Chapter Text
It all comes to an end, as things often seem to do, with a mission gone wrong.
Lyney and his siblings have been sent to infiltrate a dinner party; one of those fancy, upper-echelon ones that only the members of Fontaine’s most elite are supposed to be able to attend, which means they’re meant to be sticking more to the shadows for this particular job. Normally, this would be no issue— the three of them have been together for so long many of the other children have compared them to a well-oiled machine akin to the ones Freminet likes to make— but Lyney’s little brother has been off since they arrived. Since long before that, even.
Lyney has caught Freminet in a different sort of quiet than usual on more than one occasion, expression drawn and eyes cast far, far off somewhere he doesn’t quite know how to reach.
Normally, with a bit of coaxing, Lyney’s able to draw him back, and his baby brother will gently push away any probing questions with a small, tired smile, but that’s when they’re back at the House. When they have time.
Here, it only takes ten seconds.
The trick to events like these is to always move with purpose, and never stick around in one place for too long, lest you alert anyone nearby of the fact that you really aren't where you're supposed to be.
And Lyney can do nothing but watch in horror from his vantage point as Freminet, when he’s smack dab in the middle of the main hall, stops right in his tracks, and stares.
It takes Lyney a few moments to even register what has actually caught his eye, because the sight itself is so simple and innocuous that it doesn’t immediately stand out to him.
It does to Freminet, though.
A mother, sitting alone at one of the tables, has all of her attention fixed on her son, who can’t be more than four or five years old. He has something clutched in his tiny hands, and is holding it up to her with a smile she mirrors tenfold.
Freminet’s face grows more and more pale the longer he looks. His fingers find and grip the hem of his shirt.
And it only takes ten seconds. Dropping the illusion at parties like this is akin to casting a giant, blinding spotlight directly onto yourself— the guests are drawn to the outsiders among them like moths to a flame.
“Hey!” an authoritative voice barks, heels of shiny dress shoes beginning to pound on the floor, and Lyney throws out any chance of salvaging this the second he tears off after them.
They manage to escape, but not with any of the information they’d been sent to collect, and the blown cover means that they’ll need to wait for some time before attempting again.
Father already knows what happened by the time they arrive back at the House, because of course she does. She always does.
“Freminet,” she says, when the three of them are lined up in her office, Lyney’s hands clasped firmly behind his back to prevent him from grabbing onto his little brother and never letting him go, “I assume your behavior tonight has to do with the information I provided you, yes?”
“Y— Yes, Father,” Freminet says. One of his hands is clutching the other wrist in a vice grip, knuckles white.
Lyney bites down the part of him that wants to demand to know what this is about. They’re in enough trouble as is.
“And I assume,” Father continues, standing from her desk and fixing Freminet with an impassive stare, “That you are well aware how said behavior has provided an answer to the question I had posed to you?”
Freminet goes completely, entirely still, save for his eyes, which begin to grow wider and wider with what Lyney can only describe as absolute terror.
“...No,” Freminet breathes. He gives a miniscule shake of his head, then a larger one, more furious. “No, no, Father, I— I can…I can still— I would never—”
“Freminet,” Father says, tone firm enough that it stops the stream of words from his mouth completely, “There is little purpose in lying to me.” She cocks her head, and the red in her eyes seems to get even more vibrant. “Can you honestly tell me that what happened tonight will not happen again?”
A mix of fear and dread have started to coil around Lyney like a whip, and he can’t hold himself back anymore.
“Father,” he tries, and though Lynette and Freminet’s eyes both jump to him, Father’s do not move.
“You have made your true desires quite clear,” Father continues, ignoring Lyney entirely. “And, as such, I no longer see you fit to continue on as one of our members. Not if you are willing to so recklessly endanger your family, as you have more than well demonstrated to all of us.”
That gets Lynette to break, too. Lyney hears it, the scuff of her shoes against the floor as her normally impeccable balance slips.
“...Father?” she says quietly, unsure.
Freminet’s hands are gripping at his shirt, face as white as a sheet.
“This is nothing more than a choice you’ve made for yourself,” Father says, face still entirely unreadable. “You’re all more than well aware of the rules, are you not?”
Lyney’s head recites the words automatically, no matter how much he wishes not to think of them;
All those who betray the House pay with their lives.
