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Two brothers basked under the reds and oranges of the twilight, sweat dripping from their faces and rubbing their arms to soothe their bruises from a good day of sparring.
"Brother. Hey, big brother. How did you do that? Please teach me." The little brother said so eagerly, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.
The older brother grinned. "Maybe later, G--"
"Papa.”
Something tugs at his arm, and Leonhart snaps out of his nostalgic daydreaming.
The sun is long gone at this point, replaced by the blues and purples and blacks of nightbreak, the moon and the stars and a well-lit lamp being the only light guiding their paths.
He looks down, and is greeted by large, hopeful red eyes and chubby cheeks pulled into a smile.
That girl.
It had been...how long since this child had been with him? Two years, perhaps three?She had been a babbling toddler when he first took her, taken from the loving arms of her mother and the desperate protection of her father. Ripped away from her home, her future, her life.
...not that she needed to know that.
“Papa! Hey, Papa. Please teach me how to fight,” eagerly, the girl pleads.
The girl's eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm, her grin all too wide.
Just like him .
His heart aches.
Perhaps out of habit, or perhaps out of guilt, Leonhart frowned and grunted and continued walking under the moon and the stars and the blackness of the night.
That memory flashes again.
“Maybe later--”
“Germain.”
He winces as soon as he says it, but it’s too late.
The girl pauses and tilts her head, confusion plastered all over her small face.
"My name is Zita, papa," she says, running to catch up with her father. “Who is Germaine?”
Again, Leonhart winces. “...No one. Don’t think about it too much, Zita.”
Zita is silent, pondering as they continue walking through the night for shelter, accompanied with nothing but the sound of their quiet footsteps and crickets.
Eventually, the girl speaks.
“It’s a pretty name.”
“Hm?”
“Germaine,” she says, “I think it’s a pretty name.”
Her words throw him off, and finally, he laughs. “I guess so.”
“Can that be my name?”
The knight stops in his tracks and looks back at her. This child never ceases to surprise him with her words. “Huh? You don’t like Zita?”
Even through the blackness of the night she scrunches her nose. “It sounds boring and girly.”
He lets out a snort and a smile. “If you insist,” he says, holding his hand out to the child, “well then, shall we go, Germaine?”
The child--Germaine--breaks out into a smile, the brightest one, and runs to catch up to her “father”.
A knight and a child basks under the blacks and blues of nighttime. While the families that they love and love them are up in the stars, they still have each other. A ruthless knight, and the girl of red he swears to protect.
A knight and his daughter--no, he shakes his head.
He’s wholly unfit to be a father.
Just her protector will suffice for now.