let slip the dogs of war solo fin

threading as johannes cyprian sauer
mentioning Ambroży Family, Alexander Manfred Sauer, Hellhound Pack, NPC

You're not particularly sure if you're allowed up here. As you traverse up the stairs with the familiar sense of nonchalant uncertainty, you're not particularly sure if you care. Your steps echo and you wonder where everyone else was. The owlery is empty, only you and the birds and paper.

There are a few letters for you, guarded over by a particularly snappy owl flapping their wings in agitation as you approach. You put up your hands in surrender, feeling silly as you try to tell it has your letters- you know it from the funny stamps of your friends and elegant flourish of your grandfather's hand upon the envelopes. It calms ever so slightly and you snatch away the loot with nimble fingers, escaping across the room to sit at the top of the stairs, pressed up against one of the cool stone walls.

Like the sentimental child you are, you take in the familiar writing of your closest friends on the three letters addressed from Durmstrang Institue to Hogwarts with hopeful eyes and a warm heart. You know that half of them couldn't care less for the student population after a lifetime of being out of place- there is some part of you that can relate- but it still makes you feel special that they've chosen you. The Hellhound logo slapped on with a messy flourish that only a smooth pen could make, in deep red ink. You tuck your treasures away inside your jacket pocket, storing them away to read them later when you have the time to sit down and reminisce, and pick up Alexander Manfred's letter from its place on the stair under you.

There's one more there in the pile but it can wait because you haven't seen your grandfather in months and the letter is dated from weeks ago. After all, you had bounced from Durmstrang to summer camp and then back home with a few of your crew, before going back to school. The entire time your grandfather has been helping out granduncle Anselm with damage control and hadn't been able to come back in time to see you off. Letters take a long time to arrive. Suddenly you feel somewhat bad for the owl who had kept watch over your things jealously- a stranger owl that looked out of place in the middle of all these calm ones, having flown so far and so long only to be kept up. Maybe he should have sent it by the post office but that would have taken even longer.

You open the gummy seal carefully and grin at the first sentence. Your grandfather knows how you are in the midst of strangers your age, knows the difference between you when you are alone vs with your friends. Don't be too obvious with your trouble, he says, because he knows that you will never be an easy child. You hope he's doing well as much as he wishes you good luck. It's going to be a few months before you go back to Germany and the winter holidays always seem to be packed with things to do. You skim through it before refolding the creased paper and store it away where the rest of them are. Sweet anticipation lingers on the tips of your fingers as you shuffle closer to the wall to allow someone else into the owlery. It stays as you catch your first glimpse of the last letter and-

Your blood runs cold. Foolish boy, big brother is always watching.

Your head spins dizzily with the emotional whiplash as you stare down at the thing, ripping open the envelope almost frantically and fumble with the contents inside. The crisp, dignified address brands itself upon your mind as you scramble to decipher the words they whisper threateningly at you. It's familiar and yet not. It greets you by a nickname of a name you take pride in- something you stare at for a couple of stunned seconds as you boot up the Polish-speaking part of your brain and shove away the dread pooling in your chest. Your surname has never felt so ill-fitting and not for the first time you curse the Ambroży righteousness for telling you that you were unworthy. Because while they could tell Asriel that the Sauers were improper and bad influences, it was you who your grandfather had to explain why half of your family won't give you a second glance.

You cannot hide from them, you never did.

This life won't last. You know this in every bone in your body and every corner of your mind. With the type of 'go fast get fun, tempt danger with your very soul' attitude you relish so self-indulgently it's no wonder that you're destined for a short existence well used. Violently and tragically, you know, is how you're going to go out. Feral and defiant, like you've always been. It's a Sauer classic. It's- as much as they would rave and riot and spit and slander you- an Ambroży classic. The fact of it is something that you'd prefer to put behind you- if only it was as easy to change your blood relations as it was to discourage others from using that blasted surname you've been branded with at birth. This is why you keep to your own. Those straight-laced get too much arrogance trying to quiet your voice and smooth out your ugly ire as if just because your birth certificate says you belong to the Ambroży's means that you will just lay down and accept it.

Oh, but to diminish yourself to nothing more than gravestone years before you're gone is a bad way to think of things. Thinking of yourself as a living martyr with bloody knuckles and a feral grin isn't healthy, no matter how accurate it feels sometimes. And yet you can't bear the thought of keeping your head down and following the crowd with a chance of safety, with the chance of monotony, when the joys of living are so close. The blood of the lamb is worth two lions but you would much rather stay with your pride with the courage of chaos.

So catch and count your blessings while they last with hands that drip with no remorse. Grasp at a chessboard blindly as if you could win checkmate without a poker face, take your hand and fold because what else could you do? Will a single game of scrabble or a drawing of tarot spell out your fate when you think there is not much fate to think about anyway?

