Later that night, in what most considered early morning, Larimer served his brother several drinks mixed with healing herbs, though he never questioned where wounds came from. With the troll behind his bar and Vilk seated on a stool, the men focused on lighter subjects, choosing to avoid the heavier. 

“If anyone knew,” Vilk argued. 

“They won’t, less you’ll tell em.”

Vilk had begun to notice a growing pattern, but he couldn’t say what made it recurring. 

The city was enthralled by the inventor’s daughter. If the people weren’t trying to steal her, they meant to bed her. The green skin finished his drink before setting the trend in his mind aside.

“The alehouse needs to move,” he warned Larimer, but the troll, without fluster, questioned “Why?”

“They’re coming for us, The Coppers.”

“They’ve always been, ain’t they?”

“This is different,” Vilk went on while the barman made another set of drinks. 

He was ready to pass Vilk a fresh mug, but he held on to it instead, wondering aloud, “How would you know?” 

The dimly lit bar was eerily quiet. The two figures occupying the space grew in awareness as their eyes met in silence, and laughter ceased. The air was thick with tension, the kind that preceded a storm.

Larimer's eyes, usually calm and calculating, burned with betrayal. The revelation hit him, a punch to the gut, and his long, agile frame tensed with anger that Vilk immediately recognized.

"How would you know?" Larimer's voice was a low growl, filled with hurt and fury as he continued to hold himself back. His strong hands held the wood of his bar, cracking the sealed surface under the pressure of his restraint. He wished not to believe what he now knew.

Vilk instinctivly clutched the dagger on his hip, though he had no intention of using it. Looking up at his towering friend, he tried to be civil,  saying, "Larimer, I—"

Before he could finish, Larimer's hand shot out, nearly grabbing the goblin by his throat. Of course, Vilk was too swift to be caught by a motion he'd seen coming, but his injured side made it a close call. When the troll couldn't catch his brother, he instead took up a bottle from the bar and hurled it. The glass flew across the room and shattered against the wall, the sound echoing like a gunshot. 

Vilk ducked under the projectile, but his heart pounded with shame and adrenaline alike.

"You betrayed the horde!" Larimer roared, his long arms sweeping across the bar, sending bottles and glasses flying. He moved with surprising agility, coming over the bar and closing distance with noteworthy haste for his size.  His reach, his long legs, gave him an advantage.

Vilk dodged and weaved every brutish strike the troll threw, his short frame darting between tables and stools to gain back even an inch of distance. He knew Larimer's strength and didn't want to fight him, but he couldn't stand still and take it. "I had to! They forced my hand!"

Larimer grabbed a table and hurled it at Vilk, who barely managed to dive out of the way. The table crashed into the wall, splintering into pieces. "You could have told me!" Larimer's voice cracked with emotion.

Vilk's eyes were wide with fear and regret. "I couldn't risk it. They threatened to—"

Another bottle flew past Vilk's head, smashing into the floor. Larimer was relentless, his anger driving him to destroy everything in his path. "You should have trusted me!"

Vilk's grip tightened on his dagger, but he couldn't bring himself to use it. "I never wanted this." 

The goblin took advantage of his brothers frenzy, and it took a while before Larimer realized he had lost sight of Vilk. 

Trolls, naturally towering in stature, rarely possessed matching muscle. However, their favored magic, stone magic, granted them immense strength and endurance. Larimer wielded stone spells with the same finesse that Vilk commanded shadow magic. Such power allowed him to stride across the room, crushing broken glass bottles beneath his bare feet without a second thought. It endowed him with the might to lift and hurl a table effortlessly.

But stone magic came at a cost—each spell drained Larimer's breath, demanding a toll on his lungs as they fueled his flesh, bone, and skin with extraordinary power. Every use was a test of his endurance, forcing him to balance his formidable strength while becoming ever more light-headed and asphyxiated.

The goblin melted into the shadows while the barman fumed and searched. Larimer’s strength, though formidable, was useless without a target. His tantrum’s intensity would soon reach its peak, yet the constant spinning in search of Vilk only fueled his frustration. His anger distracted him from the growing strain on his breath, his powerful lungs heaving with each futile movement.

Vilk knew there would be no end until one of them suffered a blow great enough to bleed, or Larimer sufficated himself from rage. With shut eyes, he presented himself out in the open. Standing atop the only table that hadn't been tossed, the goblin dropped his dagger, and the sound immediately summoned Larimer.

The barman took his brother by the throat and prepared to deliver a punch to his face that surely would have cost a handful of teeth, but then he paused. His chest heaved with exertion. The bar was a wreck of broken furniture and shattered glass littering the floor. He looked at Vilk, his eyes filled with a mix of rage and sorrow. "What could they have on you?" 

"They had you," Vilk answered with eyes peering into Larimer’s. His words earned him breath, and the troll let him go. He wouldn't have had strength enough to follow through with his next strike either way. All the air was gone from his lungs, nearly forcing him to fall. But Larimer remained standing, too stubborn to pass out despite how exhausted he suddenly realized his body had become.

"Speak," he ordered with a single word that must have burned to release while his chest struggled to find rhythm. His heart beat, quick as a rabbit was thunderous.

"They were too close. I was caught, and I would have let that be the end, but I knew they would find the horde soon. They would have found you. So I offered my aid and used it to steer them further from the alehouse. I've had to give them crumbs, but I would never give them," 

Larimer had heard enough. "Get out, Vilk," he said, exhausted after expending all his strength.

"I would have let it go. I would have let it die, but you grew in the ranks. You took up responsibility, and it looked good on you, better than fumbling over your feet, tracing my shadow."

"Don't blame this on me. I ain't ever want this. How else was I supposed to watch after you? I've always followed your shadow. Would have lived another life out in the sun if you had led me to it. We're all we've got, ain't we?"

"Then leave with me. The horde is dead, has been for a while."

"I've made myself an arm, Vilk. How can I leave without bleeding everyone who look to me now? You will always be my brother, but I aint so selfish to let everyone die for our family."

"I'd put them to the blade myself if it meant saving you," Vilk remarked. 

"What would be left to save?"

The troll picked up his brothers dagger and tossed it through a window for the goblin to fetch outside. He knew Vilk would retrieve it, but the door would shut behind him just as surely. 

Yes, the rings of Larimer's world were stitched together, and they often clashed. But One’s self, one’s work, one’s community could never defeat the final ring. One's family, a glorious and toxic thing that the troll had only then found it in himself to question the worth of, had always been the most prominent and difficult to ignore.