Chapter Text
"And a one, and a two, and the dragon's coming through; and a three, and a four, it knocks down the tower door! Aaaah!"
Gravelynn squealed and bounced on Serenity's knee, clapping along to the impromptu mealtime song. The tower door in this case was her mouth, and the dragon was another spoonful of milk-boiled rice and appleberry sauce; she opened wide at Serenity's prompting, and only got a little bit of her food dribbling down her chin.
"Children are the same everywhere, huh?" Serenity said fondly, looking down at the child she'd been given to care for. Then she muttered, a little more to herself than to the child, "I wish I could take care of you anywhere but here. You're so sweet, but really, a bone castle? It's not really fitting, is it?"
Today marked probably the fifth month of her capture and the bizarre revelation that Sepulchure, the Doomknight, the scourge of Greenguard- perhaps even the entirety of the Land of Dragons- needed a babysitter.
"Now all said, I know he can't trust just anyone to take care of his adopted child; no matter how lovable and adorable she is!" She cooed at Gravelynn, tickling her to a fit of giggles. Serenity smiled along. "I get it, I do! But imagine: Your papa picked me up just when I finally got some waitstaff to train! Gasp!"
Gravelynn blew a bubble of spit in reply as Serenity filled the empty air with her thoughts. Three months in this place and she'd nigh entirely lost her filter. "Poor Spruce must be falling apart, assuming the inn is still standing. Do you know three months is a long time in Falconreach? Three months is a long time in Falconreach."
Best not to think about going back any time soon. This was her life now, and all said, it was comfortable even in its strangeness. From the high window she sat beside, Serenity watched the world go by and wondered where they were flying over now.
It was a nice view: the mountains rolled out beneath them in miniature, the sun setting on what must have been the Pale Sea. There was a faint, warm damp in the air that suggested summer on its way.
Gravelynn sneezed. Serenity turned away from the window and wiped Gravelynn's nose and mouth. She tucked Gravelynn against her chest as she walked around the room, a slight bounce in her step to stretch out her legs and help burp the child and get her digestion going. She sang as she did, one of her little made-up songs she'd started composing to while away the time. "We're already up, way up above the clouds, but you still need to burp or you might just float away..."
Three months was a good enough time to settle into an evening routine. Feed Gravelynn her dinner, burp her, change her, play for a few more minutes and then put her to bed. Serenity had most of the rest of the day to herself, reading or sewing or cleaning, or just taking care of Gravelynn; it was startlingly lonely, especially when she realized, after that first month, that she was in the most secret corners of the Dracolich castle and she hadn't seen another living soul in weeks.
She'd tried to leave. Once. The skeletons were very gentle with her, but still generally immovable, as they dragged her back to this very room. They left the door unlocked, but Serenity had been so shaken she didn't even want to look at it.
Gravelynn finally burped and Serenity sighed, turning on her heel to walk circles in the other direction. She stroked Gravelynn's back as she paced.
"I'm going crazy in here." She said, "I'm so used to talking to so many different kinds of people. Gravelynn, when you learn to speak, promise me you'll talk to a lot of different people and not just skeletons, because I think I'd give anything to talk to someone besides myself every day. There's only so much I can say!"
"Only a day?" Said Sepulchure himself, and Serenity bit back a string of words she was certain would be inappropriate for Gravelynn's company.
"Oh, you heard all that." She said instead. She internally congratulated herself for keeping her cool this time. "Just idle rambling. No need to worry about it."
Several months was good enough for a routine but not exactly enough for her to really figure out how she was supposed to act around him, and it didn't help that he had a habit of appearing suddenly in the lengthening shadows. Sepulchure seemed to materialize from those shadows, and it was only when she got a good look at him that the heavy plates of his armor ever made a sound.
"Whatever your intent, I advise you not to be so careless with your words in my castle." He said, and Serenity wasn't so foolish to take advise to mean anything besides order.
"... Yes, sir." She said, halfway curtsying and balancing Gravelynn against her hip. Five months took the edge off the worst of her fear, but she was still uneasy around him; especially now, when something she said seemed to have displeased him. She was relieved when he turned his attention to Gravelynn.
"Dada!" Gravelynn reached out towards him, and not for the first time did Serenity have to contend with the surprising strength of a small child wanting very badly to be in her father's arms versus her own, immediate instinct to keep Gravelynn from falling on her head. But just like that, he turned his baleful gaze from her towards his daughter, and if she focused, she could hear a softness creep into his voice.
"You're growing so fast, aren't you?" He cooed, as he plucked her from Serenity's grasp and she grabbed at the beads dangling from his horned helmet. "Ah, you've caught me with your tiny hands, my one weakness."
Gravelynn giggled and tried to put the shiniest one in her mouth, pouting as Sepulchure gently pulled it from her grasp. He replaced it with a rattle fashioned from what looked disturbingly like a human tibia, which she smacked against his pauldron. Serenity watched all this and for the hundredth time concluded that it was a good thing she wasn't leaving because nobody would ever believe her.
The shadows never quite hid the arterial red glow of his eyes; it always made Serenity fidget under his regard.
