Hope Falls

"You don't understand what I mean, and I can't think of how go explain it differently so.. let's pretend I didn't say anything. It's easier. I'll just shut up, and you can stop yelling and we can just forget it." Kael mumbled tiredly, resting his head on his arms and closing his eyes.

---

Several hours later, when he would have woke, Karina would have been sat at the top of the bed gently brushing a loose strand of hair off of his face. To his side, gripping his hand, sat Eden. Cassius, however, was curled against a chair in the corner of the room - his shoulder having been seen to, with a bandage peeking out from the short-sleeve of his shirt.

“No, because then it will be underlying animosity. This is something we move past, not bury.”

---

Ira groaned as he awoke, hand moving to his side as he woke.

"I have nothing else to say, no other way to explain it. I am tired, tired of the day, tired of people screaming at me."

---

"Hi, sweetheart." Karina greeted softly, kissing the top of her sons head. "How are you feeling, mm? Don't move too quickly."

“And you think I am not?” Indira laughed softly, “But I do not want this to be something brought up later as something underlying…”

---

“My chest…” Ira opened his eyes as he glanced to his mother blearily, “I am okay?”

"Your ribs aren't as largely broken anymore. Do you remember how Devika could stitch your papercuts together with her abilities? She done that, as best she could, with the bone. Bone is harder than skin, harder than muscle so it is light and you still have to be careful. No training, for a while but now we are talking two months at the most rather than half a year." Karina whispered. "I have spoken to Conan too, you will hate me for it but I will not sit idly by and let those men beat you to this state. Your father would tear them apart for it, if he were here."

"I would tear them apart for it, but I have been told I'm not allowed near there until I have calmed down." Eden snorted.

---

"I have no desire to ever think of it again."

“So I am to be known as the wimp who went crying to his mother.”

---

“So you will sit in silent resentment of me for this instead?”

"You did not go crying to me, Devika came and got me to tell me what state you were in. Both of you..." She cast a glance up towards a sleeping Cassius in the corner before returning it back to her son, "You are loved, I am sorry it mortifies you so deeply but it will not change. Now, Devika asked me to tell her when you wake so I won't be far."

---

"No. What do you want from me? You want to talk then you lead it."

“I want it to not be like this…”

---

“I will be mocked, mother.”

"They are already doing it, Ira, mocking you. They are revelling in it, and your trainer is just as bad for allowing it to happen." Karina took his hand and squeezed it. "It is unimportant what the small minds within these walls think of you, son. You are destined for much more than they can handle, yiu brain will take you far, not your brute. They are threatened by it, men like that... they don't understand it. They cant even dream of where you willl go, their teeny tiny brains don't have the capabilities of it."

---

"So do I."

“You have made me more a target. Do you not see that? It looks as if I am weak, and cannot handle what they throw at me.” Ira whined, looking to his sister.

---

“I love our son… I love you.” Indira laughed without humour. “I do not want to be at odds over him, not with you over him. Not for us… not for him.”

"I have been here a long time and the last time someone got so drastically hurt during training it was due to two kids younger than you who had gotten drunk and were not listening when they were told to stop. It isn't good enough, Ira. Stop fighting me, and if it were your father here and not me those men would be in the healing rooms next to you right now instead. Now..." She breathed, kissing the top of his head before leaving the room to find Karina.

---

"The trainer was an idiot to me, too, and I was ranting to her before Devika found you so... I may have riled her up." Eden grimaced, "Sorry. I - someone refused to leave though, when we were trying to get him out." She cast a glance over her shoulder to Cassius. "How is... that going?"

---

"Nor do I."

“That is nothing Eden, I am working on fixing it, we said we wouldn’t speak of it…” Ira grimaced, shaking his head as he moved to sit up.

---

“You are making me feel as if I have done something wrong with your clipped tone, Kael. Is this how it is to be in future? We cannot speak to one another?”

"That is something, is definetly something. Aesira told me he is obsessed with you at the moment, said it was irritating her how every other conversation she has with him he finds a way to talk about you, or something you said or something you both did together."

---

"I am tired. I am agreeing with you? You and I have said the same thing!"

“He thinks we are close friends. He doesn’t know of my affliction.”

---

“It is not what you are saying it is how you are saying it. I know your language well enough to know intonation matters.” Indira murmured as she moved to lay on her side facing him.

"Affliction. Don't make me rebreak your ribs." She scoffed. "If it were me and Aesira would you be letting me use words like that?"

---

"You are just trying to fight me. We miscommunicated, I am sorry. Let's leave it now."

“Yes. It’s not correct and you know it, Eden. How I feel isn’t right.”

---

“No, no I'm not.” Indira sighed deeply, “Who is with Idris if not you?”

"You read the books, the history. Do you really think every lords close friend was just that? Do you believe every Queens lady, where they were so close they had adjoining rooms for safety were.. I mean it is so ridiculously untrue isn't it?" Eden took his hands and squeezed them. "There is nothing wrong with you, Ira. You do not have a disease, you are not sick."

---

"Wyatt." He whispered. "He got home today."

“I don’t want to talk about it Eden. Same as last time. It’s something I’m working on.”

---

“Ah, he is finally getting time with him as you wanted.”

"You're a dick, to me, to mum. To yourself." Eden whispered, not unkindly. "I wish you'd start loving yourself like we love you, I wish you'd not try and wriggle out of every conversation we ever have. I miss you, Ira."

---

"Mm, him and Florence haven't returned loved up like I thought. He said it today, if it wasn't for the mating bond they wouldn't be together. I knew he'd say it eventually."

“The bond… Were they like Avani and Ruairi, when it clicked? Could - could my sister be devastated by similar words eventually?”

---

“I’m right here. I am not going anywhere… you just - you love me and that’s why you cannot see how what I am is wrong.”

"It feels like a lifetime ago but they were... obsessed, not the same way. Not in corridors, not longing glances. They hid away for a few weeks, then it went back to relative normality until she was pregnant."

---

Eden shook her head, leaning forward to pull him into a hug - careful not to hurt him.

“Does Wyatt not love her? That would be… devastating, to Avani. If Ruairi told her he didn’t love her and it was just the bond. And it has only been a few months for them. Not almost a decade…”

"I thought it would ruin Florence too, but according to Wyatt she finds it funny that only other wordky forces could break his stubbornness, that's what he said last time we spoke about it not this one. I don't believe it. I watch the way she looks at him, she just doesn't have friends to be heartbroken to so she's pretending it isn't real. That's what I think." Kael grimaced. "He says he loves her, but their lives aren't compatible. That the problem is his job, that she's scared but he won't give it up."

“The breaking of a mating bond… Do you think they would survive it?”

"I asked, if they'd break it. He said no, said it was too risky. I'm just.. sad by how unbothered by it he is. It doesn't feel right."