Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s almost time to cut Diluc’s birthday cake, and yet his father is nowhere to be found.

Adelinde begrudgingly tasks Elzer with keeping the two boys in check, lest they decide to help themselves to more dollops of frosting while her back is turned (as they had attempted to that morning while she was decorating the aforementioned cake). Praying that they won’t somehow manipulate Elzer into participating in their shenanigans yet again, she heads to the only place she can reasonably expect to find her master without being alarmed. Though Crepus being late for anything, especially something that involves his children, is quite alarming enough on its own.

For a moment she hovers outside his bedroom door, rocking back and forth on her heels like a frightened schoolgirl outside the principal’s office, before she finally steels her nerves enough to knock.

“Master Crepus?” she calls, perhaps too softly. When there’s no answer, not even a rustle of air, she knocks again, a little louder. “Master Crepus, are you in there?”

“I’ll be down in a minute, my dear.”

“Oh– alright,” she stutters, but her feet remain frozen in place. Something about his voice just now had been… off, in a way that can’t be explained by the barrier of oak between them muffling his sounds, in a way she can’t pin down just yet. She looks from side to side, checking that the long corridor is indeed empty, then leans a little closer and says a little softer, “Master, are you sure you’re alright?”

There’s a scattering of bumps and thuds from beyond the door before he finally snaps, hoarsely, “I said I’d be down in a minute. Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on the boys?”

She pulls her hand away from the door. “Yes, Master,” she says, barely above a whisper. She takes a single step back, then adds, “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” because the sudden stridency of his voice had made her feel horribly guilty all of a sudden, and then she takes off back down the stairs at as brisk a pace as possible before she can somehow anger Crepus any further.

He wasn’t like this on Kaeya’s birthday.

Maybe it was the fact that Kaeya had only worked up the nerve to reveal his birthday the day before it came to pass, so all of them had been in far too much of a frenzy pulling together some semblance of a celebration to really worry about anything else. His first birthday in Mondstadt, with his brand-new family, no less – of course they’d had to devote every ounce of energy to making it perfect. Crepus had treated it with greater importance than any of the winery’s projects, and she’d been both inspired and slightly frightened by his effortless efficiency.

That hyper-involved man seems a far cry from the Crepus of today. Even during the cake cutting that morning before breakfast, he hadn’t quite been himself – it had seemed like a struggle for him to even get out the customary greeting of ‘happy birthday, son’. His face had been clouded, weathered like the side of a cliff, and his smiles had seemed so much dimmer than she’s grown accustomed to over the past few months. The children had leapt into his arms for a hug with the same enthusiasm as always, perhaps blinded by their inextinguishable excitement to the sorrow hanging over their father–

Or, perhaps everything was just fine, still is fine, and she’s needlessly projecting her current anxieties onto the past and overthinking it all.

“As usual,” Elzer says, even though she never said anything out loud.

She turns to glare at him for attempting to read her mind.

“You are a thousand times easier to read than Master Crepus,” he says with a smile that’s almost a smirk, then holds out his arm. “Now, will you do me the honour of letting go of your worries for a few minutes and joining me for a walk, or am I asking the impossible of you?”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she takes his arm without a word, but not seconds later she’s glancing back over her shoulder at the boys and their father. To Crepus’s credit, it was his idea to bring them all to the beach today. Him and Kaeya are crouched on the sand, safely out of reach of the tides lapping at the shore while they build a sandcastle, and Diluc is splashing through the waves without a care in the world, ducking beneath the water every now and then and resurfacing with a shiny new seashell that he tosses towards his family to add to their growing pile of potential castle decorations.

But Crepus… isn’t really doing much except staring, occasionally nodding vaguely at Kaeya when the boy looks up at him. She’s seen him play with the children plenty of times, and he’s never been so detached, so indifferent – he never shies away from taking part in their games, however ridiculous they might be, so this is–

“See? They’re all doing just fine,” Elzer says, squeezing her arm gently, pulling her gaze forwards once more. “Worrying so much over nothing will only send you to an early grave.”

“It’s not nothing,” she says, speeding up their leisurely stroll just enough to make Elzer stumble for a step or two. “Surely you’ve noticed that Master Crepus hasn’t been himself today.”

“Everyone has days like that once in a while,” he shoots back without delay. “Surely you realise that he would tell you if there were some real cause for concern.”

