Chapter Text
There was nothing quite like a beautiful city in mourning.
Three years ago, Hilda had been forced to attend the funeral of Godfrey von Riegan in Derdriu. It had been a lavish affair; The whole city had been wallowing in the decorum of tragedy, flying black pennants emblazoned with crescent moons and Alliance shields in equal measure along every street and atop every roof.
The bells of the church had rung for hours and hours, throwing mournful calls to the swift ocean breeze, answered by the cries of elegant sea birds.
There had been an admirable level of pageantry to it all. Godfrey’s funeral had lasted for a full week of ceremonies; Hilda almost hadn’t been able to stomach the effort of attending service after service.
Derdriu was a beautiful city indeed, even when it was sad. But it no longer wallowed in tragedy.
This was war—this was the Leicester Alliance—and in the wake of the passing of Duke Oswald von Riegan, Derdriu wore its muted grief close to its chest out of necessity.
One must never show weakness in war, after all.
Duke Riegan had died on the twentieth day of the Harpstring Moon, finally succumbing to the illness that had ravaged him for almost a decade. News had it that it had been peaceful, that his grandson had been by his side, and that he hadn’t suffered.
Hilda wondered if that picture was just a little too pretty to be true.
The invitations to the funeral had been short and to the point, sent to the country’s four corners almost immediately, giving the lords only a few days to make their way to the capital. Time was of the essence, after all; The welcome dinner was tonight, the funeral was tomorrow, and the first roundtable with the new sovereign duke was the day after.
No rest for the wicked, was that how that saying went?
“You know,” said Holst suddenly, drawing Hilda out of her thoughts. “If you frown like that, you’re going to get wrinkles.”
“Maybe I want wrinkles,” Hilda replied instantly, not turning away from the window, where she had been watching the sun-bathed streets of Derdriu roll past their carriage for the last half hour.
“You don’t,” her brother shot back, looking up from his book with a smirk. “However, I will say I think you’d be as lovely with wrinkles as you are without them. I just want to make sure you know you look like you’re trying to stare a hole through the window.”
Hilda sighed, consciously relaxing her expression, and sat up to face her brother.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Just thinking is all.”
“If I’d known this trip was going to stress you out so much, I wouldn’t have invited you.”
“Uh, you didn’t invite me. I invited myself.”
“Oh yeah, you did, didn’t you?” Holst said, smirking in that annoying way he did when he managed to get one up on her. Hilda pouted a little harder and turned away.
Holst took her silence as an invitation to keep talking. “Well, I’m glad you’re here regardless. It’ll be good for Claude to have you around.”
“What? Like a playmate?”
Holst rolled his eyes. “Like a friend, hopefully. Kid doesn’t have many of those anymore.”
The statement was pretty ominous, but Hilda didn’t have time to push him for an explanation as the moment was shattered by a sudden rap at the window.
“Milord? Milady?” she recognised the voice as her footman. “We’ve arrived.”
Hilda emerged from the carriage and stepped out into the mid-morning sun, blinking a bit at the change in lighting. Her eyes adjusted quickly and began to steadily trail up the hulking structure before her.
The Riegan estate was no royal palace, but it felt like it was trying its best to be one.
Years of holding the Alliance’s seat of power as their own had allowed the Riegan family to carve a sizeable home in the heart of the city. Located atop a hill in Derdriu’s centre, their family castle gazed across sprawling gardens to the harbour district beyond.
The castle itself was considered small by Adrestian or Faerghus standards, but it was one of the largest in the Leicester Alliance. A series of tightly nestled towers and ramparts hewn of warm, dark sandstone, surrounding a central courtyard, rose up before Hilda’s eyes. The entire thing was dotted with tall windows, allowing the structure to be opened wide on warm days such as these—inviting and open to the people of the capital, if not as defensible as the keeps of their southern and western neighbours.
There was a small retinue of people waiting for them just outside the entranceway, led by a man dressed in light armour. He was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a nasty looking scar on his forehead. He strode forward and bowed politely to Holst.
“Lord Holst!” he greeted. “I am Caius, the Steward of the Estate. It is my honour to welcome you to Derdriu.”
