Alternatively: If Mordred Was an Alcoholic and Just a Bad Person in General

Also Alternatively: CRI WHY DO I LOVE THESE SIBLINGS

Loschal, despite being severely inebriated, was in danger of fire-gazing. He'd gotten to the point where the fire in the tavern's hearth had taken up his entire vision, his hot and dry eyes fixated on the wavering blaze. Dancing with such a ferocity Loschal could almost hear a frenzied song behind the blurry dance, the tongues of flame shifted in and out. Red-gold. Bronzy light. That was what he saw, but what he truly saw was more than that—more than the fire whose contorting curves looks like that of a serpent, whose liquid-soft embers looked like that of a pulsing face, and whose crackling sparks looked like that of wisps of voice. Something else . . . if only he could see . . . think past the warm fuzz clouding his mind . . .

"Loschal Wengall!" A dark shape crossed his sight, disrupting the image and replacing it with a simple fire and the hand of Johina. Loschal shook his head out of his daze, glancing up at her as she said, "Only woodwitches dare to fire-gaze."

He rolled his eyes, slurring, "Do sparrows not hunt because only hawks do?"

Johina gave him a pointed glare as she crossed her arms. "I can't understand you even when you're drunk."

"Even th' sparrow . . . gets the early worm." Loschal furrowed his eyebrows, his mind dull. "Early . . ."

"Come on, then. Up you go." Taking a firm grip under his arm, Johina hoisted him up, sending his vision into a flurry of sparks that hadn't been there before.

"Waska . . . too hard." Loschal leaned into her as the sparks turned black, fading in and out.

Johina counted the mugs on the table with a direct and impatient finger, huffing as she turned her furious eyes to him. "Loketz, Loschal, you've really done it this time. Six? We won't be able to afford anything to eat for the next week thanks to you!"

"I've done seven an' I'll do seven. 'S better."

"No you won't, you worthless little—" She cut herself off, taking another breath. They started to painstakingly walk to the door before Johina turned to the unsuspecting owner of the tavern. "I thought I told you not to let him in here."

"I can't be the keeper of your brother at every hour, Johina!"

"Oh, yes you can. Stars know I can't be everywhere at once! I've got a house to maintain and with the amount of money this tavern has cost us, I'm constantly out tanning hides to make saddles Loschal started months ago and hadn't finished and with the war coming, I can't keep making more sacrifices just because —" Again, she stopped herself. Loschal stirred uncomfortably at the sound of his name spoken with such . . . such something, the world tilting and churning in a quick wave of black for a fleeting moment. "I'm sorry, Befenn. We won't bother you again."

Befenn shook his head, walking over to the table they'd left and collecting the mugs. "The only bother is the temper, Johina. But I'd have a temper if I had as many hangovers as I'm certain poor Loschal does."

"He's not poor. He's selfish and undisciplined," Johina snapped, but her eyes softened swiftly after. She glanced down at Loschal with calf-brown eyes so soft he could sink into them. And maybe he would if he was tired enough. Maybe he'd just lay down in her eyes for just a minute . . . maybe close his eyes . . . . "I'll talk to him, Befenn. Don't worry about us."

Johina opened the door to the tavern with one hand and they walked out. Loschal gave her a lopsided grin. "D'you . . . d'you think they'll do it?"

Pursing her lips, Johina started to lead them in an awkward step-push-stumble back to their house on the edge of town near the horse pastures. "Do what, Loschal?"

"Hire me, Jo'ina."

Johina halted so abruptly Loschal tripped and fell to the ground laughing. "Hire you? Who? For what?"

"Does a queen . . . bee of queens . . . hire her workers?" The street spun as Loschal struggled to get up.

"Loschal, look at me." He looked. "Answer me: who's going to hire you? Is that why you drank so much today, Loschal?"

"Can I go to bed in your eyes soon?"

"Oh, you're hopeless! You're lucky I even take you back. You're lucky I still call you my brother, shivve! What I should really do is leave you back at that tavern sitting at that awful wooden chair and fire-gazing spending all your money just for you to wake up with your sore back and your crick in your neck and your splitting headache and—loketz, can't you just deal with things like everyone else is forced to?"

The sun was too loud. The blinding light streaming through the thick, viscous clouds drowned out Johina's words, but Loschal still heard the tone. Broken, thick with worry and intimacy. Disappointment. He knitted his eyebrows together, trying to string together meaning when he realized what the words were: harsh.

