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Larsa can't tell where his brother ends and Basch begins.
"Come, brother. Let me show you the ways of House Solidor – the proper ways of House Solidor, rather – that will ensure our survival in the years to come. It requires loyalty, dear Larsa. It requires fealty beyond the very definition of the word." Vayne extended his hand, the strange blue-grey of his eyes gathering like storm clouds. No longer were they the still sort of nightmare before a storm, but full of lightning. They set his face off against the dimness of the dining room. "To my chambers."
A young servant boy helped Vayne with the numerous buckles of his clothing and mock armor as he spoke. "A good hound is hard to find. Blessed by the gods are you to have a brother such as myself to pass this wisdom down the line." Of course there was no one else. There had never been anyone else. Larsa was too young when his older brothers had died. In House Solidor, those things were long past. To look to the past ensured a bleak future. "Do you know what it takes to become a Judge Magister, my brother?" Vayne asked, now removed of his outer garments and undershirt. "It is not simply physical tests and prowess, but an unflinching willingness to listen, to obey. To obey at all costs. Your heart is no longer your own, but it too belongs to the Empire and furthermore to the Lords of that empire. They are your duty." He walked toward his young brother, who was sitting on his bed with his hands folded in his lap. The metal of his pants clinked quietly when he moved. Larsa had seen his brother bare before, knew the impressive span of his shoulders, and the considerable girth of his thighs. It did not disturb him. "Stay with me tonight, Larsa. Heed my teachings." Larsa looked up at him, past the wave of dark hair over his brother's face.
"Of course." What more was there to say? His brother was an honorable man, who he saw far more often than his own father.
"When you were born, they feared I'd smother you in your sleep," Vayne said that night, lying in bed with his brother, caressing the lean meat of Larsa's thigh. Beneath the covers they wore night robes, but little else. Vayne gave a quiet laugh. "As if I'd kill my own blood." His hand came up from Larsa's thigh, and toyed with an under-developed nipple for a moment before finding its home on his face. His hand curled over Larsa's mouth and nose. "As if I'd kill my own blood," he repeated, "brother," he finished in a serpent's hiss. He held him there for a long time, until Larsa reached up to grab his wrist. Ah. That's what Vayne had been waiting for. He'd taken it like such a well-trained child, lying still while Vayne nearly suffocated him to death. He hadn't fought like his brothers had fought, in blood and gnashing teeth and spit words. But there was some fight in him. This made him dangerous. He was just a boy of ten, but he held frightening conversations with members of the Senate, had a mental prowess that threatened to surpass even Gramis himself. He let him breathe, finally, but gripped his chin and turned his face toward him. "The air you breathe is a gift, brother, and because I love you are you allowed to pull it into your lungs." It was said with love, with tenderness, if Vayne were capable of such a word. He kissed him. The boy didn't know what he was doing, and his tongue was chaotic, confused, small. It barely passed Vayne's lips.
But he was so quick to learn. Within a minute Larsa's hand was in Vayne's hair, tightening on the thick mess and keeping his head close to his. This startled Vayne, but Larsa did not pull away.
"You will not take me for a fool, brother," Larsa said fiercely. "If you should take me, then take me with the respect I deserve, with the honor of House Solidor."
Vayne gave a decidedly uncouth growl then. He was not one who took lightly to being told what to do. "You know not what being a 'man' means, young Larsa. That charge is mine, and I shall reap all the benefits thereof for shouldering such a burden." His body moved over Larsa, the weight of him no doubt making it hard for the younger boy breathe. Perhaps he'd hoped to crush him to death. "When I move, Archadia moves, brother. When we move, all of Ivalice shall fear the quake." He pulled off his night robe, and Larsa's as well, reveling in the unmarred skin. His tiny shoulders were set and his hands knew their course – but how? He was only a child.
Vayne took great pleasure in parting his legs. Larsa had nothing about him physically that could qualify him as a male, save the small, smooth prick between his legs – and yet, Vayne was afraid. Vayne Carudas Solidor was afraid.
***
Penelo's letter came at dusk. Larsa was in his room looking over itineraries for the morrow's events. He wore a simple shirt with a decorative vest and silk trousers, the crest of House Solidor lying next to his fingertips. Much was the same, but there was so much to rebuild in the wake of Vayne's death. He tapped his quill against the paper, unable to sign the decree for frustration of his current thoughts. Penelo's letter, though well intended, greatly disturbed him and he couldn’t explain why. That in and of itself, disturbed him. He was a font of emotions, thicker than the pot of ink sitting next to his fingers. What Penelo had written, and how he had read the words, were two entirely different things. He had called for the Judge Magister to be brought to his chambers.
"Do you know what a true hound requires, Judge Magister?" Vayne's words were like ghosts in Larsa's throat.
"My Lord?"
"She bid you go to Ashe." Larsa handed the letter to Basch, and watched his face as he read. He betrayed nothing, and it was harder to read him now that the slump of his shoulders was long past. When he'd been imprisoned, he'd held his duties dear. When he'd been malnourished and deprived of the sun, he hadn't been broken. His shoulders still bore the weight of a yoke far heavier than anything Archadia could have placed upon him. But the way he held them now was regal – almost. The regality he possessed kept his leash from becoming his noose. He knew his place. He had become stronger, re-fueled with duty. He needed it to survive.