Hilda privately thought that he looked more like a guard than a steward, but then again, the Riegans had always run a pretty whackadoo household. This was probably par for the course.
Holst thanked him and Caius smiled. Then his gaze flicked to Hilda, recognition flashing over his face and replacing the pleasant façade with open shock. “L-Lady Hilda?!”
“Hello!” Hilda said with a wave. Holst chuckled.
Caius blinked in confusion. “We, uh, we were just expecting Lord Holst—”
“I’m here too!” Hilda said sweetly. “Is that okay?”
“O-of course! We’ll have to open up another guest room, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem—”
“Awesome! It’s so nice of you to do that!”
“Of course—”
“Where’s Claude by the way?” Hilda said blithely, as if she was ordering something at a market and not demanding the presence of the most powerful man in the country.
And wasn’t that a thought? Claude von Riegan, who she once watched drink the contents of their teachers’ inkwells like a line of shots because Leonie dared him to, the most powerful man in the country? They certainly were living in strange times.
“His Grace is busy,” Caius, steward-of-the-estate, said dryly, raising an eyebrow. “This is hardly the time for a social call, milady.”
Hilda smirked. “Oh, we go way back, don’t worry about it. I’m sure Claude won’t mind if I just pop in to see him?”
She said it like a question even though it wasn’t one, and she was already moving out of the courtyard and into the entrance hall with Holst’s laughter at her back before Caius could think to respond.
She managed to make it up the stairs without being stopped, but she was suddenly presented with the problem of being in the castle and definitely being lost.
The estate was… too big. Far too big and very empty. After asking for help from about four different servants, Hilda finally learned Claude was apparently in the duke’s chambers, not his own—though Hilda supposed the duke’s chambers were technically his now.
The chambers themselves were large, taking up most of the second floor of the castle’s east wing. Hilda was led into a sizeable sitting room with large windows overlooking the eastern gardens and the city beyond.
The room itself was refined in its décor; the walls were decorated with white and gold panelling, with lavish gold, green, and red tapestries draped across every available surface. The room was large but cozy. There didn’t seem to be a single part of it not taken up by an art piece or a sparkly chest or a cabinet of trinkets. Even the seating in the room, localised around a large marble fireplace, consisted of plump and soft-looking armchairs, topped with woven throw blankets and pillows.
A room like this—so comfortable—painted a very different picture of the late duke, so often described by others as stoic and staunch. The overwhelming, inviting clutter of the whole place made Hilda wonder if Claude’s propensity for organised chaos back at the academy had been a genetic thing.
To the left was a private study and a meeting room, and to the right was the bedroom. The latest servant who Hilda had roped into her crusade bowed low and gestured to the bedroom door.
“His Grace should be inside trying on clothes for the dinner,” he said. “Though I would suggest knocking first, milady.”
Hilda, having no intention of knocking, dismissed the servant and waited until his footsteps had receded back down the hall before she all but kicked the bedroom door open.
Hilda Valentine Goneril had not seen Claude von Riegan in over a year, but the moment she opened the door it was like no time had passed at all.
He was standing at the foot of a four-poster bed, half-dressed in dark finery—black breeches and a loose-fitting black silk shirt, finely embroidered with tiny crescent moons. It was an impressive piece of design work, but it paled in comparison to the swathe of dress jackets strewn across the bed. Brocade and fine wool and velvet. A lot of velvet.
Probably too much velvet.
But despite his new clothes (and new beard?) everything else about him was familiar. He still had that tousled dark hair and honeyed skin and as he turned to her, green eyes widening in shock, the light glinted off his lone earring in a motion far more nostalgic than it probably needed to be.
“Hilda!?” Claude’s face broke into a grin. A real one. Hilda had gotten quite adept at reading his smiles during their time at school—so many of them faked—and she trusted her instincts on the matter.
Claude smiled, real and bright, and some nebulous weight lifted off her shoulders.
Hilda didn’t know what to say, so she resorted to screaming like something possessed and throwing herself straight at him.
