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“Do you want to spar?”
“Excuse me?”
Claude’s words are faster than his eyes, which take a second to peel away from the papers he’s reading.
Holst leans against the table.
(It isn’t actually round. He’s always been bothered by that.)
“Do you want to spar with me, Claude?” he clarifies.
They’re the only ones in the room—the other lords having trickled out as the top of the hour signalled the end of the meeting—but Holst watches Claude scan the room for peeping toms regardless.
“Why?” he asks, apparently satisfied in his sweep of the hall.
“We have time and it could be fun,” Holst replies. “You seem tense.”
Claude blinks. Blinks again, then cracks a smile that’s not at all real. “And the most impressive axeman in Leicester coming at me with a weapon is supposed to make me less tense?”
Well, no, when he says it like that. But Holst isn’t one to be deterred so easily.
“What if I said please?”
Claude chuckles. “Then I would—respectively—decline, General. I’m pretty swamped at the moment.”
Holst sincerely doubts that’s true. They’re in the middle of one of the most productive roundtable conferences Holst has attended all year. Things, for once, are actually being decided rather than proposed. It’s almost shocking how much is being passed.
Claude is probably less busy right now than he has been in an entire moon. But Holst isn’t a child, so he won’t push.
“Okay, but I’ll keep the offer on the table. You gotta keep those skills sharp, kid.”
This time the smile is genuine. “I could outshoot you blindfolded.”
“Eh.” Holst takes his leave, content that he’s managed to heal the broken moment, and resolves to try again later.
He tries again the next day.
He tries the day after.
(He’s turned away both times).
It isn’t that Holst is offended, per say. He’s just a bit miffed that it seems to be only him getting Claude’s cold shoulder. At first, he’d thought Claude just didn’t want to train, but he’d eventually become aware that he is training, just not with him.
He trains with Judith a lot, as well as Lorenz, when the Gloucester kid could be dragged away from work. He’s even picked up a sword a few times against Margrave Edmund’s daughter, which is as charming an image as it is incomprehensible.
But why not Holst?
Okay. Maybe he’s a little offended.
He tries once again at the next roundtable. A moon later! Whatever had been eating at Claude surely can’t be eating at him now!
“You Gonerils sure are stubborn,” Claude laughs, “but I’ll have to say no again.”
Holst sends him a fake little pout. “I want to see what you’re made of, kid. You’re killing me, here!”
“I’d be happy to spar some other time,” Claude says, amicable and cool as ever. The boy has leagues more patience than Hilda, who would have snapped the instant Holst asked her a second time. Holst has no idea how he does it.
Faced with a seemingly insurmountable impasse on a fairly pointless quest, Holst does what any self-respecting Alliance noble does when things aren’t going his way; he fumes about it for a time, and then he finds Judith von Daphnel and complains to her about it.
“He won’t spar with me, Judy.”
Judith lets the tomahawk in her hand fly loose, spinning expertly through the air to lodge just a hair’s breadth away from the centre of a target painted onto a tree in the lower Riegan gardens. Usually this area is designated for archery practice, but apparently Claude has been picking up axes lately.
(This is even more of a reason Holst thinks it would be good to spar with Claude. He is, at the duke’s own admission, the most impressive axeman in the Alliance. Who better to train with than him?)
All Judith deigns to say is “Tch” before she tugs another axe out of her belt.
The dismissal is both stinging and confusing. Holst frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean? He spars with you. Is it so weird that I’m a little offended?”
Judith smirks. “I don’t have to entertain your pity party, Goneril, and I don’t like what that ‘you’ is implying.”
She spins the axe once in her hand and then throws it at blinding speed. The blade sinks deep into the bark of the next tree, still a touch too far from the bullseye. She swears and wipes her hand on her trousers.
Holst isn’t done. He jogs to catch up with her as she stalks off. “Wait, do you know something?”
Judith turns, stopping them both in their tracks, and yanks the next axe out of Holst’s own belt. She whirls around and throws it at the next tree. Bullseye. Third time lucky, Holst guesses.
“Has he talked about me?’ He forges ahead. He isn’t ready to give up this line of questioning, not when Judith seems to know something.
Judith turns her full attention to him, hawkish eyes gleaming under the dappled shade of the trees. “Why the fuck do you want to spar with him, Holst? There are plenty of fools who would line up to get their asses kicked by you, I don’t see why you’re fixating on the one fool who doesn’t.”
