Ethereal Moon, 14

Duke Riegan,

I should hate for you to see me like this, and thus I am glad this letter will not reach you in a timely fashion, lest you choose to come visit. I have taken ill again. The context is simple; I believe being around demonic beasts made with the use of crests exacerbates my affliction. I slew one this past week, and the gore was quite tremendous. They now roam Gloucester, though not unchecked; I have had my finest men on duty with this. I have written Lysithea on the matter and she has reflected that we have not encountered a demonic beast with a Gloucester crest, so cannot test my hypothesis that a second crest's exposure to other bearers can cause us to fall ill. Lysithea seems to believe that we possess degenerative conditions that will worsen over time and with prolonged exposure. I am not so certain of this. Call it optimism.

My aunt has not permitted me to get up or move about in any way that has consequence, so this letter will be brief. Little excitement has happened. Andrea is back in Gloucester; she seldom visited even when I was a child, so this is a change in pace. It has put my father in good spirits, regardless. She is a busy woman and makes herself so. I have scarcely left my bed today, and have been missing the rose garden– but more than the rose garden, I think of the beaches of Derdriu and the summer sun over the hills. I am sure that Almyra is lovely, but if there is a seaside half as lovely as that of Leicester I will owe you all the gold in Gloucester's storehouses. On this afternoon, I think I would endure a thousand years of Garreg Mach's food just to take tea with all our old friends again.

Lorenz

Lorenz had only just folded and sealed the letter when Marva, his six year old cousin, sprinted through the doors of his room.

"Mama told me you were sending a letter and not to bother you but I want to see the stamps!" she said, without so much as a hello. "Also, you wanna see something?"

Lorenz, who had a lap desk on the bed and sat upright, leaned against the pillows, blinked at her. She was so energetic, it was jarring. Snow fell, fat flakes in the windowpanes, and whatever it was that Marva had found, he was sure it was sticky, gooey, or moved.

"I already sealed it, I'm sorry, dear," he said lightly. "If you want to help me seal the next letter, I'll save it for you."

"I like the wax," she observed scientifically. "Anyways, you wanna see?"

"Promise me you're not going to drop it on the clean sheets," said Lorenz with a weak smile.

"Ta-da!" She opened up her cupped hand. It was a very small lizard. "It was buried in the ground by the pond in the garden."

"Oh," said Lorenz, "Marva, you ought to bury that again. They sleep through the winter, and then in the spring come back up when it's warm again."

"What if I keep him warm now?" She held her cupped hand closer, fearful worry in her purple eyes.

"Ask your mom," said Lorenz with a long sigh. When he didn't know what to do with Marva, he always sent her to Andrea. She barrelled out like a gunshot, and Lorenz let out a sigh. "What to do with her," he mumbled under his breath, reaching for one of his books. It was not leisure reading material, but it was not so dense as the average tomes of intellectual value– so he could compromise on the annotated histories of western Adrestia. A few dog-eared pages past, he heard the footsteps before she walked in.

"Lorenz, why did you tell Marva to bury the lizard?" she groaned. "She's tracking mud downstairs, and Ambrose had to go out and find the hole where she dug it up."

"I didn't realize she'd actually do it," said Lorenz, exasperated. "I half expected her to keep it herself as a pet if it woke when she warmed it."

"Your uncle Ambrose would rather Marva burn the house to the ground than keep vermin." There was that spirit Andrea had always had. "He hates them, you know. But Marva has loved her time here at the manor just because there are so many things with legs in the gardens and around the estate. I think your uncle is going to go home and take the baby with him before the holidays even begin, just so that Marva never brings him another millipede."

"She's free to show me," said Lorenz with a yawn.

"I don't want her dragging things all the way through this half of the house. Besides," said Andrea, "I don't want you to get sick."

"I highly doubt a few worms will make me any sicker." Lorenz took off his glasses, kept on a beaded chain around his neck since he still forgot them after only a week of having them fit to him, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Anything new?"

