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“... and it would appear that Lord de Sade has changed his opinions on Lord Bellator’s proposal, so I expect matters will turn in his favor when it nexts comes up to vote. If everything proceeds as scheduled, that will be tonight. You should be prepared for it to be enacted.”
It’s early in the morning, and Luca is not yet awake enough for the words to make complete sense. For starters, he can’t actually remember which proposal they’re talking about in the first place - but asking would certainly make him look like a foolish, forgetful child. These walks with his Uncle that precede Senate meetings are always uncomfortable as it is. He doesn’t want to make things worse.
Luca knows why he needs to learn all of these things: how to appease the Senators, to find out their less-than-private thoughts, to understand the web of alliances between them and the Beastias and the other nobles of the court of Altus Paris and beyond. He must be able to take up the mantle of Grand Duke in more than name as soon as possible, and though it will still be years before that day comes, there remains much to learn in that time. He can’t waste any of it.
It makes him feel so miserably small, sometimes.
Ruthven pauses, looking down at him. “You understood all of that, yes, Lucius? Or do you have questions?” The dappled shadows of the leaves overhead stretch across his face, a pale mirror of the patch covering its right side. The one good thing about these briefing walks is that they take place in his brother’s garden, in the privacy of its cool and quiet forest. The only noises besides the two of them are the rustling of plants and the distant cooing of doves.
“No, Uncle, I understood everything. But…” He stops, fussing nervously with the hem of a sleeve, unable to quite meet the man’s eye anymore. “If it’s alright, I have a question about something else?”
His Uncle’s voice, at least, seems warm. “Go ahead. You know I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”
Now that the time has come, Luca can feel his heartbeat racing. “Do you know when Jeanne’s birthday is?” he asks, hesitantly. “I thought if anyone would, it would be you, Uncle.”
He’s wanted to ask for a little while. Now that she’s been his chevalier (not in name, Luca must remind himself) for several months, he finds himself more and more curious about the woman, but she’s so terribly reserved when it comes to discussing personal matters. It’s not that he doesn’t know anything about her; everyone knows the Hellfire Witch. It’s just that nothing he knows is really about Jeanne herself.
There is a long pause. When Luca looks up at Lord Ruthven, the smile is gone, and his expression seems blank and faraway. “April, I think,” he says. Then: “Yes. They celebrated on the twenty-first.”
He wishes he could ask who they are, but Luca knows better. When his Uncle looks like that, it’s better not to pry. It’s not that he’ll get in trouble - it only means it’s a bad subject, from a long time ago. He feels guilty enough that asking when Jeanne’s birthday is has resulted in this sort of episode.
“Thank you very much, Uncle,” he says instead. “Ah… I know she’s still technically a bourreau, but is it acceptable for her to receive a small gift?” Luca hopes the answer is yes. He’s already got a gift ready to give, because it reminded him of Jeanne and he thought it was perfect for her, and it’s honestly a relief that her birthday has turned out to be only a few weeks away instead of months and months.
That seems to do it, though. Ruthven blinks, golden eye clearing, and considers the question for a few moments. “Hm,” is all he says at first. “It should be acceptable. A small gift, mind you, Lucius. Generally, it would be discouraged to allow a bourreau many personal belongings, if any. However… in light of her position with you, I think an exception can be made, provided neither of you publicize the matter.”
“Of course not, Uncle,” Luca says hurriedly. “I know. Thank you very much.”
“Good boy,” murmurs his Uncle, seeming distracted again. He reaches out with one hand, gently fixing a lock of Luca’s hair that had gotten out of place. “Now. Shall we go and see your brother?”
Luca straightens up immediately. “Yes please!” he replies, and for a little while, all of the plans he has for celebrating Jeanne’s birthday are completely forgotten.
She doesn’t want to leave the dream, but someone is calling her. It takes so long for her to break the surface - it feels like a thousand weights are dragging her down, into the depths - but she makes it.
“It’s time to wake up,” says a half-familiar voice. A man. She should know who he is. “Wake up, Jeanne.”
Jeanne? … Yes, that’s her. Everything feels strange and muffled. She opens her eyes to the ceiling of a dark room, and tries to say something - ‘I’m awake’, perhaps, or ‘who are you’, but all that comes out is a faint croak of a noise. She tries to move a hand, and finds that she is too weak to do anything besides tense the muscles in her arm. Even that little effort hurts.