Holst shrugs. “I don’t know… he seems lonely.”
“And sparring with him is your answer to that?”
“Should it not be?”
“You haven’t changed at all, Holst,” she sighs. It’s cryptic and unhelpful. “Have you at least tried telling him that?”
“Have I tried approaching the sovereign duke of the nation and going “Hey sport, I’ve noticed you seem down in the dumps lately and I’d like to hang out with you to make you feel better”? No, Judith, I haven’t.”
Judith looks about as close to hitting him as she is to hitting a bullseye. “You don’t have to say it like that,” she says in a dry voice. “Just tell the boy you’re worried about him.”
“That’s a bit sentimental coming from you, Judy,” he teases. “I didn’t know you could be so maternal.”
The next bullseye is in the form of a knee in his groin. Holst will be the first to admit he probably deserves it.
Holst is not so chauvinistic that he thinks Claude would necessarily be better off for having a male role model around. Judith is a powerhouse and is very obviously providing more support for Claude than just political advocacy, judging by how much time they spend together. Plus, Claude is an adult man, not a child; Holst had hated being treated like little kid by the Riegan siblings in his youth, and his and Claude’s age gap is much smaller than the one he’d had with the guy’s mom.
So he won’t baby Claude (at least no more than is strictly funny). No. That isn’t his intention.
But it’s clear to see he’s a little bit… adrift. Being on the front lines at the fall of Garreg Mach had affected most of his sister’s friends negatively, and Holst hadn’t realised how much of a relationship Claude had actually had with his grandfather until after the man had died. So much, taken in such quick succession… House Goneril’s closeness to House Riegan had made Holst unfortunately privy to the quiet aches of grief in the duke, barely out of his teens at the time of his ascension.
He’d offered support to him then, but he hadn’t been entirely sure if Claude had understood exactly what he’d been offering. Not just political support, but also a friend, if need be.
Claude has been a good friend to Hilda at school—a good leader, too, one that kept her safe in Holst’s stead—Holst wants to repay that.
He’s lonely, and Holst doesn’t like it one bit.
“Hey, Hildy?”
“Yes, Holsty?” Hilda responds in kind. She doesn’t look up from her book.
She’s supposed to be helping him do inventory at the Locket, but of course that means she’s lounging while Holst crunches numbers in his study.
“Does Claude talk about me?”
That makes Hilda look up. She peers at him over the top of her book, raising one eyebrow contemplatively. “In like a sexy way or a gossip-y way?”
“In a—wait, does he talk about me in a sexy way?”
Hilda wrinkles her nose in disgust, shaking her head violently. “No! Ew! That was a joke!”
“Good!” Holst laughs, turning back to his papers. “He’s like twelve.”
“He’s twenty-one.”
“Same difference.”
There’s silence for a long moment, which Holst uses to run a few more numbers, before two pale, pink-nailed hands flitter up over his inventory tables.
“Why are you asking about Claude?” Hilda asks in a bright voice, though when Holst raises his gaze to her face, she’s looking at him with an oddly serious expression.
“Oh, no real reason. I think he hates me.”
Hilda tuts and rolls her eyes. “He doesn’t hate you.”
“No, I… I think I did something to upset him,” Holst chews his lip nervously. “I don’t know what, though.”
Hilda flops into a spare chair and begins to visibly think. It’s a motion that involves flinging her legs up on his desk and humming and haw-ing loudly, designed to draw as much attention as possible. He gives it to her.
“I don’t think he’s mentioned anything like that,” she decides finally, tapping her chin. “He probably would’ve told me.”
Holst slaps the desk. “Aha! So you do talk about me!”
“Yeah, but only, like, boring stuff,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Like, “Oh, Hilda! Won’t you please tell Holst to review my budgetary proposals?” or “Oh, Hilda! Can you please ask Holst to send me his border deployment reports for the Garland Moon?” or “Oh, Hilda! Your brother is so cool, I wish I could get him to teach me axes because he’s ever so good at them but not nearly as good as you”.”
Holst laughs. “Okay, first of all, he doesn’t sound like that,” he chides good-naturedly, “and second of all—did he actually say that last one?”
