caspar von bergliez ; two fin

From the start, Caspar had been told he wasn't good enough. The throne of a weapon-smithing empire was hid older brother's birthright, and it showed. Crispin was proud of what would one day be his and did very little to show that he deserved it over the years, slacking off in training, barely paying attention in his studies. When one's future was a sure thing, there was no goal to work towards. For a really long time, Caspar's goal in life was to show his absentee father that he was just as important, just as worthy of love, and certainly a more capable successor.

While he would have been accepted to the academy as a legacy, Cas refused to rest on his laurels. He got in on his own merit, proving that despite his small stature and his status as a non-heir, he was good enough. And it worked. He was accepted to the academy, and began working as hard as he could toward hopefully one day becoming the leader of his house and leading them to victory.

Of course, he still has a long way to go until then. And most of the time it seems like the only person who takes him seriously outside of himself is Linhardt, but that's okay. He has begun to understand that there is a certain freedom to not knowing where he will end up. He also realized that not being under his father's thumb was a good thing after a lifetime of trying his best to wriggle himself into the man's good graces. He wouldn't ever be good enough to his father, even if he also happened to be better than Crispin. But he could be good enough for himself.

It was still well within his nature, however, to be competitive. He wanted to be the best at everything, and due to his tendency toward recklessness and his hatred of losing, he began to distance himself from his family. In fact, more often than not, when he leaves the academy it is to spend time with Linhardt and his family, who have done a better job of making Cas feel wanted than his own have ever even thought of.

The two of them have always had an intriguing dynamic. Though, to be fair, when you've known someone since the age of seven, you figure out exactly how they tick. Cas knew exactly how Lin liked to spend his time, and knew the exact words to use to convince him to get off the couch and into the sparring ring. Lin knew precisely what buttons to push to make Cas fly off the handle, but he always helped Cas study for written exams or, when desperate times called for desperate measures, he would even help him cheat. They walked to every class together, held no secrets between them. He was confident enough to say that Lin was the closest friend he'd ever had, and that Lin felt more like a member of his family than anyone who shared Von Bergliez blood.

He isn't the romantic type, a fact he is sorely aware of between Lin's teasing and constant oblivious remarks to potential romantic prospects. "So helplessly dumb," "Adorable idiot," "Clueless to what women want," "So dense sometimes," are all things he's heard, a day late and a dollar short, forced to return to his room with his cheeks burning red and Lin laughing at him the whole way back. It isn't that he isn't interested in anyone. There are just a lot of other reasons why he doesn't think about romance, chiefly of which include him not thinking he's worthy of being loved in that way, and the fact that he simply doesn't have the brainpower for the mind games of flirting and courting. He wishes people would just be more upfront about their feelings; for the most part it seems to work for him.

Okay, perhaps that is an exaggeration. It gets him into trouble just as much as it helps him out. Good intentions, definitely, but there is something to be said for the execution. He can recall what would technically be qualified as "kidnapping" someone, but actually it was just him forcing Bernie out of her room so he could show her a really cool sunset out on the bridge. There was that time they were playing capture the flag and he'd tried- and mostly succeeded, mind you, to take on four members of an opposing team at once and then made his way back to Lin and managed to convince him to stop slacking before he feinted.

But then there are times that it works like a charm, like the time he saw a guy wearing a hood and, despite the fact that the guy might have been dangerous, decided to approach him and question him. Turns out, the guy was a thief. And Caspar caught him red handed trying to steal some brand new sparring weapons. Or the time he thought he smelled smoke so he broke down Hilda's door to find that the coals of her fire had spilled onto her ridiculous fur rug after she'd left for classes that morning.

The point is: sometimes he looked like a doofus, but then there were those rare times when he got to look like the hero he'd always imagined himself being. It wasn't much, and maybe no one else cared and maybe no one else would ever see him as anything more than the short younger Von Bergliez brother, but it didn't matter. He knew who he was, and what he was capable of.

And for now, that was enough for him.