“Ah, there you are,” says that same voice, which fills her with the warmth of safety. A deep-inside something, back in the dream, is trying to tell her that she’s forgotten an important fact. A promise. It slips away before she can grasp it, and within a moment she’s forgotten it was ever there.
She will not find out for hours yet, but it has been over a century since her long, long sleep began.
Altus Paris does not experience quite the same weather patterns as the humans’ Paris does, but although the climate tends to be somewhat more stable year-round (or so Luca understands), late April is still notably more pleasant than early March. The twenty-first happens to be a particularly lovely day, cloudless and warm, but with a breeze that prevents the sunlight from becoming too unpleasant.
Luca has arranged to have a small section of the castle gardens to himself for the morning, and given that there will be guards at its entrances to enforce that privacy, he need only bring one to ensure his safety. Who better than his chevalier? (Uncle had smiled at the request, as if to say ah, I see your plan, but said no more.) And so they find themselves among the hedges and flowers, with the noise of Carbunculus Castle so far removed that they might as well have walked into another world.
Luckily, the privacy also means there’s no need for their typical formalwear. Luca has brought out some of his favorite clothes from before he started training properly for Grand Dukedom, though they’re starting to get a little small on him. Jeanne, meanwhile, has exchanged her long coat for a borrowed servant’s dress. Incidentally, this results in their outfits nearly matching; the quality of the materials is, of course, very different, but they’ve still both ended up in light dress shirts with dark suspenders and (as appropriate) long shorts or a skirt. It’s somewhat embarrassing, but Jeanne hardly seems to notice.
Luca leads the way on a stroll, pausing occasionally to point out and enjoy some of the more exotic flowers, but eventually they come to the center of the hedged paths. A small fountain commands the center of a round court, with four entry-points meeting in a cross, and stone benches placed in the curves between each one. “Let’s sit, Jeanne,” he insists, and takes a seat before she can say anything.
“If it pleases you, Master Lucius, I shall remain standing,” she replies, firm but gentle. “I must be able to guard you at all times, and I cannot do so appropriately from such a position.”
Her head and eyes are constantly, subtly moving. Luca knows she’s watching over the hedges, though he’s not entirely sure what for. Both of them would be able to hear any commotion before it reached them, surely? And the guards around the edges are there for a reason. And they’re in the heart of the castle grounds. There’s no reason Jeanne should be so worried, but he rather admires her dedication.
“Please?” Luca asks sweetly. “Just for a little bit, and then we can keep walking.”
Jeanne hesitates a moment longer, before murmuring “As you wish,” taking a seat beside him. She remains rigidly upright even once settled, head lifted as high as she can manage, even though it’s no longer quite enough to peer over the greenery.
Now that the moment has finally arrived, Luca finds that his heart is once again beating painfully fast. He worries at the pocket that the gift is slipped into, trying to resist the urge to kick his feet back and forth. In the last couple months, he’s been struggling a great deal with the fear that Jeanne won’t actually like it, although he’s been unable to decide which scenario would be worse - outright rejection, or Jeanne feeling obliged to accept the gift while secretly hating it (and him).
“I, um,” he says, voice somewhat too loud for the setting, “I have something for you, Jeanne.”
She turns to look down at him, very mildly curious. “... What is it?”
Luca reaches to fish the little wooden box out of his pocket, nearly fumbles it, and lets out a squeak of surprise. He manages without dropping it, though, and offers it up to her in hands that only shake a tiny bit. It’s not terribly fancy - the box is plain, though well-made, and the only thing Luca could get ahold of to make it look better is some ribbon that he’s struggled to tie into a decent bow around it - and he feels more and more ridiculous the longer he thinks about all of this.
“Happy birthday, Jeanne,” he says hesitantly. “Please take it? It’s really for you.”
But Jeanne only stares at it in blank silence, and when her eyes finally flick up to meet his, she looks terribly lost. “Birthday?” she asks.
Every new thing she learns is more disorienting. It is August of the year 1887, says Teacher Ruthven, as if the words can possibly mean anything to her. She has been a dead thing for longer than she was alive, and now she must return and carry on living, despite everything around her changing beyond recognition.
