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queenlucythevaliant · 3 months

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Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

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pascal-oswell · 1 year

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hi. today dante acquires a faust plushie. it was supposed to be cute inferno pink stuff but looking at it again it feels like its about gregor instead sorry

"Do my eyes deceive me? Gregor, in your hands- could this be our esteemed guide?" Don Quixote is sounding more excited by the second. "The great Red Gaze, now made of thread and cotton?"

"Uh, yeah. That's a Vergilius plushy alright." He holds it out to her. "For you, by the way. If you want it."

"What?" She gasps dramatically. "I could never- this is far too great of a gift!"

When Gregor doesn't retract his hand, however, she eventually takes the plushie. She brings it closer to her face, staring at it intently, emotion clear in her eyes.

"This fierce gaze…! You've truly outdone yourself, Gregor! I… I shall never forget this!"

If he's honest, Gregor focused more on reproducing the sad, pathetic look Vergilius always has, but she doesn't need to know that. Instead he smiles.

"Glad you like it."

"I truly do! I cannot thank you enough!"

Gregor chuckles as Don Quixote runs off with her newly acquired plushie. He was right to make something for her as his first attempt at plushie making. She's probably his only coworker who would react in such an excited manner. It helps him feel better about the whole thing.

He hears footsteps.

"Was it you who gifted Don Quixote the stuffed toy, Gregor? I just met her in the hallway."

"Ah, manager." Gregor turns to look at him. "Yeah, I… actually made it." He falters, hesitant to talk about it even if it's just Dante.

"She told me as much! I had no idea you could sew, Gregor, let alone were so good at it!"

Gregor looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sewing is a good skill to have, for mending all kinds of things. I taught myself at a young age. Plushie making, though… that's new. I just wanted to try my hand at it."

There's more to it than that, but Gregor doesn't really feel like explaining himself right now. Something about wanting to use his hands for something beside violence.

"Well, that was certainly a good first try, then." Dante chuckles, thinking about how expressive the simple button eyes felt to him, when Don Quixote shoved the plushie in his face. "You really managed to capture Vergilius' essence, in my opinion."

"… Yeah?" Gregor perks up a little at that. "You don't think it's stupid?" It's not like the toys they might get from abnormalities. His plushies are useless in battle. Or in general. It's a waste of time, one might say.

Dante pauses, sensing the sinner's discomfort.

"I don't. I understand plushies hardly have any practical use, but that doesn't make them worthless. You were happy to make one, and Don Quixote was happy to receive one." He tilts his head, thinking. "Well, rather… Even if they really were worthless, that shouldn't matter, either. It's a harmless hobby. No one should get to judge you for it."

For a long time, Gregor silently stares at Dante. Then he closes his eyes, breathing out a laugh. Why was he even worried?

"Thanks, manager. Would be nice if more people were like you."

Dante has a few thoughts about that, but he will not voice them. Now isn't the time.

"It's no problem. Besides, plushies are quite cute, aren't they?"

Gregor opens his eyes to look at Dante. He raises an eyebrow, smirking.

"What, manager, did ya want one too?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I didn't mean- I mean, it would be lovely, of course- but I wasn't trying to hint at that. I'm not… exactly sure what I'd do with one. I'm sure others would appreciate your hard work more."

Dante's never really thought about buying plushies. He's not particularly against the idea, he's just… always focused on more necessary things, and, well, not much else.

"It's not like you have to do anything with a plushie. It can just sit there on your desk looking cute."

"I… suppose you're not wrong."

"Anyone you'd like a plushie of, then?"

"Wh… Oh, right, you did make Vergilius for Don Quixote…" Dante looks to the side, thinking. What would he even want a plushie of? An animal? That might be more complicated than a person, though… But then, who? Perhaps just himself? No, that'd be silly…

Eventually Dante sighs.

"I don't really know, honestly. I'm hardly a fan of anyone like Don Quixote is."

Gregor shrugs at that. "You don't have to be. Could just be someone you like enough to have a plushie of."

Dante thinks about it. His flames flicker as a name crosses his mind. He does not say it, however.

"… Thought of anyone, manager?"

"No," Dante replies far too hastily for Gregor to believe him. "I apologize, Gregor. You should probably ask someone else. And I… should probably get back to work."

"Sure then. See ya around."

Dante nods, turning to leave. "Yes. See you later, Gregor." And with that, he walks away.

Gregor purses his lips as he watches him go. He thinks he has an idea as to what kind of plushie he can make him.

---

Dante has long since forgotten about his discussion with Gregor when the man walks up to him, a plushie in hand. Dante immediately notices it.

"Ah? Is that another of your plushies, Gregor?" He tilts his head questioningly. "Who did you make this time?"

"Well, why don't you take a look for yourself?"

