “You didn’t even try—come on, do it again.”
“You didn’t move...”
Gascon bites his tongue, refusing to acknowledge the lingering fear from the first time. “And you didn’t hit me. So what?”
So Marcassin scrunches up his little face, clutches his wand in his fingers, and raises it again. The magic forms at his feet again; it reaches up to his staff again, forms at the tip, the rune is drawn—slightly faster this time—and this time, Gascon thinks, he will move.
And he does.
...In the wrong direction.
A burning pain bursts through his shoulder, searing and bright, and he immediately falls back onto the tiled floor. For a moment, his vision goes white with shock, blood roaring in his ears as he hits the ground hard, pain radiating through him as he shrieks, loud and unrefined; the magic hisses and crackles through his arm, more lightning than light, spitting and fighting him every second. He can feel his heart pumping blood towards the wound, gasping and refusing to look at it for longer than two seconds—the vision of a blackened hole in his shoulder burning into his eyes as he writhes on the ground.
And then—as quick as it came—the pain is gone.
“Gascon!” Marcassin’s voice is high-pitched and wet with sobs as he runs over to crouch down and shake Gascon’s good arm with tiny hands, staff abandoned on the floor behind him. The teal of Healing Touch still snakes around Gascon’s shoulder. “Gascon, I’m sorry!”
Gascon stays still for a moment, curled up and tense on the floor, listening to Marcassin cry apologies over and over. His arm still burns, just slightly; phantom pain or healing magic taking a second to work, he’s not sure. Either way, he doesn’t respond for a moment, catching his breath and staring at the far wall with wide eyes.
If he didn’t think Marcassin was faking not knowing magic before, now there can be no doubt. No blow had ever caused that kind of pain to him before—no creature’s trick, no nick from his swordfighting instructor, nothing. A new form of the desperation, the envy he’s been feeling since Marcassin had first shown promise with his magic begins to bubble in his gut, acidic and nauseating.
He shifts to turn over, finding Marcassin—as expected—with streams of tears rolling down his face, snot dripping from his nose as he sobs. “Ugh,” he says, wincing at the sight. “See? You can do it.”
Marcassin shakes his head, words failing to form through snot.
Gascon scoffs, pretending his hands aren’t shaking. “Don’t give me that. You hit me.” He pushes himself up to a sitting position, taking a few deep breaths and hoping Marcassin can’t see it through his tears. “I think... that’s enough for today.”