Lyney can’t breathe.
“Father,” he tries again, “Freminet would— Freminet would never—”
“But he would,” Father says simply, “And he has.” She crosses her arms. “Equity and empathy are admirable ideals to uphold, Lyney, but not within these walls. Not within the sort of lives we lead. The rules and order are the only things keeping all of us alive, and they must be maintained. No exceptions.”
“I want to stay,” Freminet whispers, voice shaking around every word. “I want to stay, Father, I— I promise. I promise.”
Something in Father’s eyes hardens. “Promises mean nothing without any actions to support them upon, Freminet.”
Freminet makes a choked, desperate gasping sound, and hunches forward into himself. His entire body is trembling. Father only watches him silently, unmoving.
Lyney’s feet feel cemented to the floor.
“Punish me instead,” he croaks, unable to take his eyes off his brother, who begins shaking his head vehemently at Lyney’s words. “Please, Father. Punish me instead.”
Father doesn’t respond. Her fingers drum on her arm once, twice, before she strides to the other side of the room, and places her hand on the doorknob.
“I will return in ten minutes,” she says, “And I will be speaking with Freminet alone once I do.”
When she leaves, the sound of the door closing behind her rings with a terrible finality.
Whatever tension has been freezing Lyney in place shatters, and he stumbles towards his baby brother in a daze. Freminet lets out an awful, keening wail as Lyney pulls him into a tight, crushing hug. He rests his chin on the top of Freminet’s head, and clenches his jaw tight enough to snap as he tries to hold himself together.
He feels Lynette’s hand grip his shoulder, silent yet desperate, and is very, very glad neither of his siblings are able to see his face.
“I’m— I’m so sorry,” Freminet hiccups, fingers clenching and unclenching around the fabric of Lyney’s sleeve. “Father told me…my Maman is alive, Lyney. She’s alive, and she’s been locked up in the Fortress, but her sentence ends tomorrow, and I—” he shakes his head, “I’ve tried not to, but I’ve been counting down the days, and— I’m sorry, Lyney, I’m—”
“Shh,” Lyney manages, around the rising lump in his throat, because the past few months have begun to make a lot more sense.
Oh, Freminet.
“I’m not mad,” Lyney continues, combing his fingers through his little brother’s hair. “Not at you. I could…I could never be mad at you. Not for something like this.”
And Freminet continues to cry, and Lyney continues to hold him, and Lynette’s hand on his shoulder continues to slacken the more upset she gets.
Lyney and Lynette still leave within those ten minutes. Freminet half pushes them out the door.
Lyney hates himself more and more with each step he takes, but he knows he can’t do anything else.
They run into Father on their way down from her office, and she comes to a stop when she sees them. A small part of Lyney, exhausted and devastated and half-delirious, wants to go to her for…something. He doesn’t know what.
“Father,” he says instead, throat dry and voice hoarse, “What are you…what are you going to do to him?”
He isn’t entirely sure why he asks. Everyone at the House already knows the answer, even if it remains largely undiscussed.
Father doesn’t respond immediately.
“He no longer wishes to be with us,” she says, eventually. “I am going to do what needs to be done.”
Then, she turns, and leaves.
Lyney and Lynette still haven’t moved from the hallway by the time their baby brother begins to scream.
There are exactly three mirrors in Freminet’s house.
The first, an old, slightly scuffed antique with a frame made of bronze, lies hanging in his Maman’s bedroom, left over from the previous owners. Freminet had polished it up for her, and hasn’t gone over to look at it since.
The second, a tiny, handheld one with the lower half long since broken off, is mounted to the wall of their equally tiny washroom. His Maman assures him regularly that she’ll keep looking for a proper one, but Freminet doesn’t mind the size.
The third, large and fully standing and something his Maman had likely spent a great deal of Mora on, sits entirely ignored in Freminet’s bedroom, and spends most of its time covered with whatever clothes Freminet can spare to not use for the week.
He still remembers, that first night, when he’d pulled off his shirt to get ready for bed and the action had caught his eye in his brand new mirror sitting in his brand new house, and he’d turned and seen— and seen—
There’s this one story, from Tales of a Snow-Winged Goose . A group of sailors are lost, far out on the open sea, until the sky lights up with a thousand stars, and they use the threads of dazzling constellations to guide themselves back home.
