ten || marquis killian quest

Two of Cassandra Quest’s rabbits have gone missing. She presses a hand to her temple, praying that the action alone will ward off the rising headache. Realistically, impossible. Two of her rabbits are missing and it’s only sun-up.

It’s only sun-up.

If it had been a fox, she’d expect to have found the place a bloody mess inside their rabbit shed. As it was, all of the sheds for the few breeds she had were bare of any carnage, and had all been locked tight. She hadn’t found any holes in the siding or the roof either, so the rabbits escaping didn’t seem likely, which meant that someone had to have come in and taken them. Someone had come in and stolen her rabbits. She felt her heart drop, her bottom lip quivering as she plopped down onto the floor next to one of the Flemish giants milling about the shed. The rest seemed to still be sleeping.

These rabbits are hers. She’s exactly poor or rich,  with her husband working as a fireman. It's probably one of the most stable jobs to have, though it only pays enough to get by. Selling fur and meat from the rabbits supplements it nicely. No, Cass and Gareth do just fine. The thing is they’re her rabbits. She feeds them every day. She brushes them and plays with them. She makes sure that she cross-breeds with Old Yorrick Eisley across town, and makes sure to buy them extra food in the winter. They are hers and someone has taken them. Her little boy is going to be devastated.

Her son has taken to the rabbits far more than she or her husband thought he would. He loves joining her out in the sheds after school, names all of the rabbits and talks to them as if they can carry on conversations. Every touch and every word is exceedingly gentle and thoughtful. The Flemish giants are his favorite. They’re just barely smaller than he is. Her grandmother’s Flemish giants had all died when Cass was very little, and she had thought she’d never see the type again; that is, she thought she’d never see them again until her husband had managed a deal to get her some right around the time of their fifth anniversary. (He hadn’t been able to breathe, she’d been hugging him so tight.) And her boy, her bright and kind and wonderful little boy, had loved them the most since the moment he saw them.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to break it to him.

At six years old, he shouldn’t have to know how cruel people can be yet. Cass tries not to think about the times he’s come home with scrapes and bruises and doesn’t want to tell her where they’ve come from; she doesn’t want to think about dressing up in his best shirt and pants and telling him he might have to go die in a fight somewhere. He won’t fight back. Even now, when he’s only six, Cass knows that he won’t fight, not really, and that means he won’t come home. He shouldn’t have to know that the world is made of blade and thorn, and that not everyone keeps their knives in the kitchen or their roses in the garden. No, the world is made of blade and thorn, and Cass will have to tell her boy that someday, but that day will not be today.

Today, the rabbits decided to go on a trip to see other farms.

Cass drags herself back inside an hour later, once she has tended to her fuzzy lops and dwarf hotots and the other couple breeds she cares for on their property. It’s early, so Gareth is still sleeping in the small crash-firehouse in town. The house still holds the chill from the night, despite the fire Cass had started in the hearth before she went out back. She sets the kettle on to boil before going to wake up Marquis. How will she tell them they didn’t wait to say goodbye? He loved those damn rabbits so much. Noiselessly, she sidles up to his door and knocks gently more out of habit than actual intention.

His room is still mostly dark when she enters, and she crosses to open the curtains a crack so she can see her son-

So she can see her son snuggling with two giant rabbits.

“Son of a bitch, Marquis, are you kidding me?”

---

Gareth Quest has had a rough five days since the fire that broke out in the square. He hadn't even made it home until today. Four nights on the firehouse's shit cots with Wally and Eris and the others hadn't been great for his back, but it had been closer to town, and he's been on call until things settled a little. 

And in that time, he'd missed his own son's fourteenth birthday.

The house is quiet when he gets back just as the sun is going down. Cassie is probably herding a couple rabbits away from Marquis so they'll actually get some peace for the night. He loves the rabbits so damn much. Gareth thought he'd grow out of it by this age, but it seems like they're all he focuses on. The boy is barely getting by in school. He comes home roughed up at least once a week and walks away with a smile when his parents ask anything about it. It's always with a smile, even when his lip is bleeding or a cheek is bruised. The kid never tells them why or how.

