Chapter Text
Adelinde poured a generous amount of water on a plate, placing an empty bowl on it then putting a plate full of leftovers on top. This was a way to keep ants from climbing onto the food and spoiling it too soon.
(Though Elzer knew the food would spoil anyways. No kind of food can survive being left out for 4 years.)
He said nothing though, simply watched as she caringly made sure the food was neat and the tissue-wrapped utensils wouldn’t fall off the edge of the elevated plate, while dutifully holding a glass of iced water like she asked him to bring.
“Thank you,” Adelinde smiled, setting the water down near that strategically stacked tableware before covering the entire thing with a wicker cloche. Then she brought close the centerpiece candle sticks and stuck under it her note.
Elzer didn’t read it. She hasn’t rewritten that note in over 4 years since she first started her little routine.
He knew the contents of that letter like the back of his hand, because it was Elzer who would take on the duty of throwing out those leftovers in the morning into the fertilizer box and remember to tuck that note away for Adelinde to use again the night later.
Elzer doesn’t say anything. He never does. He simply watched Adelinde look at her work with satisfaction, making sure to seem fond rather than pitiful.
They had that conversation many times, and frankly, Elzer had since accepted that Adelinde was past the point of reason.
“Just do us all a favor and let Adelinde have her routine and keep whatever you have to say to yourself, will you, Elzer?” Charles snapped at him, slamming that mugful of beer at the young man as an invitation to shut up.
Elzer frowned, “But-”
“We all grieve differently, kid,” Charles sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I turned to smoking after all the shit that happened, you have a record for aggravated assault with a bunch of knights, and Kaeya threw away his name and turned to borderline alcoholism. Adelinde leaving out dinner for someone who might never come back makes her the only one of us with the sanest coping mechanism.”
Elzer looked at Adelinde, how still and silent she was, how aged she looked that he almost forgot the sunken of her green eyes were from unshed tears rather than years that had passed since the last time there was any sort of liveliness in them.
Sanest? Elzer would doubt that.
Of course, Adelinde still managed to appear prim and proper. She was Miss Adelinde, after all; the rock on which the Ragnvindr Estate remains standing strong and powerful.
But Elzer, who is the only other staff besides her who shares the Ragnvindr manor as a place of residence, knows everything that lies behind that curated façade.
The moments of dazing at nothingness doing a repetitive task, hands sometimes tightening and eyes turning glossy for reasons that are known but remain unspoken of.
Still cleaning the house, despite most of the rooms and the clothes still kept in the closets not being used.
That stutter when she calls for others, names dying at the tip of her tongue as she shrinks back and tries to manage on her own instead.
And this.
This little routine of hers led the two of them to the lavish but gloomy dining room, still awake as midnight drew near, haunted by time that has passed and the time that daunted them coming closer and farther simultaneously.
Adelinde clicked her tongue, “I should’ve put more stir-fried vegetables on his plate. Lord knows that boy needs more greens in his system.”
Elzer snorted, “It’s been years and he’s an adult now. He’s probably already acquired a taste for vegetables that no child had.”
“Hopefully,” she chuckled breathily, turning to him, “Thank you for helping me pour through the last of the gravy. I must apologize, my hands aren’t as steady as they ought to be.”
He laughed this time, even if it hurt. “You’re not starting to buy that whole ‘Adelinde is getting too old for her job’ thing that’s been going around the estate, are you?”
She snorted right back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Oh please, you know for a fact I can throw a whole grown man like Charles over the city walls if I wanted to.”
“I hope you know that your threats aren’t funny when none of us know if you’re serious or not.”
“And who says I was trying to be funny?”
Elzer gave her a disapproving glare that she only giggled at, tapping at his nose teasingly.
“My hands are just shivery. November is coming close and the air is getting crispier, even the insulation of the house can’t save us from the harshest days of winter,” Adelinde said, as-a-matter-of-factly, “I’m gonna have to start wearing my uniform’s gloves as well. You should too.”
“Tomorrow,” he grumbled, barely stifling a yawn, “Tonight, you and I both need to get some sleep.”
Adelinde looked back down at her mournful handiwork. “Ah, maybe later. I have correspondence to the estate that I’ll be going through the rest tonight, but you can go ahead since we’re both well past our official hours.”
“I guess I’ll be a while too,” Elzer lied through tight, gritted teeth, “I’ve got things to put away in the office.”
Hopefully, the message that he’s only staying up because she will is well-received with full intent.