As much as she would like to believe it, given how much he’s trusted and depended on her since the first day she started working for him, she’s not an idiot. She knows how men like him are – they’ll rely on others for everything except the things that matter because they’ve somehow gotten it into their heads that some burdens are too heavy to share without shame.

“I just thought…” She trails off with a sigh. “It’s his son’s birthday, so I thought he’d be happier, that’s all. He wasn’t like this with Kaeya, was he?”

Elzer is silent for half a beat too long. “This is nothing new for him. It’s just that time of year. He’ll be back to his usual self soon enough.”

That makes her hesitate, and then it’s her turn to stumble as Elzer pulls her out of her daze and along the shoreline.

“It’s like this every year?” she says, hushed. “On every one of Diluc’s birthdays?”

“Adelinde,” he says, a warning.

“You mean to say this is an annual occurrence and you all just accept it without saying anything–”

“Adelinde,” he says sharply, bringing their stroll to an abrupt stop. He turns to face her with narrowed eyes, the sun at his back casting him in dark enough shadow to stun her into silence. “I know it’s antithetical to your very nature and so you might not want to accept it, but you have to realise that not every problem you encounter is one that you can fix.”

It’s rare for Elzer to be so direct about anything; that’s enough to compel her to take him seriously. And yet – “But there must be some way we can help. You must want to help, Elz. You can’t be satisfied doing nothing.”

He breathes out slowly and rests his hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is give a person space.”

Elzer isn’t the kind of person to just throw his hands up in the air when a problem arises, not if he can help it. But Elzer’s been here longer than any of them, so if this is the conclusion he’s come to…

“Elz,” she says, barely loud enough to be heard over the waves, “what do you know that you aren’t telling me?”

“Adelinde, seriously.” He lowers his hand and fixes her with a look that carries too much finality for her liking. “For everyone’s sake, just leave it alone.”

He starts off down the beach again in silence, and she follows him again, watching the water wash away his footprints before treading along the same path.

As if by instinct, she steals another glance over her shoulder. The children are still there, playing in the water, building their sandcastle, and Crepus is right there alongside them, watching them with a vacant stare. She doesn’t know how, but he notices her gaze and looks up, then tilts his head, questioning.

She’s not sure if she manages to smile back before turning away again. She’s not sure it would’ve made a difference either way.

The children really are quite lively today. A full day at the beach apparently wasn’t enough to drain their apparently boundless energy – now they’re running around the winery grounds with their new toy swords and shields, weaving between the trellises by the light of the evening lamps and the glittering crystalflies, the setting sun adorning the horizon with lovely pink and blue and violet hues all the while.

“Keep away from the grapes, young masters,” she calls out from her vantage point on the steps leading up to the manor, only to be met by squeals and giggles and whatever the opposite of an obedient ‘yes, Addie’ is. But it’s terribly difficult to be annoyed with them for it, not when their childish joy dislodges the unease that’s settled in her chest, even if only for a fleeting moment.

And it really is a fleeting moment in every sense of the word, because as soon as she looks over to Elzer, she sees that Crepus, who’d been sitting there beside him at one of the porch tables not long ago, is nowhere to be found. Again.

“Where is he now?” she asks, raising her voice enough to grab Elzer’s attention.

“He went to get more wine,” Elzer says, sipping lazily at his own glass.

“Is that not your duty?”

“He insisted,” he says with a shrug.

“Elzer,” she says. A warning. She walks towards the winery doors, held open to let in the light spring breeze. “How long ago was that?”

“Already forgotten what I told you, hm?”

“I heard what you said, and I’ve decided it’s nonsense.”

“Really–”

“Because if men like you had their way,” she says, “you’d all live on your own remote islands and never so much as speak to another human in your life, just to avoid having to be honest about your feelings.” She pauses with her hand on the doorknob to fix Elzer with a determined glare. “I certainly don’t intend to let Diluc and Kaeya turn out that way, and I’m not about to let them learn it from their father, either.”

With that, she heads inside before Elzer has a chance to answer (not that she would’ve listened to it even if she’d stayed).

