Spoiler: Siblings on the Roof
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"It does sound dangerous. I'm glad you're okay. So don't take this as ingratitude or anything like it, it's just..." He gives her a final squeeze before terminating the hug just a little prematurely, freeing his hands to grind the heels of his palms against his eyesockets as if physically requiring a moment to cork the thoughts that would otherwise stream out of his head that way. His lips move to speak, and he stops; then his lips move again, and they stop; and then with a little shake of his head, he gets around to it.

"So, this is something I've been trying to find the words to say for a while. And it's taken me a while, because I'm not as... articulate as you, or Aleeana, or the rest of out family. But you just... you need to tell me if you're going to do what it takes to become an archsorceress. Because we're all pretty good, but father was just..." He lifts an arm straight up, the fingers of the hand held flat horizontal; trying to contain the prodigious stature of a lost father's greatness in that physical gesture. "And so was his mother, and all the way back to the making of the Sunwell. And it was important to him that the tradition of excellence just kept going. That's what Arkhana'skrit means, right? Not someone who copies out the runes; someone who conceives them and makes them real things with shape, and power, that enriches our people. And all four of us were going that way, for a while, before... everything."

Everything. Such an insufficient word for the reality of the Scourge, and the Legion, and all they wrought. He looks away up the street, toward the stubby human mage tower, and you wonder what about it is drawing his attention; but the quaver in his voice when he begins again tells you that his gaze is not toward the tower as much as away from you, tactically shifted in case words he would prefer stand with strength are softened by tears. He seems to be holding it in; but not without effort.

"Kalenaus was great, and he would have followed that path to the end if he'd had a chance. But he didn't. Aleeana is..." He flaps a hand, loosely. "She's already out the door. We all know it. It might take her two hundred years to grow up into the kind of woman who can focus herself like you can. And I just don't have it. I don't know what I'm meant for, but it's not excellence at the level that requires real world combat experience and expensive components and runecloth robes. I know. I've tried. I'm pretty good. I could be very good. But I'll never be excellent." This, you do not relish, is probably true. If you permit yourself to look past the gauzy veil of loving encouragement a good sibling has for another, Tarien does not have the makings of an excellent mage. He's too much introspection, not enough instinct. Too much indecision, not enough confidence. Too much heart; not enough brain. Not to run him down as less than clever; he's clever and insightful in equal measure. But he's not a weapon of intellect. Not like Aleeana. Not like Kalenaus. Not like you.

"So you need to tell me if you're going to do what it takes to be the next loop in the chain of our family dynasty, at the level our father wanted when would give you that look like he had no fear at all you were going to make it there. Because if you're not going to, tthen I need to just..."

He glances to you for a moment, and you catch a flash of something like mortal fear in his eyes; like he is contemplating the vastness of something too heavy for him to hold, too precious and fragile to let slip from his grasp, upon which all the world depends. But he cannot stand your gaze for very long; it's too accepting, and good, and forgiving for him in a moment when he has decided he needs to regard himself and his limitations in the cold light of day. So his eyes, felfire green with the light of bad decisions, stare down at his own hands, resting now on his knees.

"Then I need to just figure out what I have to do, or find, or gain to become strong enough to bend my own life to it."