#secondary oneshot posted years ago about ezran's lady justice dream in the link

[raayllum]

Ezran didn’t have to look up to see Callum at the entrance of his tent, the moonlight clinging to his frame the way it had ever since his brother had connected to the moon arcanum a good year ago, shortly after fleeing Umber Tor and before Aaravos’ release... A year. 

It felt like it’d been so much longer somehow, even if his voice still cracked.

“You should get some sleep, Ez,” Callum said, his voice hoarse but gentle. Hints of a bandage poked out under the armour they rarely took off, the knot neat and tidy; Rayla’s handiwork, then, as Callum placed a drink down in front of him and then took a look at his map.

It was one Callum had drawn, when the war map at the castle wouldn’t do and was hardly portable, and they needed ones of the surrounding areas. It was half the reason Callum went flying these days, scouting ahead to bring back reports and then sketch the landscape out. He studied the last piece Ezran had moved, a square one with the sigil of Katolis on it.

“You’re sure you want us by the river tomorrow?” he asked, contemplative.

“Well what do you suggest?” Ezran snapped, and then took a breath, steadying himself. “Sorry, I just...” 

Callum’s hand landed, a warm and comforting weight on his shoulder, unlike the crown at his brow. “It’s fine. You’ve eaten recently?”

“Corvus brought something over earlier.” Ezran rubbed his palm into his eyes, numbers in his head. 500 men for every flagstone piece. Fifteen—no, thirteen, they’d lost two yesterday because of the mud slide and the cavern and stupid dark magic and—thirteen remaining. And they had to move camp tomorrow if they didn’t want to be blocked in on both sides. “What would you suggest instead of the river?”

“I was thinking going up the back end of the mountain, but that wouldn’t exactly provide a water source... Although I could probably spell us up some rainfall?”

“Oh. Right.” Ezran took the centre flagstone piece and dragged it along to the base of mountain. He sighed. “You were always better at this. Remembering battles and stuff. So was Dad. I don’t get why...” He cast a look to the abandoned chess game he’d given up on that afternoon, too frustrated by playing as his own opponent and tormented trying to figure out why Aaravos insisted on the boy king being his.  “Why me?”

“Who knows how he thinks?” Callum muttered darkly, even if Ezran knew that Callum knew more of Aaravos’ mind than his brother wanted to. He let loose his own sigh. “You’re the king. I’m your general. And more than that, you’re my brother. I trust you. Harrow—Dad didn’t always have answers, either. But he relied on the people around him. You’re not like Aaravos, Ez—you’re not alone. I promise.”

Callum removed off his crown, setting it aside on the table before kissing his forehead, and shooing him off the cot in the corner while Callum oversaw the map and jotted down notes in the back of his spellbook. Ezran laid there and wondered how many would (hopefully) match his own in when they went over it in the morning. If Callum would likewise agree he had to be deployed away to lead some troops in the most dangerous part of the mountain range, and risk life and limb like a general, not a brother, would. 

He turned away from the pointed ceiling of fabric, shifting to lay more comfortably on his side—his gaze unintentionally falling to the half-finished chess game. A new lump formed unbidden in his throat.

No, he wasn’t alone—surrounded by friends Aaravos was forcing him to treat as pawns. Ezran swallowed hard, thinking of the last choice he’d made on the night of his coronation, when Lady Justice had forced him to choose—and he’d chosen all three, determined to see humanity in all, to balance the scales, to not too hastily draw his sword.

Justice cannot be denied.

But perhaps there was no justice in war—just winners and losers—and that was the most unfair thing of all.