Chapter Text
Sento una voce che piange lontano / I hear a voice crying from far away
Anche tu sei stato forse abbandonato? / Have you been abandoned as well?
In a manor by the wayside, off the beaten path, between this city and a small town full of artists, there lives a man. There used to be a family there, people say, but eventually the family moved on in ways either literal or metaphorical, and there is only a man there, now. The son. The last one, and he had not moved on for decades.
“It may be tempting to go down that side-road,” the fishmonger tells him, “if you need a place to stay for the night. But the man that lives there opens the door for none, and the only proof we know that he’s not moved on like the rest of his family are the horses.” His hands tremble the slightest as he finishes putting away the dried fish Victor had bought. “Best to find a good clearing, and stay away from that place.”
Victor smiles easily as he took the bag. “So I’ve heard. What’s so bad about the place, though? And what are these horses you speak of?” This is the first he’d heard of the horses throughout the two dozen iterations of the story told to travellers that seemingly every merchant knew. He’s grown tired of it after the fourth listen, but the new detail served to grab his interest.
The fishmonger’s hands tremble more now. “There’s nothing bad, per se. It’s just...”
“Unnatural is what it is,” his wife cut in. “Any person that looks not a day over twenty for gods know how long must have bargained with demons. He might not have done anything, but him and his animals are enough that no sane person would associate with him.”
“Animals?” Victor prompts.
The wife opens her mouth to speak, only to shriek instead, flying backwards behind her husband. “The dog! That dog! Why is it here!?”
Victor turns around in confusion as the crowd parted, panic audible. A dog bounds up to him, rubbing his cheek against Victor’s leg. “Ah, there you are, Makkachin!” He bends down to scratch his faithful companion’s ear. “Don’t run off like that again!” though he hadn’t been too worried when his dog had run off that morning. Makkachin was always able to find him within a few hours, and didn’t like being apart from Victor other than those occasional jaunts.
It took a few seconds for him to realize that the panic was because of Makkachin. “Is something wrong?” he directs the question to the fishmonger’s wife, the one who had freaked out the most.
“That’s your dog?” she asks. “You are very sure?” At Victor’s nod, and a tug to show Makkachin’s collar, everyone visibly calms down. “It looks like one of the manor dogs.”
“Please, do tell me more.” Victor would have flashed one of his signature smiles to put her at ease, but judging by the way that everyone is still looking at him, it wouldn’t have done much.
The woman shakes her head, still behind her husband. “I am sorry, that — your dog. Please, take your things.”
Victor doesn’t let his disappointment show, but he thanks them anyways for the food and continues on through the market, a careful hand on Makkachin and careful eyes observing the trepidation that people had at the mere presence of his dog. He’s never quite seen such a reaction to Makkachin before.
While everyone and their mothers had warned him off of going to the manor in the woods, Victor feels something that his mentor Yakov had always warned him would get him in deep shit.
Curiousity.
Perhaps after wringing some more information from the locals he’ll pick up his belongings from the inn and head out to see for himself what this unnatural man and his estate was like.
“You’re the one that’s been asking around about the lonely man?” the waitress demands abruptly, slamming down a tankard of beer in front of Victor as he eats his dinner at the inn. “Aren’t you making a tizzy for a traveller?”
Judging by her hair, this one is Axel. Fallen Snow is a comfortable inn near the north entrance of the town, run by a gentle couple and their three daughters that serve as wait-staff and laundry service and various other innkeeping positions. Victor had been pleased with his first impression of it when he’d checked in last night, and so merely nods in answer to Axel’s question. “Is that beer for me?”
She looks down at him inscrutably for several seconds. “No,” she says, turning away, “It’s for my mom.” Victor’s confusion shone through enough that Axel adds, “Whole town is talking about the crazy traveller with silver hair that’s asking around about the lonely man.”