She leapt into his arms, already open and waiting for her, and squealed in delight as he held her tight to his chest, twirling her around. She kicked her legs up behind her like a little girl and laughed—harder than she had in a while—relishing in the weightless feeling as he spun her around.
He let her go and she bounced lightly on her toes.
“What are you doing here!?” he asked incredulously. “I thought your brother was coming!”
“He’s here,” Hilda assured. “But I wanted to come too.”
“Oh? Because funerals are totally your scene?”
Hilda pouted, though there was nothing real behind it. “If you’re going to be ungrateful, I’m just going to go home.”
“And miss hanging out with me? Never. I know you too well.”
Hilda felt warmth blossom in her chest as they fell back into their old banter. It was such a familiar feeling; one she’d missed in their time apart.
Claude gestured to the bed with a nod, an unspoken motion for Hilda to take a seat as he continued to fiddle with his cravat. She obliged, falling back into the plump mattress and feeling the tension of several days travel begin to fade away. She sighed contentedly.
“I worry about you,” she said, tapping her cheek thoughtfully and staring up at the bed’s gold and green canopy. “Stuck here in this big old castle with a bunch of old farts who don’t like you…”
“You? Worried about me?” his voice was tinged with amusement. “Is that not tiring, Miss Goneril?”
“Of course it’s tiring, Mister Riegan!” Hilda said with a mocking huff. “You should probably be grateful or something!”
“Or something,” Claude agreed with a smirk. Then his smile softened. “I’m always grateful for you.”
“Goddess—” Hilda rolled her eyes and shot him a glare. “Don’t be so sincere, Claude. It’s not like you.”
He just winked and kept fumbling with the tie.
Hilda watched him struggle for about a minute of contented silence before getting bored.
“You’re very bad at that, did you know?” she observed.
Claude yanked off the cravat with a huff and chucked it onto the bed.
Hilda, half on instinct, snatched it out of the air. She sat up in time to catch Claude rooting around in a large box for a new one. The one he pulled out and started trying to tie was white, with lace at the ends. It was nice, though Hilda didn’t agree with the impatient way he was attempting to attach it to himself.
“Like… really bad.”
“I know,” he said with a plastered-on smile. “Would you believe this is the first time I’ve had to wear one?”
She probably wouldn’t have if she didn’t have a front-row seat to how badly his hands were trembling. That cemented it for her.
She understood in a way.
This leadership? This responsibility? It was all so new. As new for him as it was for her. As new and unwelcome as the war on their doorstep. She couldn’t help him with the leading… but she could help him in other ways.
Hilda sighed and got to her feet. She shuffled over to Claude and shot him an appraising once-over.
“See something you like?” he asked.
“Hmm,” Hilda hummed. “Nope. Move your hands, I’m fixing you.”
“Ooh,” Claude said cheekily, no hint of the previous tremor in his hands as he held them up in surrender “Are you going to help me look as sexy as possible for this very tragic event?”
“Of course I am.” She rolled her eyes and smacked his hands down before they could mess up his cravat further. “You’re getting my undivided attention, you absolute disaster.”
He laughed again and Hilda could almost pretend, in that small moment, that nothing had changed at all.
With Claude’s clothes selected and appropriately mournful, Hilda managed to pull him away from funeral preparations for a tour of the estate.
(“Haven’t you been here before?” he asked. “Not since I was, like, fifteen,” she retorted. “I want to see what you’ve done to the place!”)
He showed her around his new chambers first, though his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He was very obviously more interested in the nice view over the city than anything in the room.
After that the tour became a bit livelier. He showed her down the hall to the end of the eastern wing, where a series of nice and relatively unused guest bedrooms were in the process of being opened and prepared for funeral attendees who were staying at the castle, rather than in town.
Claude showed her where she and Holst would be staying, their belongings already halfway moved into the rooms from downstairs. The rooms were nice, but the thin layer of dust on the cabinets gave Hilda the distinct impression the Riegan household hadn’t entertained guests in a long time.
Hilda took a quick peek into every open door as they walked, but it was the one next door to hers that caught her attention. Sparsely decorated, with two small suitcases at the foot of the bed, and a glimmering longsword propping the window open.