"Your father is out hunting this weekend, and Ambrose will be with him, as well as– let's see– I believe Forsyth Ordelia is accompanying them? Ambrose's cousin's husband," she said, waving her hand lightly. "Then Holst Goneril is just passing through, he might be coming– his sister is a friend of Duke Riegan's and they're on the roundabout way to Edmund, apparently, since Holst wanted to see the shipyards. The Duke himself won't be there, though. And, that aside, a few of the lieutenants from the Charon family are coming with. Ambrose's little cousins, you know?"

"Ah," said Lorenz. "I'm glad I'm not in attendance. I hate hunting," he said bitterly.

"Your father always loved that story about your first hunting trip," reflected Andrea, "and how you helped him with your first stag." He winced a bit. "It's a shame, if not just because of good company. Ambrose still has a high opinion of you."

Ambrose, Ambrose, Ambrose. He was beginning to understand why his father did not like his brother-in-law. It was all Andrea talked about when there was nothing else to say.

"Is Marva going hunting soon? I was just about her age."

"Oh, Goddess, no. She cries easily, and that aside, she loves everything that lives. I don't think she would be much good as a huntress." Andrea shook her head, the exaggerated body language of a woman who did nothing by halves, taking over. "Are you feverish today?"

"I don't think so." Lorenz scooted the desk off of his lap and put it on the night table, while Andrea held the cool back of her hand to his forehead and muttered to herself.

"No fever. That's good." She sat down. "It just seems that there's really very little I can do except stay and help you with little tasks."

"There really isn't," said Lorenz with a shrug. "Usually it was my retainer who handled these situations. I gave him the holidays off. I thought it was only right that he spend them with his family, considering that you're here."

"And I am twice the use of anyone else?" Andrea raised her eyebrows.

"No, auntie, you're simply more opinionated and decisive, so I haven't had to make any choices or given any directions. It's made my life easier." He stretched his arms. "Would you help me up?"

"Where are we going?" asked Andrea suspiciously, reaching for his dressing robe and helping it over his pajamas, then giving him a hand to stand up.

"I was thinking the library." Lorenz leaned against her for a second while he grew dizzy, then sat back down for a second.

"Dizzy spell," mumbled Andrea, who reached for a notepad she kept in her pockets, and started writing. "Did it start when you were standing, or was it before?"

"Before," said Lorenz. "I don't care for the glasses. They make it worse, even if they've helped my vision."

Andrea nodded and kept writing. She had very thorough notes on everything; Lorenz was convinced that this was going to rub off on Marva, who was already a very methodical child and could tell songbirds apart just by a glimpse of their plumage. He wondered how that had failed to become part of his father's talents.

"Do you need a minute?" She looked up from her notes.

"Please." He pinched his eyes shut.

"Water?" she offered.

"Tea would be preferable if you have it." He leaned backwards. "Just a moment."

"Do you think perhaps it would help to eat or get fresh air?"

"I have no interest in going out in the snow." He forced himself back upright and stood again, elbow in hers. "It makes the joints reluctant and the muscles ache."

"Then eat something," she urged him, and he groaned as they walked towards the library.

"Fine." It was the season of creamy, hearty dishes with spices abounding, and even he couldn't say no to that; the other night even he had come down for a whitefish with mustard sauce that was so light and flavorful it was scarcely to be believed. He wasn't going to complain if his auntie urged him to eat something.

"You say it so reluctantly," she reflected. "Lorenz, food is one of life's delights. It isn't just sustenance, it is delight in artistry. Surely you, poet extraordinaire and pianist– asking me, oh, please, Auntie Andrea, duet with me– would appreciate fine art so?"

"Auntie, I simply don't have an appetite." He could barely keep most things down, and he did not wish to pretend anymore that he was fine. "Something plain would suffice."

"Plain." She waved her wrist. "You're getting pickier than Marva. Even she puts seasoning on things."

Lorenz flinched as his leg twitched involuntarily, grasping his aunt's elbow, and she stopped in her tracks. "I have to write everything down around here," she muttered. "You're lucky I'm here, you know," she said pointedly. "I'm not going to get you onto arsenics or leeches. Some of the Faerghan healers do things like that, and I think we are an enlightened people, us Gloucesters." She winked. "I've been reading on Almyran medicine."

"Almyran?" Lorenz raised his brows.

