Angels and Insects. [Florian]

[Eitan Angevin]

4th Ash, 121 Steel
The Angevin Estate

Angevin was nothing if not strategic. The wedding had been on the second; on the third, Friederike spent the majority of the day at home recovering; on the fourth, she would be out and about, preening under the attention as the mother of the bride for the last time. That meant he was unlikely to run into his evil stepmother, and so he had brought Albrecht when nobody was likely to scream about a Lysanrin in the house.

The Lysanrin was in one of his moods. Angevin wasn't impatient with him, but he was focused on getting him to the point where he could function reliably. It was one thing to go through the motions when the ship was in airdock and responsibilities were limited. Soon, however, they would be en route to an aperture into the Warrens where they might find a species that would give them a decisive weapon against the Kalzasern threat. He figured the clear and present danger would push Albrecht out of his funk, but he was hoping to see more variation in his torpor before they left the Brass City.

At least he was biddable. They were both in uniform, which would occasion less comment when they came into contact with servants. But the Admiral would be working, and his two eldest sisters as well. He knew the layout of the place well enough, and so they took the most direct route to the solarium. The air felt balmy and it smelled almost like a garden for all the potted trees and vines growing indoors and lit by floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass roof.

Angevin placed him bodily in the center of the room.

"Hold still a moment," he said. Then he retrieved an atomizer and sprayed it into the air around his charge a few times. It didn't smell like anything to them, but it certainly did to the butterflies. He stepped back as they slowly began to flit from flowers and greenery to dance around Albrecht like he was some sort of flower whose scent was irresistible.

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[Florian]

As the days wore on, Florian quickly realized that he would rather spend his time in bed. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to talk, or eat, or walk. He didn't want to think, and he didn't want to remember. Eitan, on the other hand, seemed particularly insistent on keeping him busy. There had been the tour, and now he was, for some reason, being taken through the Angevin estate for the very first time. He thought it was funny that he'd been to two other homes of the truly wealthy before he had been taken here.

There was a greenhouse in the Knob. Florian had been there a time or two before, but not since he was young. It was an abandoned-looking sort of place, and it was nothing like the carefully cultivated solarium he was now in. He loved flowers, and he loved butterflies, and here he was, in a room full of them. It was like a storybook, and he watched Eitan, his face impassive.

"Butterflies." He said. He didn't feel like himself, and he certainly did not sound like himself. He hated feeling like this. "Like the book." Try as he might to have avoided it, he still thought of his mother in the kitchen when he'd explained the story to Eitan. It was not a bad memory, even as it was one of the last times he had seen her, but tears still fell fast down his cheeks. It took a great deal of effort to keep everything bottled up, good or bad, and he didn't want it to slip. He couldn't tell if he felt good or bad, or if he were upset or happy or just overwhelmed. Maybe he'd just let Eitan assume and go with that. He looked a sight with his crying, his blank expression, surrounded by plants and butterflies. One landed on his intact horn.

"Butterflies."

[Eitan Angevin]

"Yes," he said, trying to sound encouraging. He didn't know what he had expected; of course, he knew the mundane marvel of a small swarm of butterflies wouldn't assuage the grief of losing a beloved mother. But perhaps the quiet tears were good. His nurse had told him that tears were how a body let go when there were feelings too big to hold. Angevin had never really known grief like Albrecht's. Just observing it from the edges, it felt like the pull of gravity when he looked over the taffrail at the landscape speeding past, imagining what his body would sound like slamming against those rocks. And when he landed, whether his eyes would be closed or open, or spasming like butterfly wings as his soiled spirit clawed its way free.

"Florian," he said, though he might as well have been naming the Knight of Butterflies as the Lysanrin standing numb in the middle of a little miracle of nature. A silence stretched out after that, further blurring any certainty about his meaning. "Albrecht, you know, you can talk to me about her. I only met her the two times, so I don't have the same depth and breadth of a relationship with her, but... I will listen. If you want to talk."

He was abnormally diffident, but he had made a point to be present. The season had started out with a flurry of activity: a new apprentice, a family wedding, hosting a tour of the Noble Gambit, and final preparations for the expedition while also settling into a new home and all the uprooting and craziness that entailed. Eitan Angevin wasn't a good man; he was a monster. He was also making an effort. Perhaps he was a good monster.

[Florian]

Florian blinked at his name. He didn't think he'd heard Eitan say it before, not to him. It was always Albrecht. He didn't mind being called Albrecht, but he wondered what had prompted it. At least it startled him out of the memory. There was still the question of whether Eitan's offer to listen was genuine or polite, but their relationship had long surpassed the necessity of being polite. Like most everything that he said, he would just have to take it at face value.

