Chapter Text
Every family has that one annoying uncle who runs away from his happy marriage and successful career to hook up with the local crime lord, tarnishing his family’s decades-long legacy.
No?
Great. Just Matilda’s luck that her family was the only one.
Well. Putting the rarity of the current situation aside, it certainly was a situation. You see, the aforementioned crime lord had recently caused an incident that had made Torland’s national news. Well, three incidents, actually.
But this incident was different.
The second Matilda’s brother Caradoc walked down the stairs that morning, she shot up from her chair and grabbed the newspaper from her father’s hands, ignoring his startled shout of protest. She shoved it at her brother wordlessly, causing him to stumble backwards and fall back onto the stairs.
Caradoc blinked at her with an almost sleepy, distant kind of surprise that she was used to seeing on his face. “Matilda, what…?” he began, staring down at the paper in his hand. Matilda could pinpoint the exact second he registered the headline, his pale face growing even whiter and his eyes widening to almost the size of saucers. He ran his hands through his orange hair as he read, sleepy expression growing into alertness and finally full-fledged panic. “This is bad.”
“You think?!” Matilda snapped. “Oh, our criminal uncle finally got caught on camera doing his criminal thing. That’s pretty bad, right?!” She plopped down next to him on the stairs, reading over his shoulder. The headline announced in bold black letters, Dragonlord’s Deputy Discovered? And right under it was a picture of their uncle Alef.
He was a towering figure of a man, muscular and broad-shouldered, a golden sword glittering with malice at his side. He held in his left hand a dark navy-blue biker’s helmet with vivid orange horns sticking up from the sides, and he wore a matching jacket emblazoned with an amethyst purple dragon. His eyes were bright and almost listless, and his ember-colored hair flared out in at least five directions. Just like Matilda’s and Caradoc’s.
She used to be so proud of her matching hair, back when her uncle was known for his kindness and bravery, when he was a police officer. Of course, Matilda and Caradoc were far from identical to Alef. They had always been strong, but they were thin and wiry as opposed to his impressive form, especially when they were younger. But their hair was a striking bit of resemblance that Matilda was beginning to resent.
She glanced at Caradoc, who was scanning the page feverishly. “Okay, okay. This is fine,” he muttered as he read. “This is okay.” Normally, Matilda would have yelled at him for talking to himself, but she figured that a little bit of crazy was warranted right now.
Suddenly, their father snatched the newspaper out of their grasp. “Stop that, you two,” he chided, shaking his head. Matilda and Caradoc both began to protest, but he cut them off. “You shouldn’t be reading this. It’s just speculation and paranoia. They have no proof that our family is caught up in this, and it’ll just make you panic.”
“The newspaper says they recorded it, dad. Uncle attacked a police officer and everything.” Caradoc pulled out his phone, and after a few seconds of typing, he handed it to their father. Their father watched the video in silence. Matilda could see the veins in his forehead almost burst as his chest rose and fell slowly. She thought she saw his lips moving too, quite possibly counting to ten. Or maybe 100. Yes, that was a far more calming number.
“What’s Grandma Aileen saying about this? And Aunt Gwaelin?” Matilda piped up. Their grandmother had been furious with her son after she received his letter, the one telling her that he didn’t want to live up to the family legacy. She was famous for her time as a police officer too, earning the family a reputation for fighting for justice. Supposedly, she had caught a murderer or something. Matilda didn’t really care, as long as Grandma Aileen gave her candy when she stopped by.
And Alef’s wife, Gwaelin… she was devastated. Her family was a line of politicians, well-respected for their honorable service. (Or so people said- Matilda had a hard time imagining an honorable politician.) Back when they had first met, Gwaelin was in law school and Alef was only an officer-in-training. They had gotten to know each other after Gwaelin accidentally got involved in a police investigation and she had helped find the culprit. They’d been married for four years, and everyone had thought they’d be together forever. Matilda personally thought that they were always far too disgustingly lovey-dovey.
Until he left her because he had a midlife crisis and decided he wanted to be evil. No wonder everyone hated him. Traitor.
Matilda’s father stood still for a minute. Finally, he replied, “Aileen is taking part in an interview. She’s going to clear all this up.” Then he turned and ambled away. “Do we have coffee?” he asked nobody in particular.
“And what about Aunt Gwaelin?” Matilda pressed, following him into the kitchen. She stood in front of the pantry door, blocking him with her hands on her hips. He just stared at her with bags under his eyes, and she began to wonder if this new incident was even more serious than she had thought.
But her father just glanced at Caradoc, still sitting on the stairs, then at Matilda again. “We’ll talk later,” he told her in his sternest voice. “You have to go to school. Focus on your studies, not idle gossip.”
Matilda scowled. She paused, then gave a single, tiny nod, surrendering the only chance that he’d tell her what was going on.