He tells her many things about the state of the world, but she cannot manage to be a good student. He gives up, after a little while, and gently says “We’ll try again when you’ve had more time to recover.”
She does not want time to recover. She doesn’t know what it is that she wants instead, only that the longing for it is so strong it makes her physically ill. But she knows better: a bourreau is not allowed to want things, or indeed to have things. A bourreau is a thing. She remembers that much.
Perhaps if she holds onto that knowledge, it will keep her from going insane.
“... Yes,” Luca replies. “It’s the right day, isn’t it? I asked Lord Uncle, and he said it was April twenty-first.”
Jeanne continues staring at him. “I… don’t have a birthday,” she says, voice small and uncertain. It’s a very confusing statement, but first and foremost, Luca is deeply alarmed by the way Jeanne seems to have become almost a different person in the face of this conversation.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but you must. Everybody has a birthday.”
“I’m a bourreau,” she replies, as if that serves as an explanation.
“Bourreaus are allowed to have birthdays,” Luca says, although he’s not actually sure if that’s true. Maybe there’s a rule he doesn’t know about yet. Jeanne is, after all, the first bourreau he’s ever known; after the war was over, they became significantly less common, although new ones are still made every so often. “... Or at least, I say you’re allowed to have a birthday. And you’re my chevalier now!”
“I am still T-... Lord Ruthven’s bourreau.” Some of Jeanne’s composure has returned, and her voice is firm again, but she still looks troubled. “It is very kind of you to offer me the title of chevalier, Master Lucius, but I am not allowed to accept it. Nor do I believed it is appropriate or allowed for me to accept gifts.”
Luca breathes a little sigh of relief, glad that he at least has a good answer to this objection. “Uncle told me that it was alright!” he says brightly, lifting his hands a little more to offer the gift again. “As long as it was just something small, and it is, so… Please, Jeanne? I’d really like for you to have it.”
She doesn’t move for at least five seconds, only glancing between Luca’s eyes and the box in his hands. “If you are absolutely certain, Master Lucius,” she says, “but I will have to confirm with Lord Ruthven that it is permitted for me. I don’t wish to cause you any trouble in the event that there was a misunderstanding.”
“I’m really sure,” he agrees, emphatic. “Please.”
Without any more argument, she delicately takes the box from him. The ribbon comes off with some gentle pulling (Luca winces a little inside at how poor a job he’d done with it), then the lid follows, and the gift is revealed. A tiny rose nestles on a silky black cushion inside: just the flower itself with no stem, recreated in delicate, hand-blown glass. Its petals are near-opaque, colored a deep and vibrant red.
“... It reminded me of you,” Luca explains, embarrassed, when Jeanne shows no clear reaction after several seconds. He’s not quite looking at her as he continues to speak. “Um, because… It’s the same color as your gauntlet, and - roses are pretty? I was allowed to visit the artisan’s shop on a trip into the city recently, the time you didn’t come with, and it really caught my eye, so I…”
“It’s lovely,” says Jeanne, and Luca stops dead mid-sentence. He looks up at his chevalier only to find that her eyes are shining, just a little, with the beginnings of tears. She isn’t looking at him, fixated entirely on the rose. “I - Thank you so much. You’re very thoughtful.”
That just flusters him more. Oh, he can even feel his cheeks getting warm! “I’m really happy you like it,” he admits shyly. “I don’t get to give many presents.”
“You’re still young enough that you should be the one receiving them,” Jeanne points out. She slides the lid back onto the box with all the care of one handling a priceless artifact, and holds it a little closer to her body, protectively. “Your birthday is in… the late summer? I’m unable to give you anything myself, Master Lucius, but I hope to see you happy when it arrives.”
“We can go shopping together, and you can choose something, and I’ll buy it and not touch it until my birthday,” Luca suggests. “It’s not as good, but I think it’d be fun. … Oh! There’s something you could do for me, actually, Jeanne. If you’re okay with a request?”
She blinks. “Of course, Master Lucius.”
“Will you call me Luca instead?” he asks, a little quieter. “Being called Master Lucius all the time is… too formal. My chevalier shouldn’t have to act like that with me.” It’s a little selfish, he knows that, but -
“Of course, Master Luca.”
“Not like that!” Luca objects, but he could swear that, for just a moment, Jeanne almost smiled.