"She couldn't hold a job." His voice was shaky, and his gaze fell to the ground. "It wasn't her fault. She was cursed, or unlucky. Even in the Grungeworks she had trouble holding on to work." Now he looked up at Eitan again, his face wet with tears. He hadn't stopped crying. He reached his hand to his neck, and then under the collar of his shirt, and began the process of pulling her necklace out to visibility.

"I joined the military because I thought it would mean that she wouldn't have to work so hard anymore. She didn't own any jewelry, and I..." He paused to compose himself again. Their last meeting. "I bought her this, because I thought she deserved some, even if she had nowhere to wear it. I gave it to her two days early. I don't know if you...saw..." There was still blood on the necklace, and then the hand holding the pendant closed into a fist around it.

And then he was yelling.

"They didn't even take it! They took nothing! I found the fucking necklace in her mouth! Did they know what day it was? Why didn't they take the fucking necklace? Why go through the effort and leave the most expensive thing in the room?"

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin watched and listened. He didn't reach out to help wipe away tears, not knowing if Albrecht wanted touch. But he stayed close enough that the man could reach out for him if he needed that.

What Albrecht said seemed to confirm his suspicions that he had been supporting her with his wages. The flare of anger didn't bother Angevin; it seemed like a good sign, something other than numb. The numbness might protect him from the pain, but he would have to feel it eventually. But he nodded along with what Albrecht said. He had been receiving daily updates on the investigation.

"Forensics is not my specialty," he said, slowly and calmly so there was something slow and calm to ground that anger, "but from what I gather, it was not a burglary. Some deviant. They are gathering a profile. Evidence. Speaking to neighbors and others in the neighborhood who might have seen something or someone out of the ordinary. They will likely want to speak to you before we leave to see if she had or you have any enemies. They are taking this quite seriously because you are a soldier and operating under a provisional license. I can't make any promises, but efforts are being made to bring her killer to justice."

He paused, put his hand on Albrecht's shoulder. "Come on. This was a stupid idea. I'm sorry. Just let me get something from my room and I'll take you home. I guess you can see my childhood room if you want."

Whether he wanted to or not, Angevin didn't know. Albrecht was curious about the oddest things. Like fêtes at the Michaelis house. While they knew each other surprisingly well in some ways for having known each other so short of time, there were plenty of ways in which they were still practically strangers.

[Florian]

Florian released the pendant and it fell back to his chest. He had not gone anywhere near his mother's apartment since her death; he had barely wanted to go to his own, but he had little choice. He tried to let the anger subside, but it didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.

"She didn't do anything to anyone. All she tried to do was help. She was too generous." She was always willing to help anyone who came to her door, and Florian suspected that was what got her killed. It was stupid. Ava could barely afford to take care of herself, and yet she insisted on taking care of others. She led a wretched life for someone so kind. Florian didn't particularly want to go home, and he felt stupid for both wanting to spend more time with Eitan, and for fucking up his attempt at cheering him up. He used a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"No, it's nice. I'm sorry." The butterflies had been scared away by his outburst, and now he felt strange and insignificant amongst the trees and vines and flowers. He was quiet for a moment. "I want to see your room."

It was funny, because despite having been invited to his childhood home twice, Florian had never showed him his room. It had never ocurred to him that there would be a time limit to the chance. Either way, Eitan had seen his apartment all the same, and his room at his mother's had not been much different. He didn't usually spare the money on anything that could be considered decoration. He liked things that had use. Pain hit him square in the chest when he realized her books. Some of them had notes scrawled in the margins, or the beginning, kind words in his name. In his old name at first, and then scrawled out and rewritten with "Florian" when he had grown older.

[Eitan Angevin]

"She was kind to me, and generous," he said. There wouldn't be a memorial service, he supposed, so he took this opportunity to witness what little of her life he could. "She had every reason to distrust me, but she welcomed me into her home and fed me. I will remember her fondly. Zaichaer will be poorer without her."

It was strange, but he felt as though that were true. She had raised a good son. She had been a good person. If only there were more like her. With a sigh, he set the atomizer aside and put his hand on Albrecht's shoulder for a few moments, finally giving it a squeeze and canting his chin toward the door.

"Well, it isn't glamorous or anything, but I didn't live in the closet under the stairwell, I suppose." He led the way, happy to answer questions about works of art on the walls or anything, or to walk in companionable silence. None of it would be his, in the end. He had lived in a little sliver of it for most of his life and while he hadn't wanted for anything material, there had been invisible costs he couldn't truly articulate.

