great clouds rolling over the hills
and if you close your eyes, does it almost feel
The rain clears, bringing sunshine back to the skies above the Falls, and Brennen heaves an inner sigh of relief that thankfully doesn’t surface like his response to his father. Instead he merely chooses to act as if there was never any question of the younger Brother seeing sense. It is good that he recovers quickly, he thinks, because he has only a precious few minutes to pretend not to be half-staring at his sire before they are joined by a fourth party – and while Brennen is willing to let Nihlus see him discomfited, gawky like the child he once was, he makes no such allowances for a strange Queen that sits on (in his mind) a throne that doesn’t belong to her. It will ever, in Brennen’s mind, belong to the children of Neraza, of Nylee and Alysanne. But he knows that none of them reside here at the moment, and as such he accepts her presence…as regent, or some such, until the day one returns.
And so his gaze is shuttered, but friendly, as he turns it to Shatter Me. “Brennen, and Nihlus,” he introduces them before listening quietly to her terms. But of course, where Brennen is cool and quiet, Nihlus is youth and arrogance. Brennen closes his eyes as the boy speaks rashly, and wonders why Errant had sent him. Surely their magical King could have read their fortunes, or looked into the future, or something, and sent a different one of the Tundra’s many bold youth alongside him. But the words are spoken, and cannot be unspoken, and a part of him thinks it appropriate for the Falls to see that the Tundra still has teeth (and, well, he can’t really disagree with Nihlus’s feelings about the new stipulation), but the bigger part of him would have handled it differently.
To think he, the one who always insists he is no diplomat but a warrior through and through, would be in the position to school youngsters is diplomacy. Never before has he missed Peppe, his old friend, so thoroughly. Peppe would have the words to fix it. Brennen merely lifts his head, his ears pointed ever so slightly backwards, and gives Nihlus another look from the edge of his eye, meant only to discourage further speech. He does not speak a reprimand, because as annoyed as he might be, he will not give that satisfaction to his father or to the gray queen.
“True,” he responds instead to Texas, flashing his father a small smile. Yes, the Tundra has come to the Falls. “And I believe getting to know your ways would be of benefit to the Tundra – but also perhaps it would benefit the Falls to send one of their own to join us in the Tundra, to learn from the Brothers. The Falls has long been the epitome of grace and peace, lessons which some of us very much lack, but surely we could in turn offer much in the way of warrior training.” He is not as nonchalant as Texas, perhaps, who leans down to scratch himself mid-conversation, but they are more alike than in mere physical appearance. “I will of course carry your terms back to our King regardless– but might you consider making it a two-way arrangement?” It really does not bother him either way – if she says no, he will merely send her his own daughter, not yet even a year old, and let her puzzle over that. She is, after all, a member of the Tundra until she comes of age.
To the matter of the Amazons, he has a sharper response. “We need no permission from the Jungle.” He does not look at Nihlus now, but his easygoing manner is also gone, the fierce and restless warrior shining from within his skin. “They had their own interests in helping with the matter of Mountain. It may have strengthened our friendship, but it did not leave us in their debt.” His tone, and the look he flashes Nihlus at that moment, dares any of them to argue. In this version of Brennen perhaps Texas will see the eager child who went on to prove himself a top warrior of Beqanna as a barely a yearling, that early flash of the man he might be. This Brennen is the skin he is more familiar with, but the Tundra has many warriors nowadays. It is the peacemaker he struggles to be that the Tundra needs more now.