"Their techniques are different from ours, but I've done my research. They have higher rates of survival for most prolonged conditions solely because of the thorough hygiene and restriction in the use of known toxic substances."

"Such as?" asked Lorenz, who really did not enjoy his aunt's very scientific minded tendencies.

"Sweet lead. Quicksilver. Arsenic. Certain salts. Almyran medicine tends to be more holistic, and tends to the treatment of a person by disposition and tending to the entirety of them, and uses medicine based on herbal remedies. Now, I've seen some of it work, though I have my doubts– but I don't think I've ever seen lead salts work."

Lorenz, who had been recommended such things a handful of times by some of his father's hired physicians and had generally disliked the taste enough to never attempt it again, at least could say this in the defense of his overbearing aunt. Nothing overtly awful. "Well, then it is some consolation to hear that you're not poisoning me."

"At the very least!" she said with a smile. "I've been doing research on similar documented instances of maladies like your own, and other than the handful of quacks that propose draining the blood and ingesting toxins, there's actually quite solid documentation of symptoms and similar progression, but for one thing." She hesitated. "I will not act as your father does and pretend your hair was always white, Lorenz. I remember well the sort of little boy you were." She grinned wryly. "Not exactly a Marva, but I remember you playing prince at every chance and dashing about the gardens with me and your mother in pursuit."

"I was a child," he said, softening. "I've grown since then."

"But you're still little," she said, a grin on her face. Andrea was ten years her father's junior– in her early thirties, still, not yet worn down by things. She had been a teenager when Lorenz was a child. He still had memories of Andrea as a kid no older than him. She must have been nineteen or twenty when he was Marva's age– just as he was nineteen now. He wondered if even when Marva Lenora Gloucester was as qualified and experienced as he was now, he'd be seeing her as the little girl who dragged in hibernating lizards and cupped millipedes in hand, just as his auntie saw him as a little boy playing prince.

"Why it turned white," she muttered to herself under her breath. "Why it turned white!"

"I don't know, Andrea." Lorenz shrugged as she opened the door to the library. She grabbed him by the forearms and stared him dead in the eyes.

Andrea looked a great deal like her older brother. She had lilac-lavender hair that was pin straight, though not the symmetrical waves of his, falling down her shoulders messily, with the beginnings of wrinkles around her eyes. She had the same stern blue eyes and a certain natural rosiness that preserved the illusion that she was not the more calculating of the two Gloucester children. Her jaw was as sharp and well worn as his, her nose as aquiline and keen. Looking her in the eyes was hard for most people. Looking her in the eyes when she was trying to discern if you were lying was harder.

"One day I will get the truth out of you and your father about that winter." She stared him down, even from a whole six inches below his height. "You can't lie to me forever. A happy little boy leaves his home and comes back a waif and a shadow." She shook her head. "Something's wrong with it all."

"I don't know." Lorenz leaned away from her towards the armchair, trying to harden himself, and reached for the book where he had left it in the library last.

"The same thing happened to Lysithea von Ordelia, around the same time. I wonder if it's a contagious illness," she wondered aloud. "I– I have to figure it out. It vexes me, it really does. The strangest thing about it all is, I know many contagious diseases have permanent after-effects. My very cousin had scarlatina weakness all his life, you know– but the hair! Do you know! Even Ambrose puzzles over his cousin, Lorenz, it torments us so."

"I'm not at leisure to say." He shoved his face further into the book and let his aunt mutter to herself while he read. Yet he felt hot angry shame start burning up his face. He could not tell her the truth. His aunt idolized his father. He was her older brother. She still fondly talked of her big brother Matty sitting at the table with her and teaching her to draw with his good charcoals, of her beloved older brother who played in the gardens with her and was the only shelter from their father's temper. If he admitted to her that her beloved big brother was a pitiful excuse for a father when she wasn't around, then she might lose all heart.

"Andrea!" called Ambrose down the stairs. "The baby!"

The baby was not yet named. He was a boy, seven months old, which was, in Lorenz's opinion, soundly in the category of "old enough to probably survive", but he had a feeling Andrea and Ambrose were holding out for the right name. He had been born towards the end of Lorenz's time at the monastery, and had displayed a Crest of Gloucester at only a few weeks old. He had violet hair, so different from Marva and Ambrose's blond, and looked a great deal like his mother. Andrea sighed and haphazardly tossed her notes onto the table.

