[PRP] Family Reunion (Ezra/Rabbit)

[Smerdle]

Now that he could get to the other side whenever he liked, Rabbit had made visiting a more regular thing: an hour or two at a stretch, three times a week. It was for Oroh, mostly. The fetch would never admit it, but she was lonely when he wasn't around.

Although he had gained greater freedom of travel, there was still the problem of his spectral guides leading him halfway across town when he did cross over. He had gotten more adept at floating, at the very least. Rabbit was doing so now, his toes just above the ground as he skimmed toward court.

shibrog4ne

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra didn't look like the burning man that had kidnapped Rabbit, except when seen out of the corner of the eye. His dark hair was thick and poofy and had a tendency to fall in his face. He was sitting in the open-air courtyard outside the Court with a guitar and a notebook and cussing to himself whenever he ******** up, which seemed to be pretty often.

Rabbit maybe didn't recognize Ezra, but Ezra sure recognized him. "Bennett," he said. "It's gauche to use your powers unnecessarily."

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

He had already slowed to half speed so he might nod and wish the guitar-playing young man well, like he imagined one did when they were Titled and in the middle of remaking the universe, but when he heard that voice he stumbled to a dead stop, dropping out of the air in his surprise. Rabbit stared, tracing the lines of Ezra's face with his darting eyes before ducking his head in a shallow bow.

"Yes, Father. I'm sorry." He swallowed. While it was inevitable that they would someday see each other again, he knew now that nothing could have prepared him for it. "I hope you've been well."

Ezra seemed fine enough, minus the whole not being on fire thing.

shi8rogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Well enough," said Ezra. "And how are you finding your title? You seem... comfortable."

He was judging Rabbit. Judging him SO HARD.

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"I'm... um." Should he not be comfortable? No, he supposed from Ezra's point of view, he should not.

"I am in some ways? My fetch isn't a murderer and the sirens are doing well." His stomach dropped for a split second when he realized he had just admitted to raising them, but then he recalled Ezra had given him one of the eggs. Duh.

"It's not all sitting around or anything." He could feel Ezra's judgey-judge stare even though he hadn't looked directly at him since he'd bowed. Rabbit squirmed, the only outward indication a slight clenching of his fist. "Did I do something wrong? Besides the floating."

shibrogan3

 

[shibrogane]

"Do you believe you've done something wrong?" Ezra turned his judgey stare back to his guitar. He was evidently tuning it, or something. "I feel sure I taught you well enough that you know right from wrong. But perhaps my judgement is flawed."

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

Rabbit swallowed again, the part of his mind that had learned and was calm reminding him that he was Ezra's equal now, technically. He straightened and addressed the guitar.

"I do a lot of things that are wrong, but nothing that matters. Nothing that tarnishes the Court. Your judgment is sound."

Two minutes recalling his past and he already sounded like he was trapped in a high fantasy novel.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"And I thought I taught you better than to think anything doesn't matter," said Ezra. "That's disappointing." He didn't sigh, for all he kind of sounded like he wanted to. "I've heard you've taken a tithe of your own. The blonde girl from the ball. How is she progressing?"

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

Ezra might not have sighed, but Rabbit did, a faint exhale through his nose. "I'm sorry I disappoint."

To his credit, he wasn't surprised yet another person knew about his tithe. It was the worst secret he'd ever kept. "Temperance is strong and she's learning quickly. She will be an asset. If she lives."

It was the first time, inside of his head or out of it, that he had suggested she might not. It hurt.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Ezra nodded, and paused there in his tuning. "You are permitted to sit around me," he said, nodding again at the space beside him. "There's no need to justify your tithes to me. You are responsible for your own choices." He considered this, and set his guitar aside. "I find it curious that it is you that is taking the steps to change the tone of the Court. Of your siblings, I often thought it would be Alois who attempted to change this place."

He looked at Rabbit, both eyebrows arched up. It was an oddly casual expression. Of course, Ezra had never had expressions before. He'd been on fire. "It pleases me to see that you're growing into your role."

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

And then, just like that, stifled sighs became gracious invitation and Rabbit lapped up Ezra's approval like a neglected dog. He nodded, finally looking back up at his patron's new face as he hurried to take a seat.

"Thank you. I..." He hadn't planned on anything as grand as changing the Court when he'd chosen his tithe, but it seemed that he was on that path now either way. "I'm not sure how much difference one person will make." The subject of Alois was an even vaguer one than Rabbit's intent. "But I haven't seen my brother in a few months." Or Thorne or Hux, for that matter. "I don't know what he might be planning." He had tried to worry, but after all they'd seen, if the three of them couldn't survive a little alternate reality, there was nothing he could do to help anyway. "How have you been since the ball? The sigil too? I mean, besides your flames." He wouldn't have said anything at all, but he couldn't just leave it alone. Ezra had been on fire. It was a big change.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"It's my experience that one person can make all the difference. And even if that one person isn't you, support can be invaluable. In either case, you've taken an ambitious step."

Ezra looked down at the horrifying mass of scar tissue that used to be his right hand. "I am as you see me," he said. "Whatever it is that you and your peers did to the sigil, it freed me from what bound me to the Court and to the flames. For that, I'm grateful. My preferences otherwise are selfish."

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Oh. You're not a lord anymore at all?" And he was grateful for it. Rabbit supposed they were on the right track with drastically changing the court then, if being a noble long-term was something to be avoided. Still, there was something that had disturbed him about burning the charter document when it was first mentioned, and who better to ask than someone who may have experienced it.

"What happens to your fetch in a situation like that?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"No," said Ezra. "I remain a noble. But I'm no longer trapped in my noble form." Though it did seem, if one saw him out of the corner of their eye...

He said, "When a noble dies, the fetches in their care are transferred to the care of their successful tithes. Were I to die, my fetches would split themselves evenly among my children: you, Alois, and Jeremiah."

Smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

When a noble dies... but not if the court is irreversibly broken. Not if they burned the founding document and unmade their power. To be honest, Rabbit didn't want to go that far, but he did care about whether or not his fetch would live on without him to serve. It sounded like she would, like she was ultimately harder to get rid of than he was.

His questions, any sympathetic words he might have mustered regarding being on fire for possible centuries, all of it seemed less important next to the revelation that he had another brother.

"Yes. Good. Jeremiah." His voice was kind of thin until he swallowed. "I didn't know. I mean, I knew he was a noble, but not that he was yours."

shibrogane