Her dad wouldn’t tell her what had happened, she knew it. He wanted to protect her. But she didn’t want to be protected. She wanted to fight, like her grandmother did. Like her uncle was supposed to.
Although… maybe it was a good thing her father was so protective of her. It gave her the chance to explore for herself. To make her family legacy her own.
Without another word, Matilda hauled her backpack over her shoulder and walked out the front door into the sunlight.
She sat on the bench on the front porch, after giving her favorite plant a pat for good luck. Her oldest cousin, Barbella, planted them for her a few years ago, after telling her that chrysanthemums were good luck. Bell was a botanist, living in Kol with her husband and their baby to study wildlife. She sent Matilda plant seeds sometimes, and after a few years, green covered the outside of her house, crawling up the sides of wooden trellises.
She turned, hearing the door creak open. Caradoc had changed out of his pajamas and now wore a black shirt with a white coffin on it and a leather vest. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his backpack slung over one shoulder.
“This sucks,” Matilda announced the second the door shut behind him. “This really, really sucks.”
“Life sucks,” Caradoc agreed sagely. Matilda rolled her eyes and grabbed her brother’s arm, pulling him along the driveway and along the sidewalk.
“Yeah, well, it sucks more having a famous family,” Matilda continued. She went silent for a minute, running her fingers through her ponytail as she stared up at the sky. She blinked once. “They’re all going to stare at us, you know. But at least our cousins are lucky enough not to look like him.”
Caradoc shrugged, staring at the sidewalk with a weird look on his face. That was what Matilda called his “show some compassion” expression. “But they were close to him too, Matilda. Especially Allen.” He paused, and head shot up. “Shit. I have to call him.” He whipped out his phone, punching in his passcode.
“Why? He lives right down the road. Just run over and tell him, stupid,” muttered Matilda as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her favorite forest green sweatshirt.
Matilda knew Allen’s house almost as well as her own home. She and Caradoc had four cousins- Allen, of course, as well as Peronel, Anessa, and Barbella Moonbrooke. Anessa and Bell were older, but Peronel, Allen, and Caradoc were best friends, as close as siblings. They met up here often to talk and train together. Sometimes they would let Matilda join them.
But Caradoc slowly shook his head, still wearing his strange expression. “No. He’s sick.”
Matilda’s stomach flipped almost as fast as her world did. “Sick?” she whispered. “Like… sick sick?”
The scientists called it the Plague of Rimuldar. Everyone else just called it the Plague, the first one in generations. Known for being not-quite-deadly in a way no plague before had ever been.
How can a plague be not quite deadly, one might ask?
The answer was convoluted, scientific, and involved walking corpses. Matilda hadn’t bothered learning more than that for fear of throwing up.
“They… don’t know,” Caradoc replied, shaking his head. Matilda opened her mouth to ask more, but the look on her brother’s face stopped her. He looked so miserable and confused, and Matilda instantly understood. For such a dangerous line of work, death had never touched their family in any undue way.
So instead, she scowled, folding her arms across her chest. “It’s all the Dragonlord’s fault. Everyone knows it was.”
Caradoc shook his head once again, looking up with furrowed eyebrows. “We don’t know that. Who said it was his fault?”
Matilda stared at him disbelievingly. “Are you on his side? The crime lord? The one who just made headlines for his crimes? The one who literally seduced our uncle into being his accomplice?”
Caradoc flushed. “Where did you even learn that word?”
“I’m in ninth grade, Caradoc!” Matilda cried, exasperated. “I’ve known what seduced means for years now! And that’s hardly my point!”
“Well, your point sucks,” he muttered. “The Dragonlord is a criminal, but he’s not capable of creating a virus. People are just blaming him because he’s a monster.”
“Well, let’s see,” Matilda replied, ticking her list off her fingers as she walked. “Only monsters can transmit the disease. The disease turns infected humans into monsters. And lastly, the guy caused a goddess-damn climate crisis. What do you mean, he can’t create a virus?”
Caradoc let out a sigh through his gritted teeth, shaking his head so vigorously that his hair, routinely gelled into a spiky shape he liked, fell loose and hung over his eyes. “Do you even pay attention at all in school? Living organisms are so specialized for every function- perfect for their environment, for their time period, and everything else. If you think the Dragonlord can bioengineer some bacteria this precise, go ahead and believe he’s guilty. But Matilda, I’m telling you, you can’t say people are guilty without any proof. Even if you hate them and you think they are.”
Matilda flushed an angry red. Of course she paid attention in science. And she understood everything her brother was saying. But she also knew they couldn’t afford to underestimate the Dragonlord. “Whatever.” She shrugged and turned away, arms folded against her chest. “As long as he caused the Kol situation, as long as Uncle Alef is working with him, I’m going to go ahead and assume.” She stomped past Caradoc, not bothering to wait for him as she headed to school.