Freminet’s skin, in almost a similar way, is covered in scars. Mottled ridges and faded lines that spread over nearly his entire body— only the pictures they paint are not ones he can decipher.
Because, for over a decade, Freminet has done nothing but live in the Court. He’s lived a very simple life in the Court, alone, and done nothing but work part-time at the clock shop and go diving in the ocean whenever he has the time.
These are not the wounds of a diver. These are not the scars of a mechanic.
These are not even marks he remembers, and the warm, prickling words at the back of his mind that attempt to assure him that they’ve always been there sound off. Looking at them brings unease in his gut and ash on his tongue, and so— he doesn’t. He lived a very simple life in the Court until his Maman was released, and so he keeps his shirt on and his eyes averted and doesn’t dare bring them up around her.
He still isn’t sure if she knows about them, but he isn’t very inclined to ask. The Fortress clings to her in the shadows under her eyes and the paleness of her skin, and he can tell she doesn’t want Freminet to worry about her just as much as Freminet doesn’t want her to worry about him. He keeps his sleeves long even on the hottest summer days, and she dresses herself up even for afternoons filled with nothing but household chores, and they sit and have meals together behind walls of carefully constructed glass.
Freminet loves her with everything he has and yet misses her with even more— which he knows isn’t a fair thing to say, because he also knows exactly where she’s just come from, and knows that she’d likely say much the same about him. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d barely come up to her knees.
And his Maman wants to get to know him as he is now, as the person he’d grown up to be, because of course she does, but he sits at their table and feels like he has nothing to give her.
Because Freminet spent ten years living a very simple life in the Court, and yet he can’t seem to focus on a single detail of it. Because the scars that mar his skin spell out a story he’s seemingly forgotten the words to.
Because, apparently, he has to discover himself alongside her.
Freminet has never considered himself particularly brave, but now he finds himself startling at even the smallest bang or crash, heart immediately shooting up into his throat. During the day, his body aches with old pains he doesn’t know the source of, but at night it buzzes with a nervous sort of energy that keeps him awake long after he’s gotten into bed.
He also doesn’t tend to regard himself to be someone immediately worthy or deserving of being invited into someone’s company, but sometimes he blinks and finds himself making room for two more people to walk beside him on the street. Doesn’t immediately think to feed the stray cats that gather outside the door of their cottage, because, surely…someone else already has.
But they live alone, just the two of them. And his Maman is usually off at work.
Lying on his bed one night, idly tracing a scar along his forearm with a finger, Freminet lets his mind wander.
Deep down, despite how strange others may find it, Freminet has always wanted to believe in the good of the world. In the kindness of strangers, even if he hates to trouble them for it, and in the parts of his favorite fairytales that trickle out from his imagination into his perception of reality.
And for a decade, Freminet had lived a normal, simple life in the Court. He’d worked at the clock shop when he could, sharing his design ideas and fixing up any old machinery that was brought in. He’d gathered materials for Madame Estelle, and had shyly watched fishermen from afar until they’d laughed and offered to teach him how to properly cast a line.
And you got all of these marks throughout those years, didn’t you? his mind coos, and it’s the easy answer, except for all the ways in which it isn’t. Because Monsieur Livre is is nice, and Madame Estelle is friendly (though sometimes slightly overwhelmingly so), and trying to attribute any of his scars to them is like trying to complete a puzzle with pieces that don’t at all fit.
The thought is a double-edged sword. The wounds, the fear, the fire— they had to have come from somewhere, and if the answer deliberately trying to lay itself out for him isn’t the right one, then…there’s more going on here than he realizes. Than what he remembers.
When Freminet was younger, he’d sit and imagine himself to be a machine. He can’t really remember the reason as to why, but he knows that he had.
Now, though, he feels like he’s truly become one. Someone has taken out and replaced his skeleton when he wasn’t looking, and now operates each of his limbs of their own accord. Disassembled his insides, and built them back together using parts that weren’t originally his.
Though they had left some out, clearly. Why else would Freminet feel so unspeakably, indescribably lonely, despite having finally gotten everything he’s ever wished for?
There is a hole carved at the center of Freminet’s chest, gaping and bottomless and longing to be filled.