“Is that the man in the manor?” Victor asks. Most people had called him the “young lord”, or “guy out in the woods”, and on one memorable occasion “freakish animal tamer”. Victor still barely knows anything about the man himself beyond the initial cautionary tale and the fact that Makkachin looked like one of the manor dogs.
To be honest, if anything, the lack of information is only fueling his curiousity. Or stupidity, as Yakov would have said.
“That’s what we call him,” Axel confirms. “Mom’s going to talk to you though.” She disappears into the dinner crowd, and Victor finishes the shepard’s pie he’d been eating. He licks the spoon, wondering what the innkeeper would want to talk to him about. Hopefully she isn’t kicking him out. Earlier when he was doing his provision restocking and town interrogation on the “lonely man” - which he thought was a much better moniker than “mystery manor man” - he’d learned quickly to save his questions for after his purchase was done. Otherwise, they would ask him to leave. One woman, once he’d finished buying and starting asking, even tossed his payment back at him.
He scrapes the last of his shepherd's pie and starts on the blueberry cobbler he’s ordered for dessert, wondering when the innkeeper would show up. It’s been fifteen minutes, give or take. Maybe Axel is playing a prank on him, and the beer is actually for him all along? With that in mind, Victor reaches for the beer-
Only for his hand to get swatted away by the innkeeper as she sits down, snatching up the tankard and taking a long gulp. “That hits the spot! Shame it’s gone flat though. Sorry, Mr. Nikiforov, dinner hour had us quite in a tizzy.” Nishigori Yuuko smiles brightly before kicking back across from him.
She’s quite young, in Victor’s opinion. Thirty-five and already a mother of three and the proprietor of a successful inn. Somehow, her features have a sense of eternal cheer that made people think that she’s the daughter of the owner, rather than the owner herself. He’s witnessed one of those “I want to talk to the owner!” arguments before, and her expression upon telling people that she is the innkeeper and that their complaints have been heard and discarded had been amusing.
But that doesn’t explain why she wants to talk to him. May as well bite the bullet — Victor is fairly sure that he’s on the woman’s good side. “And what on earth have I done to deserve your presence gracing my table, Mrs. Nishigori?” he asks lightly, smiling as usual.
Some would have mistaken his curious tone for sarcasm, but she doesn’t. “Like I tell everyone, call me Yuuko.” She set the beer down. “Anyways, old lady Yana from down the street told me that a guest of ours was causing a fuss in the town. You’ve been here only three days, and you’re not a bad sort, so I figured to hear your side of the story before taking her advice and booting you.”
“Oh.” Victor stills, and briefly wonders if he should secure his belongings just in case. “I wasn’t aware that my questions about the man in the manor would have...” he had seen their reactions though, and pressed in asking anyway. It’s his fault.
Yuuko waves her hand dismissively. “Well, you’re not from here, so of course wouldn’t have known.” And then her face is a few inches from him, brown eyes intent and demeanor so very different from the woman Victor had met when he had checked into the inn three days ago. “The problem is, why are you asking about the lonely man?”
“Why?” Victor echoes in confusion. “I’m curious.”
She stares at him for several long seconds before she picks up her tankard and takes a long gulp of beer. “You’re just curious?”
Victor shrugs and spreads his hands, a gesture meant to be disarming. “Of course. I’ve lived a long time, Yuuko, and I’ve traveled many places. But this is the first time that I hear such a story. There are tales of haunted castles and changelings throughout the land, but most of the time they are simply stories.” He grins. “And then I come here and I hear a story about an immortal man in a manor who seems to have a collection of animals, and is completely harmless.” Reaching down, he gives Makkachin’s head a quick scratch. “And in this town, the reaction to my dear Makkachin has made me want to look into the matter further.”
“So you’ll stop asking about the lonely man if you know?” Yuuko asks over her drink, eying him warily. It isn’t a look suited to her.
He nods, wondering why her nickname for the man was different from everyone else’s. “Of course.” Thankfully, she doesn’t know him well enough to figure that is a bald-faced lie.