"Is your preference for an older lover, your Honor? Tell me, honestly. Or is it what I can never possess that keeps you from me?" Larsa continued.
Basch startled, visibly. His helmet rested beneath his forearm, on his hip. "My Lord?" He said again. "If I may speak freely, your Excellency, my preferences are hardly appropriate in this forum. Furthermore this letter states an observation, a passing remark, nothing more." He saw the glint in his Larsa's eyes. He was yet becoming a true man in the physiological sense of the word. Mentally he kept pace with even the oldest among them, but his body was just beginning to scream with the new life, the new emotions of manhood.
"Your preferences are as much my concern as any other part of you, should I deem it so. She bid you go to Ashe. Your reply is as important to me as the command to fire upon Rozarria, or Bhujerba, or any other place where war could be waged." He set his quill down and folded his hands in his lap, staring at his Keeper across the desk.
The curtains were drawn in his room, and as dusk became a mockery of darkness—for darkness was neutral and what fell across that room certainly was not—Larsa stopped his attendants from lighting lamps to chase it away. "Leave us," he said, in a tone he was becoming more and more comfortable with as his cells divided and his hormones raged. The attendants did not question, but shut the door behind them. Basch watched his Emperor's face dance with shadows as the lack of light and the tail end of a desire he wasn't sure how to handle filled the space.
"Your Excellency, there are many things privy to you and you alone. With all due respect, my preferences should not be one of them," Basch said, treading carefully.
There was no need for lamps when Larsa's eyes flashed brightly in reply. "You dare tell me what I am and am not allowed to know?" He stood, and put his hands on his desk. The boy was not yet tall enough to keep him from looking like a child behind the wide expanse of wood and varnish.
"I dare not give any command to my Emperor without first beseeching his counsel," Basch said, setting his helmet down on the edge of the desk. "But I am allowed to offer my opinion, as it is my sworn duty to look after you. If my opinion meant so little I would be of slight recourse to anyone, least of all you, who comes before all else."
This seemed to appease Larsa, and he walked from behind the desk to stand before his caretaker, essentially, the hardened man dwarfing his young charge in every possible way save intellect – and even that put up a great fight. "Let me see you. Remove your armor and let me see the man who is charged with my care. Let me see you in your barest form, so that I may know, should circumstances take a turn for the worse, at the very least what lies over me," he said, wrapping his tongue far too well around the last three words. He'd always been a bit of a prodigy with words. Full grown men couldn't take on the Senate as he had – and won.
Basch looked down at him. "My Lord?" he said, yet again.
"You are no parrot! Take those words from your chest and throw them to the ground! You are a man of intellect, are you not? You know the duty which I have asked and you will perform it!" Larsa was not normally so coarse, but the letter had struck the spinal cord of his changing hormones. He cleared his throat. "Please." He stepped back clasped his hands behind his back, waiting.
Basch kept an eye on him, but began the slow process of unhinging buckles, of removing the heavy armor he was so used to wearing. The weight would hardly change once he was out of it however. His past, his sins, and the duties in front of him were always there, like a robe made of nothing but memories and guilt. Larsa watched him slowly become the truest seed of himself, like a flower blooming in reverse. The armor was heavy and made a deep sound when Basch set it to the ground. "I cannot remove it alone, your Excellency. I am unable to reach behind to loosen what binds me in," he said. The darkness grew and still Larsa did not provide a single flame to light their way. The soft sound of him moving from the desk was prominent, and soon his hands were on Basch's back, deftly opening and unlocking that which kept Basch inside.
Once the armor proper was off, it became easier to move, and Basch removed the thick padding at his shoulders and hips, and the lesser padding at his chest and thighs, then the tight, long sleeved shirt made of wicking fabric to keep sweat away from his skin. The cod piece came after that, hitting the floor with a bright clang, the thick socks beneath his boots. He stood for a moment, in silence.
"All of it, if you would, Basch," Larsa said, using his given name.
Basch set his jaw in the darkness. "What is the meaning of this, your Excellency?" he said, growing angry. "What sort of mockery is this? Do you really think me so crass?"
"It is not crassness I crave, nor is it mockery. I want to see the man responsible for my life, and the life of Archadia, of the Empire, of House Solidor, of Ivalice herself. It is in your care that all of this has been placed, Basch. What kind of man bears that weight?" With a soft cry of sound a braid of fire left Larsa's hand and slithered into the lamp on his desk. It was as if his desire alone had brought light into the room. It flickered over his face, his lips, his eyes. "All if it. The time has passed for pleasantries."
Basch's gaze did not flinch away as he removed the last of his clothing. He added it to the heap on the floor and stood, ever ready, in front of him. Larsa was critical. He was big, as his brother was, with broad shoulders and thick thighs. His cock was also of impressive size, even soft – quite unlike his brother. His body was racked with scars at every angle and depth, from the beautiful ribbons of battle to the thick, crudely stitched together crevices of near-death experiences. Larsa touched them. Basch's skin was damp with perspiration and effort. "Tell me of this one," he asked, following one across his abdomen.
