Chapter 919: Closer

"Thank you, for brining me home."

Ludwig paused for a little. He understood what her words meant more than anyone. After all, he too has lost his home.

"I didn’t really bring you here. The Emperor technically granted me the territory, and the Tower survivors had already begun repairing..." He tried not to get too emotional.

"Ludwig," she interrupted. "You brought me home."

He stopped attempting to explain the gratitude away. Celine waited until he released a quiet sigh.

"Fine. You’re welcome."

"Thank you," she repeated, visibly satisfied.

Simple exchanges should not have felt so difficult. Ludwig was much better at killing immortal manifestations of sin than to express his feelings, he never was someone who mingled much with others back on earth not to mention beautiful looking vampire girls who are clearly several centuries old but still very nice and good to look at.

Celine took another drink before speaking more quietly. "Now that I have it again, I’m afraid of losing it."

"The territory?"

"All of it," she said as she looked toward the settlement. "Every time a messenger arrives, part of me expects another disaster. It could be a war, an Imperial order, another curse, or someone claiming House Bastos belongs to them."

Her smile became bitter. "Sometimes I expect to wake up and discover that this has been an elaborate illusion."

"If it is, then whoever created it has a very poor understanding of entertainment. Nothing has tried to kill us in weeks." Ludwig sighed. The boredom still beating him right now.

Celine laughed through her nose. "Thank you. That was deeply reassuring."

"I was trying to help." He said proudly.

"You’re terrible at it." She snickered at him

"I’ve been told."

The wind shifted, moving a loose strand of Celine’s hair across her face. She pushed it aside while Ludwig looked toward the settlement. For some time the both of them remained silent watching the territory for a bit. As people moved and walked, lights turned off and on in different houses, and even the barking of a dog here and there. It looked simple, it looked peaceful, and it looked like something worth protecting.

"If someone tries to take Bastos from you, I’ll kill them," he said.

Celine turned toward him. "You say things like that with disturbing ease."

"I wasn’t joking."

"I know. Somehow that makes it more comforting." She smiled.

"That was the intention." He leaned back in his chair.

Celine studied him for a moment before asking, "What about you? What are you afraid of?"

Ludwig almost answered that nothing frightened him. After all, the Undead fear nothing. The response would have come from habit rather than honesty, and he stopped before saying it.

He thought for a bit on how to answer her. And she waited while he stared into his cup.

"I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when nothing is wrong." He said, after contemplating for some time."

She blinked. "That is what frightens you?"

"Apparently. I’ve spent so long moving from one problem to another that I don’t know what comes after them. Stagnation and stillness feels alien to me. As if something wrong is waiting around the corner and I’m basically doing nothing to prevent it."

He leaned back and looked toward the garden. "When there’s an enemy, the answer is simple. Kill it. If there’s a curse, I break it. If someone is trapped, I get them out. When Necros points toward a Usurper..."

"You kill it," Celine finished.

"Exactly. Every disaster gives me something clear to do. A goal and an objective to strive for, something to aim my sight toward and peruse."

Ludwig gestured toward the manor and settlement. "I don’t know what to do with this."

"With a peaceful home?"

"That is a dramatic way of saying boredom. But yes, it’s just a lot of... peace." He sighed.

Celine laughed. "Maybe you don’t have to do anything."

"That sounds awful." He squinted an eye at her.

"Because you’re bad at it. You keep trying to turn rest into another task that can be completed."

Ludwig frowned. "You sound like Necros."

"That should concern you."

"It does. He’s been egging me on to do so much and when I did it, I think he feels guilty for overworking me..."

Celine shifted in her chair and turned slightly toward him. "You don’t need a quest every day, Ludwig."

"I know that intellectually." He replied.

"That isn’t the same as understanding it."

"No, apparently it isn’t. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here..."

She looked toward the city again. "Perhaps doing nothing is something you have to learn."

Ludwig laughed quietly. "I survived four Usurpers, and my next great challenge is learning how to sit in a chair."

