When his "brother" Wigbrant was expelled from the fey courts and cast into obscurity due to the actions of Count Nyctos, Felfrond had delighted in the news. He had seen through the deceptions of the Count right away- not believing even for a moment that the badger was guilty of the acts he was blamed for. But he intentionally played along as though he had fallen for the lies, since he hadn't needed any convincing to distance himself from the badger whom he'd been forced to accept as a brother to begin with. With Wigbrant out of the picture, things were closer to being how they'd been before with just him and Rosewater. Back before his father had elected to upend their perfectly stable family dynamic in the name of some idealized notion of balancing all four seasons.

Nyctos' lies alone hadn't been enough to convince Rosewater, so he'd stepped in and given a few little verbal nudges of his own to ensure that the otter and badger would not see eye to eye any time soon. Things were tantalizingly close to being back to how they should be.

The only loose end left was the other adopted sibling forced upon him. Murchadh was a selkie, a particularly aloof and cold-hearted one as befit his seasonal role. In many respects he seemed to be a perfect counterpart to the badger in the same way that Felfrond and Rosewater contrasted and complimented one another. He had expected that having such an icy demeanor would make it relatively easy to persuade the seal to give Wigbrant the cold shoulder... but perhaps emboldened by his success with Rosewater, he was a little too brazen in his accusations. Sensing that he had roused the suspicions of his Wintery brother, he attempted to deflect Murchadh's attention onto other matters instead.

Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the leopard seal continuously hounded him. Rejecting every one of his explanations and stubbornly pressing him for the truth. Having thought less of Murchadh for the fact that among the four of them he had been the only one of human birth, turned into a fey against his will rather than being born as one naturally, it infuriated Felfrond that he of all people should prove to be such a thorn in his side. As his frustration welled within him, eventually he gave the seal what he wanted. The unvarnished truth. Laying out in plain terms his discomfort with his father's decision to treat symbolism with greater importance than the feelings of his sons, his resentment of Wigbrant and Murchadh, how he longed for it to be just him and Rosewater again, and his part in watching from the sidelines and helping Count Nyctos' mischief unfold. It all came pouring out of him, like a poison that had been festering too long without release.

The first thing the selkie did was punch him in the gut. Hard enough to send Felfrond tumbling to the floor. The second thing he did was all the more surprising; he told Felfrond that he understood. Suffering from amnesia due to the loss of his human memories, most of his emotions numbed by frozen elemental powers that had been forced upon him, the last thing Murchadh had wanted was to suddenly have to contend with being part of a new family. The more he talked, the more Felfrond was shocked to realize how much he had in common with the brother he'd written off as a prospect so quickly for reasons that were superficial in hindsight. Rosewater was his spiritual opposite, and they completed one another. But in Murchadh he began to see the possibility of a brother he could bond with over having similarities rather than differences. Something he'd never conceived of having before.

He hadn't given Wigbrant a proper chance either. That filled him with shame, now. He needed to make things right. In order to do so, he would continue to pretend to believe in the lies of the Count Nyctos, Murchadh agreeing to play along in the same way, in order that he and the selkie could deceive the Count into ignoring them. Beginning to make plans to undermine the Count in secret together, Felfrond was again struck by the revelation of how much fun it was to have a brother with whom he could plot and scheme in ways Rosewater had been unwilling to do. Before proceeding to strike against the Count however, he would need to reach out again to his dearest sibling. Rosewater deserved to know the truth.

Admitting to the otter that he had lied risked destroying the bond of trust between them... sabotaging the one relationship he prized above all others. But there was always a price to be paid for foolishness - Felfrond understood that he had been foolish indeed. If fixing the chaos he'd caused meant sacrificing what mattered most to him, then that would be a storybook punishment for his mistake.

*****

Few things are so difficult as recognizing a mistake and working to grow from it.

One of the last entries in a series done by the fantastic cbh !