The contrast between the trepidation with which she’d knocked on Crepus’s door that morning and the righteous indignation lighting her feet as she all but races downstairs to the wine cellar is so stark it’s almost amusing. The amusing thing being, of course, that she ever doubted her instincts and tried to dance around the problem as they seemed to want her to. If Crepus dislikes her way of doing things so much, he can go ahead and fire her. Maybe everyone else on his staff is used to this, and maybe they’re right that it’s not her place to do anything, especially given she’s the newest and least familiar of all of them, but her conscience will never be clear if she stands idly by and lets an obvious problem go unresolved without doing something.

But that trepidation returns like a flash of lightning as soon as she’s face to face with the cellar door, and her determination wilts with it.

I’m being a fool, she thinks, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. What on earth do I know? I don’t even have a plan. Am I really arrogant enough to believe my mere presence will magically solve everything?

His voice from that morning echoes deafeningly in her ears. He’d been as close to angry as she’s ever really heard him, and over something so ordinary, so trivial, so…

Elzer was right, she thinks, turning her back to the door. I should just leave well alone–

But I’m not wrong, another, louder part of her says. It can’t hurt to take a quick look. I can always just leave if it turns out that’s what’s best.

She shoves open the door before she can hesitate a single second more.

It smells a little damp, but clean, not like mould or mildew, and above it all the scent of wine hovers very faintly in the air, a light vapour, like the ghost of drinks long since consumed. It’s dark down here, too, as it always is – but there’s a clear enough path marked out by the weakly shining lamps.

“Master Crepus, you are in here, aren’t you?” she calls out to the shadows, trailing one hand along the stone wall as she walks, the clicking of her heels echoing dully around her.

Sure enough, when she turns the corner, he’s there to greet her – or maybe he would be if he were sober. Standing there, drunk and in complete disarray, he’s in no position to greet anyone, not even his closest staff.

He hasn’t noticed her yet. He’s slumping against one of the many shelves of wine bottles, tilting the half-empty bottle at his lips further up and drinking like he would from an oasis in the desert. His shirt, that had been so immaculately pressed when he put it on after coming home from the beach, is now wrinkled beyond belief, and the gentle waves of hair he normally pins back in a simple ponytail now fall in front of his face and around his shoulders, tousled, unkempt, unlike him in every way.

She’s seen him drunk before – a handful of times, normally at the end of some long banquet or taxing meeting, and she’s had to help him get to bed without falling flat on his face at least once – but it’s never been this bad.

(Not visibly, anyway – but there’s always been more to the head of the Ragnvindr clan than meets the eye. She should know that by now.)

“Master Crepus,” she murmurs, and stops, clutching one hand to her heart and standing motionless under the lamplight.

He still doesn’t notice her. He swallows with a loud gulp and a sigh of pure satisfaction, lowering the bottle only to grip it even tighter, his trembling knuckles bone-white in sickly contrast to his pale skin. The lines that betray his age seem even deeper and darker in this light, cracks in a crumbling wall.

She takes a step forward, out of the light, and he finally turns to face her.

“There you are,” he says – slurs, really – as he attempts to stand up straighter, only to end up leaning more heavily against the shelf. He holds the bottle out to her like he’s not sure what else to do with it. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“My apologies,” she says automatically. She hadn’t expected that he might’ve been waiting – oh, if only she’d been paying more attention–

“You kept me waiting for such a long time, dearest.” He brings the bottle back up to his mouth and gulps down the last fraction of the wine, every last drop. The stains it leaves on his lips are eerily reminiscent of fresh blood. “But I knew you’d come back eventually. You always have such perfect timing.”

His eyes don’t have their usual sharpness or light; his gaze is unfocused. It’s like he’s seeing through her, but without really seeing anything at all – the keen clarity with which he surveys the world seems well out of his reach right now.

“I didn’t mean to–”

“Well, come on then,” he says, stumbling forwards a step, the shelf and all its bottles rattling as he shoves his weight against it, “what are you waiting for?”

She doesn’t know what to do. She hadn’t been at all prepared to find him like this. Her heart is racing at a mile a minute but her mind is lagging far behind – the only clear thought it offers her when she looks into those empty, darkening eyes is that this is all so very wrong–

He tosses the bottle somewhere into the shadows, where it clangs and clatters against the stone floor, and his now-empty hand comes swinging back towards her and latches onto her collar. “You’ve come to take your revenge, haven’t you?”

She forgets to breathe. “Wait– I don’t–”

“Go on, dearest,” he says, advancing like darkness on a winter night, simultaneously pushing her away and pulling her closer, his drunken grip firmer than she expected. “I’m ready. I’ve been ready for so long.”

