Pairings brought up/mentioned: Slight Gerita, but that's about it; this isn't a very shippy chapter

Warnings: None, aside from the usual foul language and moments of stupidity that you've probably come to expect from this fanfic by now

-3.26-

I sip from my cup, the hot tea only slightly scalding my tongue by this point. My eyes flicker nervously from face to face in the formal lounge, taking in everything from Elizabeta's fuming aggravation, to Roderich's pathetic mess of shame and humiliation, to Antonio's plastic grin, the expression stiff and fake with the added presence of Tim, an occasionally difficult wildcat spirit and Emma's older brother. Said young lady sits beside her mistress, curiously looking at her tea bag in amusement.

"Hey, Eliza, these things are shaped like little, three-D diamonds or something. Isn't that cute?" She innocently asks, smile cat-like.

The Hungarian blinks, pulling her own tea bag from her cup and looking at it. "Huh, I guess it is. Surprising, though."

"Oh? And why is that?" Francis inquires smoothly, head resting on his hand, "after all, I only aim to please."

Elizabeta shrugs. "I don't know, I guess, knowing you, I kind of expected them to be shaped like roses."

He freezes, distressed. "Wha- are you implying something?!"

"Oh, please," I roll my eyes. "Not everything's an implication against your mannerisms and low IQ, and even if it was, it's not like you'd bloody notice." I then go back to drinking my tea, as he proceeds to complain melodramatically about how I always gang up against him or whatever.

"- Honestly, I could be dead in a ditch, and you wouldn't even care! It's like you're planning this or something, conspiring against me in the dark of night, writing witty comebacks in some secret book to use the next day on your poor, dear old human- !"

"Hey, I found him!" Lovino barges in, dragging his younger brother behind at the wrist, all scathing snark and no clever tact as usual. "Apparently he decided it'd be just fucking brilliant to go all the way out to the middle of butt-fuck nowhere to paint. Great, right?"

As Ludwig enters shortly afterwards, following dutifully behind the rather reckless two, Elizabeta stands from her seat, setting the teacup down on the coffee table before her. With a grin, she rushes over to them, pulling her sons into a hug. Lovino futilely resists, but Feliciano eagerly returns her affections.

"Lovi, Feli, I missed you so much!" She squeals, holding them tightly to her chest.

"Jesus fucking christ, mom, you're crushing the life out of me."

"Ve~ mama!"

Elizabeta giggles as she finally pulls away, giving each of her boys a kiss to the cheek. Then, she notices Ludwig awkwardly standing to the side.

"Oh, you must be Ludwig." In a flash, she's there, slipping around and carefully inspecting the wolf, feeling his biceps, prodding at his abs.

"Wait, what are you-" Ludwig gazes from side-to-side, becoming even more confused as she disappears behind him.

From her obscured position, she exclaims, "ooo, his butt really is nice! It's all tight and stuff."

"Ve, I know, right?" Feliciano agrees, nodding enthusiastically, "and his arms are warm and muscley!"

Red-faced, he exclaims, "can we please stop talking about my butt?!"

Elizabeta chuckles, moving out from her place to properly address her embarrassed and slightly humiliated company, arm outstretched invitingly. "Elizabeta Héderváry, Lovino and Feliciano's mother. It's great to finally meet you!"

"Yes, to you as well," with a sigh, he relents, taking her hand and shaking it. "Ludwig."

Suddenly, she pulls him in close, stares straight into his eyes, and, voice low, says, "well, Ludwig, allow me to make something clear. If you ever, and by ever I mean ever, let so much as a hair on my precious baby's head get hurt while under your care. You. Will. Regret it."

"Wahh, mama!" Feliciano, stricken, pulls at the woman's arm. "Don't threaten Luddy!"

"Hm?" As she remembers the presences of her children, the intimidating demeanor about her abruptly dissolves. Elizabeta releases her hostage, of whom appears thoroughly shaken, the beginnings of a cold sheen developing on his forehead.

"Well anyways, you seem capable enough." She gives him a grin. "Make sure to protect my little Feli and we should get along just fine."

"O-of course," he nods, albeit a little hesitantly.

I clear my throat. "Now that the two of you are acquainted, can we please be seated?"

"Oh yeah," Feliciano perks up. "We have a lot to tell mama, right?"

Her head whips to him worriedly. "You what? Roderich!" Concern quickly turns to anger. Specifically, it turns to anger directed at Roderich.