His eyes suddenly burned, a different burning than the hearth had given him. His lip quivered like a scolded child on the verge of tears. She'd been harsh with him. Johina was cross, and how could he ever get her to forgive him and let him sink into her soft eyes and love him back? Didn't she know he'd tried to get the job? Didn't she know he'd only been drinking because he'd have to leave her for the job and hadn't he told her that? Had he?

Johina knelt and offered him her hand. "Don't cry, schiva. I shouldn't have spoken like that to you. Would you tell me more about getting hired, Loschal?"

He nodded, sniffing as they stood and began to walk again. "The people here all the time on . . . on 'orses? They asked me an' I said uh-huh."

The grip Johina had on Loschal's arm tightened ever so slightly. "The people on horses? King Rinfel's soldiers?"

"Mm," he grunted in affirmation, stumbling over a patch of long grass and clinging to Johina. He wiped his wet face with his sleeve. "They like blue."

"Did . . . did they tell you anything else, Loschal?"

"Morning time." His nose ran and his eyes walked a long ways down to his chin before dropping. "I go wi' the loud sun."

Johina gently pulled them to a stop, her own eyes spilling over, the tears walking on a slick trail down her ruddy face. "You're leaving in the morning, aren't you? You were drafted into the army to train for the war against Eracelli?"

Loschal nodded, sad her eyes had hardened like brownstone. Where could he rest now? He gazed at the ground blurry with tears.

"But . . . they asked you? They never just ask." Johina's glassy eyes widened after a moment. She gripped Loschal's shoulders with the tenderness of fire, delicate and light and yet scorching to the touch. It hurt. She hurt. "Is that why you were . . . that's why you're so—why the tavern—loketz, Loschal!"

With a fiery embrace, she cried into the crook of his shoulder and he didn't know why. Did he make her upset?

"Schlei, Loschal, bekkun."

The sun wasn't so loud for that. Stay and please rung true, and Loschal knew what those words meant because it'd been what he'd secretly wanted to hear the entire day. But he hated hearing them because even his muddled mind knew he couldn't fulfill the words' plea.

"Money's good and I'll . . . send 'em to you. Y'like that, you will. You will."

"I—" Her face turned red. "I don't want that."

She was being harsh again, wasn't she? Harsh and cruel since he was trying to do the right thing. But Loschal knew that Johina didn't deserve it. But she did deserve the money—and not just the money, but a brother who would make her life easier. That, he could do. And she was being harsh with him for helping her? Loschal needed to sleep some. His stomach churned, and suddenly he keeled over and retched.

"You didn't even eat anything, did you?" exclaimed Johina, holding back Loschal's stray forelocks at he heaved again. "You can't expect to join the army like that! You're a hopeless—let's get you to the house and cleaned up and fed and put to bed right away."

They reached the house, the two rooms attached to the tannery, where a mounted soldier was waiting. The grip on Loschal's shoulders grew uncomfortably tight.

"This is the house of Loschal of Wengall?"

"It is," answered Johina with a quiet hesitance.

"A message from King Rinfel," the soldier announced, breaking a sealed parchment and unrolling it. "Cetador and her king has requested the presence of Loschal of Wengall alone at sunset tomorrow concerning the urgent matters of national defense."

"Sunset?" Loschal asked, rendered otherwise speechless. Sunset was quiet. Too quiet, a crushing quiet—a quiet Johina emanated.

The soldier handed Loschal the parchment and regarded him strangely. "You do not look like an Isler like the king said you might. Do you speak the runic language, then?"

He shook his head dumbly, suddenly knocked stone-cold sober for a moment, Johina still as ice at his side.

"Do you know about fire-gazing?"

A/N: this slightly short, 1,600-word one-shot is about none other than Loschal of Wengall, who is of course Neriphé (I mean not yet here, but still). I used to hate Neriphé so much until I started thinking about his backstory. I MEAN LOSCHAL IS BABY COME ON. But also this honestly makes me want to write a spinoff/prequel literally just about the rise of Neriphé (or, rather, fall) so badly. I wrote this whole thing in less than 24 hours and I loved writing it even though it was sad. Also, see what tendencies and characteristics Loschal (a.k.a. Young!Neriphé) shares with the Neriphé of TFP! There are lots of subtle similarities even though Loschal goes through a ton of things to get where he arrives at in TFP.

Can I just say...I LOVE LOSCHAL WHAT?