Escaping his hold seems impossible, but she’s losing her ground so she wraps her fingers around his wrist anyway and pulls, just in case. “Master Crepus, I–”

Maybe it’s the sound of his title, or her touch, or the lamplight illuminating her once more when she’s forced back under it – she doesn’t know what it is that snaps him out of that drunken daze, but the shift is all too evident in his face. Those wine-red eyes gradually clear up as the seconds tick by in silence, as if a drain was unclogged, allowing the murky alcoholic sludge that had clouded them to be washed away. The crease between his eyebrows that only shows itself when he’s in deep thought appears as well, followed by a narrowing of those now-clear eyes. He stares at her like a lost child, then slowly uncurls his hand, letting them drop back to his sides and swing uselessly.

“You’re… not her,” he rasps.

“Master Crepus, it’s me,” she whispers. “It’s Adelinde.”

“Adelinde,” he says slowly, the name rolling off his tongue like a boulder down a rocky mountainside. “Why are… what are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you, Master,” she says, trying not to let her voice shake, “and you’re very drunk, and the sun’s only just set, so I really think we ought to get you out of here before you make yourself terribly sick.”

Crepus blinks, then shakes his head. “I’m not… I don’t…”

“It’s alright,” she says gently, “just come with me, and I’ll take care of everything.”

He shakes his head again. “The boys–”

“Are with Elzer.” she says as she attempts to drape his arm over her shoulder and pull him up. “They’re playing outside, right where you left them. We won’t let them see you like this. I promise.”

It might be endearing, the full-body shudder of relief that courses through him at that simple reassurance, if it weren’t for the simple fact that there would be nothing for him to worry about them seeing if he hadn’t gone and drunk himself stupid in the middle of his son’s birthday, for Archons’ sake–

But that’s a problem for a future Adelinde to address with a sober Crepus – sober, but hopefully made pliant by guilt so she can get some answers about what in the world all of this was supposed to be about.

One step at a time, she tells herself as she drags his torpid body forward.

It’s going to be a very long night indeed.

She’d gotten her master to eat a little, and drink some water, and lie down for a while to get some of the alcohol out of his system, and at around half past eight, an hour or so after scaring the life out of her, he stirs from his uneasy sleep at last.

“You’re still here,” he mumbles when he opens his eyes.

“I never said I’d leave,” she says, sitting up straighter in the armchair she dragged over to his bedside – his armchair, because it’s his room, and normally she would never dare to stay here so long, taking up his space all the while, but exceptions must be made in situations like these.

He groans quietly and hides his face in the pillow.

Despite the gravity of the situation, she finds herself smiling faintly. “How are you feeling?”

He groans again. “If I told you honestly, you’d scold me for my language.”

“There aren’t any children around.”

“Then I feel like pure fucking shit,” Crepus says, half-muffled by the pillow, and it’s almost enough to draw a startled laugh from her, because she’s never heard him speak so crassly since they met.

“Here,” she says, reaching for the glass of water she’d left on his bedside table. “The more you drink, the better you’ll feel.”

“Funny how that only applies to water,” he grumbles, but takes the glass regardless, propping himself up against the headboard with a world-weary sigh. The bags under his eyes are clearer in this light, without his hair covering half his face, and she distantly wonders if he’d looked that tired this morning and she simply hadn’t noticed.

But that’s a superficial issue to be addressed with a good night’s sleep. The main issue in all its grimness and complexity looms over them, as glaring and bright as the moonlight spilling in through the open window, and she has no idea where to begin.

“You have things to say,” Crepus says, half into the glass still at his lips.

“I do.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll give up on saying them if I ask you to.”

“I don’t think that would be for the best, no,” she says, trying not to fidget with her skirt.

The air of defeat that gathers around him is so out of place, but there it is. He finishes his water then runs his hand down his face, and his expression only takes a turn for the wearier. “I’m not an alcoholic.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I’m not,” he insists. “You know I’m not. So you really shouldn’t worry about this. I overindulged today, that’s true, but it hasn’t happened before and I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

“Master,” she says, “I’m not worried about that.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not just that,” she corrects herself. “I’m more worried about the things you said when you were drunk.”

“You’re not foolish enough to pay heed to an old man’s drunken ramblings, are you?”