"I'll be back momentarily," she mumbled. "Never have babies, Lorenz. They'll get hungry and your poor wife will get sick of nursing them."

"I believe there is no need for concern on those matters," he called after her, which she followed with a laugh as she headed down the foyer stairs to the receiving rooms where Ambrose liked to stay.

Speaking of Ambrose, he heard footsteps climbing the stairs to the library and though he expected perhaps his father or little cousin, his uncle Ambrose opened the door. He often took care of the baby in the afternoons, letting Andrea spend time off in her own interests and worlds and her reading– and for all of the things Lorenz could say about Ambrose, he would never say that the man was not good with children, even if Lorenz thought he was a weasely coward.

"Lorenz," said Ambrose with a curt nod of his head. He was a bit older than Andrea, but you would never have known it by his looks. He had a head of fine, mousy blond hair, a round face that was just a bit too babyish for his very narrow body, and deep set green eyes. Marva looked rather like him.

"Uncle Ambrose," said Lorenz, glancing up from his book.

"I heard from Andrea you don't intend to go on the hunting trip? It's a shame, really. Considering that Holst Goneril will be there, and you always talked about going toe to toe with the gentleman, it's a shame to miss such an opportunity."

"I have little concern about whether or not I could go toe to toe with a Goneril. While I think rather highly of their family, I also recognize that all those generations defending Fodlan's Throat have given them all terribly thick skulls."

Ambrose stifled a laugh, badly– he was, through his mother, related to the Gonerils, and Lorenz had never let himself miss a beat on a deprecating joke with his uncle. It was one of the only fronts where they could truly get along. "I have to save that one. I think Holst would like it."

"Oh, and be sure to give me proper dues," said Lorenz. "At the very least have the courtesy to save the remark for dinner, so that I can see the look on Hilda's face."

"Hilda?" Ambrose's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "Why, do I detect an interest in the dear little daughter of Duke Goneril? I have heard she's practically a demon herself on the field of battle, but with looks like that–"

"You detect no such thing," said Lorenz firmly. "Hilda and I are school friends and nothing more. I find her too– perhaps, pampered?"

"And coming from you," said Ambrose, nudging Lorenz's shoulder as he walked past on the way to a bookshelf, "that is rich."

Lorenz flinched in response to that remark. There was a serious difference between his own posh, educated, and wealthy status, and Hilda's, and that difference was a lifetime of responsibility. Hilda had not faced such things until the monastery; Lorenz had been taking care of Gloucester in the stead of his mother for many years and had a surplus of burdens on him. He was meant to be the next leader of the Alliance. Hilda would never understand that. Ambrose, too, had little understanding of the Gloucester family. He had married into it. He had wed Andrea after the death of her father and had barely met the man, and had no notion so far as Lorenz knew, of the sort of person he had been, or any knowledge of Lorenz's father's business and dealings with the Empire. Ambrose was what Lorenz thought of as the landed nobility that were utterly useless– no hand in business or finance or management, no true wealth to speak of, and few men, only really any good as far as his cousin Helene ordered him about. There were as many of those around Leicester as there were seagulls at a fishery, and not for terribly different purposes either– to feast on the scraps thrown to them. He still resented that Andrea had married such a man, but if Marva and the baby became Ordelia and Gloucester's respective heirs, he supposed at least something useful had come of the man.

"I think it's a fair assessment. At least I wasn't coddled," said Lorenz with a dry smile.

"She is– well, she's a delight at dinner parties," said Ambrose casually. "Moreso than you are, with that gift at being a wet blanket which you so possess."

Lorenz grinned. Ambrose had been calling him a wet blanket and his father's little copy for years, ever since he had been married to Andrea. He and his father had worn matched outfits once, many years ago. When his mother had been here to join in the fun. He still had not been able to bear getting rid of one of the damask crimson vests he had worn at eleven or twelve, because his mother's gown to match it had been so lovely that he wanted to remember it.

"Wet blanket," observed Lorenz. "How strange a phrase that is. Has that ever occurred to you? Who on the Goddess's earth is out there getting blankets wet?"