“That I’m better than you at axes? No, unfortunately, I am trying to wear him down, but—” she puts a hand up to stop him from interjecting, “—yes, he did say he wanted to train with you.”
Holst rocks back in his chair, letting his sister’s words sink in. He’d wanted to train with him? When? Holst has given him ample opportunity to act on that impulse… if what Hilda says is true… why has he kept turning him down?
“Huh.” He frowns. “Really?”
“Uh, yeah? Has he not talked to you about it?”
“No. I’ve offered to spar with him at the last two conferences. He keeps saying no.”
Hilda actually looks confused for a moment, which doesn’t set Holst’s heart at ease.
“Maybe he’s scared,” she suggests lightly. “Have you given him a reason to be scared of you?”
“No?” He doesn’t think he has. His conversations with Claude are usually really friendly, and it’s not like the kid is actively avoiding him or anything else as drastic as that.
“Then it should be fine,” Hilda chirps. “Don’t worry about it, Holst.”
The sun begins to set in the western sky, spilling red light through the windows of the fortress. On the other side Holst knows the Locket’s long shadows would be stretching long, like they do every night, in creeping tendrils down the Almyran side of the pass. A darkness cast eastward.
The light that fills the room is warm and red and stains his sister’s hair in a vibrant hue. She smiles at him over the top of her book, and the whole image is rose-coloured and warm.
Red sky at night is a good omen, but it does nothing for the curl of dread making its home in Holst’s chest.
The next roundtable is a resounding disaster. Hey, no one ever said good streaks can last forever.
“I will not move my troops on your whim!” Duke Goneril shouts. Count Gloucester, to his credit, doesn’t so much as shift in the face of the outburst.
“I am merely doing what I believe is best for the Alliance,” the Count spits. “I’d advise you try it some time, Your Grace. In the meantime I will not be lectured in noble procedure by a glorified guard-dog.”
Holst watches his father laugh, bitter and cold, which does nothing to defuse the tension at the table. “What you think is best for the Alliance is dangerously close to treason. You won’t be so eager for war when it’s on your doorstep.”
“It is on my doorstep, Goneril! Why am I the only idiot at this table who seems to understand—”
“Enough!” Holst slams his fist onto the table, rattling it down to the legs. He’s usually the one causing scenes, not ending them, but his father’s argumentative nature is only getting worse.
He wouldn’t have noticed Claude’s flinch if he hadn’t been immediately to his left, and if his lean forward hadn’t placed the duke directly in his peripheral.
It’s small. Just a twitch of the hands, pulling back a fraction from where Holst slams his down. His back goes a little straighter. His eyes widen a touch and stay locked ahead. His mouth quirks downwards.
“General Holst is correct,” Claude says. His voice is even—far too controlled—and he won’t look at Holst even when all eyes turn to him. “We gain nothing from arguing if all it’s going to be is an excuse for slander. Both of you, sit down.”
If he sees Holst staring, he gives no indication, nothing but a slow curl of his fingers into his palms, loose fists becoming tight as nails dug into skin.
Such small motions.
Have you given him a reason to be scared of you?
Holst isn’t so sure anymore.
“Are you ever going to get married?”
Tiana lowers her bow very slowly; in the way she usually does when she’s mad at the younger boys for interrupting. Holst is ready to run, but when Tiana turns around, he’s met with a simple smirk.
“Did Balthus put you up to this?”
“No!” Holst pouts. Tiana laughs.
“You can tell the little twerp I won’t marry him, though it’s bold of him to ask twice this week instead of just once.”
Tiana keeps her bow low as Holst approaches, watching him with those sharp green eyes to make sure he doesn’t cross the firing line. Holst makes sure he’s extra careful.
“So you won’t get married at all?” he asks.
Tiana jerks her head for Holst to step back a bit more. He obliges and watches her raise her bow again.
“Nah. I’ll probably get married,” she says, closing one of her eyes and drawing back. “That’s what I’m supposed to do right? Get married and have babies? I probably just won’t get married to someone my dad picks.”
She fires the arrow and it flies with blinding precision, burying itself deep into the centre of the target. Bullseye. Tiana grins.
“Plus, like, have you seen my candidates, Holsty?” She tugs another arrow out of her quiver and shoots him a wink. “Rhys von Ordelia? Dorian Gloucester? Those dweebs can suck it.”