“Well, you know what they say about drunk words and sober thoughts.”

Crepus scowls, but even that expression is tinged more with defeat than any real anger. “Well, it’s not like I remember what I said, if anything, so I hardly think it matters.” She doesn’t miss the momentary breaking of eye contact, or the twitch of his hand against the sheets before he curls it into a fist.

“You didn’t recognise me at first. You thought you were talking to someone else. Who was it?”

“I haven’t a clue, my dear.” His hand twitches again – then the other hand joins it and he folds them in his lap, running a pale thumb back and forth across his wedding band, over and over in an uneasy rhythm.

His… wedding band…?

…Oh.

His senses must still be terribly impaired for him not to notice how much he’s giving away with that singular gesture – but it’s all so blindingly obvious that she must be the one with impaired senses, to not have deduced it sooner.

Either way, this might be her only chance to get the whole truth from him, while his ever-impenetrable walls are down.

“You thought I was your wife,” she says, so quiet she can hardly hear herself.

Crepus’s eyes widen for a second. “How–”

“You did start calling me ‘dearest’.” She pulls her gaze away from the polished ring with great effort. “I can’t imagine who else it might have been.”

“…I’m sorry,” he says after a drawn-out silence. “I must have made you terribly uncomfortable. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

She quickly starts to say, “You didn’t” – but she cuts herself off just as quickly when the sensation of his inescapable hold resurfaces like a corpse from a frozen lake, paralysing her mid-sentence.

“Adelinde–”

“I’m fine,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s nothing–”

“Clearly it’s–”

“Master, you said something about– revenge,” she says without taking a breath. “What did you mean by that?”

“Ah.”

Something shifts in the air; she doesn’t know how to name it. The two of them are standing on the precipice of some unkind revelation, and it’s like every fibre of her being is trying to pull her back from the edge – but she’s come this far, and Crepus has clearly been waiting here alone for far too long now.

Crepus sits up fully at last, swings his legs over the edge of the mattress until his feet hit the carpet below with a soft thud, and faces her head-on, his eyes dark enough to blot out the moonlight that hits them.

“You’ve been here for a while now,” he says, bracing his arms against his knees, “but I don’t suppose anyone’s told you what led to her passing.”

The wedding band is white as bone in this light.

“No, but” – given the timing, the date, your behaviour – “I suppose I can guess.”

She really should’ve guessed sooner – that seems to be a common theme for the day. But the question of how Diluc’s mother died had never really persisted in her mind long enough for her to seek out an answer until today. She’d been more preoccupied with looking after Diluc himself, and then Kaeya, so… perhaps the late Mistress Ragnvindr will forgive her for the discourtesy on this one matter.

Crepus’s smile is thin and frail and utterly joyless. “I didn’t intend to keep you in the dark. It’s just that you never asked, and I– well, I–”

“I understand.”

“You don’t. Not truly. You weren’t there.” He looks down like he’s praying for something to pull him six feet under. “I hope you never understand.”

She takes a deep breath. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, Master Crepus.”

“Don’t be.” His voice takes on a sudden sharpness, as if the rasping up till now was of a blade against a whetstone. “It’s a loss I brought upon myself.”

That blade severs whatever thread of assurance Adelinde had been unconsciously clinging to, and she stammers, “How can that be? You didn’t kill her – if she died in childbirth–”

He stands without warning and strides towards the window, his footsteps heavy as a funeral march, his back drawn taut and unyielding, his shadow long and deathly still between slivers of moonlight. Those walls aren’t as impenetrable as she’d hoped.

When he turns his head to stare down at her, his blood-red eyes pin her in place with chilling ease. “And who do you suppose it was who gave her that child?”

The words she needs to say slip through her fingers. “But– that’s not…”

“You’re a bright young woman,” he says, folding his arms across his chest and looking away again. His voice is still uneven, still rough, trembling in spite of his attempt at decisiveness. “You know it’s true. There’s no use denying it.”

He’s put so much distance between them, and yet it’s like he’s trapped her in his inescapable hold once more. The walls are closing in. They smell of wine and stone.

“And on that note,” he starts, walking back towards her with even heavier footsteps, “Adelinde, my dear, I’m about to say something that I probably wouldn’t say if I were fully sober, and it’s quite possibly a gross overstepping of boundaries so I’ll have to ask you to forgive me in advance – but it’s very important that you listen, just this once.”