If it was, Adelinde didn’t show her resentment and annoyance for it, ever so elegant and poised as she gave a curt bow at her colleague.
“Don’t take too long then. Good night, Elzer,” she said as she walked away.
“Hmm, good night.”
Her footsteps disappeared upstairs to the second-floor entertainment chamber. Soon, the manor would be filled with the somber melodies of an old but tuned piano.
But for now, it is quiet, save for the choked back groan behind Elzer’s lips as he looked down on Adelinde’s ignored and hopeless gesture of her precious, undying love for the family that had died with its head of the house.
How long has it been?
The technical answer would’ve been 4 years, but to Elzer?
The memories of the happy and loving family that the Ragnvindr manor housed, and the events that lead to it being torn about so callously to the point of unsalvageable… had all been from a lifetime ago.
And yet it also felt like yesterday, when they were in that very dining hall during an early morning. The decorations to be hung for the dinner part later that day scattered around them, something to have a hearty laughter over coffee and tea.
Diluc had insisted on cooking breakfast for everyone, saying that he wasn’t going to let Adelinde cook for him now that he was a “bonafide big boy” (his words exactly.) Though the woman insisted, saying she wanted to cook for him one last time.
The mess of pots and pans that Elzer had to wash afterwards because the two had cooked a breakfast feast for all of them.
The odd number of bacons left much to be disliked as Master Crepus, Kaeya, and Diluc, spent some time bickering on who should get the last strip of bacon. Only for Adelinde to take it and force feed it to Elzer.
Elzer remembered catching Master Crepus and Kaeya giggling to themselves on where they hid their birthday presents for Diluc for him to return to late in that afternoon.
When the three Ragnvindrs left, Elzer and Adelinde got started on the cake of course. Then they noticed the refrigerated frosting having finger swipes at it.
Adelinde must’ve spent an hour complaining about it (“Those boys, no wonder they’re more tired than usual! They were helping themselves to the confections when we were all asleep.”)
And it didn’t help that Charles came over that afternoon to “help” with the birthday party preparation, and then helped himself to a spoonful of the frosting mid-conversation while thinking Adelinde wasn’t looking. The slap that she swung him was, dare he say, well-deserved.
It was as though if Elzer listened closely enough, he could still hear everyone’s laughter and chatter bouncing off the acoustics of the dining room.
But it hadn’t been only yesterday nor a lifetime ago when everything happened and came to pass.
It was over 4 years ago.
How much longer would it take for those happy days to come back? Elzer didn’t know, nor did he bother waiting for an answer.
He had been the first to accept what was lost and what can never be again. The first to give up.
Kaeya and Adelinde were all who were left hoping that those happy days could return.
Or at the very least, the last remnant of what once was.
Diluc.
The living embodiment of all that their family was and is had been gone for 4 years as well.
And Elzer was past the point of hoping he’d come back. Frankly, he wondered if he ever hoped at all.
Elzer looked down at the old note Adelinde kept close to the saved leftovers she keeps on saving for him even after all these years. Carefully, he took it out, his gaze burning even more as he kept reading.
“For Diluc,
In case you come home and find no one awake, but find yourself hungry, here is a plateful of dinner we saved for you.
Feel free to get some rest in your room. The beddings are still regularly changed so it should be ready for you. Your clothes are still being weekly washed despite your absence, so they should still be usable if you should need a change of attire.
Elzer and I are most likely asleep by now. Please don’t be afraid to wake either of us should you need anything.
???
???
- Adelinde”
There is incomprehensible text between her name and the rest of the text. Adelinde had the habit of writing over the text she wants to be unread instead of scribbling them out.
But Elzer could read one of the words at the very last of the incomprehensible lines of text.
…home.
Tear drops fell over that word that felt too heavy to hear and too bitter to speak.
Ah.
His gaze burned too much that it stung him. Elzer couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all, that every tragedy in the family, ultimately, was because of a spark turned into a blaze.
“I miss you…” he said to everyone and no one at the same time. His croaked-out voice joining the echoes of laughter that existed in the haunted halls of the Ragnvindr manor.
BANG!
“Motherfucker…”
Elzer cursed many things in his life, truly. That included his being an awful light sleeper.
Admittedly, that was on him for falling asleep on his reading couch in his quarters instead of his perfectly good and lush bed, and also for using his stack of already red books as a footrest (he swears he’d been meaning to get an actually footrest).
He groaned and sat up, realizing that in his shifty slumber, he knocked off the stack of books where his legs were propped up on.
Groggily, he managed to get up and reached down to fix the books and move onto the bed.