"Mh? Sure." Dante takes the plushie from him, turning it around so that it faces him. He observes it carefully. The white wool, the blue buttons, the small pout… His fire flickers. "Is that Faust?"

"Yup. I'd like to think I did a pretty good job."

"You did!" Dante looks up at him. "Would it be alright for me to ask who this is for, though? I can hardly imagine Don Quixote being interested in a plushie of Faust." He assumes it's fine to ask, since Gregor did come to show it to him.

Gregor points a finger at him.

"That'd be for you, manager."

Dante freezes.

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me. We talked about it last time, didn't we?"

"We did, but I don't seem to remember actually picking anyone, and…" he looks down at the plushie once more, "… and certainly not Faust?" He would remember that. He definitely would.

"Yeah, you didn't. So I picked myself." Gregor shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Out of everyone, I thought she was the best choice for you."

"I… really don't know what you mean." His fire is dancing wildly, making that hard to believe. "In any case, I- I don't think I can accept this- wait, Gregor!"

Alas, Dante notices Gregor's escape too late, and is thus left alone with the Faust plushie. He soon runs off to his room, fearing someone might seem him with it.

---

Now in the safety of his room, Dante quietly stares at the Faust plushie. It impassively stares back.

"…"

Suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment, Dante impulsively throws the plushie away from him and onto his bed, only to immediately run after it, apologizing profusely.

---

Crouching, Dante observes the plushie, which is now properly sat on his bed. Had he been less panicked about the whole thing, he would have been able to tell Gregor just how cute he thought it was. It probably wouldn't have been a completely objective judgement, however, so maybe it's for the best that he didn't tell him.

---

After pondering for a long time what to do with the plushie, Dante eventually remembers his past conversation with Gregor and carefully sits the little Faust on his desk, before busying himself with paperwork.

At first, its presence actually motivates Dante to work harder. It's a silly thing, but he tells himself he needs to do his best so he won't disappoint the plushie. But only at first.

After a while, Dante cannot help but get distracted, staring at the plushie and thinking about the real Faust.

It's only an hour later that he catches himself and violently interrupts his daydreams by slamming his clockface into his desk. The plushie is slightly shaken, but otherwise unaware of its crimes.

---

Do not tell anyone, but when Dante has to leave for a mission, he always takes the time to grab the plushie and lay it in his bed, tucking it in, so that it may rest peacefully in his absence.

---

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Dante carefully holds the plushie in one hand, bringing the other up to carefully pat it on the head. But he soon lets his hand fall to his side and looks down at his lap, his embarrassment rising.

---

Dante has now stopped counting the number of times the plushie's distracted him and led him to think about Faust.

---

Lying on his bed, flat on his stomach, Dante happily looks at the plushie sitting in front of him, the bottom of his clockface resting in both of his hands. Faust complimented him during today's mission. He giggles, kicking his feet in the air. He's going to be thinking about it all day.

---

There is a knock on Dante's door.

"Come in!"

The door opens, and Dante looks up from the report he was filling to see Faust walk in.

"Oh, Faust! Hello!"

"Good evening, Dante. Are you busy right now?"

"As busy as usual, I suppose. Don't worry about it. What can I do for you?"

She nods, walking over to him. "I wanted to ask you about tomorrow's…" she trails off as something on his desk catches her attention, "… mission."

"Faust? Is something the…" he follows her gaze down to… "… matter…"

Dante has so few visitors, it never occured to him that he might need to hide the Faust plushie when inside his own room. That is why it now sits proudly on his desk, in full view of the real Faust.

When Dante's fire suddenly shoots up, Faust wonders if it might reach the ceiling. In the end it doesn't, and when it settles down, Faust only watches as Dante slowly gets off his chair to crawl under his desk where he curls up, hiding his face in his knees.

She still hasn't even said anything yet.

---

It's not often Faust seeks out Gregor, so he's a bit surprised when she approaches him one day.

"Gregor."

"Hey, Faust. What's up?"

"You've been making plushies, yes?"

He blinks. This is not where he thought this conversation would go. He's not sure he likes it.

"… What about it?"

"I know you've made multiple human plushies. Can you do anything else?"

"… Maybe? I mean, I've never tried, but…" He furrows his brows, confused. "Why, did you… want something?" Surely that couldn't be it, but he doesn't see why she'd bring that up in the first place.

Faust is silent for a while.

"… How do you feel about clocks?"

#limbus company #my writing #dante after faust saw the plushie : oh my god i want to die she must think its so weird end me #faust after seeing the plushie : what the hell. i never considered this. im getting myself a dante plushie.#they shall make dantito and faustita kiss soon.#anyway. i like writing silly things about them its relaxing #also i dont have a specific reason for getting gregor into plushie making i just thought it would work well enough #i considering charon and don quixote too i just picked gregor bc i like him

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