Older brothers and younger bothers Finished

No, she wasn't nice. This girl was a predator. A bloodthirsty carnivorous creature. She lied to him, she lied to him just then. There was no other way to put it, no other way to possibly perceive what that girl just said. She didn't really know? If she had said talking that would have been acceptable, but she hadn't. She had said that she wasn't sure what he was talking about. A horrible feeling crept into his gut. She didn't have any reason to lie to him, did she? No reason to try and deceive him. But then again, the creatures of the forest didn't either. She had looked so nice at first, he wasn't sure how he could have been so horribly wrong. By most people's accounts, what sydney had done was fine, it was acceptable that she was embarrassed and wanted to change the topic, but Kaegen was feeling cold and alone right then. He had recently been told that his one friend wasn't really his friend, had decided to protect her anyway. He had just barely managed to escape from bean and was too tired to try and understand her reasoning. Too tired to understand whatever logic was behind her not telling him the truth. His eyes just widened when she said that. He had no reason to believe that she was on his side and every reason to believe that she was against him, but it hurt just the same, and his eyes showed it.
"Oh"
She told him he looked cold, asked if he wanted to go inside. He was cold, and did want to go inside but now he was horribly afraid. The survival part of his mind started to contest the curious part, and it was winning out.
"No"
He wrapped his scarf around his face a few more times as he took a few steps back, farther away. But his back was to the lake, and he wasn't a good enough swimmer to try and make it through the freezing lake. His terrified eyes hardened just a little when she asked for his name. His name was power to him, the symbol of his being made real with a bunch of little sounds.
"I am Kaegen Deathmote Fens-Born Scarf-Wielder. He who was called fat tadpole as a babe, suicidal idjit as a toddler and earned the name Eeh before arriving at hogwarts. My name has authority granted by my grandfather who gave his authority with the authority of the conquerer of the 14th dark place. Can you say the same?"
He already knew the answer she would give. It would be a no, her name held no power. His name was a threat as much as it was a statement. Threatening with power he couldn't wield, challenging her to either get to his level or go away. Was she signalling bean? It was a possibility that only made him more worried, more terrified of what would happen in the next few minutes. He desperately needed a break, a break from all of this.

No? That wasn't the answer that Sydney had been expecting. Eyes narrowing just a little bit, she stared at the mysterious boy as he gave her his name. It seemed unnecessarily long, and after the third title or so, Sydney tuned out a little bit. She didn't want to be dismissive, but all she really cared about was the name itself: Kaegen. Finally, when he asked her about her own name, she raised an eyebrow and tried to think up an answer on her feet. The boy -- Kaegen -- seemed proud of his name, which was good, but she didn't know exactly why he would need it. Just play along, Sydney, she reminded herself. It'll be easier to get him inside if you play along.

"Me? Well...." Sydney tried to think of something she could say, anything about herself. "I am...I am Sydney Shaw, Child-Watcher, Scarf-Weaver." It was technically true -- she'd done a bit of babysitting over the past few summers, and was in the process of learning how to sew. What else could she say? Thinking back to Kaegen's introduction, she scrambled for other things to include. "My name was granted to me under the authority of Andrew Shaw, the Carver, the Woodsman." That part was also true, if a little dramatized. Sydney's dad used to be a lumberjack when he was young, and he still dealt in woodworking today. She knew it was kind of a stretch, but she didn't think that the boy would be able to tell. And if he did, well, that wasn't exactly the point of her conversation, wasn't it?

"Maybe we can help each other out, Mr. Deathmote. I might be able to explain some things about Dean to you, and you could tell me about what happened over on your end of things inside. Does that sound good?" She hoped he said yes. Sydney didn't want to cause any more trouble than had already been created. She just wanted to help this kid get safely indoors. Was that too much to ask?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean and Adam slowed down when they got about halfway around the shores of the Great Lake. Hands tightened into fists at his side, the older boy turned to his brother and sighed. "I thought you said this was where you saw him go, Adam." Dean was tired of this wild-goose chase, and annoyed at Adam for leading them the wrong way. By this point, he just wanted to get inside and forget about the whole thing -- at least until he ran into Kaegen again.