“Ooh! Who’s in here?” Hilda asked, poking her head in the door.
“That’ll be Judith,” Claude explained.
“Wait—Hero of Daphnel Judith? That Judith?”
“The one and only,” Claude smirked. “As you can see, she’s come armed to the teeth.”
Indeed she has, Hilda noted, realising that, upon closer inspection, the longsword wasn’t the only weapon in the room. Beside the suitcases, a silver bow lay next to a quiver of half-fletched arrows, and an array of daggers were lain out on the bed, as if someone had been halfway through sorting them.
“I wonder where she is,” Claude mused. “Probably off bothering the staff.”
“Is she planning on hunting them for sport?” Hilda joked. Claude frowned.
“No, but she might hunt me. I haven’t welcomed her yet.” Hilda wasn’t sure if that was a joke. Judging by Claude’s grim facial expression, it might not have been.
“Okay. So we’ll avoid her…”
They ran into Holst very quickly after touring the second floor. Hilda’s brother was still in the entrance hall chatting with the staff, and he visibly brightened when he saw Hilda trotting down the stairs with Claude in tow.
“Duke Riegan!” Holst said loudly, detaching himself from the attendant he was speaking to. As the duo approached, he swept into an exaggerated bow. “Thank you for graciously allowing us stay in your fine home.”
Claude grinned and matched the older man with an equally stupid-looking bow. “It’s my pleasure as always, General Holst.”
The moment held for a few seconds before both men broke down into laughter. Claude was suddenly tugged away from Hilda’s side and enveloped in a crushing embrace. It was all she could do to keep herself from laughing aloud.
“Look at you, kid!” Holst cried, planting his hands on Claude’s shoulders and spinning the poor boy around to face him. “You look just like your uncle!”
If the statement staggered Claude in any way, he didn’t show it in more than an almost-imperceptible twitch.
“Really?” he said with a breathy laugh. “I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Oh, it is,” Holst assured, apparently oblivious to Claude’s small shift in demeanour. “Very charming and regal, that Godfrey—we used to think he was the coolest growing up!—but this—”
He spun Claude around again, who seemed to have resigned himself to being tossed around like a ragdoll, and pointed between his beard and Claude’s new facial hair, looking to Hilda.
“He’s taking a leaf out of my book, don’t you think?” He grinned.
Hilda made a show of slowly deliberating, scratching her chin thoughtfully. Holst’s own rose-coloured scruff was a lot thicker than Claude’s dark stubble, stretching up his cheeks and chin and above his lips rather than just along his jaw. “That might be giving him a bit too much credit, Holst,” she smirked.
“Hey!” Claude protested. “I’ll have you know this took a while!”
“Sure it did, kid,” Holst said happily, finally releasing Claude in favour of giving him a pat on the back. “Keep at it.”
Claude huffed good-naturedly and took a step back, carefully extracting himself from Holst’s attack radius.
“It’s good to see you, Holst,” he said, schooling his expression back into his typical easy-going smile. “You weren’t at the last roundtable. Lord Albany said you were having trouble with spies at the border?”
Lord Albany, one of Holst’s trusted lieutenants, was often sent to roundtables in the Gonerils’ place when border conflicts grew too frequent to ignore. Hilda remembered the incident in question clearly; Two months prior, an Almyran messenger had been caught trying to cross the border ten miles from the Locket.
Holst had privately confided in Hilda after the fact that he was worried about Almyran spies in Fódlan—if not in the Alliance specifically. Hilda hadn’t been so sure, but Holst had been adamant that the messenger wouldn’t have fought so hard to destroy their correspondence before being cut down if it hadn’t been sent by, or intended for, someone important.
The incident had left the Gonerils stuck in their territory, fending off several new skirmishes. Albany had gone to Derdriu in their place, and it was for this reason that Holst hadn’t seen Claude in almost fourth months.
“Nothing too severe,” Holst said blandly. “Just worried about communication channels across the border. Boring stuff. I’m more sad I missed the conference. It really would have been nice say goodbye to the old man one last time.”
Claude smiles sadly. “I think he liked you a lot, Holst. If that helps.”
