Disclaimer: I don't own Devil May Cry: Capcom makes money, not I.
Here's the second-to-last chapter of As The Trumpets Sound. I would have preferred this to be an oneshot but I couldn't do what I wanted in an oneshot, so…
"An oneshot" is correct but sounds wrong when you say it out loud: oneshot is pronounced like wunshot, or at least I say it thus, and "an wunshot" would be incorrect. Just a teeny, irrelevant musing on the vagaries of grammar.
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She had expected the children to know, somehow, that Sparda was dead, but they didn't. When she went to play with them the next morning, Vergil kept glancing at the door waiting for Sparda to come, but they were all used to him vanishing, sometimes for days at a time, on mysterious business: fending off demons according to him.
She wanted to believe that, it made her suffering less pointless. The memories of what had preceded the event had faded with time, but the event itself was still clear as day in her nightmares.
The next day, and the next, and Vergil and Dante looked at each other, clearly missing their father, but they didn't bother to ask Mommy when he would be back or where he was: Mommy never knew. Mommy had not wanted to hear lies and had wanted to enjoy his absence and alone time with the children without counting the days until his return.
Sparda had given her papers when he said he was going to die.
The only contact she had with the outside world over these years was the things Sparda brought them: dresses in the latest fashion for her, movies for them to watch together, toys for the children.
She was now going to have to interact with people again, and the thought terrified her.
It would need to be done, there was no getting around it. Now that the rest of the castle was opened to her, she watched the men delivering food through an upper window one day before hesitantly going down to talk to them, fearful they would see her shame on her face.
They were polite, but didn't speak English. But they managed to get across that she should come back the next day and a man came who did, the manager of these lands, which had been given to Sparda centuries ago.
She didn't know anything about business, but was glad to know there was no shortage of money and that the food would keep coming: Sparda had told her this and it was in the papers but it was different to hear it from an actual human.
He seemed to take her for a recluse, as the Lord her husband had been, and she realized she was content to stay a recluse.
Except for having the local church's priest come to the castle for a double baptism.
Neither Vergil or Dante reacted to the holy water. What they did react to was the presence of a strange man. They hid behind her. She cajoled them into coming out and doing the ceremony, and the priest left with questions in his eyes that she didn't answer.
She wanted to confess. She wanted it like water in a desert, but to tell anyone this story, even a priest… she knew the words were too heavy to pass her lips, would drag her down into hell like the mortal sins they were, or weren't.
She just… didn't know anymore. She felt empty, except for the children. She lived for them.
Dante was the one to finally ask, on Vergil's behalf. "Mommy?"
"Yes, Dante?" she'd answered distractedly.
He pulled at her, glancing over at Vergil. She got the message that he wanted to whisper to her and not have Vergil overhear. She bent down.
"Daddy, Daddy's not coming back, is he," Dante whispered softly, hands cupped around her ear.
"I don't think so, Dante," she whispered back. "He's been gone too long."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you." She shrugged, and Dante clearly interpreted that to mean 'I don't know.'
"Do you think he's, um, dead?" Dante said this really quietly, really not wanting Vergil, who was reading, to overhear.
"I'm afraid so."
Dante glanced at Vergil. "Don't tell Vergil."
"We're going to have to talk about it as a family eventually. Cheer up, he might come back."
"Yeah, he said about his soul going into the sword if he dies!" Dante exclaimed, cheering up, and completely forgetting about keeping things quiet so Vergil wouldn't hear.
Vergil heard. "The sword? Are you talking about Father?" His eyes narrowed. They had been talking about Father without him! Keeping secrets! Dante wasn't allowed to keep secrets from him!
Dante did a full-body wince. "Um, Mommy doesn't think he's coming back."
Vergil nodded, pouting. "I figured that out, I'm not stupid. Father wouldn't leave us alone so long unless he couldn't help it. So he's dead or Mundus captured him. So we have to grow up quick and rescue him." He looked incredibly cutely determined.
So, they'd both guessed, but hadn't told each other because they didn't want the other one to be sad?
"Yeah!" Dante agreed, and went back over to read the book with Vergil. Eva kept cooking. She liked cooking for them instead of the meals just appearing, even if she'd been horribly out of practice at first and had needed to trail and error her way to the boys' favorites. At least Dante wasn't gagging at her cooking anymore.
After fifteen minutes they ran off to the 'playroom,' which was essentially a big open area clearly meant for practicing fencing, to whack at each other. She didn't watch them do that: Sparda had encouraged them in it and taught them some basic things. She couldn't stand seeing the blood fly everywhere, though they barely noticed the wounds until they'd reached the point where they got tired. Sparda had told them to always stop then, it meant they were about to run out of healing energy, and if they were out then they would stay wounded, and might even die.