His room was small and spartan, but there were hints of the boy he had been. Adventure novels on the shelf. A shell from the faraway sea. A model airship hanging from the ceiling by fishing twine. There were awards on the wall, things that hadn't been important enough to show off in the trophy room like the girls' accomplishments, but that was fine. He picked up a rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. There wasn't much to see. His bed was tidily made, but it was clear that he spent much more time at the barracks than here. It was more nostalgic than contemporary.

"Ready when you are," he offered, though he didn't rush Albrecht out.

[Florian]

"She had every reason to distrust everyone, and she didn't. She had room in her heart for anyone she met. She didn't deserve this." Venom was in his voice, but it wasn't directed at Eitan. Whether at life, or fate, or whoever had murdered her, it didn't rightly matter. At least he had stopped crying, though he hadn't really consoled himself as much as they had simply dried up.

As they walked, Florian came to a realization. He had lived a life that made up for the material with love. And Eitan had lived a life that attempted to make up for love with the material. Of the two, he had always thought his life would have been better if he had never had to worry about how everything would be paid for, whether he could eat dinner that night. He wondered if Eitan felt the same way in reverse — if he would have preferred love over stability. Maybe he didn't think about it at all, and he was projecting his thoughts onto the man. It wasn't something he would ask, though, and so he didn't dwell on it. A passing thought. He didn't ask any questions while they walked through the house.

Florian looked at the room as they entered, and even walked around it a bit, but he didn't touch anything. The airship that hung from the ceiling had caught most of his interest, but he didn't ask anything that he couldn't gather himself. Eitan had always wanted to be in the air, it seemed. And, after the silence that had pervaded their walk and the room, he spoke again as they left, his own apartment their new destination. He didn't want to go home, but he followed all the same.

"What's in the bag?"

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin just let the Lysanrin talk things out. A part of him thought he ought to get involved in the investigation, but he knew that was the path to obsession, and he knew that passion in an investigation would only get in the way. Better the cold calculation of Meike Richter than a burning thirs for revenge.

"You said you trusted me," he said when asked about the bag. His faint smirk was an echo of the norm; he was still himself, though he had softened his sharp edges around Albrecht for the time being. They walked until they were far enough from the estate to catch a cab. The hansom driver glanced askance when directed to Verowa End, but apparently the money was good enough. Angevin split his time between looking at Albrecht's profile and looking out the other window. The City of Brass tarnished as they crossed the river, and little was said. He was glad their route didn't pass Ava's home; he didn't think Albrecht was ready to even see the outside of the building.

They arrived and disembarked, and Angevin walked his charge home.

"Sit down," he said, and then made himself at home.

He got a cup of water and a ratty dish towel and set them on the table, then went over to take Albrecht's broken horn from where he kept it. He put it in the Lysanrin's hands before sitting down and pulling things out of his bag: a pair of cheap, disposable gloves; a glass jar of lacquer; a brush; about an ounce of gold dust.

Clearly, he was up to something.

"There's this type of repair work that doesn't hide imperfections. Instead, it highlights them. Our scars tell stories about who we are and who we have been. We break, but we can be put back together again. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. Waste not, want not. You know?"

[Florian]

Florian sat down remarkably obediently, though he had been a bit too apathetic in the days since to do much arguing, so perhaps it wasn't remarkable at all. It wasn't until he had sat down and Eitan started unpacking things that he began to piece things together. He did trust Eitan, and he had said as much more than once, the last time just a few days prior on what had instantly earned the title of worst night of his life. He rarely took his horn out of the case, mostly to dust it. It felt weird in his hands when he knew it belonged on his head. Too heavy, too light, too smooth, and too textured. The base of it was still cracked and sharp from where it had broken from his scalp, though he had long ago cleaned it. Even with the tip broken off, his horns had continued growing for years afterwards, and now as an adult, it was hard to tell that the piece he held in his hands was once what constituted the whole thing.

Florian hated his scars. His chest, his arms, his face, his horn. They were stories better off forgotten, in his opinion, of a childhood spent in fear and danger and ten too many fights he was unprepared for. Fights he had been unprepared for, fights where he had brought his fists and his opponents had knives. It wasn't fair, but nothing was fair, and his body was marked with his bad decisions. Bad decisions that had been carefully chastised and tended to by his mother, a woman who had grown far more accustomed to cleaning blood out of clothing than she should've been; a woman who was far too used to mending torn shirts.

But Eitan liked his scars, for some reason. Maybe he thought his scars told better stories than the reality — that Florian had a temper, and that he acted upon his temper — or maybe he was just weird. It was almost as confusing as his little speech about them.

"What are you getting at?" He wasn't quite suspicious, even as the pieces began to click into place. The horn in his hands was going back on his head.