Inland Leicester had dry winters and autumns, with prominent spring and summer rains. The months from October to March were very cold, yes, but not damp. Snow, when it fell, was dry and powdery and very seldom did it thaw. It gnawed bitterly. But it was easily staved off. Derdriu was more temperate, yes, but the constant damp, fog, and rain was a completely different problem. As a result, the linens and cottons of Gloucester with overjackets, were swapped for wool coats and heavy sweaters, with the single pair of appropriately waxed boots that Lorenz owned.
Lorenz had grown more comfortable traveling solo in his time over the last year and a half. Claude had left nearly a year ago– and before then, his time in Derdriu alone and with his mother alike had gotten him better accustomed to it. This time he had gone with his father's blessing, though he hadn't told him the whole truth and had mentioned rather dismissively that he was casually meeting Marianne von Edmund. This wasn't entirely untrue. Apparently she was in Derdriu meeting Claude as well.
He tugged at the sleeves of his ruby-red sweater. He must have gotten taller since last he wore it– had he been fifteen or sixteen? He hadn't gotten any broader, he thought bemusedly, since it was still a bit loose, but the sleeves were just the smallest bit too short. He had left Edgar at the townhome, and went directly to the Riegan manor, post-haste, and waited, then, in the dining room.
"It's been quite a while," said Marianne, walking in. She had a heather-blue crocheted shawl around her shoulders, presumably to stave off the damp cold, too, and sat down across from him. The Riegan dining room was far larger than the Gloucester one, and darker too. It always alarmed Lorenz how dark the Riegan manor was in spite of the surplus of windows. Perhaps it was that the stones were larger and heavier and far, far older than those of Gloucester and its brick and wood. It pressed in on a person. Claude was right, it was claustrophobic. Yet Marianne seemed unbothered.
"Too long," agreed Lorenz. "How have you been, Marianne?"
"I'm savoring the time here in Derdriu." She glanced out the window. "The first snow already fell in Edmund and my father came ashore to make sure that the boats are properly weatherproofed and protected from the ice. I had been running affairs in his stead for the months he was mostly at sea."
"I take it you're grateful for a break."
"That is a very generous way to phrase things," said Marianne delicately. "And you?"
"Oh, a little bit of everything with me. The delights of, say, my father's new allegiances, have made my life far more inconvenient than they previously were. And losing my status has been a serious blow to Gloucester, to be frank– my father's skills as a treasurer lack in most capacities, but he doesn't want me handling these things, so I have been away." He pursed his lips. "The news about the Empire is heartening to none of us, of course–"
"I was so worried I would have to be the one to say something about that," sighed Marianne. "I received a letter from Felix asking if men from Edmund could reinforce his father's lands. It certainly seemed like it pained him to write it." Her hand delicately covered her mouth while she looked for what to say.
"Did your father agree to?"
"Certainly not," said Marianne. "I wouldn't have either, if I am to be honest. Fraldarius is the most powerful house in the–" She paused, mentally correcting herself. "The Imperial territories of Faerghus. If they need defense, then there is nothing Edmund could supply better than they would but ships, and those are steep in cost these days."
Lorenz winced a bit. Things were falling apart so quickly that he was nearly forgetting that they had once been whole. "Of course, to some degree, it is commendable that the transition was so fast. It minimizes casualties. I fear a slow, drawn out conflict might truly ravage the Alliance."
Marianne gave him a look that he could not quite discern, and then stared down at her hands in her lap. "It's a hard decision that must be made."
"It is." He reached across the table and offered out a hand to her, and Marianne took it gingerly, her hands of lily petals only barely calloused from magic.
At the moment their hands met, Claude walked in. He looked as if he'd spent some time in the sun. He wore an emerald green overcoat, a long yellow tunic, and appropriate pants for wyvern riding, and his hair was messy, and a good bit longer as if he hadn't cut it when he was in Almyra, waves ever so slightly bleached in the sunlight. "Good afternoon, fellow members of the Alliance's messiest trifecta. I invited Hilda, she told me she was busy in person, and Lysithea told me she didn't think Ordelia counted anymore, so this looks like everyone. I see we're keeping it casual? By the way, Lorenz, the glasses really work for you."
Lorenz glared at him and pushed a long strand of white hair behind his ear, and Claude only smiled.
"I'm actually kidding with you. Though, yes, Hilda said she wasn't coming, and neither were Ignatz, Leonie, and Raphael, mostly because they didn't really have the time. Lysithea didn't want to travel. This was going to be a social call until I got reading through my letter heap." Claude cleared his throat. "So let's get to business."
"What on earth happened in Almyra?" asked Lorenz.
"Great question, but I am not answering that," said Claude, continuing. "It looks like we're in a tight pinch with the Empire, so there's no real reason to worry about anything else at the moment, is there?"