"You haven’t defeated the chair yet."

"It’s persistent."

"And still undefeated."

Ludwig glanced down at it. "Don’t tempt me." He may or may not have thought of pulling out Nightbreaker.

Celine laughed again, and the bottle slowly emptied while their conversation wandered away from wars, Usurpers, and politics.

She told him about the Bastos kitchens centuries earlier and a cook who despised Van Dijk because he constantly stole pastries before dinner. Ludwig believed that story immediately.

Celine described which balconies she climbed onto whenever she wanted to avoid formal gatherings, the servants who secretly allowed her to hide inside the stables, and how terrible she had been at etiquette when she was younger. Ludwig refused to believe the last part until she threatened to ask Van Dijk for confirmation.

Eventually, she asked about his life before Necros and before everything became impossible. Ludwig found himself talking about the academy, minor arguments, people he disliked, and the jobs he once imagined he might have.

He spoke about the ordinary stupidity of being young enough to believe one terrible month could ruin an entire life. At one point, Celine laughed hard enough to nearly spill her wine.

Ludwig stared at her. "That story wasn’t nearly funny enough to justify wasting alcohol."

"You tried to avoid being expelled by hiding inside a classroom after setting up the whole forest aflame?"."

"I nearly got expelled during that incident. Not to mention I obtained Thomas after that."

"I see. Must have been nice having Van Dijk as a backer."

"He did help solve that incident that is for sure. Though Thomas ended up being not the horrible type after all... though I can’t say much for others I considered a friend."

"The lad from the Drak House."

"Yes, he... was the reason for my expulsion at the time, not many believed me..."

Ludwig shook his head, but for a while he forgot to be bored.

The realization came quietly. He did not notice the hours passing, search the road in the hope that something dangerous might appear, or think about Gluttony, Lust, the Council, or whether Kaiser had created another horrible thing from Sloth’s remains.

He simply sat there with her.

When the bottle finally emptied, Celine tilted it above her cup and watched the last drop fall. "We appear to have killed it."

"Terrible. We should get another."

She considered the suggestion before setting the bottle down. "We probably shouldn’t."

"That’s disappointingly responsible."

"I hate it too."

The night had become colder. Celine moved her chair closer to the railing and then, after a moment, slightly closer to his.

The movement was barely noticeable, but their shoulders touched. Neither of them moved away.

Ludwig noticed, of course. He could detect murderous intent from across a battlefield. A shoulder was not subtle.

He said nothing, and Celine allowed the contact to remain.

They watched the settlement lights together as some disappeared one by one when people went to sleep. Ludwig followed them until the quiet began feeling unfamiliar again.

"This is strange," he said.

Celine’s shoulder remained against his. "What part of it? Bastos being alive again?"

"No. Being here like this."

She looked toward him, and something in her expression softened. "Is it a good kind of strange?"

Ludwig considered the question before answering. "Yeah. I think it is."

Celine lowered her head and rested it against his shoulder.

Ludwig froze for less than a second. She noticed anyway.

"You’ve fought gods," she said.

"Usurpers. There is a meaningful distinction."

"Close enough. Yet this is what makes you nervous."

"I’m not nervous."

"Your entire body went stiff."

"That was a combat reflex."

Celine laughed softly against his shoulder. Ludwig relaxed gradually, although he remained more aware of her than anything else on the porch.

His hand rested beside hers upon the arm of the chair. Their fingers were close without touching, and neither moved for several minutes.

Then Celine’s smallest finger brushed against his.

It might have been accidental, although Ludwig doubted it. He turned his hand slightly, and their fingers touched again.

Neither pretended the second contact was a mistake.

Ludwig did not take her hand, and Celine did not take his. They left their fingers pressed lightly together while she remained against his shoulder.

He looked toward the moon and waited without knowing what he expected. No notifications appeared, enemies approached, or distant explosions shook the manor. Nothing in the world demanded his attention.

For once, the silence did not feel empty. Ludwig finally began to understand that being bored was not the same as having nothing.