All he has to offer it are echoes in his ears and soot on his tongue.
The woman arrives at the Fortress when Wriothesley is still a teenager.
He’s been there long enough to know not to try talking to her— not where any of the guards can see, not while he’s meant to be working— but he still finds himself quietly taking stock of as many details as he can. An old habit from an old life, though one he still hasn't quite managed to shake.
The guards hauling her down to the production room are nowhere near gentle, but she keeps her jaw set and chin held high. Her dress is dark, but not enough to mask the even darker stains spattered along its front, and the way she moves her hands make Wriothesley’s knuckles twinge in a shared, remembered pain.
They say she’s a mother.
This, at first, is what Wriothesley thinks makes her sit beside him in the cafeteria one day during their single, 30-minute break. He knows he’s one of the youngest convicted inmates, but he certainly doesn’t need any unnecessary coddling or misplaced pity.
And she doesn’t look that much younger than— well.
“I wanted to apologize to you,” she says, apropos of nothing, when they’ve both been sitting in uncomfortable silence for long enough that it’s clear he isn’t going to be the one to start talking first. “I…had read about your trial, back when it happened.”
“Okay,” Wriothesley says, tightly. He keeps his gaze fixed firmly on his tray. Whatever she’s going to say, it’s likely nothing he hasn’t heard before. Most of it having come straight from his own mouth.
“I didn’t quite understand it, at first,” she continues, as if he hadn’t said anything. “How someone could be led to do something so extreme, even in such a terrible situation. And I judged you for it, at first. Quite heavily.” She takes a breath, and it stutters on the release. “But then…But then these men were going to take my son.”
Wriothesley’s knuckles sting. He still doesn’t let himself look up. “...So you killed them?”
The woman lets out a small huff, filled with mirth. “Oh, I certainly tried.” She grips the cup a little tighter. “And that failure is probably the only reason I’ll ever get to see Freminet again.” She squeezes her eyes shut, then takes a deep breath, and draws her hand back. She musters up a small, barely there smile. “But you’ll be out of here before any of that.”
Wriothesley swallows. Thinks of blood, seeping into the floorboards, dark and indistinguishable. Bile rises in his throat before he can swallow it down, and he can’t stop himself from blurting;
“I shouldn’t, though. Not when—”
He clamps down on his tongue, hard, and doesn’t let himself finish the rest of that sentence.
The woman’s eyes shift with an understanding he doesn’t know what to do with. She looks at her tray, and pushes some of the food around with her fork.
“My little boy loves fairytales,” she says, slowly, like keeping her voice steady is a great effort all on its own. “He believes in stories, and happy endings, and all the goodness in the world. I know what I must look like, to him. Especially after— after where I’ve made him go.” Her shoulders stiffen, and some of her features slacken. “...But they were going to take my son.”
Wriothesley wouldn’t say they become friends, after that. Though he doesn’t tend to consider himself as being ‘friends’ with anyone, really. (He won't for quite a long time, and even then, not even at his own insistence.) And any sort of parental label for her makes his stomach churn, so that’s out the door, too.
But she quietly looks out for him, and he quietly lets her. She helps him hide his rapidly growing coupon stash— even readily hands over some of her own— and doesn’t take no for an answer when he needs to be quite literally dragged to see Sigewinne after a particularly rough Pankration match.
She’s wrong about him getting out before her, of course, but that’s alright. It only means he gets to try and offer as much help to her as he can.
So, he does some digging. Sets her up with a house, after having Neuvillette get him a list of available properties. Calls in a favor from an old man he used to do extra production zone work for, and finds her a job. Has a few Melusines scratch the shopping itch they’ve been chattering his ear off about, and gets her some fresh clothes.
The only thing he can’t seem to do, is find her kid.
Wriothesley would not ever deign to call himself an idealist, but a part of him refuses to believe that, after everything, the kid is just gone. He doesn’t want to tell her, after everything, that her kid is gone.
She’s never offered him very many details about those last, final days with her son, and he’s never offered her much about his last, final days on the streets, but he knows enough.
So, he keeps digging. And, apparently, hits a minefield.