“Suck what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She twirls an arrow around in her fingers and points the fletched end at him like a conductor’s baton. “The point is that if I do get married and have kids, it’ll be with someone I like. And I’m not going to force my kid to do dumb stuff like arranged marriages or boarding school or going to church.”
“What are you gonna make them do then?” Holst asks, because all those things sort of seem like givens. That’s what his momma says, at least.
“Have a good time,” Tiana says with a smirk, knocking and drawing another arrow. “Be loved and cherished. All that sappy junk good moms want for their kids. I’d want that for them.”
Tiana lets the arrow go and the accuracy is, for lack of a better word, deadly. It hits her original arrow dead centre, cracking through the wood to splinter the shaft in two, clean halves, and embed itself in the target.
“FUCK YEAH!”
“Tiana! Momma says that’s a bad word!”
“Oh shit, sorry!”
He doesn’t manage to catch Claude after the meeting adjourns; The duke is out the door before almost everyone else.
Holst spends a good half-hour looking for him. He wants to confront him, even if the words “confront” and “Riegan” usually end with the confronter getting talked circles around and then getting sent off knowing less than when they’d started.
He wants to know what he’s done to Claude, because after his talk with Hilda and that awfully disguised flinch at the conference he can’t help but think he’s done something.
It turns out he doesn’t have to look for long, because its only one more circuit of the lower floor of the estate before Claude finds him. He comes dashing over in light training clothes, the leather armour of cavalry-archers strapped across his left arm and chest.
“Holst!” he greets, grin blinding.
“Claude!” Holst greets in turn. “You look ready for a fight.”
“I sure hope so,” Claude laughs. “I want to spar with you.”
Holst is not too man to admit this staggers him a little. “Y–What?”
“I want to spar with you, Holst,” Claude clarifies.
“Really?”
“Yes. You were asking earlier, right? If you’re ready I’m happy to go now.”
He smiles.
Oh.
For once, Holst hadn’t actually been looking for Claude to spar. Go figure this would be the one time the kid would be down for it.
He wonders if it’s a good idea, though. He’s not blind, and Claude seems a little more polite and eager than usual. The mask of an amiable politician is fitting a little too tightly.
He sees it now, too. He sees the curled fists and nails biting at palms. But he doesn’t say anything.
If there’s one thing Holst knows about sparring, it’s that there’s rarely a better place to air grievances than on hard-packed earth with a training axe in your hand. Whatever is eating at Claude will rear its head there.
Holst knows a lot of things about Claude. He knows he’s shrewd and cunning, with a silver tongue and a good head for politics. He knows he loves his class, and his class loves him back. He knows he’s braver than he acts, and probably nicer, too. He knows he’s very likely the best archer in the Alliance, and the best archer the roundtable has housed in its ranks in generations.
So it isn’t surprising when Claude slings a bow over his shoulder a second after picking up an axe.
Holst chuckles. “This is looking a bit imbalanced, kid.”
“If you get your favoured weapon then I get mine,” Claude says simply. “Just be happy it’s not Failnaught.”
Holst spins his training axe once in the air before catching it again. “Don’t even joke, kid.”
Claude rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why I let you call me that.”
“Well, defeat me and maybe I’ll stop.”
With no countdown and no warning, Claude sprints forward. He swipes his axe up in an underhand slash, aiming right for Holst’s stomach.
A killing blow. Holst is a little impressed.
Holst blocks it easily, though. Claude is faster than he’d expected, but Holst has far too many years of front-line fighting under his belt to be thrown off-guard by a quick little upstart.
The sound of the training weapons colliding, as dull as they are, echoes through the space like the crack of lightning.
Here is what Holst von Goneril doesn’t know:
Claude is Khalid and Khalid is Amir’s brother.
Khalid’s face is held underwater by Amir’s hands, which are stronger and larger than his own. The water rushes past and the taste of glacial headwaters and scum cloys at his tongue and nose. He holds his breath as long as he can until Amir jerks back and Khalid takes in a lungful of river water at the same moment he is pulled back onto shore. His throat and lungs tremble and his vision wavers and he hacks and chokes and gasps while his mother strikes Amir across his grinning face. “We were only playing,” Amir whines. Khalid feels the river in his mouth spill out.
They trade blows for a while. Claude is fast, but Holst is strong; the upper body strength of an archer is nothing to sneeze at, but Holst had started wielding Freikugel at age twenty-two.