"A tight pinch is one way to put it." Marianne had never seemed so quiet around Claude before now. And Claude seemed nervous, which was why he was so talkative. Something was wrong. Well, there was a better question. What wasn't wrong?
"Lorenz, how's your father?" asked Claude, and Lorenz, who did not like anything to be this up front, ever, felt his entire body react with a cringe.
"We shouldn't speak about the recent events in Gloucester," said Lorenz simply. "Know now that I am not in a position to oppose him, or the Empire, considering that publicizing some of my circumstances is well within their range of control and arresting my father and suspending our status is too. Yet I lose no love on the Imperial powers."
"Well, that's just one more bridge to cross when the time comes, isn't it?" Claude grinned at the joke he had just made, and Lorenz rolled his eyes. "Marianne, your adoptive father?"
"He's back at the estate for the winter." Marianne pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders. "He hasn't taken any social or formal business visitors to call in months, though. Not even from other members of the Round Table. I believe he bit off more than he could chew, and I've been taking care of most official business."
"I'm sure you're both thrilled about all of these developments. All of that time we spent at the academy mastering warfare, and now that we're here, we find out that it's mostly finance and waiting games." He shrugged. "Of course, I would've been able to suppose that, to be honest, but I imagine this would bore our old teacher right back out of her grave." It was a joke but there was such bitterness to it that neither of them could laugh.
"I'm sorry," said Claude, sitting back in his chair and leaning so that the two front legs of the chair were in the air. "I just flew in today from Almyra, I had a lot of time midair to think. I really ought to be less–"
"Jaded?" Lorenz finished for him. "Truthfully, it's rather distasteful."
"Alright, alright." Claude sighed. "Anyone got good teatime conversation ideas? I asked the kitchenmaster to bring some in here in a minute."
"Well, I'm more curious about where you've been." Lorenz glanced over at Claude. He had not entered this conversation wanting to be combative, but now it was too late.
"Almyra." Claude shrugged. "If you must know, I had some family problems that are now well and sorted out. Have you ever been to Hadra? Either of you?"
"The capital of Almyra?" Lorenz stared at him. "I've never even been to the country."
"Well, you're missing out." Claude glanced at Marianne, who shook her head. "Who was in charge around here without me?"
"Mostly Judith von Daphnel." Lorenz bit his tongue.
"Right, and not you." Claude glanced over at him. "I'm not really so foolish that I don't see how badly you want to basically run this show, and what a blow your father taking over again is to you."
"Whatever opinion you have of me, I would prefer it if you'd state it outright."
"Marianne told me what you said."
She looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry–"
"What I said?" Lorenz began to feel for once, anger– frustration, genuine passion, a rising defense boiling in him. "What I said! After you left the country out to dry for nearly a year?"
"Perhaps you should permanently unite the Alliance." Claude glanced at him, a dangerous glint in his green eyes. "We could see how well that would go, of course. Holst Goneril would be at arms in a moment, and the Empire, of course, would jump at the opportunity to pin someone like you under their thumb. Don't you think they'd love that? Are you ready to see your mother's name dragged through every gossip rag in Leicester? I know I wasn't. But I just know you could put yourself through half of what I've endured in the last year and a half." Claude folded his arms, an icy cold look on his face. "Stay in Gloucester. It's wiser."
"What you've endured!" Lorenz could've laughed, if he weren't so close to angry tears, rising to his feet and leaning over the table. "You have no idea what I've endured! You haven't even an inkling of what I've been through! I would love– Claude, I would love to see you last even a moment in my shoes. I have more than earned my place as a leader!"
Marianne looked painfully awkward. Lorenz realized she had been dragged into this discussion. "If you'd rather leave, Marianne, you are more than welcome, since this seems to have taken– a turn." He was hiding his frustration with her under a very thin veil, and he would speak to her about this privately later.
There were a few moments of quiet while she grabbed her bag that she had set down, and left, and Lorenz and Claude, face to face, were all that was left in the Riegan formal dining hall.
"You really still think you could run the Alliance singlehandedly." Claude peered at him as if trying to unscrew a bottle with his mind.
"Claude, if you had even a notion of what I have endured for this position, what I have sacrificed, everything I have been raised to do–"
"I do."
"Do you? Did you spend your childhood believing the reason your father put you through such torment, is that a great leader would come out the end? Did you lay awake at night tortured by memories of screams, of pain and suffering other people could barely imagine? Did you know from the moment you could speak, that your family wanted you to be the one who ran nearly everything that came in and out of the Alliance, to have adults look at you as expectantly as they would your father even when you were five? As if you had even the faintest notion of foreign diplomacy and relations? Claude, I regret to inform you that I was born to be the leader of the Alliance, made to be the leader of the Alliance, and for all that I've been through for it, I think I've earned at least some credit. I'll seize it if I have the chance, and I need not ask your consent to do it."
