The Voices They Are Loudest at Night (Eitan)

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"I do declare, Mr. Angevin..." Brenner assumed an effete posture, with splayed fingers over his sternum and batting eyelashes in response to Eitan's notion of taking a knee. He quietly chuckled his way back into a relaxed slump. His laughter dwindled as Eitan's tone turned more earnestly sentimental.

"Uneasy lies the head..." Brenner replied with a ponderous nod that seemed to complement the imagery baked into the Gelerian literary allusion he was making.

"I've always seen you in the vein of a cousin, honestly..." The younger Dornkirk seemed to be working through the thought process even as he verbalised it. "Or how I imagine cousins to relate. I think I have a few in the Grungeworks, but father doesn't speak to his family. They always want money. And mother's family, well... who bloody knows? She never speaks of any, and the way she always dismisses the questions makes it feel like some grave tragedy may have befallen them, so it seems indelicate to inquire." He shrugged faintly,

"But you? You were what I imagine a cousin would be. Joint family parties when we were kids and all that." But lest Eitan feel Brenner was distancing himself from the more fraternal sentiments he'd been espousing, he elaborated,

"But these days, Eitan, you've quite earned your way beyond and into the realm of brotherhood. Not just because we are brothers in arms and all that and not just because Stefan married your sister." Brenner placed a hand gingerly onto Eitan's thigh- It wasn't the sort of boisterous slap and punch kind of affection he was wont to give these days, but it did hearken back to the easier affection of their guileless youth.

"Hail Zaichaer." He said with a smirk and a lazy salute. "I just hope at the end of all this we rate an audience with the Grand Marshal. I just think it's past time."

[Eitan Angevin]

"...das eine Krone drückt," he finished with a smile, though he was less certain of his Early Modern Kathalan than the contemporary language. The smile went bemused when Brenner started talking about family and how Eitan had perhaps always been a sort of family to him. It oughtn't to have made him emotional, but he found himself swallowing back something that certainly couldn't be tears. The Warrens wouldn't stand for weakness, nor would Zaichaer.

He considered the Angevin cousins, who he knew but wasn't close to. Only Leir and his daughters truly clung to the memory of royalty, and since the Admiral was the preeminent Angevin, it all sort of worked out. The others were fine, upstanding citizens, but Leir didn't want hangers-on, and so he didn't have any. Perhaps he had considered Melchior Dornkirk a hanger-on from time to time, but Eitan assumed that was only when the Dornkirk star threatened to rise above his own.

Eitan didn't really care. He had always considered the Dornkirks to be like the Angevins. What did lineages matter in the High City?

He let his hand fall upon Brenner's for just a moment, long enough to acknowledge it but not so long as to make it weird.

"Hail Zaichaer," he managed after clearing his throat. "I just hope you end up Grand Marshal. Stef can be your right hand and I'll be your left." Let Brenner Dornkirk run the State and the military, let Stefan run the Windworks and the Institute, and let Eitan run the Order of Reconciliation and continue to fly with the Air Defense Corps. There were no more loyal sons of the Brass City, and he thought they were quite capable enough for it.

Perhaps it were best to prove they could pull off this ambitious expedition first, though.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner's smile broadened at the completion of the quote and he nodded,

"Echt." His eyes fell to their hands when they met. Such easy touch used to seem a simple thing in the artless innocent of youth, but as an adult it was among the human instincts a civilised man was meant to temper. Physical affection between men felt aberrant to him now, unless it was appropriately rough and tumble- A closed fist, rather than an open palm. He let out the breath he'd been holding when Eitan withdrew his hand, and Brenner's eyes turned to the pitch darkness ahead.

"The Old Guard would tear their scalps bald if Zaichaer's future fell into the hands of our ilk. Could you imagine? Merchants' sons and bastards taking our rightful place at the top of the pyramid?" He chuckled quietly.

"The current course is unsustainable. We are a city of industry... of progress, and yet our ruling class is rooted in old, intransigent, conservative ideals. It is no wonder Kalzasi still poses such a potent threat to our livelihood, when our advancement is stymied by such backward notions. Just look at the Order..." He trailed off, checking over his shoulder to make sure everyone still seemed to be sleeping. He was speaking in hushed tones, but still...

"At any rate, whether or not I rise to such lofty heights as you suggest..." Brenner began to adopt an air of humility, but he didn't make eye-contact in so doing, "...I think our future depends upon the ruling class condescending to accept a bit of new blood to appease the vasty majority of Zaichaeri citizens. They need to feel as though the dream of Zaichaer could uplift them to seats of such power as the Grand Marshalhood."

[Eitan Angevin]

The strange moment of closeness passed, but an intimacy of thought remained. Listening, he nodded.