"I always assumed it was a blanket that was wet by mistake, by rain or laundering or other means, and until you have raised toddlers, I would make no observations about wet blankets." Ambrose flopped easily into one of the armchairs. "Parenting is going to be the death of me, Lorenz."

"Well, uncle, you simply could have had no children."

"And deprive your aunt of a terrifying little version of herself, toddling about with spiders and snakes?" Ambrose chuckled. "No. No, I would never do that. Besides, I love them both quite dearly."

That was one thing Lorenz could say in Ambrose's defense. He was a very affectionate and loving father. "I imagine you would do anything for them," observed Lorenz, thinking of his own father. He glanced out the windows of the library, the massive vista panes overlooking the rose garden that was now frozen over. His father. Out there somewhere today, inspecting land and checking monasteries and abbeys. The Eastern Church had recently ceased operating under the Church of Seiros directly, and had begun independent operations monitored by local nobility. Lorenz had no opinions on this except that it meant his father was out of the estate more often in this season, and he truly did not care about any of the matters related to the church outside of the outward piety he maintained. But his father was out there.

"Anything." Ambrose looked at Lorenz, a discerning but sensitive glance. "You seem morose. Something eating at you? More than usual, that is. If it's– advice about women, or something, I could always help."

"No, it isn't women." The thought that it might be, almost made Lorenz laugh. "It's simply that– situations have been high tension for a very long time. It exhausts a person."

"Oh, that's all." Ambrose sighed. "I didn't want to have to tell you about such things, to be honest. I got very, very lucky with your aunt and I still don't know how that happened."

"I think she took you in rather like a charitable young lady takes in stray cats," observed Lorenz.

"Charitable indeed," agreed Ambrose soberly. "Would you like some mulled wine? I put some on downstairs."

"Tea would be preferable," said Lorenz, who had been asking for tea for perhaps an hour now and still would have liked some.

"Oh of course, you want tea," mocked Ambrose with a good natured grin as he stood up. "Could I interest you in something from the holiday cabinet? Since it's just a weekend away, and I don't think your aunt would notice if I tipped a bit of tea off the top of the tin–"

Lorenz was supposed to say no. But holiday teas were often little specialty samplers his aunt brought in tins, or things his father had brought in for holiday breakfasts like the New Year, and both of their birthdays, which fell only a month apart– and Lorenz's birthday, a few weeks ago, had been punctuated by ceylon blend that he was still saving the leftovers of.

"What did Andrea bring for Founder's day?" asked Lorenz suspiciously, as if he was not about to say yes whether or not it was special, just because his uncle's shenanigans were something he did not want to feel too excluded from.

"You'll favor it, I think," said Ambrose, standing up and walking to the fireplace hearth, where the mantlepiece chest of holiday treats was stored– candies for the children and sometimes Andrea, and teas for the rest of them. "It's a withered oxidized tea from Dagda. Your mother got my wife onto it, and she's really only been able to find it in Imperial ports, so when I was visiting a cousin, I found some."

"I hope you didn't go too far out of your way for these," said Lorenz, as Ambrose began preparing the teapot on the hearth. "Andrea always lets her tea steep too long. Flavor complexity and profiles are wasted on her, I think she enjoys it bitter."

"I don't buy my wife special gifts so she properly appreciates the flavor profile," scoffed Ambrose. "I buy my wife gifts because they make her happy. I could not care less about whether or not she takes her tea properly. But just so we're clear, how long should I steep this?"

"The leaves should be just unfurled– ah, it has a nice woody smell. Very unique."

"Sophisticated," agreed Ambrose. "About a minute more?"

"I'd say it's ready now," said Lorenz, just judging by the fragrance. "My, this is a real treat."

"I thought you'd like it." He set down the small china cup on the table beside Lorenz. "Your mother gave you a good sense of taste for these things. I've found that both my wife and your father like their tea a bit too bitter for more fine, fragrant teas."

"I would never stoop to criticizing my father on his taste in tea, but I have seen the man put currant jam in it before, and I admit it turned my stomach."

"Currant jam?" asked Ambrose, intrigued.

