Dreadful business. We should do away with the calendar entirely. Then we would no longer fear the Ides.

"Frail, sickly, whiny." He mocked their grandsire's tone.

"Do not look at me like that, Nerva. Things will be fine."

“Ah. Not used to ‘roughing’ it.” He chuckled, moving to the other side of the room.

“Then why are you so skittish, cousin? It is a storm as any other, common in the region.” He raises a brow as he hands him the sealant.

"Help me secure the windows in the bedroom. While we do so, you tell me what has you lost." He did not actually seem annoyed, more... concerned.

"You really have not been paying attention, have you?"

He gestures to the windows that were now securely shuttered, and the door free of gaps.

"You are fidgeting. Distractingly so."

He stares at him.

"That's even if you could get it from the man without signing something over..."

He's stopped what he was doing. Had been staring at Nerva for a few minutes now.

"Nerva."

"Ha, I'd like to see that happen. Even after we developed our own transport system, you still refuse to use it. I would pay a lot of gil to see you teleport."

He turned his attention to the door, making sure it's secured against the storm, then sets about making sure they would be safe.

"Ice can be broken and cleared away easily enough. Snow is another matter entirely. Lucky for you, we shall be fine. I have more than enough survival training to get us through a month stuck out here if it came down to that."

Surely they wouldn't be stuck out here for an entire month...surely.

"I would have almost preferred the rain to this. It is unnatural."

He cast his gaze over the dark clouds. Something about it unsettled him, but he didn't know why. Once Nerva was inside, he tightly shut the door.

"We may have need of the ceruleum heaters."

"How lucky for you, then, that I have no desire for a political debate. We are not men of the royal line here, we are just family."

Just as he neared the door, the temperature seemed to suddenly drop. The clouds that had gathered grew dangerously close, and with it, came heavy snow.

“Such is the nature of working with ancient technology that still vastly exceeds your own. How primitive our machina must seem to my wife.” He chuckles, then quickly finishes with the traps.

“Come on, let’s go back inside.”

[he was silent for a long, long moment.]

“It should have been you.”

I remember your words clear as a bell.

Yet I cannot give back what was stolen from you, just as you cannot do the same for me. We are broken men, forced to live with the hand we were dealt. What cruel irony that history repeats.

"They make the devices work and not explode." He taps the face of it, turning it on.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

I have. They are not as terrible as you think.

Are you afraid of some trees, cousin? Bad experience with one?

The node seemed to process Nerva's actions for a moment before depositing the device into his hand.

"Because they are limited as the...capacitors involved are rare and difficult to find."

Aye, that I do. I make an attempt to visit him each Harvest festival with a new wreath of wheat... I remember mother had mentioned that, that tradition started with you. Is that true?

[He looked off in the direction of Garlemald, and sighed to himself.]

The node beeped and whirred, floating over to Varis first to dispense his device, then floated to Nerva.

"Ah, I remember these." He looked it over, then slipped it over his wrist.

I doubt there is much I can do to assuage your fears, but we are bound for the Starlight stalls, not so much Gridania proper.

All I wished to be, and failed at attaining...

[He sighed, thinking of all the could haves and should haves. None of them offered any solace.]

Did you find out what the illness was?

Of...father?

[He set his jaw, willing the courage to ask what he had always wanted to know. He could hardly remember his face, after all]

Father...what was he like? Try as I might, I cannot scour deep enough within my memory to picture his face clearly.

What...what happened to him?

Right.

[softer,]

Right...foolish of me to wonder.

[He didn't even have the heart to shoot him any horrible looks. Quietly, he looks up, then asks.]

Do you think father would have struggled..? I do not recall much of the man, only that his passing...hurt you.

I. Suppose that is it. With Zenos I detached, it was easy to mimic what you had done, it was all I knew. When my daughters were all born, I found the detachment impossible.

When Markus was born... I struggled, wanting to have that same attachment as my girls but I couldn't stop my thoughts.

Gaius, while a dear friend of mine, who has a pardon, will not assist. Because he is assisting his remaining daughter in her recovery. He cannot be away from her for too long, and I. I do not blame him.

[He looks at his hands, as if he had blood on them. They were clean, if rubbed raw.]

I have... many times over. She has determined me a threat, and relegated me to the cabin until Markus is out of infancy...

[He looks down a his hands, then speaks softly]

I do not wish to repeat the mistakes I made with Zenos, with Markus. /Please/ grandsire..help.

I fucked up!

[he burys his head in his hands]

I worried that he would kill her. That he would become like the last son…that she would die by his hand. Intentionally or not.