"The Order is a political morass of self-serving people, many more interested in sanctioning their own magical corruption for the so-called good of the State than enacting the mission of the Reconciliators." He would say it bluntly to Brenner. It was no lack of patriotism to see where cracks lay in the foundation that needed repair lest the entire structure come tumbling down as he was certain the pidge prince and his dogs would prefer. "The oligarchy must be kept in check; there will always be bad actors in the halls of power. And my father's pretensions of royalty aside, the High City is meant to be a meritocracy. And it is to some extent else your father wouldn't have been able to shoulder his way into respectability and I would not be allowed to prove my worth, but others should have known a Dornkirk's worth earlier and I don't know how many generations of my offspring will have to fortify our blood before the stain upon it becomes invisible."

He paused and suddenly looked tired.

"Or perhaps it never will, and we will have to rely on the good sense and good judgment of our good friends." He smiled wanly at Brenner, then back at the fire. Unsure when he had started to think in terms of his descendants, he supposed he would have to ponder on that whenever he had a spare moment.

In the meantime, "I suppose we will have to rise high enough to influence the course of the fatherland."

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"A sound assessment." Brenner affirmed with a nod, "The goal of the order should be its own obsolescence, but human nature sometimes stands athwart the aims that would benefit our civilisation. I'd like to think I err toward enlightenment over atavism, but I am not afflicted with the runic corruption that taints so many members of the Order." He paused a beat before adding, "Some seem more corruptible than others, of course..." A subtle nod toward his present company and a tacit insult toward an absent agent of the Order.

"Mm. It is another matter in Zaichaer that I feel will come to a head in the days to come. I only hope the class struggle doesn't erupt whilst we're dealing with the external threat. Even if we're successful here and locate a secret weapon that cripples our enemies abroad, it would be a nightmare to face civil unrest concurrent to a foreign war..." He grimaced at the notion. He knew that his family might be instrumental in keeping that peace, as a bridge to link the two classes and a symbol of what ingenuity and hard work might yield for those born to the humblest of Zaichaeri backgrounds. But even the Dornkirks could only stave that off for so long, with no other salient examples to complement the notion.

"Indeed. It is, ultimately, a matter of national security. The ruling class can only bury their heads in the proverbial sand for so long before they needs must face modern realities and the world shifting around them. If all goes to right, Eitan, Zaichaer will be wanting for new blood to help govern our expanded realms." He cracked a smile,

"But I am getting ahead of myself, as I am so wont to do."

[Eitan Angevin]

Eitan nodded, offering a tight smile of appreciation for his own efforts and a roll of the eyes for self-proclaimed wolves currently absent. But the matters at hand grew ever grimmer, even as they had to focus on their current mission.

"A war on two fronts would be catastrophic," he agreed. "And the exigencies of a foreign war might put undue pressure on those already overtaxed. Delia marrying Stef does continue to add legitimacy to the Dornkirk ascension. Not that it lacks for legitimacy, but in the eyes of the blue bloods." He wondered then if he ought not to seek a wife from the respectable proletariat, but he still thought his own position too precarious to risk it. Lucrece might have been problematic if he was Leir Angevin's eldest and a trueborn son, but for a mongrel bastard who had to rely more on his work ethic and excellence than his father's name, she seemed a cogent choice. But while he did hope that at least one of his children ended up married to one of Brenner's, he would urge his own children to make smart matches, but certainly not to think themselves too good for good people without good names.

But that was long-term planning and things would likely come to a head before all that.

Eitan smiled at Brenner's admission, though, and decided to go with it.

"Well, once Zaichaer defeats Kalzasi soundly and you've risen to Grand Marshal, of course, you will have my support and aid in liberating the rest of Karnor from the yoke of the magocracy." It was some small comfort to him that if he was to bear the corruption of a Rune, at least it was one he could use expressly to defend his friends, family, and countrymen.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"Two fronts is catastrophic, but a front and internal unrest? Apocalyptic." Brenner pursed his lips, "It would be like being enfeebled by plague and being forced to grapple a healthy foe. Well... perhaps not altogether healthy, if we're to be successful here." He cracked a slight smile.

"Aye, but does it serve our image with the lower classes? Do we seem like class traitors for adopting so many of the Old Guard's customs, like these sorts of political marriages. I say this knowing full well that I'd be doing the same thing with Jane, if we were to get to that point, but the truth of it is... I've been immersed in the culture of it for my entire life. Maybe Stef remembers some of the transition period, but all I recall has been proper posh. I may have been mocked a few times for my background, but I wasn't the one who came up in the Grungeworks toiling over an assembly-line in a smoke-filled factory. That was our father, who did everything he could to distance himself from that life and to provide better for his sons. If I am ever to exploit my background, it shall, between us, be theatre." He frowned slightly. That wasn't the sort of thing he usually revealed even to his closest friends- At least not whilst stone sober.