She scoffs anyway. “Well, you’re in luck, Nikiforov.” Yuuko hesitates for a moment before tipping her tankard back and finishing off the rest of the contents, slamming it down noisily once it’s empty. “I’m probably the person that knows the most about the lonely man.”
“What?”
“We might have been friends, if things were different.”
“Why are you so angry again, Yurochka?”
The teenager stiffens at the words before scowling and bending down to pick up a basket one of the dogs had brought back from the woods today. It’s a sturdy basket, and he knows under the gingham cloth is most likely wheat flour and some wrapped meat parcels and various other things. “It’s nothing. Yuuko sent us another basket again.”
His guardian perks up a bit at the words, and Yuri’s scowl dies a bit. “Oh! That’s good — we’re starting to run out of flour, and I was thinking about making some pirozhki for dinner.”
That drops the scowl off Yuri’s face faster than his dear cat could make him smile. “Pirozhki?” he asks, “Can we make katsudon pirozhki?” He follows the man back into their house, to the kitchen, and sets the basket on the counter. Under the darkening evening sky, the wood of the counter shines a soft amber. “Please, Papa?”
All he hears is humming. “We can, if we have enough meat. It’s starting to get cold again, so I was thinking of saving meat to make soup and stew.” Yuri pouts, but it’s not like his guardian can see it with his head taking inventory of the pantry.
“What if...” Yuri winces, because no matter how essential it is, he had never liked the task. “What if I went to town to buy food?”
That got Papa’s attention quickly. “But you don’t like going into town,” the man says, standing up and looking at him with concern.
Yuri looks away. “Katsudon pirozhki would make it worth it.”
Papa stares at him, looking for something in his face. “If you want to, then that would work, Yurohchka.” Yuri nods, and Papa smiles. “It’s getting late, so I’ll get you some money tomorrow. Would you mind unpacking the basket so you can take it with you to give back to Yuuko when you go?”
“Okay, Papa.”
Papa falters, hand coming up to rest on the doorframe. “You’re getting too old to call me that, Yurohchka.”
Fuck. Not this. “I’m only eighteen, papa.” Yuri grinds out, glad that his blond hair is long enough to hide his face from Papa.
Papa smiles at him. His face was still the same as it had been when he’d taken in Yuri and his grandfather ten years ago. Hair as black as raven’s wings, eyes brown like the soil when they plowed the gardens. “You grew up so fast.” A pause. “I’m twenty-three, Yurohchka. I’ve been too young to be your papa for a long time.”
“You’ve been twenty-three for ages, Papa,” Yuri rolls his eyes, trying not to show how much this particular subject sets a tremor in him. “Technically you’re older enough to by my grandfather’s papa.”
They both fall silent at the mention of Yuri’s grandfather. Nikolai Plisetsky had been in his sixties when he took shelter from a blizzard with his eight-year-old grandson; they had taken shelter from a blizzard in a lonely manor and had never left.
Yuri’s grandfather can’t leave anymore, anyway. He died of illness, eight winters back. And since then, as far as Yuri’s concerned, the owner of a lonely estate is his Papa.
Even if the man is cursed, and can’t leave his estate. Cursed, and cannot age. Cursed, but he still managed to take care of Yuri as a parental figure, still manages to find a place in his heart to let strangers into his home for shelter.
As far as Yuri is concerned, he’s never going to leave the estate either, shopping trips to town being the exception. He doesn’t need to leave, no matter how often Papa asks him if he’s made friends in town or not. He has no reason to leave — the manor is his home, has been for ten years — and even if Papa will never get older, may still look the same when it’s Yuri’s turn to follow his grandfather... even still-
Yuri remembers when he was little, of his blood parents calling him a selfish child. Is it selfish, then, to not want to leave his guardian’s side? Because the boy knows, has known for a long time, that before he and his grandfather had stumbled in ten years ago, Papa was a lonely man living in an empty manor. And if he leaves again, his benefactor - the man who has given him a home and raised him and taught him about all sorts of things that make him happy-
If Yuri wanted to leave, Papa would smile and pat his head and say, “Goodbye, Yurohchka, I hope you have a happy life.” Papa would bid him goodbye as if nothing was wrong, even though they’re both keenly aware that once Yuri leaves, whether by choice or by death, Papa will once again be a lonely man cursed to never age and never die and never leave his estate.
