Legend of Ransera

Lucrece insisted upon the odd family dinner and Eitan was only too happy to indulge her as he indulged her in everything. Sometimes, though, the best laid plans of mice and men and beautiful wives went awry. Stefan had sent word that he couldn't make it, and Eitan assured him all was well. The man couldn't relax sometimes and he didn't want to rile him up with the sort of joke that Brenner would have taken in stride. They were brothers, yes, but not the same man by any stretch of the imagination. He wondered whether his firstborn son, another Brenner, would grow up to be anything like his namesake. In many ways, Eitan hoped so. In secret ways, he hoped not. He tried not to feel guilty for those ways in which he hoped not. They had Brenner's metallic skeleton in the Windworks, and he imagined someday Stefan would figure out how to bring him back. Indeed, Eitan had Stechpalme, Storlock, and other doctors and Grymalka and necromantic geniuses working on the problem of layering flesh upon those bones and recalling a soul from fell Wraedan's grasp, but...

He took a sip of his drink.

Eitan sat upon the balcony with a view to the entrance to the property. They were on the ground now—no reason to expend energy to be aloft—and he, at least, had made it home early. He had changed out of his uniform and into something civilian, albeit no less sharp for that.

He had his drink. He had everything. He just didn't have a Dornkirk to make him feel as though the world made sense. It was on a small scale, of course. At some point, Stefan would return, and Eitan could rest, knowing the Dornkirks were safe in his home. He was glad Reiner was coming. While he was a newcomer to the Dornkirk-Angevin axis of power, Eitan felt they had some things that weren't necessarily in common but lent themselves to a simpatico.

Reiner hadn't been raised in the class to which his children would be raised. Eitan had been his father's non-human peccadillo, proof that he didn't leave others to deal with his messes, but not his heir, at least until the will had come to light. He was glad the younger Dornkirk had Kämpfer to keep an eye out for him, though he got the vague sense that Kämpfer might be taking a bit of advantage of him, whether for his name or his biddable nature—or both.

Well, Eitan wasn't going to stop trying to befriend him. For Brenner, for Stefan, for his own young son with a Dornkirk name and the Angevin surname. And for himself, too. There were few people he trusted without question, and two of them were Dornkirks—Stefan and Delia. He wanted Reiner to be among them.

When a figure passed the gate and its attendants, Eitan stood and squinted. Indeed, it was Reiner.

"Psst," he stage whispered when Reiner was near enough to hear. He showed him his drink. "Get inside and get up here. There's time for a drink or three before dinner!"

Eitan had a drink ready and waiting for Reiner, handing it over immediately upon his arrival; by now, he knew the lad's tastes somewhat and was not trying to mold them into Brenner's. He thanked the Lysanrin butler; he had inherited quite a few grateful servants from the illegal slaves of the house's previous owner. All that seemed like another age, another lifetime. Some of them were involved in a Lysanrin-integration project. Their aether eating abilities, honed and weaponized by the State, could be quite an edge. They were all, thankfully, less trouble than Florian had been on his best day.

He raised his glass.

"To not drinking alone," he said, and sipped.

"Stef sent his regrets, but I am hoping that was just to ensure we didn't wait up. That he will perhaps be a bit late, but still make a showing. The wives will want you to assure them that their infants are the most adorable in the land, but if you need to cut and run early, I will understand." He chuckled. The domestic bliss was nice, but he did often miss the heady revels from bar to bar with Brenner.

Now he had to set an example. Now he had state secrets in his head. Had there even been an orgiastic party at White Knight Hall since his wedding reception's after party? Alas, how things had changed. On the odd occasion where Reiner shared a story with any sort of youthful vim to it, Eitan found himself hanging on his every word. Then, later, he would laugh at himself for being ridiculous.

"But, as ever, the bar and humidor will be open to you for as late as you require, and there are spare bedrooms should a nocturnal return to the barracks prove untenable." He chuckled again.

"Good day?" he hazarded.

In fact, in an attempt to bridge the gap between them, Eitan had taken to drinking more beer and such when Reiner was about and discovered he had a taste for it. While Zaichaeri citizens were more equal now than they had been before, he had still come into a fortune when he and his sister had gone to Gel'Grandel to settle their father's will. If socialism was the name of the game, he still had the assets to procure things from abroad. In any case, he just knew several microbreweries in town and his name impressed. So, indeed, he and Reiner drank well.