That was, until he heard a bang echo from downstairs.
He froze. Since when were the acoustics of the manor so good that the sound from his closed bedroom would ricochet all the way downstairs?
Unless, of course, that sound was its own.
Elzer stiffly stood up, making small steps towards his bedroom door. Before his hand could make contact with the doorknob, his eyes fell on the sheathed toy sword laid behind his door.
Would I need it?
In the event that he didn’t, Elzer didn’t want to accidentally brutally murder someone anyways, so he opted for the wooden bat right next to it.
Grasping it tenderly, Elzer shakily exits his room, wincing at every small echo of the shuffle of his door and his steps.
He tiptoed his way by the overhang of the staircase, only to be bewildered by the sight of Adelinde bolting past him with a claymore twice her physical width, barefoot in a sleeping gown nonetheless.
“Miss Adelinde!” he hissed.
She doesn’t glance back. Which in hindsight was strange, for reasons that made Elzer shiver just from thinking about it.
She rushed to the door, and it is then when Elzer realized that it had been left ajar.
Adelinde insisted on leaving it unlocked, much to Elzer and Charles’ dismay. Even more so when she moved to the bedroom downstairs simply to make sure that the person who will enter late into the evening would be the person who is the exact reason of why it’s always left unlocked.
But surely no ill-intended burglar would leave the door open after a job well done. If it took the residents so long and this much noise to be woken up, then they must’ve gotten their fill of stolen items.
Elzer’s chest dropped as Adelinde stood by the door, swinging the door with an emotion that isn’t quite like panic.
“It’s not a break-in, is it?” he called out.
Adelinde looked around the hall from the door to the rest of the rooms of the first floor, looking above Elzer. He looked as well and saw that the polished jade vases were there, enough of a sign to come to the conclusion that Adelinde also declared out loud as thus: “Nothing of value was taken from the first floor.”
Then she trailed off, her expression darkening, “Unless it was a break-in with specific intentions…?”
With that said, she rushed to the direction of the first-floor office. Elzer was quick to rush downstairs, breathless and eyes barely fighting off the fatigue.
In his haze of sleepiness and wokeness, he almost bumped into Adelinde, who did not stop at the door that he expected her to.
“Miss Adelinde? What’s wrong?” he whimpered, stifling a yawn as he asked.
She dropped the claymore by the archway, walking into the area. Only then did Elzer realize that they had ended up where the dining hall was.
It was exactly how they left it. At least to Elzer, it was.
But Adelinde looked aghast, prowling over the cloche and the food beneath for some reason. The plate remained full and untouched. The glass of water was a little fuller from the melted ice, but as Elzer walked close, there didn’t seem to be any lip marks on it.
He glanced at Adelinde; whose eyes were trained down to her feet. “Coast is clear here then…?” he asked awkwardly after a chilling silence, “Shall we proceed to the office where I assume, we were both headed? You and I both think the same and something must’ve been taken from there if the rest of the expensive things in the house are still-?”
“It can’t be…”
Adelinde knelt down and picked up something. Elzer flushed when he noticed what it was.
The note.
Always kept near the saved dinner of the day. Always weighed by the candlestick centerpiece of the dining table. Always put by the direction of the entrance to the dining table’s place in the area.
Always left where Diluc would be able to see it the first time around.
“M-Miss Adelinde?”
“He’s home.”
His heart dropped at her tone, so suddenly full of life and hope after so many years. And it killed him when at the tip of his tongue was his pathetic confession, “I took the letter from under the candle and probably forgot to put it back. I’m the reason why it’s down there.”
Before he could continue, Adelinde looked around bewildered, “Diluc!” she called out.
Elzer frowned, remembering the neighbors and the fact that it was 3 in the morning, “M-Miss Adelinde, hold on!”
He barely missed her wrist as she started running towards the larger area of the house, looking around bewildered, eyes shimmering and poise completely forgotten.
“Diluc! Are you home? Diluc, I’m awake! Diluc!?” she cried out; grace be damned.
It may have just been Elzer’s sleepiness or his frustration of waking himself up abruptly, but a cruel thought entered his head at that moment. Adelinde, you senile old woman, stop it!
“Miss Adelinde, keep it down! The neighbors-!” Elzer growled but to no avail, the woman simply rushed past him, hurried steps and that lone name being the only thing in her mind and her words.
He cursed, realizing her footsteps were headed for the left ajar door towards outside of the manor, hurrying to rein in his family, or at least what was left of her to keep.