“…I’m listening,” she says, because what other choice does she truly have? And surely whatever he has to say can’t be that bad, in light of everything he’s already said–

He drops his hand on her head and ruffles her hair like he does with his sons, then leans in slightly and says, with utmost seriousness, “You mustn’t ever let a man get you pregnant.”

She splutters. “Master–!”

“I’m serious, Adelinde – there are medicines for that sort of thing, you know, if you need them – but if anyone ever tries you should leave him without looking back–”

She ducks away from his hand and shrinks back in the chair. “What in the world are you talking about?” Embarrassment heats her face too much for her to remember her place or her professionalism, if it ever existed to begin with. “Why would you even say such a thing–”

“Because you should know that a man who truly loves you would never risk your life like that.”

And just like that, the heat drains away, replaced by a numbing cold as the weight behind his words hits her all at once. The worst part is that she can’t tell if he even realises the full implications of what he’s saying – and would it be better or worse if he did?

His hand comes to rest on the arm of the chair. He’s still looking down at her, pinning her in place with a single look that exudes absolute authority – but she manages to force her eyes away, down, to the wedding band shining even brighter now upon his finger.

“Am I to believe that you never truly loved your wife? The same wife you’ve been grieving for” – she recalls the candles on the cake that he’d nearly missed cutting – “nine years now?”

His eyes flash for a moment, and his hand tenses imperceptibly, but he doesn’t move.

Is it presumptuous to tell a grieving man how he should feel about his late wife? Almost certainly.

Is she going to do it anyway? Yes, because it doesn’t seem like anyone else will, and just because these feelings haven’t yet consumed him entirely doesn’t mean they won’t in another nine years.

“You’re being far too harsh on yourself. I can’t imagine she would want you to think of it that way. If she loved you like you still love her, then she wouldn’t have any reason to get revenge on you or anything of the sort – she’d only want you to live well, for yourself, and your son – sons, now.”

His hand tenses further, gripping the armrest tightly now, the wedding band catching on some stray thread. He doesn’t refute her, though. Maybe he’s simply lying in wait, preparing to strike at the precise moment when she trips herself up and says something unconscionable. Maybe she’s already tripped up and he’s curious to see how far she’ll fall.

Either way, she’s not done saying her piece. “And you can’t possibly believe that all the fathers that ever lived hated the mothers of their children that much–”

“You know better than I do how heartless a father can be.”

It’s so unfair of him to remind her of that at this precise moment. He knows exactly what he’s doing, how to throw her off-balance when it suits him. Clearly the wine didn’t dull that particular skill in the least – it only washed away his self-control.

The problem is that he’s not wrong. Hardly a day goes by where Adelinde doesn’t wake up thinking of the home she used to have; she could count those on one hand. Hardly a day goes by where she doesn’t find herself staring into the distance, wondering if all of this is real, if Crepus really did stumble into her life one day and offer her a place in his home when she believed ‘home’ was an abstract thing she’d never know again – all for seemingly no other reason than because he wanted to help.

So, no, perhaps it’s not the problem – it’s the answer.

“But you’re not that kind of father,” she says, her hands curling into fists and clenching at her skirt tightly enough to wrinkle the faultless pleats. “I wouldn’t still be here if you were.”

Crepus goes eerily still. He pulls his hand back, slowly, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to march over to the window again, to find in his own reflection the judgement he’ll never find in her eyes in a million years – instead, he drops back onto the bed, sinking into the mattress with slumped shoulders, deflating like a forgotten birthday balloon. He doesn’t look up at her. He’s not really looking at anything.

He runs a hand through his hair with the most fatigued sigh she’s heard all day. “I’m not as virtuous a person as you seem to think I am, my dear.”

“Perhaps not, but you’re certainly better than you seem to think you are. You can ask anyone here – any one of us would tell you the same.” She shifts forward just a fraction. “Master, I don’t think a heartless killer would ever have raised a boy as sweet as Diluc, or taken in a boy like Kaeya without a second thought and looked after him just as well.”

“That’s what makes it worse, you know.” He looks off the side, at something beyond the closed bedroom door. “Kaeya, I mean.”

How many times can she survive being thrown off-balance?

“What do you…?”

