A Sweet Relief [PK]

[Javert 9628]

A Sweet Relief

 

 

A self-portrait of Ludwig von Audrick circa 83 S.A.

 

---

 

The Evening was cool, the winds of the surrounding mountains sweeping into the valley and leaving a soft chill upon the residents of Louisville. Ludwig sat on a bench a short walk from his cottage, puffing on his favorite Cigar and watch the Sun reach the lower half of the horizon near the mountaintop. His body was present, but his thoughts were elsewhere. They were in Haverlock, as the Imperial artillery tore into the town he had helped govern as Vice Chancellor of Sedan. They were in Yong Ping, where Ludwig had met the love of his life that he would raise his beloved family. They were in Karosgrad, where he and his eldest argued hotly over matters that looking back upon were not worth the verbal fighting. 

 

Ludwig's mind snapped back to the present as he heard the dragged footsteps of a person coming from his left. She spoke to him in drunken slurred and angry tone, and Ludwig replied in a calm but firm voice. Ludwig rose to his feet, she drew a dagger, and Ludwig's conscious blacked out.

 

When he came to, he unexpectedly found himself surrounded by three of his children. Adrian, Amorie, and Annette. They held the bleeding body of Ludwig, weeping and begging for their father to remain and fight on. They begged him to stay awake, but the damage was done. Ludwig had embraced it, as there was no other reality he could admit to. After years of war, pained memories, fighting, all of it, Ludwig was finally ready to go on. He closed his eyes, muttered his last words...

 

And then there was relief.

 

---

[StrongBear 1239]

The young patriarch of house Audrick, keeps to himself, oddly silent for once. (reserved)

[TaytoTot 1587]

Annette and Adrian had went to Sedan, to reminisce on the past and see their father. The siblings walked into the small town, wandered around. As they turned a corner, there he was. Ludwig, on the ground. Gore rushing out of his abdoment. In the heat of the moment, Annette had fallen to her knees by his side, crying out for her father and screaming to his murderer. In her mind, she could only think of one thing. Why him and now? Her mind was weak, sorrow taking complete control of it. The healing salves and oils she had became no use as she sat there and wept. 

After it all, the young woman would refuse to leave her home. She only left once to send a letter to her dearest friend, but besides that, she sat at home. She laid in bed for hours, weeping for her father. Or, reading the books he used to read to her as a child. She thought about Hemlock and all the memories from their time there. "Come back to mich in somevay, bitte."

[CopOwl 1707]

"My twin sestra and Vater ... Won't be around anymore."

 

Those were the words spoken that sent her head spinning. Even as her young daughter, Emma, stood just beside her, Adele Ludovar stared at her half-brother in shock and confusion - mouth agape. Adrian von Audrick needed support and understand in that moment, that much the Countess knew as she sent her daughter away. Yet even while she hugged him and comforted him with stories of herself a long time ago, her head swam with the shock of it all. 

The pair of them knew their relation, yet neither had admitted it to the other. Even if Ludwig was not her real father, he was married to her mother. And he had been more understanding that her real father, at times, and more able. And once Johann passed on, he really did turn into her true father. 

His words echoed in her head as she sat at home:

"Because you're my daught-!" He paused and sighed, massaging his temple as he corrected himself. "Because you're my wife's daughter, and I care about you."

 

And she was truly alone now, with no one to help her. Papej was gone, Mamej was disappeared, and now Ludwig had gone too. 

She had been growing sick and growing a cough from all of the stress before then, but from the day she met with Adrian after Duma and was told the awful news, that drove her to become bedridden - cloaked in mourning black and riddled with the coughs of childhood illness.