Holst chuckles. “I know he did. The shit I could tell you about your grandpa would curl your hair, kid.”
Hilda brightened.
“Hey, Holst, do you want to come with us?” she asked. “I’m forcing Claude to give me a tour and you can tell us gossip about all the old dogs.”
Holst placed a hand over his heart and sighed dramatically. “I thought it’d be a cold day in Ailell before you willingly invited me somewhere Hilda, but I’ll have to decline. I’m supposed to be meeting with Margrave Edmund and Lady Cornwall for lunch.”
“The Margrave?” Hilda perked up. “Is Marianne with him?”
Holst shook his head. “He’s here alone. Folks over there are worried about their proximity to the Faerghus border, so he’s left most of his household behind.”
“For protection?” Claude wagered. “I can’t really picture Marianne leading anyone, but good for her, I guess?”
“Is Count Ordelia coming?” Hilda asked. This time, both Claude and her brother nodded.
“He’s supposed to be arriving with Gloucester and the other lords from the south,” Claude reports. “Edgar and… who is it?”
“Burgundy,” Holst supplied. Claude snapped his fingers.
“Yeah. Burgundy and a few others. Anyway, Lysithea won’t be with him, but you’ll never guess who’s coming.”
He looked to her eagerly, and Hilda raised a tentative eyebrow. “Who?”
“Lorenz.”
Hilda gasped, whirling on Claude so quickly her ponytail snapped across his face, making him splutter weakly.
“No! Lorenz? Our Lorenz!?”
“In the flesh.” Claude grinned, his eyes positively sparkling with mischievous light.
Hilda cackled.
“Okay, I’m not getting involved in whatever this is,” Holst said. “Promise me you two will play nice with Gloucester’s spawn tonight, okay?”
“No guarantees!” Hilda teased with a wink.
“Fine. And you—Duke Riegan—No funny business, you hear?” Holst said sternly, eyes locked on Claude. “Look after her, okay?”
“Will do, sir,” Claude said with a salute. “But if we’re being honest, Hilda’s more likely going to be the one looking after me.”
“Too right,” Hilda nodded. “Hanging out with you is always so much work.”
Holst waved their banter off. “Okay well, don’t get in too much trouble. I’ll see you both at dinner.”
They began their departure, waving swift goodbyes to Holst as they started wandering back into the castle’s bowels, when they were stopped by a soft call.
“Hey, Claude.”
The duo turned around and met Holst’s gaze once more. He looked uncharacteristically somber, and it gave Hilda cause to frown in confusion.
“Listen,” her brother said. “No one is expecting this transition to be an easy one for you—except Gloucester, maybe, but he won’t be happy with anything you do—” this earned a small laugh from Claude “—I just wanted to let you know that if you need anything… House Goneril stands by you.”
There was an odd energy in the air suddenly—a strange shift in Claude’s expression that Hilda couldn’t put a name to. But just as quickly as it had appeared it was gone.
There was a moment of silence and then Claude bowed, properly this time, with one hand over his heart and the other behind his back. “Thank you, General,” he said, without a hint of his usual sarcasm. “I appreciate your offer.”
It was… very professional, all in all. It was a polite recognition of allegiance befitting a duke, and Hilda didn’t like it one bit. Formality was a mantle Claude wore surprisingly well, but it was also one she found quite alien on him.
Holst wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as Hilda was, so it was easy for her to tell that something about Claude’s words had left him displeased. She didn’t have time to figure out what, though, because right away they were once again exchanging goodbyes and Holst was gone.
“Am I missing something?” Hilda muttered, mostly to herself.
Claude let out a sharp, amused breath, and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go. I bet we can snag lunch in the kitchens.”
They headed back inside, bouncing from the kitchens to the stables and eventually finding their way to the gardens in the central courtyard. They took refuge from the heat of the midday under a gazebo. It reminded Hilda of the one in the Garreg Mach tea garden, smaller, but similarly surrounded by flowering plants.
Hilda smacked Claude’s hands down from his cravat for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” She asked, drawing his attention to her.
He looked a little startled, a too-open expression that was enough evidence on its own that something was on his mind. “Sure?” he replied.