It doesn’t take long for Claude’s axe to be knocked from his hands, but he doesn’t let the momentum of Holst’s devastating swing stagger him. He rolls backwards, rising into a kneel, drawing his bow at the same moment.
He fires with blinding speed, at close-range, and the only thing that saves Holst is the fact his axe is already in a raised position, close enough to his chest to be able to be moved to block quickly.
The arrow ricochets to the side and Claude has the audacity to smirk.
Fuck, Holst thinks a little hysterically. Put this kid on a wyvern and he could probably do anything.
He fires again, quicker than Holst had been expecting, and he has to throw himself to the ground to avoid the shot.
“Maybe this is a bit imbalanced,” Claude drawls, and he twirls his next arrow around before knocking it. “I thought I was fighting the best axeman in the Alliance, but apparently he isn’t here.”
Claude has stepped back out of melee range, but Holst is far from finished. He gets to his feet and runs forward as Claude pulls back.
Here is what Holst von Goneril doesn’t know:
Claude is Khalid and Khalid is Yazid’s brother.
Khalid stands before his father, empty handed. “Where is it?” the king asks. Khalid casts his eyes to Yazid, whose smile is more poisonous than anything he’s ever eaten. There’s a threat in his golden eyes, one that brims with venom and promise. “I broke it,” Khalid lies. “I’m sorry, Baba.” The king hums, rises to his feet, walks past him. “You will not be attending the festival.” “But—” “Thieves do not get rewards, Khalid.” Khalid wants to argue, wants to say who really stole it. But there is a knife at his back, a knife with golden eyes and a poisonous smile that threatens more than just his comfort, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Holst runs forward, axe raised.
He’s fought close range archers most of his adult life—archery is one place where the Alliance’s traditions overlap with Almyra’s. The foot-soldiers of Fódlan’s eastern neighbour have sworn by the deadly perfection of shortbows for generations.
So, Holst knows how to disarm archers intimately, maybe even ones as quick as Claude.
What he expects is a fight. What he expects is a grapple for the upperhand, a risky burst forward to get into melee range. What he expects is a good fight from a capable opponent.
What he isn’t expecting is for the bow to tumble gracelessly from Claude’s fingers.
It hits the ground with a dull, wooden clatter. The arrow that is half-knocked skitters uselessly across the training yard floor. It would almost be funny, in a way, if it hadn’t been for the look of fear on Claude’s face; open and easier to read than any expression Holst has ever seen in his years of knowing him.
Holst stops in his tracks.
Here is what Holst von Goneril doesn’t know:
Claude is Khalid and Khalid is Ishaq’s brother.
Khalid kneels at his brother’s feet, wrist clutched in a shaking hand, and Ishaq tosses his axe aside with a huff. “You should have kept your block higher,” he says, and Khalid bites down hot tears so Ishaq will not see them. But he does, and in an instant he is kneeling before him, all rough-spun silks and bloodstains. Ishaq grabs Khalid by the jaw and tilts his face to the sky, where all can see him. “Don’t cry,” Ishaq says. “Your mother gave Father a boy, didn’t she?” Khalid nods. “Act like it,” Ishaq spits. He lets him go and walks away, leaving Khalid in the dirt with a broken wrist that burns like acid and angry tears in his eyes that burn even hotter.
Claude, most likely against every instinct in his body, doesn’t run off.
That would be too much of a scene, of course, and if there’s one thing the leader of the Alliance hates it’s drawing attention that he can’t control.
Holst stands dumbly by as Claude clenches his fists, gives a short bow and a quiet apology and turns on his heel, walking away as quickly as he can without running.
That could have gone better.
Holst retrieves Claude’s bow and axe from the ground and hangs them back up on the weapons rack. When he turns around, the door is still swinging.
Holst is not unduly nosy. That’s what Hilda is for, the family would always joke. But Holst is a big brother and that, in his opinion, makes this his business.
He follows.
The church had bestowed upon the children of the Alliance the name “Deer” many years ago and had shrouded them in gold and laurels and this was, apparently, a gift. It’s supposed to be a proud symbol—the visage of a great, regal stag—but when compared to their peers Holst had always thought it lost much of its lustre.