Yuri wishes he could convey all this to his Papa, to this stupid old man that would lie to keep him happy (lie that he won’t be lonely once Yuri leaves). But instead he grumbles out a, “You’re never getting rid of me, stupid Papa,” and starts unpacking Yuuko’s regular gift-basket.
His hands aren’t shaking as he takes out the food, he swears.
“I met him when I was little.” Yuuko wears a look of fondness on her face. “I got curious one day about the animals that come into town every week and take food from the merchant stalls and leave coins in their place. I followed one, even though we’re taught not to.”
Axel comes by and switches her mother’s empty tankard with a full one of beer. At Victor’s pleading stare, she fetches him one too.
“What sort of animals are there? I know one looks like Makkachin.”
Yuuko contemplates for a moment. “He has a lot of animals. A stable full of horses, and a kennel of dogs. They roam his estate freely, though. A few cats wander around but they don’t go on errands like the rest.” Before he can ask her to elaborate, she says, “The reason why so many people are freaked out by the animals is because they’re intelligent. Very much so.”
“Intelligent?” Victor echoes.
“He never leaves his estate.” Yuuko bites her lip. “So he sends his animals out every week to get things from town. The dogs carry coin purses and the horses carry saddlebags, and they go through the market taking items and leaving payment. It... really is quite uncanny.”
It sounds amazing. “I can see why you wanted to follow them.” He tries not to think too hard about the logistics of it, though. Somehow animals are able to pick out merchandise, and pay for them?
She laughs at his words, and whatever memory they had woken. “Yeah. I ended up following them all the way to the estate, because I realized halfway that I had no idea how to get home. He found me crying, and gave me water, then put me on one of his horses to go back to town.”
Victor tries not to let his disappointment show. “That’s it?”
Yuuko’s lip curls. “That’s all I’m going to tell you.” She starts chugging at her beer again as Victor did his best to bore holes in her with his stare. “Oh fine, if you’re going to look at me like that. I’ll answer one last question, and then I have to return to work.”
He winces. Only one question? He’ll have to make it count. “Why do you call him the lonely man, unlike the rest?”
The woman stops drinking.
Silence stretches between them for what feels like an hour but what Victor logically knew was less than a minute. “Of all things...” Yuuko mutters. She meets Victor’s gaze, something harsh flinting in her brown eyes. “I’ve talked to him a lot. More than everyone else, at least. And everyone is just afraid of his unnatural circumstances, but I...” something wistful catches on her breath, “I know he’s not something we should be scared of. Some call him lord, some call him a mystery, but I say it like it is.”
“He’s lonely.”
She stands up before he could ask her what she meant earlier, about her and the lonely man possibly being friends, but something in her expression stops him. Victor settles with rousing Makkachin to go back to their room.
Victor wishes that he hadn’t promised to stop asking about the lonely man in exchange for that conversation. The innkeeper clearly thought that his curiousity would be assuaged with her answers, but now Victor just has more questions. Well, he had initially made the promise with full intent to break it, but knowing that some people had wanted Yuuko to kick him from her establishment, he figures it would be best not to.
The wistful look, and the wariness with which she had treated the subject, are what actually has him sealing his tongue.
For all that their stories had meant to dissuade Victor from going to the manor, they’ve given him the directions to get there. A dusty path off the main road between this town and the city. Or, maybe he can do as Yuuko did, and follow the intelligent animals.
Later, in his bed and snuggled under warm covers, he rolls on his side to poke Makkachin’s cheek. The poodle doesn’t stir, deep in his sleep. “You’ll let me know if you meet another brown poodle, won’t you Makkachin?”
