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She'd thought once Navia broke through the dragons skull, Wriothesley's charm would take over and they'd finally get their shit together. And it seemed, for almost a year, that they had. And then Sigewinne wrote to her, asking her to come down to the Fortress for 'a re-calibration day' and she knew they had not, actually, gotten their shit together.
The Duke looked, frankly, like a kicked puppy. He was buried in his work, cups of cold tea all around, at least one milkshake half drunk and dark bruises under his pale eyes. She was sure he'd been getting sunlight a plenty with the excuse of visiting the Iudex, but obviously that hadn't happened for weeks...
Yet the weather had been fine...
"What did you do?"
"What makes you think I've done anything? Also why are you even here?"
"You only blame yourself for things you think you've got control over, however stupidly reasoned that supposed control is."
The worst part about being the only human Wriothesley trusted, was that she had the most power to tear him apart, and he expected her to use it.
She thought back to recent cases. There was of course the Two Musketeers, but as far as Clorinde was aware, Wriothesley had handled all three criminals in a fair and judicious manner, assigning guards to keep them in separate rotations and parts of the Fortress. If anyone understood the desire for revenge and the fact that it was not, actually, Justice, it was the Duke.
”I'll never regret what I did. I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway. That's why I'll always stay in Meropide, Clorinde. It's where I belong.”
She'd spiked his teapot for over an hour before he gave that confession. Years after they were formally introduced.
Clorinde gave him a long hard look over. “What did you do that you think you need to be punished for it? Isn't that a judgment someone like the Iudex should serve?”
Wriothesley didn't flinch, he was far too well trained to reveal when a strike drew blood. It was in the stillness that followed, the deliberate way he relaxed, analyzed the pain, and then struck back with calculated and vicious precision. “I'm sorry Madam Duelist, are you here to charge me with something, or simply to seek out target practice because the Demoiselle is too busy to engage your desperate flirtations?”
If you were bold enough, or stupid enough, to hit the Duke where it hurt, he would repay blood for blood. It was simply his nature, an aspect of himself he didn't much care for, but that the world had honed within him, rather than giving excuse to let dull. Clorinde was one of the few who would bother to stab when he needed it.
“The two of us are making progress on mending our relationship, your Grace. Forgive me for believing the evidence pointed that you and the Iudex were doing the same.”
“There would have to be a rift in the relationship to mend, wouldn't there? Has the weather up there been so terrible?”
It hadn't been. There had been the occasional shower after particularly bad trials, but nothing that seemed to indicate the Cheif Justice was in any way more upset than usual. In fact given the festival and Furina's return to public life, the man had seemed happier than ever.
So why was the Duke the one upset?
They'd been getting closer, hadn't they? Wriothesley had never exactly been subtle in his regard, and it had seemed like they'd finally gotten to the point of physicality...
“Did he hurt you?”
Wriothesley tended to be a bit... she hesitated to use the word 'passive' even in her own mind, but when it came to the naked tango he preferred to let his partner lead and dictate terms and pace. If Neuvillette, new to the practice of human style copulation suggested something that the Duke didn't care for...
“No. Of course not.” Wriothesley slumped backwards in his chair, eyes distant and energy drained. “No, Monsieur Neuvillette would never be like that.” The smile that Wriothesley dragged up was sickly and self disparaging and Clorinde absolutely hated it. “He just made it clear that some things... aren't all that interesting in practice. He'd prefer us to remain professional colleagues.”
Clorinde found it incredibly hard to believe that after 500 years of virginity, being worshiped by Wriothesley was 'uninteresting' to the man who had devoured fourteen smut filled gay romance novels in less than a full weekend. “He said that?”
Wriothesley closed his eyes. “He said 'I'd prefer you not engage me like that again.' Before I could even get up off my knees. It'd been a month and I thought... well. I thought wrong is all.”
With a growled out sigh she took off her hat, unbuttoned her blouse, and pulled him into a hug.
Wriothesley showed his love through service, a fact that occasionally drove Clorinde to spike his tea. She knew it was the trauma, he knew it was the trauma, and yet trying to shove him into any other behavioral set made him emotionally cower in a corner. Wriothesley had to show how much he loved you, regardless of if you loved him back. And if you didn't let him... Well he ended up like this, shuddering through breaths that weren't sobs simply because he'd cried out his tears so long ago he didn't remember the function, buried in her tits.
Neuvillette owed her.
Especially since the idiot lizard ought to have figured at least this much out by now of the man who made his whole career on 'what would the Iudex approve of?'.
Unless Neuvillette really didn't love him back in which case...
Well she hoped Navia would visit her in the Fortress because she doubted they'd give her the death penalty after Focelors, even if she did her very best to murder the Chief Justice.