“Diluc! Come back! It’s Adelinde! I’m awake! Diluc!” she screamed as she proceeded outside.
Elzer’s strides became larger. He held her wrist and pulled her back before she could take any further into the streets, “Shit, Adelinde! You’re gonna wake up other people!” he snapped.
She turned to him, the note kept close to her chest and eyes brimming with barely kept tears. “H-He’s here, Elzer. He moved the note. I-I heard footsteps a-and I-”
“I moved the note, Adelinde!” he breathed out, the exhaustion of chasing after her showing in the pants of his voice.
She stared at him brokenheartedly. He groaned and continued, despite the saner part of himself that listened to Charles and cared about Adelinde telling him to shut up.
“Before I went to sleep, I moved the note because I was being a sentimental bitch. He didn’t take it; he didn’t read it – I DID!”
“But the footsteps-”
“I knocked my books over in my sleep and I woke up because of it.”
Adelinde frowned, looking around at the empty streets from beyond the front lawn gates of the manor, “But he’s here. I-I know he is! He’s home, he-he has to come home, I-!”
The last of Elzer’s thin, abruptly woken-up patience snapped. He grabbed Adelinde by the shoulders and shook her, “WILL YOU STOP IT, ADELINDE!”
Adelinde froze, her hiccup drowned out by another shout from Elzer.
“SHUT UP AND STOP IT, ADELINDE!”
His eyes filled with tears as the realities he thought he’s finally learned to live with poured out from his heart and out of his chest. His tears blinded him to the horrified and mournful look on Adelinde’s face.
“Listen to yourself! You’re losing your head! Diluc isn’t back! He’s not home and he left! He’s never coming back so will you fucking accept that HE’S GONE! THEY’RE ALL GONE-!”
S L A P.
The sound pierced through the entire neighborhood.
Elzer yelped as he toppled sideways because of the strike, releasing her and opting to steady himself against one of the lamp posts of the front lawn.
Adelinde gasped, trembling hands finally reaching out to him as they tried to regain their gentleness, “E-Elzer, I’m so…”
Elzer looked at her and flinched backward. Though he felt guilty for causing that dejected look on her face, the hands that hit him made him fear for himself.
They stood there for a moment, the silence that hung between them suffocating, as were the words said between them.
Elzer swallowed thickly, trying to steady himself on both feet. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I-I was shaking you,” he mumbled as he reached up his hands to feel out the imprint of her hand burning on the side of his face.
He flinched. The slap burned, and he could feel the print of her hand sticking out sorely, sure to bruise for days to come. He chuckled, “Gods, imagine if that was a punch. I’d probably be dead on impact.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Adelinde stammered.
Only then had Elzer really registered the severity of what he had said, and everything else that had happened tonight.
He took the first good look at her, finally waking up.
Adelinde’s eyes were still glossy, though her gaze was unfocused even if it was on him. She was shaking and twitching, too much for it to be explainable by the cold or the coat hanging over her thick nightgown.
But she looked alive for once, body invigorated by rekindled hope and eyes sparkling with an excitement lost from a lifetime ago, or was it yesterday…?
Ah, he was thinking things again from 4 years ago. Elzer was sure he was just tired.
Yes, it had to be.
Both he and Adelinde were just… tired… from the constant grief they chose to deal with in their own ugly, insane ways.
So, he forgave her, deep down anyway, because he’d rather die than seem insincere out loud.
He sighed, “Let’s go inside. You’re gonna get the rumor mill running again.”
With a shake of his head, Elzer began to limp back indoors. Not to his surprise, when he looked back, Adelinde still stood where she was outside, her gaze far and hopeful.
Elzer bit his cheek from the threat of saying what that he meant everything – all that was said out loud and what he kept to himself all these years; however much it hurt her.
If she was hurt, it was because he was right.
Even then, however, Elzer can’t help but feel guilty in his righteousness.
Was it worth being correct and grieving easily when someone like Adelinde drowned in misery undeservingly?
“I’ll… look at the home offices, just to see if anything is amiss,” was all he could say. With a shake of his head, Elzer moved to his destination: forward.
But Adelinde’s soft voice made him stutter in his steps. Like he wanted to believe her. Like he wanted to stay and hope with her.
“But he came home,” she said, looking down at the note in her trembling hands with teary eyes, “He… He has to come home.”
And he was, unbeknownst to them.
Far away, just right out of sight.
Another pair of eyes was there, shedding tears to join the pool of grief that they were drowning themselves in.
The shadows were not quiet that night.