Victor closes his eyes to sleep, a last thought lingering from his previous musings about the lonely man. Have you been abandoned too?
“Be safe, Yurohchka!” Papa waves him off as Yuri swings onto Stella’s back. The grey mare whickered once he was settled in, and dips her head towards Yuuri before they set off, the sky a dim grey with morning clouds obscuring the sun. They’ll clear by noon, burning away by the heat, so neither of them worry about Yuri getting caught in the rain. He wears a leopardskin cloak on top of a long white shirt and loose trousers tucked in boots with hints of tiger-pattern in the leather. A bag is slung off his shoulder and is secured to his waist with an additional belt. The day promises to be mild, and Yuri is confident he’ll be back before dusk, so no need to dress for a nighttime chill.
As Stella trots out of the estate, Yuri is aware of the rest of the manor waking with activity. Last night, he had helped Papa loop coin-purses around their dog’s necks, and before he mounted Stella they had put saddlebags on each of the horses. Shortly, the animals will leave, to go to various towns to buy food, as Papa could not. Normally, Yuri is content to leave the matter of getting supplies to the animals, and doesn’t question how they had been trained to do so, but unfortunately if he ever wanted something other than the usual foods the animals bought (Yuri admits to having a sweet tooth) he has to go out himself to get it.
Well, sometimes he’d be able to use one of the dogs to send Yuuko a note and some money, and she’d drop a basket by, but Yuri doesn’t like relying on her more than necessary. She’s nice, yes, and treats Papa like Papa deserved to be treated, but... Yuri had long decided that anyone other than Papa isn’t deserving of his entire trust.
... Even if the woman does send him little cakes on his birthdays.
Okay, well, she isn’t bad at all, and her daughters, while nosy, don’t pester him too much usually. Her husband also gets their skates sharpened by the blacksmith for them. So, if anything, Yuri will grudgingly admit that the Nishigori family is okay.
Yuuko sends them warnings about superstitious fucks that would try to hunt down Papa — fanatic priests and witch-hunters — and Yuri always makes sure that none of them ever get near the estate. The innkeeper herself usually does a good job of getting those types dead drunk and getting them carted over to the next city or the like. Together, they keep away anyone that would harm Yuuri.
He asked her, once, why she helped so much.
“Yuuri deserves at least this much.” And the matter has been closed between them since then.
Yuri doesn’t know many people other than Yuuko and her family. Never got close to them, either — there’s no reason to. And it’s better that he doesn’t, honestly. Right now, most people that recognize him just think he’s a frequent traveller that passes by, and it’s easy for him to buy things or run errands for Papa that the animals can’t do. He’ll... lose that, if they knew. Not that Yuri is ashamed of his relation to the immortal man that they are all wary of, but he and everyone else implicitly knew that it would be for the best if no one unnecessary knew the truth.
When travellers stay at the estate, Yuri usually avoids them while Papa plays host and tries not to appear too hungry for more human contact. But Yuri always keeps a close eye on everyone that passes through, because he’s experienced way too many near-robberies already.
In his opinion, Papa should just shut the estate from travellers, but they both know that the man is too kind (and too lonely) to do such a thing.
Stella comes to a stop, and Yuri loosens his grip on her mane. They’re still within the woods, but judging from the sounds, they’re quite close to the village. He dismounts and pats her speckled hide in thanks for the ride. At some point, Vic, one of the dogs, had caught up to them, and Yuri watches as the mare and the poodle trot into town together.
The teen sticks to the woods, travelling around the town and trying to be seen as little as possible until he sees Yuuko’s inn. Thank god it’s on the outskirts. He pulls his leopardskin a little higher, and walks towards the back door.
He raps five times on the wood and leaves the basket there. He’ll check to make sure that they’d gotten it once he’s on his way back — and sometimes Yuuko or one of her daughters will have something warm for him to take home to eat with Papa. Not that he likes the gesture, necessarily. Really.