"How come you always assume it's my fault?" He frowns, occasionally taking small, jittery sips from his teacup.

"I sent you to watch over my kids, so if something bad happened, you're to blame for not doing your job!" She scolds.

Roderich groans, "you know what? I give up."

"Keseseseseses~ Geez, you're so hilariously quick to surrender!" In enters Gilbert, leaning against the doorframe and warily glancing every so often at Elizabeta's empty hands.

Subsequently, the woman notices this and comments on his shifting eyes. "Gilbert, long time no see," she greets him, approaching in a fashion tragically similar to that of a lioness stalking her prey. "It's kind of funny how you keep calling my brother a wimp. I mean, you know, since you scream like girl whenever I so much as mention frying pans-"

"Why must you torment me so?!" He yells, then speeds off, running so fast he becomes a shapeless blur of red and white.

Despite Elizabeta's wicked cackling, I'm able to make out Ludwig discreetly muttering to Feliciano, "what's with Gilbert, your mother, and frying pans?"

"Mama has a nasty habit of knocking people out with a frying pan she carries around," he cheerfully whisper-shouts back.

He looks at him incredulously. "But… where does she keep it?"

"I think it's hidden in her skirt."

The mostly confused, slightly terrified glance he shoots to the skirt of her grey, pinstripe suit is priceless.

A faint twitch gracing one of my eyes, I think to myself that right about now would be a good time to reign in the imbeciles. With a grin, I gesture to the chairs. "Ludwig, Feliciano, how about you take a seat, get comfortable."

"Okay!" The Italian nods his head, plopping down on one of the couches. Ludwig sits nexts to him, visibly tense and disturbed by how this gathering's been going.

Elizabeta's laughter dies down, and she once more turns her attention to the matter at hand. "So, what was it this time? Roderich sue someone for breaking the piano? Lovino eat all the tomatoes in the house? Gilbert, Antonio, and Francis go drinking and wind up getting arrested… again?"

"Er… no, actually." I give a sheepish smile.

"Wow, really? Good job, guys."

Francis sulks. "Someone's forgetting about all those vases."

"Those vases are irrelevant," Lovino snips back.

"Totally irrelevant," Antonio adds earnestly.

Tim grunts, "they don't sound irrelevant," but is promptly and effectively ignored.

I take a deep breath. "Okay, so this is a bit of a long story, and probably going to sound insane, but it is what it is. First of all," I pause. "Mind, this hasn't been released to the public yet, nor do we plan for it to be."

"My lips are sealed." Elizabeta pulls her fingers over her mouth as if zipping it shut. Emma and Tim nod in agreement, Tim only after his sister rather harshly elbows him in the gut.

I nod as well before continuing: "Ludwig's- completely coincidentally, I mean it's not like we could have planned for this, after all. How we would even do so is a mystery to me-"

"Arthur," Francis interrupts.

"Right, sorry. Nervous habit." I cease my rambling, and cut straight to the point. "Ludwig's apparently descended from Aldrich."

Elizabeta blinks. "What?"

"Yeah," I affirm, "and since he and Gilbert are brothers, that means Gilbert is too."

She pales. "The media's going to go crazy when they find out."

My brows furrow. "You mean 'if.'"

"No, I mean 'when.' You can't hide something this big from the media and expect it to stay hidden." She deflates. "One day, they'll say 'Oh, just look at them! They're so cute and innocent!' The next thing you know- wham! Every headline will read something along the lines of: 'Young Vargas gets bound to quiet, kinda shady descendant of Aldrich. IS IT FATE?!'"

Ludwig frowns. "I'm not 'shady.'"

"I never said you were," Elizabeta defends. "I'm just saying that's how the media's so far perceived you. Everyone in the living Vargas clan went somewhere public with their spirit the day after they bound themselves, but you've yet to appear on camera; of course they're suspicious."

Ludwig frowns harder.

"Well regardless," I cut in, "there are more bombshells to be dropped."

Elizabeta sighs, "alright, what's next?"

"We're pretty sure an ancient witch from the time of Romulus and Aldrich is back and actively trying to wreck havoc again."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Like I said, some of this is pretty insane," I remind. "All I ask is that you keep an open mind."

She narrows her eyes at me. "Go on."

Cautiously, I continue, "Numerous times, Ludwig's fought off magic-created shadow wolves, of which were a staple of this witch's practices. They've even attacked Feliciano."

"Roderich!"