Are you sure you’re okay? Hilda wanted to ask. But she didn’t.
“Are you worried about inviting Ordelia and Gloucester?” she asked instead.
Claude rolled his eyes and turned away. “Why would I be?”
Hilda matched his eyeroll. “Don’t play dumb, Holst tells me about the roundtables,” she said, trying to catch his eye. He didn’t oblige. “They’re pro-Empire, aren’t they?”
Claude sighed and turned his gaze back to her. “Just because they want to keep trading with Hrym doesn’t make them turncoats.”
He didn’t sound like he believed it.
“Doesn’t it?” Hilda ventured, plucking a rose petal from one of the nearby bushes. It was yellow—good to know the Riegans were nothing if not thematic. “Holst said Count Gloucester called your grandfather a “spineless, kingdom-sympathising fool”. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s just in it for trade.”
Claude snorted.
“When did you become a politician?” He was trying to change the subject, but Hilda wasn’t about to let him.
She shot him a glare. “When I found out my best friend was about to become the sovereign duke? One of us has to pay attention. It’s frankly shocking that it’s me.”
“I am paying attention,” Claude said, a little sadly. “I just think a funeral shouldn’t be a partisan thing… We’re adults enough to hold off on tearing each other’s throats out until the end of the week, I should hope.”
Silence fell over the gazebo then. Here in the centre of the castle courtyard, the world was oddly devoid of ambient noise. The thick gardens muffled the sounds coming from the surrounding building, and the activity of the day had driven away any potential bird life that could have been living in the greenery.
“I just wish we could take a bit more time,” Claude mumbled into the quiet.
“How… how long would you want to take?” Hilda asked. She remembered Godfrey’s week-long ceremony, perhaps he was thinking more along those lines.
“My paternal grandfather’s funeral ceremonies lasted… three weeks, I think?” he said softly, as if the information itself was precious. “A bit excessive if you ask me but… he was a pretty excessive guy.”
Hilda wanted to ask in what fucking world a funeral ceremony needed to be three weeks long, but she held her tongue. She’d learned a long time ago that Claude offered details of his childhood with great caution, and she didn’t want to spook him out of a potentially interesting story.
“That… seems like an awful lot of work for just one person.”
“He was well liked,” Claude said, and there was something deeper in the way he said it that Hilda couldn’t quite identify. “People put in more effort for people they like.”
What does that mean for Duke Oswald? Hilda began to see why Claude was so perturbed by the rushed nature of this funeral. What was it like for him? To have one grandfather apparently so well loved that three weeks are dedicated to his memory, only to follow him with the other grandfather, dead in a time of war, not even given three days?
It’s not very fair, Hilda thought. “How old were you?”
“When he died? Six or seven.”
“That’s… rough.”
A seven-year-old, surrounded by family, didn’t have to worry about a funeral. But that same boy, older, the last of his line, had to plan one. He was going to have to stand in front of all his grandfather’s friends and speak about a life he was only there for a fraction of.
“Yeah.”
Silence fell over them again, and Hilda felt a knot begin to twist in her stomach. She was confronted by that same strange feeling she’d picked up on during Holst’s odd exchange with Claude. She didn’t like how it was making her feel.
Hilda hummed. “You’re going to want to keep an eye on the liege lords anyway. If Count Gloucester starts spreading his sentiment before the roundtable it might get a lot more exciting. I for one am enjoying how boring it is around here.”
Claude leaned against one of the gazebo’s walls and cast an appraising glance at Hilda. “You almost sound like a real advisor, Hilda. I’m impressed.”
The tension broke.
“Shut up,” Hilda scoffed. “Don’t ever say that again.”
Claude grinned wide. “I can say whatever I want. I’m in charge, right?”
“You’re a duke, not a king.”
“Sure,” he said, too amused for his own good.
“Power has changed you,” Hilda teased. She swatted him over the back of the head for good measure.
Claude laughed. “So, Milady Advisor, you’re keeping tabs on us nobles, huh? Have you heard from Ignatz or any of the others?”
Hilda bit her lip. The tension was back. This was a conversation they were going to have eventually, but not one she had been looking forward to.