“It’s the little leopard!” one of the guards greets him in passing. Yuri grunts in reply, not making eye contact. The guard just shrugs, used to his behavior.
People take notice of him whenever he came by — a mix of him going to town every few months and the fact that his leopardskin is very, very memorable. Old lady Yana with her crooked nose and straight-cut wisping hair waves him by to give him some fresh fruits tarts that he eats as he walked towards the market. Some he puts carefully in his bag to save for Papa.
Everything goes as usual — Yuri speaks as little as possible, smiles nicely at the elderly people with soft hearts to get freebies, and points at purchases and silently hands over payment. The less he speaks, the easier it is to escape from possibly being held up by conversation. He doesn’t like being away from the manor for too long.
It is in this air of normalcy that Yuri’s instincts shriek, and he whirls around, honing in on a stranger walking through the market with a brown poodle dogging his legs. He’s quite tall, and wears a feathered cap, and there’s a traveller’s pack on his back and what looks like a violin case in one hand.
Yuri grits his teeth, and forces himself to pay attention, shaking off the urge to pull his leopardskin on. Something about the man makes him feel wary. Silver hair and eyes of ice that carry nothing but good humour as he looks through the market. As he gets closer, Yuri goes back to looking at the cheeses he’d been looking at before, but raises his hackles as he senses his presence come nearer and nearer.
“Are you okay, little leopard?” The woman running the cheese stall looks at him with worry.
Yuri jabs a finger at the stranger. “Who’s that guy, baba Mirna?” She follows where he had been staring at, and her lips twist into a frown.
“Ah, him.” She busies herself with packing away the cheese he’d bought. “Just a traveller. A weird one, though. He’s been asking about the young lord.” Mirna must have seen Yuri’s quickly-hidden anger, because she adds. “Harmless, I’m sure. Not like any of those witch-hunting types, though they did a fat lot of good against the animals.”
She is ignorant and knows nothing she is ignorant and knows nothing, chants in Yuri’s head as he resists the urge to snap at her. “What about his dog? Is that a manor dog?” It looks like Vic, but Yuri knows that Vic should be with Stella getting fruit right now.
“I hope not,” the woman says. “He claims that it’s his dog. Bad luck, I say, that he travels with a dog like one from the manor.”
“Thank you for the cheese,” Yuri ends the conversation as quickly as possibly, stuffing the cheese in his bag and hurrying off towards the meat vendor. One of the reasons why he doesn’t like shopping is conversations like that — people casually talking about Papa as if Papa is a bad thing. Yuuko had taught him to repeat the mantra so that he wouldn’t end up causing a fuss in the middle of town, but still, sometimes it was hard.
Yuri swallows, and tosses a look over his shoulder to track the stranger. He’s interacting with people that he comes by, but the townspeople tend to be short with him, or give him a wide berth. It doesn’t affect him at all, though, and Yuri gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.
He ducks and head and hurries to finish his errands and then run to Yuuko’s to ask her what she knows. Something about the stranger makes him feel uneasy, and coupled with the fact that he’d been asking about Papa means that Yuri needs to start making plans.
A leopardskin cloak is something that Victor had never thought he’d see in this part of the world, on the edge of the Northern Blies Ocean. Leopards, and people that wore their skins, were more common in the Safir Plains, but here was a boy sitting at the counter of the inn’s dining area with a leopardskin around his shoulders. It fits him in a way that Victor knows that the cloak belongs to him, isn’t something stolen. The boy looks too healthy to be the sort to steal, anyways.
He’d seen the boy earlier, in the market, because he’d felt a sudden rush of killing intent and had looked to find the boy as his source. There’s something fae-like about him — delicate cheekbones and slender stature and golden hair — but the emotions that he projects are far too human for Victor to be worried about having accidentally pissed off a fae.
“Who’s that at the counter?” Victor asks a man sitting at the table next to him.
The man takes a single glance up and goes back to his porridge. “That’s the little leopard. Doesn’t have a name, as far as I know.”
