Butterfly Effect [Ash/Afton]

    The patter of bare feet as they paced to and fro was the only sound in the bedchamber of the youngest member in the Branwen household. Books built up the majority of the walls, stacked atop the floor to tower ominously just overhead of the noble who wove his way through the paths created on the floor between those towers of knowledge in varying heights.
Eyes like a rainy summer's day sifting through words on a page, so engrossed in the novel was the youth he did not even register the shaking of the house in the wake of his eldest brother's seething ire. Unencumbered rage like a rabid animal stalking its way through the various halls of the robust estate, making the temperature of any room plummet simply from the frost lacing that icy stare which burned with a purpose.
    The brother, with those damnable wings like a raven, only torn from his fantastical tale in hand whence came the chorus of footsteps echoing their wrathful intentions with each dull thud on the flooring. A curious gaze peered up from the top of his book just before the door to his room was thrown open by the winds of the Egyptian god Amun. Afton stood in the entry like the avenging deity come to claim his retribution.
There was barely enough time to register his oldest brother's sudden and torrential arrival, not a good sign indeed given their proclivity for avoiding one another, before the youngest Branwen found his wings crushed to the wall, eliciting a snarl from his lips for the simple unpleasant sensation which shot through the feathered appendages.
Books toppled to the floor, an avalanche of information surrounding the two brothers granting a semi circle staging of floor with which to let this Cain and Able reminiscent ballet play out.
Asher grabbed at the arm shoving him to the wall by his collar, teeth barred in a wolf-like snarl while trying to tear the grasp, much stronger than his own, from his presence.
"What now?" he spat back as Afton pressed the bastard brother in an accusatory fashion, noting that he was sure if words could be laced with venom the Branwen Heir would currently be in the process of stripping skin from bone with his tirade.
        Oh. That.
    The reason for the rage becoming much more clear with each word causing the vein running up his brother's neck to nearly tear through the skin with how it pulsated in Afton's heated state.

        Yes well, Asher supposed he had very much so been doing that.
    If the youth felt fear it did not show in his blank stare, lips an unreadable mask. He'd become quite accustomed to being mauled by vicious predators in this family. Like a lamb who slumbered in a den of starved lions.
If that vile "mother" of theirs had gifted Asher anything it was the innate ability to suppress all outward emotions, having found long ago that the less he reacted to her sharp and biting hand, the more it irked her.
"Oh dear," he practically snickered, a corner of his lips drawing up into a smirk more befitting the manic gaze of a Hyena. Those grey eyes of his shadowed over by the ebony bangs that hung over half the young noble's face while they peered up into Afton's frigid stare, "How inconsiderate of me to not consider the spotless image of this family comprised of angels formed by the hands of the gods themselves."
The irony of his words written plane as day in the tone that practically spilled over with listless sarcasm.
His very existence was regarded as a stain on this family's image.
"Shall I go repent in the churches for my wicked ways, or do you think I'd ignite just through the doorways? Mother does so regard me as some sort of Devil, after all. Shall I prove her right when I combust partway through my words of atonement?"
Why he thought it smart to prod the ravenous bear with a stick, he would never know. Sometimes he simply couldn't help himself. He was already at the receiving end of their anger, though, and saw no reason not to make it more tiresome for his so called "Family".

    Asher's blank look fell into a stern glare in the wake of being called both selfish and weak. It was a fact that had always sat uneasy with the youngest of the brothers. His lack in power that made him look like a hokey street magician performing parlor tricks when viewed against that of his family's power. He hated being called weak.
Selfish, he may be, he couldn't really say, but weak. That word always hit home with the half-blood.
Damn Afton and his ability to locate a weakness like a gaping wound and shove salt deep within it.
The Fae-blooded Branwen could only hiss as his wings were further crushed against the wall to his back that now suddenly seemed the softer of the two holding him in place- Afton being the harsher. Wounds not entirely healed across his spine screaming their protest to the rough treatment, but still. Asher refused to let the pain write itself on his face, the only indication being the struggling twitch in the corner of his lips.

        "How dare he"!?
    Drag this family into his problems?
  This damned family WAS his problem. He would have left years ago had he not stumbled across the information regarding his true mother's death. Felicia. His current "mother".
He'd seen the correspondence and though he'd lost it to the Mistress of the Branwen house and a blazing fire he would find more proof. There had to be more. It might take his own life to do so, but he would bring this blighted family to heel if it was the last action he ever performed on this mortal plane.
Did his brothers even know, though?
He couldn't help but wonder if they'd been a part of the whole conspiracy, but, perhaps that was ludicrous. His mother was slain mere days after his birth and even at that time the eldest, Afton, could have only been eleven. He was unsure if even their father, Edgar, knew of any of this. It didn't matter though. Asher still could not help but envision this entire mansion engulfed in flames, regardless of who was specifically at fault.

    Afton withdrew and Asher's hand adjusted the collar of his shirt with a dull look tracking the movements of his older sibling. He would not take his eyes from the snake dancing about his room, nerves poised to leap back should the serpent see fit to strike.
Instead of an immediate lashing though, the words caught him off-guard.
Feathers ruffled in defiance of the threat to their safety, ire like warning lights flashing through the youngest of the two noble's features. That was his sorest spot of all. His wings were the one thing he truly cared for. His one remaining thing to connect him to his mother. They were unusual, even for a Fae, he was sure any sort of underhanded trading would pay far too handsomely.
"Don't..." he near growled the word. A vibration running along the floor teetering the towers of books surrounding them, Asher unable to refrain from his powers lashing out beneath the face of a threat which had him so on edge.
Then anger turned to a look of relenting defeat, even those wings in question sunk to the floor, like a dog whose head was bowed in fear.
"I'll....fix it, Afton," Ash sighed, raking his fingers through his hair in exasperation. He didn't care for much. About much. But his wings were another story. He didn't know how to be without them and he didn't doubt for a second the truth behind his brother's threat.
It wasn't a gamble worth taking.
It didn't stop him from glaring through his eldest brother as if the younger were trying to see if sheer will alone may be enough to make a man burst into a million tiny pieces.
He would find a way to make the man choke on that threat. Somehow.