“No,” she said softly, no longer talkative.
Claude, bless him, picked up on this immediately. Concern marred his expression.
“They’re fine, Hilda.”
“You don’t know that,” she mumbled. None of them could know that. She hadn’t seen them since they’d left Garreg Mach over a year ago, sent spiralling to the four corners of the country with little more than swift goodbyes between them.
“I may not know it for sure,” Claude assured. “But I know Leonie is tougher than any of us put together, and I know Raph and Ignatz aren’t going to let each other out of their sight. They’re fine.”
Hilda sighed.
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound like she believed it.
They were wandering through the castle’s exterior gardens, drifting aimlessly through the low hedges and chatting idly as the sun lowered over the city.
“Do you want to see something?” Claude asked suddenly.
Hilda squinted at him.
“I dunno. Maybe? I have to get ready for dinner.”
Claude raised an eyebrow. “It’s not for three hours?”
Hilda planted a hand on her hip. “Yeah, three hours I have to spend tying myself into my fucking dress. Not all of us can throw a fancy napkin around our necks and call it quits.”
Claude raised his hands in surrender. “Do you want to see what I have to show you or not?”
“Of course I want to see it!”
Claude, surprisingly, led her back into the duke’s chambers. Instead of turning right into his room however, he turned left, unlocking the door to what Hilda vaguely recalled was his grandfather’s old study.
He eased the door open and beckoned her inside. Immediately, Hilda was assaulted by the sight of chests and boxes piled high along almost every wall. The place is a mess.
“Holy shit,” Hilda said. “Is this yours or his?”
Her eyes drift upwards, a witty remark falling dead on her tongue as she catches sight of what Claude had brought her in here to see. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Oh.
“…That’s it, isn’t it?”
Claude followed her gaze to the far wall, where a bone-white bow sat on a wall mount above the office. The crest stone stared back, red and all-seeing. The thing looked untouched, and rightly so.
Hilda had never seen Failnaught before now, but she was intimately familiar with Freikugel. The lines of the bow, organic and eerie, sent shivers down her spine. She could almost feel Freikugel in her hand like a phantom… almost see the curves of inhuman bones under her fingers.
Failnaught was much the same as her family’s axe: just-to-the-left of human-looking, with spines and ridges that could, perhaps, be ribs in another world. She supposed she should be grateful it wasn’t human—she probably couldn’t stomach it if it were.
It was unsettling all the same.
“Yeah,” Claude said softly. “That’s her.”
“Why is it here and not…” With you? In your room? On your back, like your old bow was every day?
Claude seemed to catch her drift. “The old man was keeping it locked up,” he explained. “I don’t think he wanted me to have it.”
Hilda knew some Relic families were picky about who got what and when. She knew Sylvain wouldn’t have laid hands on the Lance of Ruin until much later in life if it hadn’t almost literally fallen into his lap. She knew the Gloucesters had some kind of stupid prerequisite for theirs, too. Holst foisting Freikugel onto her while she was still at school had been an anomaly—most noble families were stingier than that.
But even so, there was something in the way Claude said it that rubbed her the wrong way.
“What do you mean he didn’t want you to have it? I was sorta under the impression he liked you.”
“He did… I hope… I just think he thought I wasn’t ready for it.”
Do you think you’re ready for it? But she didn’t ask that.
“Have you shot it yet?” Hilda asked instead.
There was an odd set to his jaw as he said, “No.”
Hilda didn’t think there was anything she could really say.
So, she didn’t speak, she just hugged him again.
It had only been a year, but he was so much taller than he had been. Blame it on boys to shoot up without warning. She had to get up on her toes to reach him now, looping her arms around his neck in a tight hug until she was almost hanging off him.
She felt a deep thrum of laughter reverberate through his chest as he brought his arms up, wrapping them around her to match her embrace.
She squeezed a little tighter. He did too.
“I missed you a lot you know,” she said, voice muffled in the soft collar of his shirt. His clothes were new and so very unlike his old ones, smelling of soap and air and not much else.
But Claude was the same, with his unreasonably nice skin and broad shoulders and a lingering scent of rosin. It was familiar, underneath all the unfamiliar trappings of his new station.
