Family Business 3: Confessions and Assurances (Patreon)

A lot of things are AU, including most of the names of the provinces and the system of governance of Demacia.

So yeah, AU. 

-VB-

Family Business
Chapter 3: Confessions and Assurances

-VB-

Our return home was a short affair where I took the only surviving horse, mounted it with my twin sister, and rode home as fast as possible with the bodies of the fallen knights in the carriage. Even so, it took us nearly the whole day to get back.

All the while we rode home, my mind was swarming with ideas of revenge. 

The “bandit” I had interrogated with my Lesser Vial of Truth was not an actual bandit but a man-at-arms retinue of the Duke of Angrimoria. The figurative bastard duke found his domain to be too poor for his taste, so he put his personal army to work to steal from the merchants and passerbys.

Why?

Because the fuck wanted some more decorations.

Thankfully, the drugged man-at-arms wasn’t dumb enough to come out to do this banditry business without a way for him to escape, so he had his identification card with him.

We arrived at High Silvermere’s gates, bloodied and by ourselves. It didn’t take long for the gate guards to recognize me, the boy/man who was in charge of their pay. 

“Master Crownguard!” the gate commander hastily spoke out as he made his way to Lux and I. Lux curled up in my arms, and I scowled at what was coming. The gate commander was a good loyal man, loyal more to the Crownguard than he was to the crown of Demacia. 

But he also had an older brother in the knights who died trying to keep the bandits away. 

“Commander Toban,” I greeted with a grimace.

“My brother…?” he asked hoarsely.

I shook my head. “He did his duty to the House Crownguard,” I replied in honest grief. 

Knight Toban, unlike Commander Toban, was a mischievous man who knew when and where to put his pranking talent to use to relieve whatever group he was a part of from stress. Now, I would never see him dunk lemonade on the lemonade hating Sir Fariadan. 

Isaac Toban dipped his head, letting his half foot beard rest on top of his chestplate. “I … see.” Then he looked up with unshed tears in his bloodshot eyes. “Who is responsible?” he asked as calmly as he could.

“I have evidence that it was the Duke of Angrimoria,” I hissed, and the commander deflated. Legally prosecuting and seeing to a lord for his crime was hard. Demacia, since its inception, was a monarchy with strong nobles. Nobles did not get prosecuted severely for killing commoners. It was a common problem across all of Runeterra with the exception of Piltover for the sole fact that they had no nobility (but they had the rich, so it was arguably a different sort of nobility).

The man’s face twitched through a myriad of emotions before he grunted. “Please, don’t make my brother die for nothing but gold,” he asked.

I nodded. “He also got my sister killed. I will be making sure he pays for this.”

From there, the guards took the carriage filled with the bodies of the slain, and Lux and I rode back to our manor.

And at the gates of our family manor, mother came rushing out when she saw the state that we were in (and having been alerted by the messenger whose horse I clearly saw in the front lawn). 

Our beautiful mother cried when she saw the state that I was in. We were ushered in and tended to. Father wasn’t home; he was in the Great City of Demacia, but the message about what happened was sure to bring him back home soon. 

Mother and the maids tucked us in for the night, and when the coast was clear, Lux and I talked.

-VB-

“...You’re a magician,” Lux whispered in the safety of our room.

The curtains were withdrawn, showing the manor’s torch-lit walls and the city beyond it. This much light pollution didn’t do anything to hinder the plethora of shining stars and the two moons hanging over Demacia’s night. 

Natural moonlight lit up the room, but only the part of the room that was directly next to the windows. Everywhere else was still shrouded in the darkness of the night.

“Yes,” I answered simply.

“... You … used magic to kill people.”

“I did.”

She looked at me, unable to form an opinion because how I have helped shape her mind in the past five years. I spoke wonders of magic. 

“Did you lie to me about magic?” 

I shook my head. “No,” I replied honestly. “I’ve always told you that magic is just another tool for us humans. That hasn’t changed.”

“Then you lied to me about being a magician!” 

I frowned and thought about it. My eyes widened in realization and I smirked. “Oh, you mean at your last birthday party?”

“Yeah! You did that thing with the cards!”

I laughed. “No, that was just a sleight of hands. You can do it too if you practice hard enough.”

“... So what does your magic do?” she asked me cautiously. “It didn’t look like any of the magics you told me about. It wasn’t rock, water, fire, wind, or light. It was just … dark.” She paused and shivered. “And monsters.”

I smirked here. “I made imagination come to life, if only briefly,” I said as I pulled out the same vial I used for that trick. I uncorked it and let a small drop fall down when I tipped it over. I quickly corked it and watched as a small fog of darkness poof up from where the liquid hit the ground. 

And Lux’s eyes widened as an orange slime came to life and hugged her. 

Just like that, Lux fell in love with the Tickle Monster. She almost cried when it disappeared a minute later.

“Making this was … irritatingly complex,” I said as I gently shook the vial. “I think it cost me all of my allowances for the past nine weeks.” That was the truth; I didn’t say anything about my available budget, only mentioning the allowances to speak the truth.

“What are you going to do?” she asked me warily. “Are you going to have to … leave?” she asked apprehensively.

I giggled (I was still a young teen) and kissed her on the forehead. “No, silly. It’s our secret.”

She looked at me and then her eyes brightened. She grinned. “It’s our secret!”