"A battle I do not recall, my Lord," he answered, honestly. "Rare is the blood bath that stands out, after a time."
Larsa accepted this and continued, running his hands up the valley of his hips, up over his nipples. He sighed. "You are a sight, even without your armor, Judge Magister. I am pleased." Basch had stopped looking at him in favor of looking forward, at the rope holding the curtains drawn. Out of reflex he grabbed Larsa's head when he felt wet lips on his skin. He held his hair in one large, calloused hand.
"Your Excellency! This is madness! If there is something to be sated inside you we shall find an appropriate outlet. This has gone far enough."
Larsa's eyes said otherwise. "Has it, Captain?" Basch was not a Captain any longer, and the very utterance of the title was a sarcastic arrow leaving the bow of the young man's lips.
"You tempt things even the Empire cannot control," Basch said, in a voice he hadn't used since before he was imprisoned.
"I tempt?" Larsa said, firing another arrow. This one hit home. He slipped his hand behind Basch's back, feeling hard muscle and still more scars, down over the smooth rock of his arse, over his hip, and to his cock. "No, you tempt," he said, licking his lips. "Do not accuse me of a crime you commit."
"If loyalty is a crime then yes, I am guilty," Basch uttered from his gut.
Larsa felt the thick flesh twitch in his hand. "Is it loyalty you are guilty of?" He squeezed with no regard for where or what, and was rewarded with another, heady response. Vayne taught him how to commit. He showed him long ago what it meant to be a man. He licked sweat from Basch's skin, finally, and groaned at the taste. He smelled of man, of bath soap from the night before, the sharp stink of exhaustion at the end of the day. He tasted the same way. Larsa's scalp hurt, as Basch still held his head, but the younger man resisted his grip's command. Larsa had one free hand, and he twisted it in Basch's shorn hair as he once twisted it in his brother's. His tongue was not so young anymore, and it found its mark inside Basch's mouth, slick as a serpent.
Basch had not felt such a thing for so long. He very nearly forgot it existed. It certainly hadn't happened while he'd been in chains, it hadn't happened during their journey for freedom and it hadn't happened during his watch over Lord Larsa thus far. Before, as Captain, he was known to find relief inside the women offered by the streets of towns where he'd held watch. He'd been known to laugh, to have a drink and share stories of loss–those were the only kinds of stories soldiers told. The hand on Larsa's head suddenly became his enemy. It no longer held him back but pressed him close. His hungry lips devoured Larsa's in a way the younger man's simply could not—and would not be able to—until enough time and practice had passed. "The gods look away from us both," he said, his cock hardening in Larsa's tiny hand. "In shame."
Larsa scoffed. "The gods look away to sate themselves in a corner. If they have shame it is not for us, but for how fast their own hands steal inside their own robes." He ran his thumb over the head of Basch's cock, and finally released it to bring it to his own lips. He did not taste as Vayne had tasted.
Larsa snapped his fingers and a small gust of wind extinguished what light he'd provided. He attempted to step back and disrobe, but Basch held him fast, kissing him again, the sensation new all over again given the amount of time that had passed between his old self and now. Basch kissed his neck, and without warning bit at his shoulder, then pushed his vest off to the floor. He grit his teeth. "This is madness!" he repeated. His cock said otherwise.
Larsa loosened the strings of his shirt and trousers, then pulled one off and pushed the other down over his slender hips. "Do not take me for a fool, Basch. If you are going to take me, take me with the respect you crow night and day I deserve." He turned around and looked over his shoulder, dark hair falling over his eyes. He rested his elbows on the desk top. The words slipped down the walls like condensation in a bath house, leaving stains from years past, the words of his brother, the words of himself just three short years ago. "For tonight you are a man, and not a hound of the Empire. For tonight, and tonight alone, do I let you off your leash." He knew, in his quick mind, that the implication would not go unchecked.
"I am no hound!" Basch said, looking at the smooth, pale offering before him.
"Indeed. I just said you were a man. Do not prove me wrong, Basch. It quirks my brow when that happens."
"You would not think me crude?" Basch asked, after a long moment. Larsa's light laugh rang out again.
"Quite the opposite, actually. I would hear your roar and know manhood. You are a key, Basch. Open me."
Basch shook and shrugged off even the heavy, if invisible, cloak he wore beneath armor and padding. His hands nearly encircled the young boy's hips, rough against the royal skin. He'd never been a delicate man, he was a soldier after all, and even for his Emperor he did not change this fact. This did not surprise Larsa. Even Vayne had not prepared him adequately before he was taken, and Larsa would have it no other way. The burn was a rite of passage, his money for the ferryman into adulthood.
He cried out. Basch indeed was not his brother, and was far more endowed than Vayne had ever hoped to be. Basch was lost, and his hand came out to silence him, over his mouth and nose.
It was then that Larsa knew peace.