Prince Xazis Draewynn
Relationships
History
From birth, Xazis represented an anomaly to Sabina—an uncontrollable force in contrast to her meticulous plans. Sabina initially saw in Xazis a chance to mold another powerful Draewynn heir, but his innate cruelty and violent impulses swiftly revealed a child immune to her usual methods of subtle control and manipulation. Her frustration grew with every act of rebellion, violence, and defiance, until her relationship with him became one of wary, strained tolerance. For Xazis, Sabina is a figure he both resents and dismisses, a mother who has consistently failed to control or influence him. He regards her attempts at guidance as trivial annoyances, rebelling against her expectations as a means of asserting his own chaotic independence.
Nicknames & Petnames
Sabina rarely addresses Xazis with anything but chilly formality, typically referring to him simply as "Prince Xazis" or "my son," always with a trace of strained composure. Privately, in her moments of exhaustion or anger, she has called him “the Wildling,” a term she bitterly employs to underscore his untamed and disruptive nature. Xazis, openly defiant, frequently mocks Sabina behind her back with sarcastic references like “Her Majesty,” spoken with overt contempt, a title twisted into mockery rather than respect.
Relationship Reasoning
Sabina sees Xazis as her most significant failure—a powerful potential ally who became a reckless threat. She continues to maintain a tenuous relationship with him primarily because he is a Draewynn prince whose martial prowess could still be harnessed in moments of extreme necessity. Yet, privately, she grapples with feelings of helplessness and disappointment at her inability to influence or redirect him. Conversely, Xazis remains connected to Sabina only insofar as it pleases him to reject her control and authority openly. To him, their relationship symbolizes his autonomy and rebellion, a constant opportunity to prove that no one—not even his formidable mother—can dominate him.
Commonalities & Shared Interests
The common ground between Sabina and Xazis is narrow, largely limited to their shared understanding of the brutal realities of power. Both recognize strength as the ultimate measure of worth and influence, though they approach this understanding from entirely different angles: Sabina prefers subtle manipulation, whereas Xazis embraces raw brutality. They occasionally find brief moments of alignment in their mutual respect for military prowess, though Sabina’s interest is strategic, while Xazis’s is purely visceral and impulsive.
Shared Secrets
Sabina and Xazis share a dark secret concerning the death of the royal tutor, whose murder at Xazis’s hands Sabina covered up meticulously to prevent scandal. Sabina’s actions to conceal the tutor’s death were driven less by maternal affection and more by her calculated desire to prevent embarrassment to the Draewynn legacy. Xazis is fully aware of her cover-up, understanding that his mother’s protection of his violent acts stems from cold pragmatism rather than affection. This shared secret binds them in mutual mistrust—Sabina wary of Xazis revealing the truth, and Xazis contemptuous of his mother's fragile illusion of control.
Shared Acquaintances
Prince Xerses, Sabina’s middle son, acts as a reluctant mediator between Sabina and Xazis. For Sabina, Xerses represents a rare example of successfully harnessed martial strength—though difficult, Xerses remains ultimately controllable. Xazis, however, sees Xerses as both rival and reluctant mentor, someone whose skill he begrudgingly admires even as he scorns Xerses’s willingness to submit to their mother’s influence. Xerses often serves as a strained buffer between the two, his own frustrations further complicating the already fraught dynamic.
History
The first time King Xaverius held his youngest son, he felt a chill rather than warmth—a premonition that the babe’s heartbeat drummed to a rhythm older and hungrier than love. Fifteen years have hammered that dread into wary fascination. Each scandal—servants butchered, tutors bled dry—forced the king to confront a truth he seldom admits: Xazis is the sharpened shadow cast by his own brutality. Yet every punishment dealt, every sparring blow that flings the prince across a blood-slick floor, forges only fiercer defiance. Xazis, tasting iron on his teeth, catalogues each fracture in his father’s armor, convinced that heirship is a hunt and the greatest quarry wears a crown. Thus their history is written as a ledger of wounds and warnings: the monarch forever testing a beast he dares not unleash, the son forever measuring the chains for weakness.
Nicknames & Petnames
Before the court the king calls him “Prince Octave”—eighth note in the royal chorus, a reminder he is but one voice in the king’s symphony of heirs. In private bouts he snaps “Whelp of War,” a title equal parts goad and acknowledgment of raw prowess. Xazis answers with “War-Sire,” lacing the honorific with just enough venom to hint that sires grow old while whelps grow fangs. When anger burns hottest he mutters only “Xaverius”—testing the taste of the name he intends, one day, to claim.
Relationship Reasoning
For Xaverius, the relationship is a siege: maintain the walls until the prince matures into either loyal general or necessary casualty. He cannot deny the strategic boon of a son who slaughters without hesitation, yet instability is poison to dynasty. Conversely, Xazis sees in his father the living proof that ruthlessness wins thrones; admiration fuels his desire to surpass, even devour, the exemplar before him. Their bond is therefore transactional—each evaluates the other’s utility, both suspect the tally ends with one corpse.
Commonalities & Shared Interests
Steel is their common tongue. Father and son spend twilight hours trading blows so ferocious the palace stones remember them as aftershocks. Both revere the Code of Strength: to show fear is to invite knives. They share a predilection for hunting dire beasts in the Scar foothills—Xaverius for strategy, Xazis for the kill’s red blossom. Yet where the king files violence into ledger lines of statecraft, the prince revels in its music for its own sake, a discordant refrain that unsettles even seasoned captains.
Shared Secrets
Only these two know that Xazis’s first “practice” execution—an overbold page who failed to bow—was sanctioned, not punished, by the king; Xaverius wished to see whether the boy’s cruelty was impulse or performance. It proved both. Likewise, Xazis alone has witnessed his father’s midnight visits to the Spire Network’s prognostic wells, where visions show the monarch slain by “a child in shadow.” The prince keeps silent, savoring the prophecy like a prophecy-flavored blade he may one day brandish.
Shared Acquaintances
The dour Master-at-Arms Verek Iron-Vein bridges their enmity. Verek molded the king’s early sword-craft and now trains the prince beneath torchlight so hot the air ripples. He offers no praise—only meticulous critique—and both Draewynns, craving acknowledgment, endure his gravel-voiced corrections. Through him father and son measure progress: each time Verek nods at Xazis, the king’s brow tightens; each time he commends Xaverius’s form, the prince files the slight for future reckoning. Verek’s sparring circle thus becomes neutral ground, an anvil where two generations test whether lineage is inheritance or battlefield.
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