Roderich frantically explains, "okay, in my defense, it was only once, I wasn't there, and Ludwig made sure he didn't get hurt."

"But it still happened." His sister hisses. "Whether or not my kid got hurt, it still happened."

"And more happened yet!" I point out. "I'd finish debriefing you on the situation if you'd all stop with the side conversations."

Elizabeta gestures that she's watching Roderich, but otherwise remains silent.

I take another deep breath. "This is probably the biggest and craziest event of them all. You know King Romulus and his loyal spirit animal, Aldrich? Well, apparently ghosts can visit their living relatives from the afterlife."

The three look at me with a spectrum of confused faces. Then, Elizabeta turns to Francis and asks, none-too-quiet, "did he hit his head in the past month, or-?"
"I have not lost my marbles!" I shout, outraged.

Francis confirms, "it's true. Aldrich fell into my roses… my poor, poor roses."

"Okay, then where are they now?" Elizabeta insists. "If they're really here, and really back from the dead, show them to me."

I look at her flatly. "Alright, fine. Give me a couple minutes and I'll bring them."

Down in the secret witch room, Aldrich is trying very, very hard to keep from just knocking Romulus out and being done with it.

"Ooh, what's this?"

The dead king goes from pile to pile, touching literally everything. Currently, he's prodding at what appears to be a shrunken head.

"Romulus, don't touch that. You don't know where it's been," Aldrich groans.

Suddenly, the wall comes apart, causing Romulus to jump and the head to fall.

On the other side stands Arthur, appearing far grumpier than usual. "I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Bad news," Aldrich says before Romulus can cut in with something stupid.

"Very well," Arthur sighs. "Elizabeta's not taking this the best. So far she's stressed out about the media, threatened Roderich, and implied I was going crazy."

Romulus looks at him with slight incredulity. "What's the good news?"

He grins fakely. "The good news is now she's going to see I was telling the truth about you two, and realize I'm not going crazy!"

As the rabbit spirit motions for them out, the ghosts somewhat reluctantly oblige, neither excited for what's to come.

A/N:
Never trust me when it comes to deadlines and schedules. R.

I kid you not, this chapter's spent the past few months just sitting on my google drive, unfinished. I'm really, really shocked it took me this long to finally get to work on this thing, I mean holy crap in a can-

Anyways! This was the people-finally-try-to-explain-things-to-the-mom chapter, starring Elizabeta! The ridiculous amount of dialogue almost killed me, I s2g.

Responses to review(s):

APDubtalia: Glad to see you again too, even if it was short-lived (due to me being so lazy and good at procrastination that it's not even funny anymore)! =D

Yeah, something I very, VERY strongly headcanon about Rome is that beneath that whimsical, fickle exterior is the brain of a strategic genius. After all, he was able to conquer a stupid amount of land, and control that land for a good amount of time! He's got to have something going on aside from super strength and a rather dominant nature! Just... gahh, secretly a really good leader!Rome gives me life.

Of course there's sex on the side; this is Romulus we're talking about- AND YES RIP RODERICH. RIP HIM 24/7 BECAUSE NOW THAT ELIZA'S HERE SHE GON YELL AT HIM FOR EVERYTHING. THIS CHAPTER PROVES IT. THERE'S A REASON ELIZA KEEPS A FRYING PAN ON HER AT ALL TIMES, AND THAT REASON IS THAT HER LOVED ONES ARE ALL IDIOTS IN HER BOOK, NO EXCEPTIONS.

Kittyamber: God, this message was so sweet. It just made my day. There are not enough words in the English dictionary to express how I feel about the sheer niceness of this message adlkfjadoignalkdfnojakdmfovapkjsd-

It really means a lot to hear I'm succeeding at balancing the tone of this rather all-over-the-place fanfic, especially considering I often feel I'm failing miserably. I'm also really glad you've enjoyed my attempts at humor! I try! X3 I hope you stick around for the rest of the ride, and have a good day as well!

Also, I find it highly amusing that you think I'm "generally nice." It's like that song the witch sings in Into the Woods: I'm not good; I'm not bad; I'm just nice. Except, normally I'm not nice. I'm kind of an insensitive jerk when you get to know me. But I'm glad you at least think I'm nice! I sincerely hope you keep that innocent sense of optimism.

I s2g, if I ever finish this fanfic, I'm declaring it my trashterpiece. I hope this chapter finds you all in good health, and I'll see you later!