Up against the sharp eyes and talons of an eagle, or the crushing jaws and claws of a lion, a deer, no matter what grand heights its antlers reach, is a prey animal. A frail thing of timid, shaking limbs and ears pricked for danger.
Holst finds Claude a little ways away from the training grounds, sitting on a bench in a slightly overgrown garden, watching the distant peaks of sailing ships sway in the harbour below.
He looks every bit the timid deer the Alliance tries not to look like. It’s… sad.
“Claude.”
Holst stands before him, blocking the few of the port. It’s a rude gesture, probably, but he’s not sure how else to get the kid’s attention.
“Why did you ask to spar with me?” He asks.
Claude sighs and looks up at him, expression unreadable.
“Real answer?”
Holst tries to smile. “Please,” he says.
Claude’s answer is slow and careful: “To prove I could.”
So, it had been some sort of personal test? Forcing himself to go against whatever he’d been hesitant to go up against? To do what? To accomplish what?
“If I’ve done something to offend you, Claude, I’d like to know about it.”
Claude tuts. “You haven’t offended me—”
“Then have I scared you?!” Holst can’t help the rise of frustration in his voice. “I’ve done something.”
Claude looks up at him with a bemused expression. It’s so convincing that Holst almost falls right into it. There’s a quirk to Claude’s lips and a glimmer in his eyes that almost makes him second guess himself. Scared? Claude von Riegan? Holst has seen the kid frustrated before, maybe sad, maybe worried, but scared? Scared is a six letter word that has nothing to do with Duke Riegan, thank you very much.
Claude is like a river, twisting his way through the paths of least resistance, finding the easiest ways to get out conversations and make people think a certain way. But if Claude is a river then the Gonerils are like the mountains they safeguard—strong and unyielding. Holst remains impassive, arms crossed and head cocked, and he watches as Claude’s smile slips away like fresh ink in rain.
Holst does something he hasn’t done in a long time. He kneels down in front of Claude so he’s eye level with him, a motion so easy to sink into like he had so many times with a younger Hilda. He would comfort her when she was hurt or console her when she was sad. Eye to eye. I am listening to you, it says, and he hopes to the Goddess Claude can hear it.
“We’re allies,” he says. “I’ve told you before that Goneril stands by you. I mean that politically, sure, but I also mean it as a friend. I am obviously playing some role in whatever it is that has you so… stressed… knowingly or not. I’d like to help you.”
Claude’s face in unreadable and still for a very long time before he speaks. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Holst says quickly.
“I do, though. I haven’t been fair to you.”
That’s a whole bundle of something. Holst has no idea what he means, and he’s overcome with the creeping feeling that he’s getting closer to the heart of the issue.
He doesn’t touch, but he leans a bit closer as he says, “I’d like to know what’s wrong, Claude. I’d like to help if I can.”
Calculating green eyes lock onto Holst’s own, but this time they’re laced with something a little bit like resignation
Many people call Duke Riegan a liar, but Holst feels like he knows the young man a bit better than that. To call him a liar is wrong, you see, because all Claude has ever really done is master the art of giving up as little of the truth as possible. He keeps truth close, treats it like a valuable commodity.
“I have three brothers,” he says. “Half-brothers.”
Oh.
Okay.
“Oh. Okay.”
It’s not the whole truth, not at all. Like most details about Claude, it raises more questions than it answers. Half-brothers? Not Tiana’s, then, but someone’s. Where were they? Why hadn’t they been mentioned before?
But this isn’t about that. Holst doesn’t have Gloucester’s love for scandal or Edmund’s eye for conspiracy. He just has eyes for people who need help, and there’s one in front of him right now.
Brothers.
Holst has an awful feeling that he knows where this is going.
“I’m assuming they’re older than you?” he says.
Claude gives him a curious look. “What makes you say that?” He asks.
Holst smirks. “Would it be weird for me to say you act like a youngest child?”
Claude lets out a scoff. “A little. What… what does that even mean?”
“You’re clever. Older siblings don’t have to be clever; they just have to be strong.”
Claude hums, and Holst watches his hand come up to ghost over his wrist. He traces some slow, invisible path over the joints and tendons before speaking again.
“I don’t talk to them,” he says blithely. “I haven’t for a long time. We lived together when I was young but… they eventually left. I was happy.”