Clorinde and Wriothesley had fallen into a routine, and bed, not long after his rise to Administrator. Clorinde was missing Navia's companionship, and had a penchant for using orgasms as stress relief. Wriothesley used them as a coping mechanism. Mostly in providing them to other people.
Getting the sex talk from Sigewinne was an experience Clorinde wished she could erase from her memory without severe head trauma. She did not want (and therefore simply didn't) to be the one to explain that the activities she and the Duke engaged in were such that conception was impossible.
Hearing the Melusine give Wriothesley the same lecture while he calmly sipped tea was... Just a bit surreal.
"Afraid I might get you pregnant, Your Grace?"
"While I haven't done enough research on the topic, Madam Duelist, stranger things have happened in this world."
Conversations like that were the foundation of their strange friendship, and also why Clorinde kept a flask on hand specifically to ruin his tea. He would still drink it, bitching at her all the while. Clorinde didn't have friends. Clorinde had a job, sparring victims, a broken relationship with Navia and Wriothesley.
Wriothesley is what she considers a friend.
He's the only one she's got, and the world couldn't handle more than one of him. Sometimes she was convinced it couldn't handle him at all, and that's why he so rarely was recognized above ground.
He was also a teenager when he was convicted. And sentenced to prison. And the only sex education, hell, the only education, was either hands on or from Sigewinne. Considering what Wriothesley's like in bed, Clorinde actively avoids learning anything about his sexual education.
She does not have a license to kill. She has a boss who tells her who to kill, and it's not her place to suggest names.
"Sir." She said and Neuvillette went still, showing he had paid at least some attention to human vocal tones over the centuries.
"Clorinde. You are.. upset with me."
Upset was a word for it. She'd spent the night in the Fortress, reaffirming for the Duke that he had at least one human in his life that cared about him. That cared about him and not the title or the power or the blood on his hands.
"When Wriothesley challenged the previous Administrator, I was the one you chose to officiate the duel."
"I recall..."
"You put his life in my hands, Sir." She couldn't quite keep the growl out of her voice. "Eighteen times, including that one, and the breaking of the sluice gate, Wriothesley's life has been in my hands. If you wanted it ended, I would have made it quick and painless."
Now he was alarmed, half rising from his chair and horns alight. "What in Tyvat makes you think I want that?!"
"You're doing a damned good job of killing him with misery. Sir."
She has his complete attention, and while he at least looks confused, that's all there is. Confusion. “Elaborate, please. I'm not sure I understand what you believe is happening.”
She wants to ask if he's in love with Wriothesley, but she already knows that line of questioning is the wrong approach. Love is an emotion. A relationship however, is a mutually beneficial arrangement between two parties.
“The relationship between you and the Duke has progressed to the point of sexual intercourse. The Duke believes you regret that progression, and that he has forced you into a position against your will and better judgment. Or perhaps 'coerced' is the better term.”
Not that he'd ever admit to anything in those terms. Not that Wriothesley had really admitted to anything, in the end. He was too busy castigating himself. It was an awful habit of his, to try and rectify his mistakes without actually examining them. No one believed the Duke a worse monster capable of the most heinous crimes than Wriothesley himself.
Neuvillette frowned down at his desk. She gave him time to think, he was after all, her boss.
“I see. Rather... I'm afraid there has been some miss-communication.” He wouldn't meet her eyes, in fact he seemed to be focused on the calendar on his desk, which very prominently had no notes whatsoever about the Fortress. She knew that Wriothesley had briefly attended the Iudex's birthday celebration, long enough to deliver a gift and his well wishes, before disappearing from the entirely too public affair. At the time she'd assumed they would have a more private celebration after hours but that had not occurred. Did Neuvillette even know that celebratory sex was customarily expected from close sexual relationships? Did he not wonder that his lover simply treated him like a 'professional colleague'?
“You would prefer to return to a strictly working relationship?”
Wriothesley and his custom designer baggage would be a lot for anyone, especially an immortal elemental being only now discovering human connections. She could understand if the Chief Justice would prefer to keep his claws away from such compromising and messy entanglements.
She could understand, but she would very much like to stab him for it anyway.
“I do not believe it would be possible for either of us to 'return' to that version of our relationship, Madam Duelist. I will clear up this misunderstanding between us. I have nothing but the greatest respect and affection for the Duke.”
Respect and affection. That might be all he was capable of. Wriothesley of course, would take anything he was given. Fools, the both of them.
“Your Honor, tread carefully on this path.” She sighed. “Honesty is the best policy, of course, but please keep in mind that the Duke is only human. Loneliness and heartbreak kill as surely as bullets and blades, they just take longer.”