Chapter Text
Goodbye, children. The next time we meet, I will no longer be your Father. Thank you for all you’ve done for the House. I hope you have bright futures ahead of you.
They had all left in silence, not a single word muttered in response as the little group of three rose to their feet. Through their perceived injuries, his limping had been nothing more than his own helplessness, and the medicinal cure of blood and bonded family had righted him soon enough. The spikes that had pinned them down were little more than for show, a somewhat selfish display of power that would keep them from speaking up again.
Footsteps filled the silence of each child taking their leave with a simple bow whether they were to return to her side or not. Finally, once she was sure there were none of those in her charge to witness the softening crumble of her impenetrable heart, she turned to engage herself with the small girl eternalized through flame.
—
The fleeting hope that three bottles of her own flames would land unused on her desk burned away into ash as she returned to her office that night, wavering from the distant sorrow of the day. As expected, every bottle was emptied and accounted for, alongside the reports that they had been administered properly.
The turnout she had prepared for, yet still not quite a pleasant one.
Having no support by your side in times of agony was perhaps a pain even she granted mercy for. A select few children who had laid witness to the execution of their siblings saw them off, helping them pack in their disorientation.
When they were sound asleep, bodies rebuilding themselves from the deep dismantling of her blood-borne curse, she had taken it upon herself to situate them in their new living arrangements. Each of them would find their own paths from now on, the deepest desires and ambitions coming to light. The very things they had fought for, she bestowed to them. The very least she could do to smoothen out the process of killing a person, though if anyone had seen a cloaked figure carrying an unconscious child and their luggage around to different houses…
No matter. Under the light of the moon, she could act at will.
Their corpses were warm in her arms, flowing with blood and life and the subtle shuffling of a mere dream.
By the time the Court of Fontaine had awoken the next morning, her job was finished and she had returned to her own restless slumber. One less voice plagued her that night, an overlapping chorus that sang her praises in love and a reverent indifference. Plenty of others were there to fill the open void of that childish persona, the disingenuous laughter of her successor and his companion’s careful composure. The long unsure silence of their late addition.
The love for their “home”, a life that had almost solely existed between the three of them. It had helped to fill the Hearth with the warmth she had spared from her own iteration of it. Not that it would be completely put out without them around, but… it would be different.
Striking them down as dead, killed by her own hands and wiped from existence within the expanding embrace of the House of the Hearth.
All to uphold the reputation befitting of Mother’s heir, and of the mad, matricidal Knave.
Mother is no longer the matriarch, no longer has any sort of control that she can exert and reminding herself of that is pinnacle. Under her rule, there is no battering slow torture in the name of setting an example, the escapees were to be ‘dealt with’ in a much more direct way. And it would stay that way for a long time, until the curses rose through her and severed the ties between humanity and the lingering madness that yearned to scorch her until only ashes remained.
It was too far in the future to think about, so for now…. she would have to hope that the small children could find their own way in the world. As long as she had raised them correctly, they would thrive. After all, none of the children of the House of the Hearth were raised in an unfit way, they were to be self-sustaining.
In the case of the heir and his troupe, that would prove quite the easy task. Her supervision over them would have to end early.