"Well, I thought he did, Dean!" Adam snapped back, equally frustrated. "I'm not allowed to be wrong?" After a short altercation, the brothers decided that their best course of action would be to turn back and regroup with Sydney. It had been a long enough night, after all. All that was left was to see what awaited them at the castle.

He was so dead. He was worse than dead. He was about to be flayed alive. Forget wearing this scarf, that girl in front of him weaved scarves. She weaved scarves as she watched children. Watched him. He was a child, he qualified as a child. Why was she watching him? Did she stalk little kids as she made scarves and was it possible that she knew what his scarf was made of? It was incredibly light and soft, unlike anything Kaegen had ever seen before. It didn't even rip, seeming incredibly strong. Was she capable of making something that powerful and cuddly?
The take home message from all of this was that she was powerful and skilled enough to make scarves. And she liked watching children. Why would someone want to just watch children? Was she like grandfather? No, not like grandfather. She had lied to him and pretended to be nice. Grandfather never lied, and he was always mean. She had some other reason for watching children. Maybe they just looked better than adults to her? Like looking at flowers or birds? For whatever reason she had that title, in the end it just meant that it would be extremely hard to avoid her. Too hard.
Her authority was granted by some random guy with names? Where did his names get authority? It seemed off that she would forget to include where the person who gave her authority got his authority from, but she very easily could have forgotten.
And then the most surprising thing happened. The girl started talking to someone that had his last name as a first name. It was something that Kaegen could not have expected or foretold and it threw him for about 5 loops before he gathered that the invisible person she was talking to was simply related. It was a strange first name to have, though.
And then his universe stood still. Everything coming to a grinding halt as his eyes stayed rooted in place along with his face that slowly started draining itself of the little color it had left. There was someone else who went by that name. It was the name wielded by his father.
Kaegen had come to terms with his parents death surprisingly quickly. He had come to terms that everything died as soon as grandfather told him what had happened. He remembered every single word.
"Brat. Your parents are dead."
Grandfather had then left him alone and walked away. He had cried that day, cried for half an hour before he stopped, realized it was too late and then kept moving. Kept walking. Stopped caring about his parents completely and treated their memory like you would treat an interesting bone. They hadn't even been that close. They had given him a single good feeling of warmth and joy a year, a hug for his birthday. They took turns giving it. One year father did, the next it was mother. But apparently that had been enough. His eyes stayed shook, staring hard at nothingness. They didn't blink as the tears started to well up and they still didn't blink as the tears started to fall down his cheeks.
He wasn't even sure why. Wasn't sure why he was crying or why nothing was moving or why he didn't know what was going on.
The rest of whatever the girl said was lost to him, he felt utterly alone in a miserable world and didn't know why. He hadn't gotten his birthday hug this year, not really anyway. He had gotten two hugs but they hadn't really felt the same. It probably wasn't even the reason he was this upset, but his little mind was grasping at straws to explain the horrible feeling that came over him when that girl mentioned his father's name. And with the unexplained feelings came horrible fear.
Fear took the place of many of his emotions. If he didn't understand an emotion it was replaced with fear. He felt fear almost every day and it often seemed to hide beneath the surface until moments like now. He looked around once to make sure his father wasn't actually there. Deep down he knew that the man wouldn't be, but he had been given a small glimmer of hope by the girl only to have it dashed. And there was no way out. No possible way out of this.
And then his panicking mind found a window. A way out. As he leaped into the freezing waters of the lake he noticed something different about this fear. This fear wasn't really driving him away from something, it was driving him to something. His small moment of enlightenment was snuffed out as the water hit his face, and he started diving down and away.