"Do not even think about doing something so heinous in front of me." Lorenz waved his hand dismissively and took a sip of the tea. "Oh, if you ruined this with sweetener, Ambrose, I would never speak to you again."

Ambrose had just been going through the tea service for honey crystals, and hesitantly put the jar back without even having opened it.

"How one battered nineteen year old commands such a presence that you could part me from sweetening my tea, I know not," muttered Ambrose, and Lorenz smiled.

"I," he said with a flourish, "am Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, the future leader of the Leicester Alliance, the finest mage of all of the great houses, and the commander of respect in every room I enter. Tell me, how are you surprised that I don't?"

"Because I remember you eating frosting roses off a spoon at my wedding." Ambrose ruffled Lorenz's hair. "Do you think Andrea will like this blend?"

"Oh, I think she'll enjoy it," said Lorenz. "Perhaps not as much as you or I might, but if it's Dagdan tea she likes, I don't think you could've made a finer selection."

"Good, good." Ambrose leaned back. "I'm going to get to writing a few letters. Cousin Helene wants me in Daphnel and I keep trying to get her convinced otherwise. I have children, Lorenz." He softened. "I wouldn't send any man to the front with a good conscience, father or no, this winter. Things will go sour. Mark my words."

"It's the holidays, Uncle Ambrose." Lorenz paused. "Perhaps dwelling on these things is not in the spirit of things?"

"Not thinking about the war is about as effective as if you were to stop thinking about your ailments. Have they gone away?" Ambrose lounged like a cat as he drew out a letter from his jacket pocket. "It's silly, is what it all is."

"Silly?" Lorenz furrowed his brow.

"Mhm." Ambrose was now absorbed, respectively, in his reading, and Lorenz likely would not be getting a further response from him, as Ambrose began drafting a letter on his notepad in charcoal.

Ethereal Moon 25

Dear Claude,

Happy Founder's Day! I am sure that this is not celebrated in Almyra, but on this day, my thoughts are with you and all of our friends. Hilda and her brother passed through and hunted briefly with my father, though Hilda did not participate in those festivities, and she and I spent a day or so in conversation. I am in the slow process of feeling better, and in fact, quite recently walked to town with my aunt and cousins. My uncle leaves next week for Daphnel, as one of Commander Judith's adjutants defending the border with Faerghus, and when the time comes, my father, as of yesterday, has informed me that when I recover, I will be leading the defense of the Great Bridge of Myrddin. This is an honor. However, I must first regain my strength. I am sure you'll be shocked when you see me next; I am now the wearer of a pair of glasses. I hate them, but it is thanks to them that I have managed a lengthy letter and a generous period of time reading.

Lysithea and I exchanged gifts for the holiday at one point last week, though not in person. I had sent to her some very fine purple silk that was once my mother's, along with some very fine milk caramels. In exchange Lysithea sent me a lovely pin and a new book of poetry, which I heartily appreciate. I have not yet received anything from Ignatz, Marianne, or Hilda, but I did, respectively, send them all gifts properly– Ignatz a new brush set for his pens, Marianne a few volumes on naturalism, and Hilda, being Hilda– a fine pink-pearl necklace. Leonie, when I saw her last, told me that were I to buy her any gifts, she would string me up by my thumbs, and while I do not think that she would do it, I think respecting Leonie's adamant persistence is the best gift I could offer her. My aunt and uncle have named their son Deiter Theodore Gloucester. They were saving the naming for the holidays so that my father could be there for the ceremonies. Why exactly the people of Leicester insist upon dunking infants in oil and praying over them before naming them properly, I may never know, but if you have ever held an oily, screaming infant, I sincerely apologize. It is a very messy affair, and I am only glad that I was not wearing a new jacket.

This is enough of my talk about my life. I know I shall hear all about Almyra upon your return, or perhaps none at all, seeing as I know that you are by nature evasive and secretive. Yet I do think of you. I understand that matters with your family are perhaps complicated, due to your father's apparent position– which feels odd to address even now– and your relation to this. Judith von Daphnel briefly mentioned that your mother is a personal friend of hers when I saw her last, and though I only briefly met the lady Tiana and your sister Mahin, I hope they are well.

May light fill your winter days,

Lorenz Hellman Gloucester