"You and I," said Claude, very hesitant and selective with each word, "we aren't so different after all, are we? A Riegan crest?" He raised a brow, pushing back a messy lock of hair. "You have no idea."
And Claude turned around and walked out with the poise of someone better composed than Lorenz, who felt like he was going to scream in frustration. Claude could never understand it. He never would. Lorenz was beyond him, he thought– something Claude could never truly grasp. No amount of talk about how he did, how he felt the same way– could change the fact that Claude was ignorant of Lorenz. Ignorant. That was the right word. It implied complacency, and Lorenz rather liked that. Claude had the option to open himself up, to pick at Lorenz, to figure things out– and chose not to understand him. Honesty, he had said. That was the basis of trust. That made Lorenz realize something.
Claude had never trusted him. He had always been ready for Lorenz to make a move. Even as Lorenz had been ready to move mountains at his command, Claude had been restrained. How funny it was. How badly it hurt.
And here he was in his sweater with too-short sleeves, ready for casual tea with his friends, and he had gotten into a shouting match with the one person he had wanted to see more than nearly anyone else. He was finding the second thing. Claude might know things, but that did not make for understanding.
And Lorenz didn't understand him. Lorenz had made a miscalculation. He had thought they understood one another. The idea now seemed ludicrous, he realized, and he would be returning to the man he had never truly left behind inside himself: one who would one day reign. A proper Count. The one he had always meant to be. These two years would be footnotes in the history of his rule, he thought, and he would be memorialized when he–
Well, his hands were tied, with his father, certainly. Gloucester was out of his control. Judith had the military tied up neatly with a pretty ribbon and Claude was already apparently in her confidence. He was not exactly designed to be a warrior. He was realizing, in fact, that this was the quiet period, where he was meant to wait for other people to move so that he could play the game with them, a bishop waiting at the back row of the chess board for the right phase of the game.
He just wondered who was playing, really. He could see in his mind's eye Edelgard, hovering a delicate hand over a carved miniature of Hubert, or perhaps Dorothea, slowly marching her progress over the board, stamping her way. But whose hand waited above for him? Who was calling the Alliance's shots?
And when he imagined it, he hated to admit it, but his mind conjured the image of Claude.
All he had to do was wait, and it would be him. He had to seize the moment. He could make it his game, he thought to himself. But did he truly want to, or did he only feel an obligation to do so? The notion that this was a responsibility born of his father's will, rather than his own, still occurred to him at some moments. Of course he remembered the heavy expectations and the weight of the decisions that were put upon him, and that he was one day going to adopt as his own duties. Yet had he chosen this?
He sat back down in one of the dining chairs and hung his head, then paced before the window. Autumn in Derdriu, he thought with a sigh, was always earmarked by the wet rainy season, and the glass was cool to the touch. He took off his glasses, leaving them around his neck on the chain.
He heard the door, and did not turn around, even as he heard a tea tray set on the dining table with a clink of porcelain.
"Lorenz."
Claude. It was always Claude. He liked having the last word, but more than that, Lorenz supposed he liked everyone to like him, and could not bear any brief period of resentment or anger.
"I'm not apologizing." He did not look at him.
Claude snorted, and Lorenz could feel dry amusement that was the thin cover over hurt feelings in it.
"I mean it, iDuke Riegan/i. I have no cause to apologize. There is nothing that I have said that is not true. I will not grovel before you simply because you play the part of being wounded or to tend to my standing in the Alliance. And yes, I understand the judiciary and political ramifications of what I said. Do as you wish with me for this, but I will not atone for what I've said. All I have spoken is my piece."
"I have to say, it's nice to at least see those machinations and internal motivations exposed." Claude sat down on the windowsill, leaning on his hands. "I knew you thought this from the get-go, but hearing you say it has really reminded me what matters here."
"Enlighten me."
"People." Both of them were staring out the window now, the rain-blur turning the lights of the distant harbor ships in the rainy mid-afternoon into golden smudges.
"Ah." Lorenz wasn't sure if he should ask Claude to elaborate or not, or if he should look pensive in the silence, but yes, he generally could agree that their respective duties to the people of their territories mattered more than any argument that might come between the two of them.
"You ever wonder how many good Imperial men, loyal to their Emperor, believing that they're right– and I mean, are they wrong– have died so far?"
"Hm?"
"I mean, I once thought the same thing about Fodlan. My father would be evaluating skirmish casualties at the Almyran border– you know, we have to fortify it, Fodlan has a massive fort camped out and regularly raids our borderlands– and I would sit there wondering, how many of Leicester's men died believing they were right. And in the end, does it really matter?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Forest for the trees," said Claude dismissively, striding back to the table and pouring himself a cup of tea. "The people in this whole affair matter, Lorenz. Yes, this is a debacle between me, and you, standing right there, over who is going to be the leader of the Alliance, and we both know the answer–"
"Please."