She had to rely on two kids knowing when to quit, and some magic items that were supposed to bring them back if they kept at it too long.
Eva decided she was better off not knowing what they got up to in that room, that and the shooting range.
It was odd, though, that they adapted so readily to losing someone they loved. Perhaps it was their heritage? Perhaps they wouldn't miss her or anyone else? Would they be able to care about humans?
With how violent they were towards each other, she didn't trust them around normal children, even though they needed to make friends. She knew what ran through her at the thought of losing them, she didn't want any other parents to face the reality of that loss because of her.
Though, she told herself, they had clearly accepted it, or mostly done so, some time ago.
She had pictured them crying together in her arms when they realized their father wasn't coming back. Now she saw each of them crying alone, not wanting their brother to see them crying and realize why and be sad as well.
That demonstrated empathy, at least, the desire to protect the other, for them to be happy. Dante had wanted to know so he could help Vergil.
They were very bright, both of them had made plans and worked to get information: Dante's focused on Vergil, Vergil's focused on making mourning unnecessary by getting the cause of it back home.
If thinking Mundus was responsible for their father's death made them hate him and train hard to defeat him, that was a good thing. It increased their chances of survival.
They couldn't leave this house until they were ready. There were wards and protections here that could only begin to fall if Sparda's power failed, and if that happened the main seal would also start failing and Mundus would revive. If that happened, well. She doubted the wards could oppose him without Sparda reinforcing them.
That gave her the perfect excuse to stay here.
She was afraid now, afraid of the demons out there. What would they do to the mother of the children of their enemy? It would be worse than it had been that time, the time she couldn't stand to think about.
Men scared her as well. Sparda had seemed nice, civilized: she couldn't tell by appearances. They could also be a demon in disguise.
She'd stood up to Sparda, why was she such a scared little mouse about everything else? Everything except Vergil and Dante. She knew they could rip her apart easily, but they didn't scare her. Well, she was scared they would hurt themselves irretrievably, but not scared of them. She loved them, had carried them after her heart. They were the anchors of her sanity, the ones that kept her alive. She loved them to distraction.
True, it might be a spell, but… She really should be making them read the bibles. But they contradicted what their father had told them and if holy water didn't affect them, then what?
She didn't know what to do, she really didn't.
All she could do was love them, teach them that humans, though weak, deserved respect and caring. Teach them to be good. They didn't look up to her for her strength, they did for her scant wisdom and because she loved them and tried her best. So, that had to be enough.
The road to hell was paved with good intentions.
He was a devil. He shouldn't have been able to love her, if he was so dead to love as to be able to turn against God.
But she feared he had, and…
She should consult theologians, but what if that ended up with her children being killed? Herself being burnt at the stake she didn't want, but not her children, please no.
So years passed, and the children trained and grew, and Vergil remembered while Dante seemed to almost forget, or cease to care. She worried about Dante because of that. Maybe not thinking about it was just his way of coping.
Though he was becoming such an… angry child. Not at her, or Vergil, just… she could feel pent-up rage in him. He wanted to leave the ground, explore the world, meet new people, and he couldn't because of who his father had been. She thought he suspected, perhaps. Not that she had been raped, but that he had been born to fight Mundus. That he had been born with enemies.
That his father had arranged for him to come into a hostile world and then abandoned them all there, not just him but his beloved brother and mother.
She'd told them both that among humans they would have to hide their strength, lineage and powers. That people would think they were evil.
Vergil thought anyone who thought that was clearly stupid and should be ignored. Dante protested it, hated the idea of people thinking that, hating him. Of having to hide, to lie. Then Vergil said that if Dante cared about stupid people then he was stupid too, and there was another argument.
Lo-Heave-My, Vergil had a mouth like a serpent. Though Dante would say things he didn't mean when he was angry, Vergil would mean them. She didn't think he intended to actually be cruel, but… he was not going to make friends if he expressed contempt like that even of his own brother. She knew Vergil loved him, it was just that he didn't seem to know how to express it, and when he was focused on something he'd go past anything that got in his way like a bulldozer, run right over even his own brother.
Many times Dante came to her, lonely because Vergil was telling him to go away while he studied something. She hugged and played with him, but it clearly wasn't the same.
And then… she hadn't looked outside, perhaps there had been signs, she should have known… the attack came. And she was cut down, though she managed to give them warning first. Vergil ran, Dante hid.
And she knew nothing more.