Hilda had once told Holst that Claude doled out details of his childhood like other people did gifts to friends or tokens of favour, that, in the undecodable language that is Claude, childhood anecdotes are a sign of trust.
Holst is finding it hard be feel triumphant, though, given the fact it has taken scaring the younger man shitless to get to this point.
“You don’t have to talk about this, Claude,” he assures. “I’m not going to ask anything of you.”
“See, that’s exactly why I—” Claude laughs, shakes his head, and continues, “I always knew the way they treated me was awful, you know—at least hypothetically—but it wasn’t until I met you and Hilda that I realised it wasn’t… well… commonplace.”
“Me and Hilda?”
“I was always a little jealous of her.”
“…Why?”
“You,” Claude says emphatically, like it should be obvious. He looks up at him with a disbelieving smile. “You’re… a really good brother, Holst.”
His eyes flick briefly from Holst to the sea, where the sun is steadily lowering in the sky. It’s red, Holst notes.
When Claude looks back he’s smiling.
“She’d always be getting letters from you and complaining,” he says. “She’d lay around class and whine like “My brother loves me sooo much he writes me all the time and worries about me!” and I was so baffled that she could ever find that annoying.”
His words certainly sound like they could be bitter, but Holst can only find fondness and genuine confusion in the younger man’s voice.
“What I wouldn’t have given for even just… a little of that growing up,” he says wistfully. “That attention and care…? I don’t know... I probably would have turned out a lot different.”
He tapers off into silence but Holst isn’t done—as much as he’d maybe like to be—and he has to see the end of this. “What did they… you don’t have to tell me, Claude, but there’s obviously something painful here.”
Claude hums contemplatively, and Holst can almost see him weighing the pros and cons of what to tell Holst in his head .“They were… older than me, bigger than me… people liked them more. Those advantages were made the most of. I guess… yeah. They hurt me. A—The youngest of the three definitely did. But you…”
He smirks. It isn’t funny.
“…You remind me of my eldest brother.”
Holst doesn’t know Claude’s eldest brother, but he had seen the fear in Claude’s eyes during the spar. If that had meant what he’s beginning to think it had meant, then the uncomfortable weight in his stomach that’s coming from being likened to the guy is probably justified.
“Should I be offended?” he asks. What of Claude’s brother is echoed in him? What part of him had made him so afraid to go up against him in combat?
“No… no he’s just around your age and height, I guess.” Claude sighs, and rests his hand on his chin. To any outsider he’d probably appear relaxed, but Holst is close enough to see the tension in his limbs run taught like barbed wire. “He’s a… he fights with axes—Sounds petty when I lay it all out like that.”
He laughs. Holst doesn’t. It’s not funny.
“Did he hurt you?” He asks, trying as hard as he can to convey that Claude doesn’t have to answer that question if he doesn’t want to.
It’s important to him that he understands this isn’t an interrogation. He’s baffled the young duke is opening up as much as he is, given the fact Holst apparently reminds him so much of something awful.
Claude waves his hand in a dismissing motion that doesn’t suit the mood.
“No, not usually. He didn’t give a shit about me,” he says dryly. “In a way that felt worse. Like, if he had tormented me at least he’d be paying me some attention, you know?”
“That’s—”
“Fucked up?” Another laugh. “Yeah. Probably.”
Against his will, Holst is carried back to the past. To Tiana, tall and bright and shining. In retrospect, perhaps, she had been naïve and idealistic, but to his young eyes she hadn’t been anything less than a visionary.
Loved and cherished, she had said, I’d want that for them.
Holst feels his heart sink as he looks at her son, so much like her. He has her green eyes, her dark curls of hair, and her smile—the kind that could sell ocean-front property in Gloucester.
But things are different. Claude laughs at things that aren’t funny. He sits close to Holst but won’t look at him. His voice is low and strained, and the details of his hurt are handed to Holst delicately, like they—and he—may well break at the barest touch.
This is not a loved and cherished man.
Holst and Balthus had followed Tiana around like ducklings because she had let them—she gave them the time of day others hadn’t afford ones as young as them. She’d treated them like people, looked after them, and that had been enough reason as any for a pair of six-year-olds to think she’d hung the moon herself.
But now things are different. Holst is the one with years at his back and strong, guiding hands. He’s the one with a child at his side (and he is a child, in the same way Hilda is—a young person thrown into a war they didn’t ask for) and empathy brimming in his chest with only one clear direction to go.
