Two years on, Timaeus still felt as if he was little more than an imposter whenever he frequented the Colchian Senate. He struggled to find his place among the throngs of older men or younger heirs filling in for their aging fathers. He was young and inexperienced, having been told from a young to not worry himself with things such as rhetoric or the art of a business deal. Instead, whenever Nicomedes had been whisked away into some stuffy meeting room for lessons, someone else put a sword in Timaeus's hand and sent him outside. He was the spare. He had always been the extra son, the one they imagined would find his glory on the battlefield, not in the Senate House. He had always been the boy who would never be the Baron.

And yet here he was, all the same.

That morning had been a frustrating one for the twenty-four-year-old. He had been stuck in meeting after excruciating meeting all covering the same subject; how the kingdom was going to recover from the Wrath of Boreas. Or, if you wanted to be more precise, how many of the barons were going to pay for the recovery efforts. That was the most insufferable part for the young lord. All this pomp and circumstance only to walk out with the same conclusion you entered with; raise the taxes upon the common folk and have them pay for the rebuilding of their city. All these old men knew that and hell, half of them would have still done so if the Wrath had missed the isles entirely.

As if Timaeus could even dream of getting away with something like that.

Eubocris held no love for the Valaoritis and they made no point in hiding it. They thought the whole family was a group of deceitful traitors based on the lies spread by an old crone and her senile uncle several generations ago. They held onto the falsehoods in order to justify their moans and complaints about having their coins leave their pockets and be sent up the mountain to a man who, they believed, murdered his own brother for power. They hated Timaeus. They hated what he stood for and everything he did. There was no way he could raise their taxes and expect the people to remain peaceful in such a troubling time. But then again, why would these old leaders care about the situation of the Kotas family's newest pet hound?

Needless today, by the time the afternoon sun was shining brightly on the Colchian streets, Timaeus had had enough of this misguided foolerly. There was nothing to for him to take away from today, so it was easier to take his leave.

Not too eager to return to the upper levels just yet and being far too angry to fully enjoy any other activities the city offered, the baron decided to take a moment to go relax in the hot springs. This was an ideal time to do it too as he knew that its most frequent patrons during this hour were too busy pointlessly arguing deep within the city.

As he rode through the streets and very quickly arrived at his destination, he was pleased to see that he was correct in his assumption that the place would be deserted save for a group of citizens in the foyer and the faint shape of another patron in the waters beyond. The building was quiet, making it ideal for the Baron to take a few moments here to relax before he would need to return to his rented manor in the upper levels and devise a realistic solution to paying for his province's recovery efforts.

Gently pushing past the group, the Baro came to the water's edge and stripped down, ignoring the other person, as he had had enough human contact for one day, before stepping into the water himself. Timaeus was far enough away to give the other patron their distance and privacy and he could feel the relaxation instantly pull the troubles of the morning from him and casting them off into waters, far away from him. Breathing an audible sigh of relief, he closed his eyes as he settled in, letting his thoughts drift from all the things he was responsible for and yet didn't wish to discuss.

Until he felt a pair of eyes watching him.

He didn't know what had alerted him exactly, there was just a sense of overall uneasiness in the air as he lazily opened one eye to glance at the other man he had ignored earlier. All sense of relaxing bliss disappeared as he saw that mop of dark hair and startlingly familiar blue eyes. Ones that looked uncannily like his own.

Instantly alert, his mouth dropped in shock. "Silanos?" He said almost in disbelief as he took in the sight of his younger brother, a boy he hadn't seen in nearly two years, having run off to avoid the demons that now seemingly plagued the manor house. Not that his older brother blamed him, after all, he had done the same thing when he was younger, but it was rather startling to see Sil leave right when the family needed to be together the most. Clearly still in shock that he would run into his little brother, here of all places, he sputtered out without thinking, "Is that really you?"

Though then again, these boys should have known better than anyone that fate works in mysterious ways. Today it just happened to bring the two them back together in the most unexpected way.