Work Text:
Domestic bliss must be a myth. For Noelle, most moments spent at home with her family are loud and messy.
It’s a far cry from how she grew up— alone, afraid, atonic. Her home couldn’t be more different from the palace. Her home is filled with frank peals of laughter and cries that are louder than a volcano. Domestic life is interrupting each other at the table and grabbing a shoulder for a quick hug. It’s scolding her kids while being grateful, so grateful they feel free enough to stray from the rules. The scolding is always gentle. It has to be. No one knows it better than her.
And today… is one of those days where scolding is required.
Noelle stands before her five children, her husband at her side. Separating these two groups is a carpet.
After it was established that the Black Bulls’ base wasn’t a safe environment to raise children (it took a few years— Elsa, their eldest, being an indestructible baby), Asta and Noelle got their own place. Nozel gifted them the carpet: he said he wanted Noelle to have ‘something from home’. Since it’s a gift from Nozel, the carpet is a Silva rug, which means that it’s perfectly white, save for the silver Silva crest. A Silva rug is awfully soft and walking on it feels like sinking in quicksand— without the panic. It feels like an embrace, a cocoon, a warm hug.
The Silva rug in Asta and Noelle’s house is a bit different. the softness has been gone for a while. After Elsa spilled soup on it, Vivi walked on it with muddy boots, and Neo decided to draw on it, Noelle resorted to drastic measures to restore the pristine white and the delicate rug’s hair didn’t like the rough treatment. Neither the first time nor every time after that.
Noelle fears she’ll have to do the same today as the carpet that had been drying outside after the last spilling accident (just a few days ago). She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“I kept telling Nozel we couldn’t accept that rug,” she mumbles to herself. “I knew our kids would ruin it.”
Asta shrugs. “I think it looks better like this…”
Noelle laughs before remembering she’s supposed to be mad at her kids, look mad, and scold them. Her children hear her laugh and Noelle knows she’s lost. Vivi and Neo are almost smiling, visibly content. Elsa is just the same as always: awfully bored, like teenagers are supposed to be, and looking like she can’t wait to climb back up to her room. Nellie looks like she’s breathing again— but barely. Tino babbles in his playpen, unaware of the trouble his siblings are in.
It doesn’t matter that the rug looks better like this. The kids all knew the carpet had been drying. They all knew they shouldn’t play with paint around that carpet. And yet, here they are again: the carpet in dire need of another rough treatment, and the kids, in need of a fair scolding.
Noelle schools her face to look like Nozel’s.
“Would any of you care to explain why Uncle Nozel’s formerly white rug is covered in paint?”
All it takes is one question for the kids to remember they’re in trouble. Nellie starts sobbing again, Vivi and Neo glance at each other as if they could devise a legitimate excuse, and Elsa… well, Elsa is a lost cause— she’s only waiting for the scolding to be over so she can leave.
Noelle gives them more than enough time to explain, waiting patiently for any of them to say or communicate anything to her. Nellie speaks first; she tries to babble an excuse, but it’s drowned out by the tears. Neo and Vivi glance at each other, before Vivi starts accusing Neo, and Neo Vivi.
In a nutshell, Noelle won’t get an answer, and at this point, it hardly matters. She gives up.
She turns to the one who arrived at the scene first.
“Asta?”
His smile is strained as he explains.
“I had a call so I left the room and when I came back, they were throwing paint at each other and the rug… I think it was caught in the crossfire…”
Noelle glances back at her children, all covered in paint from head to toe. She sighs. The rug is not the only thing that will need deep cleaning.
“Sorry,” Asta said. “Your brother’s rug is ruined.”
Noelle sighs. She looks at the man she married, and her eyes are drawn to the red paint that’s gluing his gray locks together and the small blue handprint on his white shirt. Next to them, the rug’s Silva crest is still visible; there’s only so much paint splashed around it. Red, green, blue, yellow, pink, and everything in between. This isn’t the pristine Silva white anymore. But…
“It does look better like this.”
It’s much closer to what her life is now. Asta frowns, clearly holding back a chuckle, but he doesn’t have time to answer anything because Noelle’s grimoire flies open, and she orders her children to line up against the wall. They all gladly flee the crime scene but, more importantly, get away from her line of fire.
“Seadragon Turbo?” Asta asks, a strained smile on his lips. Seadragon Turbo, or, as is the spell’s proper name, Seadragon Tempst, is a spell Noelle got during a perfectly normal mission, against a perfectly normal enemy, but she found out later that it was also perfect for laundry or deep cleaning. The things you learn when you’re a tired mother of five facing a pile of laundry higher than your husband and you’re ready to try everything to get that chore done faster.
“Seadragon Turbo,” Noelle confirms.
“Do you think it’ll work?” Asta says, staring at the sorry state the carpet is in.
Noelle doesn’t have high hopes, but… “I have to try. But if it fails, it won’t be so bad. It gives that rug character.”
Asta laughs and retrieves baby Tino from his playpen.
“I’ll wait with the kids.”
Noelle offers him a strained smile. Even Asta knows it’ll be his and the kids’ turn next. She suspects her kids simply love getting doused in water, because why else would they keep spilling soup and bringing mud home all the time?
“I’ll be right with you once I’m done with Nozel’s rug.”
Asta plants a quick kiss on her cheek— a gesture so simple, yet it always gets to her. Even after all this time.
Yes: domestic bliss. That’s what it must be.