If he had the chance, Gareth would love nothing more than to beat the snot out of whoever's been doing this to his boy, publicly, in the square. They'd never fucking touch him again.

Marquis will never talk, though. He won't. He's so goddamn stubborn all the damn time. He's too good for his own well-being; he's too soft. 

On his way out the back door through the kitchen, Gareth stops to pick up one of the new whittled rabbit figurines on the windowsill. There are five that he hasn't seen before, all of them meticulously cut down and detailed. One of them has a first layer of staining on it. It's beautiful, maybe one of the best Marquis has done yet, and it makes Gareth irrationally angry to see such care and focus put into a figuring and not the boy's own life.

Out the back door, Marquis is sitting with a leg curled up under him on the bench by the lavender garden with one of the silky angora rabbits flopped on its side next to him. He has that small, peaceful smile on his face as he whittles away, glancing up every so often to look at his mother across the yard at the sheds. And in that moment, Gareth's anger slips away from him. Marquis stretches his hands and brushes his fingers through the rabbit's fur and sets back to his work with slow, precise movements. He feels pulled inside out as he watches, all at once completely unable to comprehend how his little boy who used to sneak rabbits out of the sheds to cuddle with them could now be fourteen.

How had he missed it?

He has half a mind to throw the rabbit from the bench so he can sit next to his son, but simply lifts it and places it on the ground, where it starts to lazily hop toward his wife. Marquis glances at him with a smile and looks back towards his work without a word, leaning sideways a little against Gareth's shoulder. Again, Gareth is struck by how much he's managed to lose track of time, not just in the past week, but in the past fourteen years. His son is fourteen years old, and almost an adult. He's got a few more years left in the Reapings, and the thought makes Gareth's heart drop. In equal silence, he wraps an arm around Marquis' shoulders and squeezes him closer.

After a hum, Marquis breaks their silence with a sarcastic, "You gonna give me the Peacekeeper talk again as a birthday gift?"

And ah, there's that anger again.

Though Gareth had tried his hardest, he'd never been able to get past the first year of training at the academy. Cut from the program before he even got started. He'd been devastated, and started working as a fireman just for something to do. Within the year, he'd met Cassandra Hallow when her grandmother had accidentally set a bush by their house on fire. 

"If you would just apply yourself to-"

"Papa, I'm literally too fucking dumb to be a Peacekeeper," he interjects, voice light despite the insult he just levied at his own intelligence. Gareth makes to protest, but Marquis doesn't give him the time. He tilts his head up to look at his papa with one eyebrow raised in question as he continues. "Let it drop. I'm too dumb. I wouldn't even get into the academy, and that's fine. Not everyone can."

Gareth wants to argue, but the look on his son's face is one he's seen time and time again. Resolution. Once Marquis has decided on something, he rarely lets it go. "... I don't know who told you you could use a word like that, especially with your father... And you're not dumb, Marquis."

The boy hums with a shrug and settles back against Gareth's should to resume his whittling. It's one of the Flemish giants, if he's correct. A heavy silence settles over them, but Marquis doesn't seem to mind, continuing to hum tunelessly as Gareth sits and broods. Across the yard, Cass is gathering up the silky angora with careful hands, the last of the wandering group, and shuffling away to put it back.

"Mama said I got one free pass for cursing this year. This seemed to be a fair occasion," Marquis says quietly, his hands having stopped moving to look up at his mother across the yard as well. Gareth watches him watch her, and sees her in every feature. His narrowed eyes against the sun, that little quirk in his smile, the freckles across his cheeks. The hair, fluffy and sticking about in tufts, is all Gareth. The rest is Cass. "And I am dumb. I've never been good at school, and that's okay. There's other things to do. I can stay here, help mom with the rabbits."

"You can do more than rabbits, son."

"Mmm, but I don't want to. Besides, who else would take care of them when you're both gone someday? Old Man Eisley's kids? They hate the rabbits. They wouldn't last the year. It'd all be gone, everything mom has worked for... I like the rabbits, dad, so I'll stay with the rabbits."

 The sun sets in silence.