“I’ve heard a certain prisoner of yours is set to be released shortly,” says none other than the Knave herself, calmly sipping a cup of tea after she’d invited herself into his office with about 30 seconds of prior notice— not that he’d had any intention of turning her away, since he does, occasionally, value his life. “I happen to know where her son is.”
Only Wriothesley’s years on the streets and near decades in the Fortress have him successfully temper down any genuine reaction to that. He raises an eyebrow. “Really.”
“It is of my understanding that you two are close,’ the Knave says, and Wriothesley absolutely does not want to know how she knows that, but also probably very much should. She produces two small vials from her jacket, both seemingly empty save for a single, flickering flame, and places them on his desk. “If you have any interest at all in their reunion coming to fruition, then you’ll give this to her tonight. Take the second for yourself once you’re done.”
This is nowhere near what Wriothesley had been expecting when she’d started this conversation.
“I’m not exactly in the interest of poisoning my inmates unprompted, Lady Knave.”
She smiles at him, tight-lipped and deadly. “I don’t think you’ll find yourself much fond of the alternative, Mister Duke.”
He keeps his expression steady. “Is that a threat?”
Hers is just as immovable. “Is that a question you want answered?”
Fine. He can see they aren’t getting anywhere with this. He leans back in his chair. “Alright, alright. Message received.” He cocks his head, narrowing his eyes at her. “Who’s to say I fully follow through, though? How would you know?”
She smiles, again, and crosses one leg over the other.
“Oh, Mister Duke,” she says, tone laced with the smallest hint of amusement, “I always know.”
The next day, Wriothesley finds word on the kid, spotted in an alley in the Court. He can’t quite remember why it had been so difficult.
Freminet dreams of a hand in his hair.
His eyes are closed, but he can feel the sunlight on his face, and the warm presence of two people on either side of him.
Fingers comb through his bangs, in a different way from how his Maman always does it, and a voice says something— maybe to him, maybe not; he can’t be sure. The sound of it is so muffled, it’s as if Freminet is hearing it from underwater.
The other person chuckles, and Freminet feels his own mouth turn up into a tiny, nearly-imperceptible smile. The other two people must spot it, though, because a finger pokes at his cheek, and the hand in his hair begins ruffling it playfully, and the sun on Freminet’s face is warm and he feels so safe and happy because it’s just him sitting out here with his—
Freminet opens his eyes. Blinks.
His room is dark, and quiet. He can see the moon illuminating his window.
He blinks again, then once more.
His scalp tingles. He rubs at it absently.
The House does not mourn.
Though death is a constant inhabitant among them, it often remains invisible; recognized only in silent understanding rather than direct address.
For the younger children, it’s easier to ignore the fates they inevitably send some of their targets to, because Father always makes sure to close the door. This becomes significantly harder once you find yourself on the other side of it.
If a member is killed on a mission, any vigil becomes a time for reflection. A fuel for motivation, to sit down and think of all the ways to ensure the same mistakes are never made twice.
Traitors are given nothing but the acknowledgement of their standing. One day, a member will be there, and the next, they won’t, and those that were close to them walk down to breakfast in the morning with their mouths drawn and fists clenched, because surely anyone that grieves a traitor to the House too deeply would be seen as one themselves.
So Lyney’s little brother dies, and they don’t hold a funeral.
Lyney’s little brother dies, and Lyney goes down to breakfast the next morning. His sister sits on his left.
It’s a selfish, despicable thought, but Lyney is almost glad for the lack of official ceremony. It lets him imagine, despite each day that passes, that the front doors will swing open one day, and Freminet will step inside, safe and whole and alive.
The comfort the idea brings tastes saccharine sweet. If his baby brother really did come back, Lyney doesn’t know if he’d ever let him within the walls of the House again.
His thoughts have been filled with words like that, lately. If. Maybe. His imagination has been running wild ever since he heard that terrible, awful scream, like Freminet’s spirit itself has decided to burrow its way into his heart and guide his head.
Lyney doesn’t consider himself the type to believe in ghosts. He can’t decide if this is when he wants to finally start.
Freminet dreams of the ocean.
He’s on his back, lying just below the surface, and each movement of the currents sends a familiar wave of calm through him.
He hears splashing, and suddenly, he’s looking up at two figures, features blurred and distorted by the water above him.