"Has she been eating well? Giving you no trouble?" He asked. Serenity tried to focus on the words and not just the buttery-smooth sound of his voice, because Avatars, scourge of Greenguard who could snap her like a twig or no, that was a nice voice.
(She had definitely been alone too long.)
"She's been pulling my hair during playtime, but that's about normal for children that age, so I just need something to tie it with." Serenity knew he wanted honest answers after he'd reprimanded her for trying to hide a cut on her hand from preparing Gravelynn's food the first few weeks. "She's also been saying more words, and sooner than I expected her to, so it's probably a good time to get more books."
"Is that right? Your songs might be doing something for her. Isn't that right, Gravy? You're going to start singing soon, aren't you?" He looked at Gravelynn again, holding her up over his face as she squealed and tried to grab his horns again. Serenity may as well have been one of the skeletons when he got like this, and the strangest thing was that she didn't mind.
She cleared her throat. "I think she likes the appleberry sauce, but it's hard to tell because she'll eat just about anything at the moment."
Sepulchure listened, occasionally nodding and adding comments of his own. He looked down at Gravelynn, playing with her bone rattle by thumping it against different bits of armor within reach. Serenity found herself trailing off when she thumped him on the nose and he pretended to be struck by some mighty warrior. It was a tender sight, the incongruity of its pieces notwithstanding.
"Anything else to report?" He added, so suddenly that Serenity found herself almost jumping back to attention.
"Ah- I've gone through this week's supply of laundry soap already, so we'll need more of that." Serenity twisted her skirt in her hands, just to keep her fingers busy. "She's not allergic to the sun lotus like she was with the sweetpalm, so we don't need to change the scent this time. Thank the Avatars. Maybe I'll eat the leftover sweetpalm, come to think of it..."
Serenity stopped speaking as she realized he'd gone quiet. When she turned around, Sepulchure held a finger to his lips; Gravelynn was fast asleep, snuggled up against the curve of his elbow.
"That can't be comfortable." Serenity mused, softly. "But she does have a talent for falling asleep just about anywhere."
Sepulchure shook his head and motioned for Serenity to come closer. He lowered Gravelynn into Serenity's arms, slowly, tenderly, and brushed the hair from Gravelynn's sleeping face with his thumb. Serenity looked up at him as he did and this close she could almost see the lines of his face, the tiredness in his eyes.
"Can't you stay a while longer?" Serenity asked.
Sepulchure looked back at her, not even moving his head. She gulped, but kept her voice low and even.
"I don't know what you're doing outside of the castle, and maybe it's for the best that I don't know, but... please. Just this time." Serenity adjusted her grip so Gravelynn's head was on her shoulder.
Gravelynn burbled in her sleep, clinging to Serenity's dress. She looked down at the child in her arms and then back to Sepulchure. "Who knows. Maybe she'll wake up before you go and get to wish you on your way, for once. Wouldn't that be nice? You're already so rarely in her life, aren't you?"
She really was getting too comfortable speaking her thoughts without restraint. She realized this a split second after the ambient temperature dropped two or three degrees and the shadows flared around them, twisting in the corners like damned souls. Maybe they were.
But then the temperature returned to normal as Sepulchure approached, looking down at Gravelynn's sleeping face and stroking a curl of her blood-red hair.
"She has lovely hair." Serenity said. "Very thick and healthy."
He glanced up at Serenity and beneath the shadows of his helmet she could swear he smiled.
"And you are very chatty today." He said. "Isn't that why you want me to stay?"
Serenity flushed, about ready to start babbling excuses before shutting herself up when Sepulchure laughed.
Soft little chuckles, warm and comforting as a hot drink and a hug. Serenity pushed Gravelynn up her shoulder again and let herself smile just hearing it.
He had a lovely laugh.
"I beg your pardon?"
... Had she said that out loud again? Serenity couldn't see it, but she was sure he'd just raised an eyebrow at her.
"Yes."
Her ears went red. She babbled, though she couldn't help her lips turning up into a smile, too. "I'm- I'm sorry, I mean no offense. But, I do mean what I said! I really think so, and I'm sure you must have a lovely singing voice, too..."
He laughed again. It sent pleasant tingles across her scalp. When was the last time she'd heard human laughter, besides her own cabin-fevered giggles? But she caught her tongue in her teeth this time, lest she push her luck a little too far.
What would they even talk about?
Well, she didn't have to worry about that for long.
There was a knock, somewhere in this echoing hall, presumably on a door or a pillar. Serenity had come to recognize the sound as knucklebones on stone. Shortly thereafter, a flying eyeball zipped towards them with a slip of parchment in the sinuous curl of its tail.
It bowed to Sepulchure mid-air before perching on his outstretched knuckles and dropping the parchment in his palm. Sepulchure's expression went sour as he read the first few words and only darkened further with each one. He crushed the parchment in his fist.
Serenity wanted to ask, but no doubt she wouldn't want to know.
"I bid you good day." He said, curt in that way of someone not expecting a response, and melted into the shadows like he'd never been anything but shadow himself.
Serenity blew hair out of her eyes and pouted.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. May the Avatars save her mind and soul: She was going to keep a journal.