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It was a silent night. Quietly, Clancy opened the tent he shared with Torchbearer and sat in front of it, just looking at the stars.
Out here he could see them clearly. Back in Dema, the grey buildings reached so high you could barely see anything. He'd tried to climb onto a roof once when he'd been maybe seventeen, but his father had caught him and he'd been in huge trouble. Something about going out at night being strictly forbidden and so on.
Everything is forbidden, Clancy had thought. Shivers ran down his back when he thought about his family.
He missed them. He didn't know where exactly they were now. Probably the very same house, doing exactly what'd they'd been doing all their life. Living how they had before he'd been born 21 years ago. They were probably happier now, he'd been a pretty troubled kid after some point.
He remembered his mother physically dragging him to the vialism services dedicated to Keons. Remembered the people talking behind his back about how he was disrespecting their people and so on.
He remembered the few times his father had hit him. It hadn't been often and every time it had happened, it'd seemed like they'd both been shocked by it. Like that wasn't meant to happen.
Clancy pulled his knees close and rested his chin on them. He wasn't wearing his mask for once.
He heard the tent open and felt Torchbearer sit beside him.
"You good?", he whispered.
"Fine."
They sat in silence. Torchbearer never pressured Clancy into talking about anything, yet in the end Clancy always ended up talking, because the presence of the other guy was simply so comforting.
"I was thinking about my family", Clancy sighed.
"You can tell me, if you want to."
"My brain seems to only want to remind me of the bad memories. My mom physically dragging me to services and the people talking about us, because me acting up cast a bad light on my family."
Clancy found the words spilling from his mouth like they always did.
"My grandma cutting my hair to look 'neat'. I always wanted to grow it out...kind of like yours", he said. "I was never allowed. Fuck knows why."
Torchbearer slowly pulled on one of his curls. "Honestly, my hair is like this because I got to lazy to cut it after I became Torchhbearer."
Clancy looked at his friend. He kind of wonderer what his real name was.
"You make your thoughts painfully obvious, feles", Torchbearer said.
"I do not. You don't know what I'm thinking about."
Torchbearer picked up a bit of dirt and let it rain back onto the ground. "I...rarely talk about myself."
"I'd love to hear more about you. I feel like you know everything about me and I know not even half about you."
He chuckled. "Fine. I'll tell you. Might get pretty heavy though."
"I'll listen."
"I lived in the city till I was five. My entire family wanted to get out. We made a run for it. I'm the middle kid of three. My younger sister made it—my older one didn't. The people guarding the city seperated her from us. She was thirteen. She told us to run. My grandma stayed. We found out later they both died. Me, my other sister and my parents joined the banditos."
Clancy must've been five around that time too. His parents had probably kept him away from hearing about this.
"We served Andre, just as cruel as the rest of them, maybe not counting Keons."
"Keons was kinder. And he ended helping us in the end."
"Right, he did. Noble of him", Torchnearer muttered. "I assume my sister and grandmother died to be used as more vessels for the bishops' schemes. The banditos found the rest of us and welcomed us with open arms."
He wiped the dirt off his hands. "I grew up here most my life. The previous Torchbearer died when I was about sixteen. I was chosen to be the next one."
"Shortly before I fled Dema for the first time", Clancy whispered.
"Yeah. I hadn't been leader for long when I saw you for the first time. I have two actual names. I believe the second one doomed me to be Torchbearer", he said, sounding half joking.
"You don't need to tell me your real name."
"It's just...I haven't used it in ages. I want you to know. My real name is Josh Uriel. My middle name, Uriel, means something like angel of light."
"Seems fitting to me. You were kind of the angel rescueing me out of Dema tons of times", Clancy joked softly.
"I'm no angel, but thanks. I don't mind being called my real name, you can use it if you want. There's no rule against it, everyone just stopped."
"Don't you lose your sense of identity there? Nobody using your name, only the title, at such a young age..?"
Josh shrugged. "My sister and mom used to still use it. But they both died too, not that long ago. Two years ago, maybe? Three? I'm not sure anymore."
"I'm sorry for your loss", Clancy said quietly.
"I didn't have time to grieve them too much, which has pros and cons. Recently I haven't had as much to do so I miss them more."
"If you ever wanna talk...I'm here."
"I know. I'm here for you too."
"I know."
They sat in silence for a while.
"...hey, Josh?"
"Hm?"
"If you could've chosen between becoming Torchbearer or not, at that age, would you have said yes?"
"I'm not sure. I love being Torchbearer, but then again, I wasn't even and adult yet. I feel like I mentally aged ten years in one year of being in the position. I'd probably have said yes anyway", he said. "I was proud to have been the first choice, even if I didn't know why."
Clancy nodded.
"I'm surprised your family all wanted to leave. Mine was so devoted to vialism. So was I, for ages. My faith started crumbling when I was maybe fifteen. When I realized I wasn't exactly how I was meant to be."
"What do you mean by that, feles?"
"Vialism preaches that only man and woman should fall in love. They need their citizens to keep having children or they'll run out of vessels. And I didn't fit into that", Clancy said. "Since I like guys. It was hard coming to terms with it."
He stretched out his arms looking at them. Scars upon scars, most barely visible. Some were self inflicted, some had been inflicted by bishops and guards during the many times he had been captured—those were the ones that weren't as faded.
Most of Josh's scars were from fights around Dema and travelling through the nature. They were both a bit scrappy.
Clancy leaned his head on his friend's shoulder, and the other leaned his head on his.
"You're perfect the way you are. Every single part of you, feles."
"Right back at you."
Maybe he was a tiny bit in love with this guy. He'd tell him soon.