“She would have loved him.” He smiles, but it’s too warped by grief to radiate any warmth. “She was always a bit of an idealist, you see, and she wanted Diluc to have a sibling eventually, because she thought that would ensure he’d never be without a true friend in this world. That he’d never be lonely.” Crepus laughs, a muted but wretched sound. “She got her wish – she simply didn’t live long enough to see it fulfilled. And there’s only one person to blame for that.”

Adelinde had always thought it heartwarming, yet mysterious, how quickly Crepus had arranged for Kaeya’s adoption. It was like the paperwork appeared in his hand the instant it became clear that whoever left Kaeya out in that storm would not be returning anytime in the foreseeable future. Now, perhaps, she knows part of the reason for his haste.

“She didn’t just want to give Diluc a sibling. She wanted to give him everything. But in the end, all she could give him was a few hours in her arms, if that.” The memory of her makes his face twist with such unadulterated agony that Adelinde feels it in her own chest. “The sun set on her life before it did on his first day in this world. Does it seem fair to you, after everything she gave up for him, that she isn’t the one who gets to watch him grow up? That she was the one who was parted from him so soon?”

“She would have wanted you there alongside her. It shouldn’t have been one or the other. You can want her to have lived without thinking you should have died in her place.”

“The world is not so generous,” he snaps. “Don’t you start turning to idealism too.”

Why does it feel like she can never find the right thing to say? Is there any right thing to say? Is she just wasting her time here?

But the time will pass regardless.

“Master, you don’t need to be so hard on yourself. We’re all just trying our best with the knowledge we have. I mean, if you’d known what would happen–”

“You believe I would have chosen her over my son?”

Apparently she’s not wasting enough time – if she’d thought that through to its logical conclusion she would’ve kept her mouth shut.

The question haunts her anyway, ringing like funeral bells in her ears. Would he?

But she can’t ask – could never ask – she doesn’t even want to guess, because either choice is too–

If there’s no third option–

It’s too cruel a choice to ever even consider–

“I’ve thought about this much longer than you have, Adelinde,” he says, sitting up straight, his usual dignified aura returning, but it’s not enough to mask his sorrow. “I’ve come to terms with the truth.”

This isn’t the truth, and you haven’t come to terms with anything – you wouldn’t be hurting yourself like this if it was as neatly settled as you’re pretending it is–

“No man with a shred of decency runs from his responsibilities. This is my burden to bear to the grave.” His expression softens for so fleeting a moment it may have been a trick of the light and nothing more. “It seems I’ve temporarily made it yours, too, but you needn’t worry about it any longer.”

“I am paid to worry about you,” she retorts.

“About the children–”

“And you would be neglecting your responsibility to them if you refused to let others take care of you as well. You know better than anyone how much they look to you for guidance.” Her voice feels more like her own now – she’s found solid ground to fight back from. “Despite what you might say or think, I can’t believe that you really held your wife in such little regard, or that you ever wished to see her come to harm. That’s not the kind of man you are, and it’s not the kind of man you want to be for the boys either.” She pauses for the briefest of breaths, afraid that the fire in her words might die out if she idles too long. “So you shouldn’t hold yourself at fault for things you couldn’t have foreseen – she wouldn’t have wanted that either–”

“She’s long gone, my dear. What she wants only matters if I choose to let it.”

Gods, she’d gotten so close there – he was starting to see, he was right on the cusp of it – but as soon as it came back to his wife–

Time to change tack, then.

“Well– well, what about– what if–”

Crepus raises an eyebrow at her.

“What if it were–”

No, no, I can’t say that – it’s too much, far too much – it’s too cruel to even think about, crueller than anything he’s said so far–

“Adelinde,” he says, cautioning.

But it might be the only way to make him see-

So she lets the words tumble out breathlessly before she can choke on her own regret.

“What if it were Diluc, or Kaeya – if they were in your place? If they lost you, somehow, by circumstances they couldn’t foresee, couldn’t control – if you had to give up your life to save them, to keep them in this world for just a little longer?” She blinks, too quickly to be natural, and hopes he’s too distracted to notice. “Would you want them to carry that guilt to their graves, too?”

For some reason his gaze flicks over to his desk, with all its mystifying drawers and compartments, but it snaps right back before she can question it.

