Reldresal
Legacy Name: Reldresal

"Oh, begone!" He hissed, waving his hand like he was shooing an errant cat, his other still clinging to the rope. "Can't you see -- can't you see that I'm busy?"

His brother pulled a face which he found exceptionally childish, and backed away.

"I should tell Father on you," he muttered darkly. "The least you could do is take things seriously. You act like some... country oaf." The taller boy spat his words, looking disparagingly up at his dangling brother.

The elder Reldresal glowered back, bristling from the insult, trying to express with his eyes his rather uncivilized desire to jump down and punch his brother, to fight here on a filthy dock.

"You've got better things to occupy yourself with--" his brother began the onslaught again, but was interrupted by the shouting of men above their heads. Reldresal looked up, and an air of giddiness broke through the clouds of emotion his brother had conjured. He actually laughed.

"Get out of here! I'll be back soon enough. It'll just be a military demonstration they're out for. I'll not be gone long enough for Father to miss me -- nor for you to convince him of where I've gone!"

Even as he was talking, the Reldresal family's heir was climbing up the swaying rope. His brother was barking something or other, but it no longer possessed its old biting importance. Looking around him, Reldresal swung up onto the heavenly empty deck and crept down the familiar passages, towards the ship's belly, where he could feel the rocking of the waves, hear faintly the shouts of those lucky, ignorant commoners -- and sit and have a little bit of time just to himself. It was pleasantly shadowy down here, the grime-smeared lanterns doing little to dispel the perpetual dark. He felt his way along, liking the drag of splintered wood against his soft, pudgy hand.

So he was the eldest -- but had he asked to be born before his twin, or the litter of children that had come after? If only he had yielded to his brother, as he often did, now they were older -- but wishing would not make it so. He settled himself into a dark corner, between two crates of something-or-other. The pungent damp assailed him in a way that was half-pleasant, and he smiled slightly to himself.

There was no sense worrying about anything right now.