You taste copper between your teeth and bitter resentment curling within your lungs. You feel tainted with your own filth, suddenly you are so much heavier than you were before.

You aren't their boy anymore, crawling through sun-ripened wheat fields and the sweet haze of obliviousness. You know better than to disregard their calls though you've never been theirs to own and you've never stepped a foot close enough for them to let you take your roost. The finely written words burn your eyes to read, immaculate cursive inked in the darkest ink. It's beautiful. It's disgusting. It's respectable. It's intolerable.

It's so formal and scouring through the entire letter once more with new eyes- they sting with frustration, they sting with umbrage but you push it down- it reminds you too much of fuzzy memories of having to practice those familiar letters and words twisted with distance in school.

You don't want to give the letter any more time than it deserved but you can't stop yourself from rereading and rereading the condescendingly crisp sentences. You turn your fisted left hand to the floor, the sting of metal against flesh grounding you. In another life, you would have bare fingernails bit to the base instead of chipped nail polish bitter as your mind and only one ring on instead of four, stamped squarely with the Ambroży family crest that mocks you. You don't can't talk to Asriel anymore- he stopped looking directly at you in your second year as he realised that you were little more than a rebellious child as if your brother hadn't been the one to spoonfeed you your first taste of mischief. But even from far away, you can see that single ring gleam at you from between red and gold uniforms.

You've already cut them out of your life they've cut you out of their lives at age 7 when you had somehow proved yourself unfit for their instruction. You know now after years of lost desperateness that anger is so much more productive than vehement confusion because at least with that righteous fury you could temper it and make it into a blade of spite. But now, of all times, they contact you. And for what? To threaten you in your father's tongue in such the way that made the idea of frostbitten steel sound softer. You know the rush of adrenaline and grittiness of sand between your teeth but you can't deny that fury for something greater had been melted and moulded into a cast of passive-aggressive words and an expectation. You are a sword with a crack in it. Defective. But one man's trash is another man's treasure and the Sauer's have always been the brutally resourceful type.

With a final glare at the offending lie written in familiarity and coated in professionalism, you crumble the good paper. The heavyweight white paper stock balls up in your shaking hands- they are not trembling, you know the lie in that statement but you refuse to admit it- so satisfyingly, crumpling with the physical representation of your compartmentalisation. You haven't said a single thing the entire time, it's been nearing 10 minutes that you've spent pouring over this useless ball of complete bullshit but destroying it feels cathartic. The tainted blood within your veins rushes back to your head as you stand up, steadying yourself with a hand against

You brush out of the owlery and jump down the stairs two at a time, uncaring when the railing begins to move because you have always been a fearless child and let you be fearless again when it counts. When you get out of the castle and onto the grounds you stalk through the forests and clear a circle of dirt into the ground when you are sure that no one can follow you. Throw the thing down in the middle of it. Pull out the box of lucifers and drag one against the rough side.

And with the strike of a match, the sparks of your sorrow catch and the mockery of a letter burns. It burns and it's incredibly wonderful to see- though you know this won't be the end of it. You feel like you're setting yourself ablaze from the inside out as you stare down. And after the expensive letter turns to ash you stamp out the lingering heat at the same time you stamp out the grief in your soul and replace it with simmering rage. Brandish that sword of spite and anger against their disillusionment and fight the urge to kneel, fight the urge to grab a fistful of that still-hot ash to throw in their faces when they battle within your dreams because at least there they could be brought down.

You knock knuckles against brightly coloured wrappers within your pockets and pull out a lollipop. It's bright red and cheery. You don't need to unwrap it to know it tastes like artificial cherry but you do so anyway and crush half of it between your teeth into jagged fragments of candy.

Let the fake flavour remind you of ice cream parlours and boarding down the streets as morning broke. Let the fake flavour remind you of the familiar and welcome the sugar rush as it washes over you. Crash to your knees in heartache and restrain yourself from slamming a fist into the dirt floor because they don't get the satisfaction, and let yourself just sit. You have always felt things too vividly and done things too rashly when the moment strikes you. But this time as the remnants of your composure smoulder with ruin, you pledge to yourself that one day they will know that fact as much as they know you're a bad fit.

Asriel's the perfect heir so you don't know why they want you to keep them proud because you never want to see them. But you have never in the first place- it isn't as if they want to see you either- and you will snap with satisfaction knowing they know you cannot be bought into allegiance with bluffs. The rest of the lolly grinds into shards. Prove yourself. If not for them, then for yourself.

They already have their only son. They've always had him. Take him. They won't have you.

You'll make fucking sure of it.

cry 'havoc'