One of them calls his name, he thinks, and then a hand is suddenly being thrust into the water in front of him. It’s extended, like he’s meant to grab it— but when he moves to do so, he finds that his limbs are too heavy. The calm washing over him is dragging them all down, down, down.
They call his name again, but the calmness blanketing him is beginning to turn oppressive, and numbing, and he can feel his desire and will to even open his mouth to answer at all slowly ebbing away.
Freminet! someone calls, sounding clearer and more insistent then ever, but Freminet is sinking, now, deeper and deeper, and he watches those blurry figures only get smaller as he goes, before—
All the water suddenly drains like a cork being popped, and Freminet crashes to a tile floor, coughing.
I’m sorry, says a little boy’s voice, as a broken water pipe sends a cold, hard spray all over them both. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Freminet pushes himself up with his hands, turns to tell him that it isn’t his fault, opens his mouth, and—
“No,” says Freminet, quietly, to his ceiling. His lamp swings slightly from the breeze coming in through his window.
There was more to the sentence than that, he thinks, but everything else has evaporated save for the lingering feeling that it needed to be said.
“No,” he says again, with more force, but significantly less surety.
The feeling doesn’t abate.
Lynette has never been much of a storyteller.
Lyney loves to tell her, with slightly exasperated fondness, that her speech is about as flowery as a trodden blade of grass. Lynette loves to shrug back at him in response.
When they first met, she and Freminet had originally bonded over both being on the quieter side, but as they’d grown closer, Lynette had started to see that this didn’t stem from all the same reasons.
Lynette likes saying exactly what needs to be said, and not much more. She likes to speak her words and emotions plainly, and dilutes them with wires and metal when she can’t— but, at the end of the day, her thoughts always end up coming out one way or another.
Freminet, on the other hand, has a head full of ideas he never voices for fear of doing so incorrectly. His shyness is a temperance, his words a funneling down of all the incredible, beautiful pictures constantly painted across his mind and imagination.
When they were younger, whenever Freminet wanted to introduce one of his favorite characters to her, he’d always read out something directly from his book, like he wasn’t confident enough in doing it himself despite knowing nearly the entire thing by heart.
While she listened, Lynette would always enjoy looking at the expressions on Freminet’s face, mostly because she knew they weren’t intentional. The slightest, excited flush to his cheeks, the tiny little glimmers in his eyes, the barest hint of a smile toying at his lips.
Lynette has never been much of a storyteller. Her little brother always was.
After she loses him forever, she decides to go to a bookstore.
Finding Freminet’s favorite storybook doesn’t take very long. There are a whole assortment of editions and copies, though none of them look like the edition he’d had. It, along with the rest of his things, had been gone by the time the sun had risen.
Lynette picks one at random, and pulls it out. She flips to the story about Pers, and stares down at the text for a long, long time.
If Lyney had been with her, he’d probably insist on her buying something, with how late it’s gotten by the time she finally leaves. Lynette just closes the door.
She doesn’t know what she’d been expecting.
They’re just words on a page. All Lynette knows how to do is read them.
Freminet dreams of burning.
He thinks people are calling out to him, yelling his name, but the second he turns towards the sounds, they vanish away into dust that floods his lungs and covers his eyes.
His entire body is ablaze, and any thought that lingers in his head for too long ignites with a searing burst of agony, leaving nothing but ash.
The fire rages, whiting out his vision and swallowing him whole, and all he can do is stand there and scream, and scream, and scream.
“Lyney!” Freminet chokes, gasping awake and shooting upright in his bed, face caked in tears and sweat. He grips at his hair. “Lyney, Lyney, Lyn— Ly…Ly—”
The name withers away on his tongue. He isn’t even sure if it had been a name, anymore. His head feels heavy, still laden with smoke.
There’s the sound of the door banging against the wall as his Maman rushes into his room, her worry so thick it’s nearly palpable.
“What’s wrong, chéri?” she asks, voice hushed, as if she speaks too loudly he’ll shatter, and then there are trembling hands cupping his cheeks. “Oh, chouchou, what happened?”
It’s the same question he can’t seem to stop asking himself. He doesn’t have an answer for either of them.
Instead, Freminet throws his arms around his Maman’s waist, buries his face into her chest, and sobs, over piles and piles of soot.