"Oh, so we don't, alright, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that in the end, we do right by the most people we can. Now, let's say that I have you– well, hm– exiled? I think that would be the most lenient thing possible in theory, if this was serious. Which it isn't. But let's say exile. You head to the Imperial territories, Gloucester is left to your father and falls into mismanagement because suddenly he's without his right hand and commander, and a hard winter comes around, and Gloucester counties suffer for it, and now the Empire has another cog in its machinations, unhappily trapped with the very mages you and I both know Edelgard is now only barely suffering." Claude paused. "Now, that doesn't seem like it's much good for anyone, does it?"
"Please be forthcoming."
"Listen, Lorenz, I could take this seriously and everyone suffers for it, and do the thing any sane and rational person would do, and lose one of the few people I know is in my camp in the western half of the country. And before you say a thing– yes, we're on the same side, Imperial opposition, I read your letters. Or, I could recognize the situation that would put people other than me into, and speak to you now and resolve this like an adult. You know, I don't think you're the type to hire assassins–" and there was a light, almost anxious edge to that– "but we can just talk through this before either of us–"
"Assassins?" Lorenz held his hands up. "Claude, nobody said anything about that."
"Explicitly," Claude corrected him.
"Do you really think I would have you killed?" Lorenz said softly.
"I think a lot of things." Claude folded his arms, taking another sip of tea and clearly operating off of some terrifying logic Lorenz could scarcely understand.
Lorenz stayed quiet for a few moments. Leicester was a tangled mess, but political assassinations and even mere rumors of them were taken very seriously by everyone involved; this was why his father's hearing had been such a large issue and why the eventual dropping of the accusation was still, years later, whispered about. The incidents with Faerghus and their many, many deaths– well, they were outlandish, bizarre, and distant from the tension so amicably maintained between Leicester's great houses and all their veils and secrets and orbits. Maybe Claude had once had people try to assassinate him before. The notion was, on the surface, ludicrous. But if he was a crown prince perhaps it wasn't as unreasonable as Lorenz had believed.
"If you asked it of me," said Lorenz slowly, "Claude, there is very little I would not do."
"That's the problem." Claude didn't even hesitate. "That in spite of everything, Lorenz, about you– the uptight, prim, vain self conceit, and strong sense of self importance to boot– you would do anything for other people."
"For you, Claude."
There were a few moments of quiet between them. Lorenz could not help but feel silly again in the too-small sweater and tailored coat and with his beaded and meticulously crafted spectacles and just-damp from rain hair. Silly, because what was it all if not set dressing for the eternal crisis of his own carefully maintained image?
"Right, then." Claude poured Lorenz a cup of tea and handed it to him, and Lorenz sat down at the dining table, resting his jaw in his hands. "We shouldn't speak of this again."
"The–"
"The what?" Claude gave him a clearly bright, silver-green look that pierced the innocent expression on his face. "Really, all we had was tea–"
"Did you ever trust me?" Lorenz furrowed his brow. "Truly?"
"Who could say?" Claude set down his empty teacup. "It doesn't do you much good to worry about things like this. You look–" He paused. "You look tired."
"I wonder why," said Lorenz pointedly. "I return to the company of one of my school friends only to find that he is angry with me. Yes, for work of my own hands– but I…" He trailed off. "I thought you would at least understand."
Claude sighed and leaned backwards against the window, slouching against the blunt of his left palm. Lorenz noticed on his index finger, a heavy looking gold ring that had not been there the last time they had met.
"I understand."
"What really happened in Almyra?" asked Lorenz softly. "You can trust me, honestly–"
"Drop it." Claude shook his head.
"Why don't you ever want to talk about yourself? Really, how hard is it to tell me the truth? To be honest with someone about yourself? I truly find it nearly impossible to discern what motivates you even when it seems your allegiances are laid out before me."
"What is there for me to say to you, Lorenz?" said Claude. "I think you like me better as a puzzle, than as I am."
"How uncharitable." Lorenz took a sip of his tea.
"I guess so, right?" Claude smiled softly. "You should talk to Marianne. I should too, if we're being honest."
"I'll catch up with her at the Edmund apartment." Lorenz pushed up a strand of his hair irately. It was at the obnoxious, in between length that never stayed put, what a pain it was–
And he noticed the way Claude was looking at him. Something soft. Almost– warm.
"I meant it, with the glasses looking nice, by the way. They look– dignified."
"Oh." Lorenz smiled, a bit lopsided, absent minded thing, not the polished smile he usually wore. "Thank you."