Victor stares at him, willing him to give him more information, but the man ignores his intent gaze and keeps eating. So Victor is left to huff and watch as Yuuko welcomes the boy with a hug (that the boy bristles at) and the have a quick conversation before the boy ducks around the counter and heads to the back with Yuuko.
How curious.
“Who was that?” he asks Yuuko later, after the dinner rush died down again and he’d noted that fact that the boy hadn’t come out. From the kitchen. She looks at him, confused. “The boy with the leopardskin.”
Yuuko would make a good actress, Victor thinks, as the only thing that gives away her unease is her pulling a lock of hair behind her ear. Other than that, she continues picking up cups and wiping down tables. “He’s a traveller that comes in every now and then to run errands for his father.” She says.
It’s not the whole truth. He shoulders are slightly hunched, like she’s closed in on herself. Victor has the mind to not ask further. Last night, she’d been willing to indulge his curiousity, but- not tonight. “I see.”
The boy with the leopardskin takes a backseat in his mind as he goes back to his room, mind bubbling with excitement as he packs to leave tomorrow in the morning.
Tomorrow, Victor will try to find the manor, to see whether the rumours are true.
He desperately wishes they are.
“What’s wrong, Yurohchka?”
Yuri jumps, looking around to see Papa standing in the doorway, a lamp in his hand. He shoves his boots back under his bed, and tries to not look guilty. “Nothing, Papa.”
Papa sighs, and comes closer, sitting next to Yuri on the bed. Yuri leans on his shoulder, and is keenly aware of how awkwardly he has to angle his neck to fit in the crook of Papa’s collar now. It used to be easier, when he was younger. “You’ve been looking upset ever since you got back this afternoon. What’s wrong, Yurohchka.”
He stays silent, trying to figure out the best way to phrase his worries without worrying Papa too much. “I...” he clenches his fists, “Papa, how did you deal with all the bad travellers that wanted to hurt you?”
“... I won’t ask what brought this on.” Yuri relaxes, relieved. “And as for the bad ones...”
“I like to think that they’re not all bad. I mean, the ones that come to exorcise me are usually just misguided, and the robbers are just really down on their luck, the ones that want the estate are... foolish?”
“But they wanted to hurt you!” Yuri cries.
“Well, they failed every time. And besides,” Papa sighs, “It’s easier to spend an eternity thinking the best of the world rather than the worst of it, Yurohchka.”
They sit there in silence, fingers carding comfortingly through Yuri’s hair, the lamplight throwing Papa’s features into looking vulnerable in a way that made Yuri want to ask him the questions he’d never asked before, like what Papa’s blood family was like, and how, exactly, Papa came to know the details of his curse.
All that Yuri knew in regards to the first question was that the Katsuki family had been a warm one, Papa having learned his mother’s recipes during long happy summer days in the kitchen, his father a just and friendly lord, his sister rambunctious yet willing to obey their parents. There was a picture of them in the study that had been moved from the main hall long before Yuri had arrived, and they were all friendly and round-cheeked and full of kindness.
“I guess you’re right,” Yuri said. He squeezed his Papa in a quick hug. “I think you’re one of the best parts of the world, though, Papa.”
“Thank you, Yurohchka. Sleep well.”
As he closes the his son’s bedroom door, he stretches, lantern brushing the wall. Judging by Yuri’s antsy state, he’d caught wind of a traveller intending to visit the estate. Which wasn’t unusual, and would make for a nice change of pace, especially as the days grew shorter and colder.
“I guess I’ll have to break out the wineglasses,” Katsuki Yuuri muses, starting down the stairs. Preparations had to be made to greet the guest tomorrow.
He wonders what kind of traveller it was that made Yuri so nervous, and shrugs the concern aside. It’s not like the traveller would stay for long, anyways.
(Deep inside his heart, something grey and lonely claws up with a wish that whoever it is would stay longer than three days.)