"I'm not the first to bear imperial dreams for Karnor's future..." Brenner acknowledged, smirking. "And it seems only a matter of time before Geleros comes knocking at our door with a battering ram. It might be better than things are now, but not ideal. Better would be for the City-States of the North to unite and rise into our own global power."

[Eitan Angevin]

Eitan smiled too at the idea of Kalzasi's defenses being sapped by weaponized creatures, though his mind did occasionally fall back on that line of questioning he had brought up when Stefan had shown them the Nachtherr for the first time: could its weird engine be weaponized to pacify a city such that it could be brought into the Zaichaeri fold with a relative lack of bloodshed? He was a soldier, of course, and would lay down his life for the Fatherland, but it would always be preferable if soldiers were unnecessary. He didn't hate the Kalzasern citizenry, but he did think they were either misguided or corrupted by their pidge masters.

"I don't know if your father actually likes me," he said thoughtfully after listening to Brenner's thoughts, "but I learned to respect him. My father does too in his way. No wonder he has occasionally felt... defensive. They both work hard, but my father started with greater advantages. In many ways, your father climbed higher and that's something." It was certainly something to Eitan, who had started lower than he would have if Leir could just keep his cock in his pants and his wife.

"And I don't know what's the best course... promise that anyone can become like the Dornkirks with enough perseverance? Those in power now could do more to uplift those with potential. Hm, perhaps the Grand Marshal needs a member of the cabinet with greater influence who is focused on the people and our culture. We can't rest on our laurels saying we don't have slaves while riding the backs of the proletariat much as if they were slaves in fact if not in name..."

Finally, he shook his head and tried to smile off the deeper philosophical questions. They both loved Zaichaer and wanted it to be better.

"Aye, I also have respect for Geleros, but don't want to be a part of their Imperium. Karnor would be a vasty enough political unit to be administrated. To be ruled from afar..." He shook his head. "Now we just have to unite the North under a common goal, cause, banner, and philosophy."

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner chuckled, though not unkindly, at Eitan's admission.

"I don't know if my father actually likes me." He retorted wryly, "But he does love me, or... Recognises that I am a part of his grand plan for the Dornkirk legacy enough to cherish me after a fashion..." He trailed off as Eitan continued his thought.

"It's an unenviable position..." Brenner considered his father's plight. "He may well be the wealthiest man in Zaichaer, but all the money in the world can't buy him a pedigree... Oh, it might buy him cordiality from his social betters, but we all know their apparent reverence falls like an anchor as soon as he's out of earshot. That's true of Stef and me as well, of course, but I think we brook it better. It's not the same sort of thorn in our side... Especially since we're, at least, half noble." He pursed his lips and pondered the sacrifices Melchior made and continued to make for the sake of his dynasty.

"Well, I will freely admit that my unusual appointment as a diplomatic attaché during the Kalzasern royal visit gave me rather a taste for politics. An endeavour like this could be just the thing to elevate my political profile enough that I may even rate an audience with the Grand Marshal... That is my earnest hope. We're all the bearers of State secrets now, so if they don't kill us they're like to reward us." He offered with a dry smirk.

"Simple as that!" He chortled, "But, in truth, a final solution to the mage problem would go a long way in that direction. It is difficult to shift paradigms through rhetorical influence. It is much easier when the changes are instilled perforce.... At least in my reckoning."

[Eitan Angevin]

Eitan smiled, nodding along and making the appropriate noises so Brenner knew he was engaged even as he let his friend talk. He did hope Brenner got his interview with the Grand Marshal, a political appointment, and all the rest. The half-elf was finally secure enough in his positions and his renewed friendship that it was easier to just enjoy compersion for Brenner's accomplishments rather than use them to push himself farther. Perhaps they had achieved a healthier balance between competition and companionship.

The watch wore on, but he dropped his hand on Brenner's knee to get his attention and hold it.

"Progress is slow even in the city of progress," he noted. "I hope my children will be human enough. I hope your children will be noble enough. If our fathers had a rocky relationship, I hope ours will be smoother. It may not amount to much in the grand scheme of things, Brynn, but I like you, I respect you, and I love you. Whether it's this expedition, a war with Kalzasi, or political machinations in the future, Dornkirk and Angevin..."

He paused, found himself swallowing a knot in his throat. But he smiled, patted Brenner's knee, and drew back into his own personal space. It was difficult sometimes to be honest with the ones he cared about; life had not made that easy. But he hoped Brenner knew.

fin.