“I missed you too,” he said.
They stood there for a moment, letting the dust of a year and a half’s distance finally settle around them. Hilda hadn’t really realised how much she’d missed him. She wondered if he was realising the same thing.
She leaned back and placed her hand on his cheek, feeling the roughness of new stubble. From here she could see more recent additions to his face: a small scar on his lip, a sharper line to his jaw, heavy bags under his eyes only slightly concealed. His braid was gone. How had she not noticed that before?
She wondered if he saw the same marks of change in her. Did he see the new muscles in her shoulders, built from months of training? Did he feel her calloused fingers, more work-hardened than they’d ever been in the years he’d known her?
He wore his title well from a distance, as did she. Hilda knew it would be impossible to see the cracks in their masks from anywhere farther away than where they were standing right now.
“I’m so sorry, Claude,” she said.
“Thanks… but, I didn’t really know him that well.”
“I’m not talking about your grandfather,” she said, even though she sort of had been. “I’m talking about… everything.”
She gestured all around her; to the desk, sat at by so many leaders before him; out the door to the bedroom, where a bed too large for any one man stood unslept in; to the boxes and chests obviously brought by Claude himself, only half unpacked as their owner settled his new life into the spaces left behind by a dead man.
To the bone-white bow, looming above them like a red-eyed spectre of terrible expectation.
That feeling was back—that strange energy. It was that same feeling she’d seen roiling between him and Holst earlier, though now she could finally put a name to it.
Claude was lonely, achingly so, and Hilda chided herself for not having noticed it before Holst of all people had. His offer—House Goneril stands by you—hadn’t been one of political support. No. It had been a personal promise, a shoulder to cry on if needed, a welcoming hand outstretched to a young man who’d just lost the last shred of family and guidance he had in the Alliance.
A big lonely house belonging to only him, full of people who didn’t care. A young man alone, writing eulogies for a grandfather he didn’t know.
It’ll be good for Claude to have you around, Holst had said.
Like a friend, he’d urged of her. Kid doesn’t have many of those anymore.
“It’s too much too soon,” she said. He smiled a wan smile.
“Yeah, well—I wanted this, Hilda… this is the whole reason I—” he sighed, shook his head like he was clearing it. “I want to lead.”
“I know,” she mumbled. “I just think we all wanted it to be under more peaceful circumstances.”
“We don’t get to choose that.”
“No, but we do get to complain about it.”
He smirked, a little more honest this time.
Hilda took a step back and gathered his hands in hers. “Holst meant what he said, you know,” she said. “He’s here for you, and so am I… if you need anything—anything at all—you can come to me. You know that, right?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” she said softly. “And thank you, Claude, for trusting me.”
“Thank you for, I dunno, not freaking out?” he laughed at himself. “I’m trying to keep it together.”
Hilda shook her head. “If anyone deserves to be freaking out right now it’s you.”
“I—”
There was a knock on the open door and the duo started. They spun around to see an out-of-breath servant girl standing in the doorway, looking terrified.
“Your grace,” she bowed low to Claude. “A-apologies for the interruption but we’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
That was probably Hilda’s fault, but she didn’t say anything.
“You found me,” Claude said, putting on that too-formal smile again. “Where’s the fire?”
The woman, apparently done panting, stood up, holding out both hands, clutching napkins. “We are seeking advisement on the colour of the napkins for the dinner, your Grace. Would you prefer gold or green?”
Claude and Hilda shared a quick, confused glance, before Claude reluctantly answered.
“Uh… gold?”
Hilda slapped his shoulder derisively. “No!” she squawked and turned to the servant woman with a sweet smile. “He’d prefer the green, actually.”
The woman, apparently just now realising she’d walked in on something, nodded and ran off.
They watched her leave in amused silence.
“Why not gold?” Claude asked dryly.
Hilda scoffed. “This is a funeral, Claude, not a children’s birthday party. Have some tact.”
“Gods,” Claude sighed wistfully, looking down at her with open admiration and more than a little teasing in his eyes. “I’m so fucking glad you’re here.”