One of these nights, he was going to drink Reiner fully under the table and then put him to bed in a spare room so he knew it was more than just a reflexive offer. To Eitan's mind, any Dornkirk was family, and not just because his sister had married one.

"You are correct," he said, raising his glass "To the closing of the breach. My day went well enough. I used to dream of being an admiral. Never imagined it would come so soon, and never realized how much of it was mind-numbing paperwork and meetings. I seize every possible and vaguely relevant excuse to take Searing Victory out into the open skies. But more paperwork than bleeding for my homeland means that we are doing something right, I suppose, so there is that. Oh—

"I have something personal to ask you. A favor of sorts, but more a request for you permission and blessing." He paused for a moment, uncomfortable, but soldiering through it. "I think my son... young Brenner... will eventually grow into his august name. My new son... well, the time is past due to name him. I was hoping... we were hoping... Luca and I, that we might have your permission and blessing, to give him Reiner as a middle name." After a quick pause, he barreled ahead. "I don't mean to make it weird, and if you say no, there will be no questions asked, no umbrage taken, but... we have all lost family. And we survivors... and our progeny... well, it's important, we think, to commemorate our brave and commend those that follow us to their memories. Dornkirk and Angevin are often said in the same breath these days so... think about, would you?"

"Well, we have a Brenner already," he said, chuckling. There was a surprising bit of release, though, even with Reiner's mixed reaction. He hadn't realized he was nervous to ask, nervous to be denied, or, worse, nervous that Reiner would find it strange. They got on well enough, but he was hardly so intimate with the younger man as he had been with Brenner and was with Stefan. He was finding it more difficult to form those deep friendships. The other Dornkirks he had known his whole life. People like Benedikt Reichart were from his early days in the military. Now he outranked just about everyone in the High City, which had always been an ambition, but was still strange. Pedestals were not comfortable places.

"We don't have to call him Reiner. We just... really want you to feel like a part of the family." He laughed. "Family can be complicated and vexing, but still... it was important through the trials and tribulations and it will be important as we continue to build back stronger.

"Brenner was an easy, obvious choice. Now... well, you are still alive and will hopefully remain that way for decades yet." He laughed again. "We cycle through several: Konrad, Hänsel, Rykard... We come up with new ones, as well, almost every other day. This is really why we haven't named him yet." Sometimes he wanted to reclaim Florian, but people would get the wrong idea. "Oh, Konrad was one of Luca's brothers. Not after your friend, Lieutenant Kämpfer, although he is an excellent soldier."

He made a dismissive gesture of the uncomfortable, family feeling talk.

"Next time I'm taking Searing Victory out, I'll request your presence. You fought and bled for the High City. You should see it from on high, feel the rarefied air in your hair. Hopefully, you won't get airsick. If not, there's nothing quite like flying. While we're speaking of elevation... Have you given much thought to your future career?"

"No, I'm the bastard," he said with a laugh. "Well, until Dad officially recognized me. Now I'm just a figurative bastard most of the time." As for the rest, "I can see that. Honestly, even growing up with them, I had a bit of the hero-worship. I was younger, back when a year was an eternity of difference. And Stefan and Brenner were the sons my father wanted, while I was the son he had. Silver lining is, those of us who remain get to decide what our families look like going forward."

Eitan didn't dwell on all that. It was difficult enough to speak openly of his feelings with Delia, Lucrece, and Stefan. He still felt like he wanted so strongly to be closer to Reiner that it put a crimp in that.

"Excellent. I'll be sure to have you attend me on Searing Victory soon. I'm due to tour the riverland forts this season. You could be my representative from the ZDC. That might round out your resume a bit and make certain options clearer. You're a lieutenant now, so we should assign several different tasks for you to get a feel for them and then find a good position that fits what you're looking for." Eitan considered; it would have been nice to take him east last season. He could have introduced Reiner to Reichart, who was a sort of unofficial internal affairs agent for him. But if he kept his ear to the ground when they went fort-hopping, that could be the beginning of something similar. Internal affairs could be parlayed into a career in espionage. It was the bailiwick of the Order, but the military did have some intelligence officers.

But he smiled and drank off some of his beer.

"Do you know if that is what Kämpfer wants? Are you two wanting to work in the same division? I can say from experience that working with your best friends makes the work load... hmm, not exactly a lighter burden, but somewhat easier to bear."