When he tunes back out of his thoughts, Claude is still talking.
“—projecting my discomfort with him onto you and that’s not fair to either of us—mostly you—so I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I didn’t mean to drag you into my drama, Holst, and I can only thank you for—”
“Can I hug you?”
Claude voice stutters away into silence, like the wind dropping from a ship’s sails all at once. He blinks up at Holst with wide eyes.
“W-What?”
Holst holds his arms open.
“One time offer,” he lies. “I’ve been told they’re really good, so you might want to get in on it.”
That pulls a half-smile to Claude’s lips, but he still looks at Holst with a questioning gaze. “This isn’t… this isn’t some sort of scheme is it?”
Holst tuts. “I’m not you.”
Claude barks a surprised laugh. “Wow. That’s cold, General.”
But still he inches forward a little—unsure and slow, like the deer whose mantle the children of the Alliance wear—and Holst waits only a few moments before he meets him halfway.
He wraps his arms around Claude and pulls him in tightly. The duke lets out a small ‘oof’ as his chin collides with Holst’s shoulder. Holst is silently glad that he isn’t in full armour because that probably would have hurt.
“I’m really sorry, kid,” he says, and he feels, rather than sees, Claude relax into the embrace. A moment later, Claude’s arms come up, hands snaking nervously over his back before settling into a hesitant embrace.
“S’okay,” he mumbles. “S’not your fault.”
“Nah, it’s not okay,” Holst assures, and he squeezes Claude a little tighter. “No one deserves family like that.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“It’s obviously still affecting you. We don’t get to choose what sticks with us.”
“No. No, we don’t.”
He pulls back and Holst lets him go—lets him set the pace here.
“Thank you,” he says in a small voice, and Holst pretends not to notice the way he discretely rubs a hand over his eyes.
“Maybe next time I want to hang out I won’t immediately suggest sparring,” Holst muses. “Sorry about that. It’s sort of my go-to boy’s night activity.”
Claude manages to roll his eyes, which Holst takes as a good sign of his patented humour returning. “If you wanted to hang out you should’ve just said,” he laughs. “We could’ve played backgammon or something.”
“Backgammon?” Holst chuckles. “What are you, an old man?”
Claude snorts at the sudden shift in atmosphere, but the tension leaves form even more. He’s obviously glad for the subject change.
“I like backgammon,” he protests. “Backgammon is a good game.”
“For old people,” Holst teases, and his heart leaps when Claude laughs again. “I’m more of a checkers man.”
“Holst, I don’t think I’ve ever met a person under the age of twenty-five who likes checkers.”
“A lie,” Holst says smugly. “Checkers is a game for only the youngest and coolest of men. I’ll have you know I’m a savant.”
The laugh this pulls from Claude is worth more to Holst that any victory he could have won at a spar. He’s reminded with vicious clarity of a younger Hilda, eyes bright and smile wide. There are aches in Claude he cannot see, a too-clever man with plans he won’t share, and half-truths in his story even more numerous than his half-brothers. But there’s a boy in him that tugs at Holst’s heart strings, too, a boy who has been hurt in a way that Holst might be able to soothe.
In equal measure, he is reminded of Tiana, of green eyes that glitter with mirth and a loud laugh. It’s so very stark, how much the duke takes after his mother, and Holst can’t help but hear her words again.
I might not be able to love and cherish him like you can, Tiana, he thinks, but I can sure as hell make him feel a little less alone.
Here is what Claude von Riegan knows:
Khalid is Claude and Claude is, against all odds, Holst’s friend.
They are going for a drink now, because training is hard and crying, apparently, dehydrates a person like nothing else. Holst is paying, and he won’t take no for an answer.
The hand that pulls him to his feet is calloused and gentle and possesses a strength earned from years of violence towards Claude’s people that is, here and now, turned outwards to serve him. The voice that hangs at his side on the walk to town is strong and commanding, boisterous at times, but it will not hurt him. The eyes that look at him fondly are not looking for weakness. The man at his side, for some reason he cannot fathom, cares about him.
Amir’s hands and Yazid’s eyes and Ishaq’s scornful indifference are far away things, separated by time and mountains. He is slowly learning how to trust again and maybe—just maybe—he will allow himself this one thing. Maybe this is alright.