One would be able to hear a pin drop onto the carpet in this dead and deafening silence. The crease of deep thought is now a trench between his eyebrows, and from it spill out even more shadows to darken the rest of his face. His lips are slightly parted, frozen in the middle of a horrified exclamation, every word he can think of speaking too horrible to say aloud. His hands don’t even shake, as if he hasn’t even processed what she said, as if he’s too afraid to let his body so much as acknowledge it. So, other than the storm raging on in his widened eyes – so much like the one they’d found Kaeya in, she thinks – he doesn’t move.

She reaches out and delicately takes one of his hands between both of her own. His skin is so cold – the wedding band is ice – and that’s all the encouragement she needs to hold on tighter. “If you won’t be kind to yourself for your own sake, then maybe you can try for the sake of those who love you. As you would be to those you love.”

Just as before, the shift is evident in his face. He doesn’t need to speak for her to know exactly what images flash before his eyes as the gears turn faster and faster in his head. He’s seeing himself and his children – he’s seeing what they might put themselves through if they emulate him. Of course he’s seeing that, because he’s the kind of father who would reverse heaven and earth for them, so naturally the merest suggestion of their suffering triggers the deepest concern, the most profound desperation to set things right and protect them from it all.

This is the kind of man you are, she thinks, holding his hand tighter, smiling at him when he stops staring through her.

He stops staring through her, stands up too quickly, pulls back his hand like he’s been burnt, and hurries towards the door, throwing it open in a swift and effortless motion. One might forget that he’d been drunk beyond compare just a few hours ago.

“Master, where are you–”

“It’s late. The boys must be getting ready for bed by now. I’d best go and check on them.”

She starts to get up from the armchair. “I’ll come with you–”

“That’s alright,” he says quickly before she can rise even an inch. “You’ve done enough today, you and Elzer both – so you should rest now. Goodnight.”

She’s thoroughly exhausted her reserves of defiance in the past half hour alone, so she lets him go without another word.

Right as he’s about to leave, he freezes at the door, on the threshold of the room, and stares back at her. Then he murmurs, “She would have liked you too,” so softly that Adelinde can’t be certain if he meant to say it aloud or not.

With a quiet click, the door shuts before she can even think of asking if he did.

Whatever force had been keeping her upright in his presence vanishes like a snuffed flame. The chair is suddenly maddeningly soft and she all but melts into it like her bones are made of slime, if she has any bones to begin with.

She really should leave, too. When Crepus comes back he’ll want to go straight to sleep, no doubt, and forget everything that happened in here just now. And she will leave in a minute or two, but–

Mistress Ragnvindr, she thinks, staring up at the chasms between the beams of the vaulted ceiling, where so many generations of ghosts may now reside, I’m sure you would’ve known exactly what to say.

I probably didn’t live up to your standards, but I hope I did enough for now.

“You don’t seem satisfied,” Elzer says when he finds her on the sofa as the clock strikes twelve, handing her a cup of tea.

She takes it with a silent sigh and sets it aside without even checking what type of tea it is.

Elzer’s sigh as he sits beside her isn’t silent at all. “I did try to warn you–”

“Maybe I didn’t get quite what I was hoping for,” she says, forcing herself to meet his cold gaze, “but at least I know I did something.”

Elzer blinks, then looks down and stirs his tea, letting his spoon clatter against the sides of the cup.

“You said he needs space,” she continues, “but that doesn’t have to mean distance. There’s so much on his mind that he wouldn’t have talked about without the influence of alcohol. So if I can give him that space to talk, even just for a short while, then I think it’s the least I can do in light of everything he’s done for me.”

“You’re not much better than him, you know,” Elzer retorts. “Always hung up on what you owe to others. Don’t you think that’s part of the reason he still grieves her like he does?”

She’d been about to say something, but his piercing look makes her falter.

He sighs again and drops his teaspoon loudly on the saucer. “What I mean to say is – don’t let your desire to look after others get in the way of looking after yourself. You’re a human being, not a god.”

As if Crepus’s behaviour all day wasn’t strange enough – here’s Elzer acting almost sentimental. She leans in a little and smiles. “Are you trying to say you’re worried about me?”

“Since you’re both worrying about things you shouldn’t worry about, I figured I might as well join in the fun,” he says dryly.

She smiles wider, leans closer, and drops her head against his shoulder. “Then, thank you for your concern, Elz.”

He huffs, but nonetheless leans towards her, too. “Don’t mention it.”