“I sent some money to Viola,” Elaine said as she carefully checked the stitching on one of the coats. “I asked her to have people make clothes for you.”
Ludger stared at her for a second. That explained a lot. Of course Viola had been involved. And of course the result of involving her was not one decent formal outfit, but an organized campaign.
Elaine lifted another garment from its box and ran her fingers lightly over the fabric.
“As expected,” she said, “she didn’t fail. She only sent high-quality pieces.”
Ludger looked over the growing collection with a flat expression. High quality was one way to describe it. Excessively expensive and clearly made by people who had never once considered whether someone actually wanted to wear them was another.
He let out a slow breath. “I should ask how much money was spent.”
Elaine glanced at him without looking particularly guilty. “You can.”
Ludger already knew that tone. It meant the answer would annoy him. Still, he could not complain too loudly. Not really.
Not when he had been throwing around one hundred diamond coins every week to turn the northerners into a traveling festival of bruises and bad decisions. Judging other people’s spending felt a little weak when he was personally funding competitive stupidity for stress relief.
So instead, he looked at the piles of carefully prepared suits and said, “Amazing. I’ve worked very hard to become a feared vice guildmaster, and somehow I still ended up as a dress-up doll for my mother and sister.”
Elaine looked at him for a moment.
Then she said, perfectly calm, “Don’t be so dramatic.”
Ludger frowned. “I am being measured, sorted, and visually evaluated against multiple outfits. That is exactly the kind of thing people do to dolls.”
Elaine set one coat aside and opened another box. “No. Dolls don’t complain this much.”
That was, annoyingly, a stronger argument than he wanted to admit.
He watched her unfold yet another suit and felt the growing certainty that Viola had enjoyed this entire process far too much.
Somewhere, probably, she had been smiling while selecting fabrics and imagining his suffering in advance.
Ludger narrowed his eyes slightly. “She definitely had fun with this.”
Elaine’s lips curved very faintly. “Probably.”
That was not reassuring. Not even a little.
He looked over the boxes again, then at the coat Elaine was currently examining. “How many did she send?”
“Enough.”
“That is not a number.”
“It’s the number we need.”
Ludger stared at her. Elaine ignored him with the effortless confidence of someone who knew she had already won before the argument had properly started.
Then she held up another jacket in front of him, tilted her head, and studied the effect.
“This color might suit you better.”
Ludger remained still with the resignation of a man discovering that being strong enough to punch through armor did absolutely nothing to protect him from family.
In the end, Ludger had to try on far too many suits.
One after another. A dark one. A darker one. One with silver accents. One with subtle embroidery that was apparently “tasteful” and therefore, according to Elaine, not nearly enough.
He changed, stepped out, stood there while his mother studied him, then got sent back to change again. Then again. Then again. At some point, Ludger stopped treating it like a discussion and started treating it like a punishment with fabric involved.
Elaine, naturally, had opinions.
A lot of them.
“This one is too plain.”
“The cut is good, but it lacks impact.”
“This one makes you look too restrained.”
“You need something that stands out more.”
A few minutes later, after rejecting another coat with the sort of calm precision normally reserved for battlefield evaluations, she added, “Maybe something a little flashier.”
Ludger said nothing. Mainly because stand out more and be flashier sounded like the same idea wearing different shoes, and pointing that out would only drag this nightmare out even longer.
So he stayed quiet. He changed clothes. He stepped out. He got judged. He went back in. The rest of the day disappeared like that. A complete waste of life. Somewhere outside, the wolves probably had more dignity than he did.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
By the time Elaine finally seemed closer to narrowing things down, Ludger felt more drained than he usually did after the northerners’ weekly challenge. At least punches had the decency to be honest. This was all fabric, posture, and subtle disappointment.
He stood in front of a mirror in yet another expensive outfit, stared at his own reflection, and sighed.
Then a deeply unpleasant thought occurred to him.
More than any punch from a northerner, more than any bruise, split lip, or cracked pride earned in the ring…
An enemy calling him a mama’s boy would probably do more damage.
Because the worst part was that he would have absolutely nothing to say in his defense. Ludger stared at himself for another second. Then he sighed again, slower this time.
“…That would be a fatal hit,” he muttered.
Once Elaine finally decided on a suit, Ludger was released.
That was the only word for it. Released.
Not dismissed. Not finished. Released, like some prisoner who had endured a long and humiliating sentence involving expensive fabric and repeated visual inspection.
Elaine set the chosen outfit aside with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had completed an important task correctly. Ludger, meanwhile, only gave a short nod, too drained to argue and too wise to risk reopening the matter by asking whether she was truly certain.
If she changed her mind now, he might actually suffer real damage. So he accepted the outcome in silence and escaped the moment the path was clear.
By the time he reached his room, Ludger let out a long breath and dropped onto the bed with the heavy stillness of someone who had just survived an ordeal no one would respect him for.
This had been more tiresome than facing a hundred northerners. At least when dealing with the northerners, the rules were simple.
You hit them. They hit you. Someone bled. Someone shouted. And eventually the whole thing ended with bruises, insults, and a useful sense of accomplishment.
This? This had been hours of standing still while being examined from every possible angle like a decorative object with opinions no one intended to respect.
Ludger closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Truly, strength had many forms.
And his mother’s particular kind remained among the most oppressive he had ever encountered. Still, once the irritation faded enough for his mind to start working properly again, his thoughts drifted toward the days ahead.
There was only one week left until the emperor’s birthday. And a little less than ten days until his own. That left an unpleasant amount of room for complications. Ludger stared at the ceiling in silence.
The emperor’s party would obviously be troublesome. There was no version of a capital gathering full of nobles, power, hidden agendas, and too many eyes that ended peacefully in spirit, even if it did on the surface. He would have to deal with appearances, politics, possible schemes, and the constant irritation of pretending not to notice how many people were measuring each other behind smiles.
That alone was exhausting to think about. Then there was his own birthday. Which, somehow, carried its own kind of danger. Not because it was politically important. But because people around him had a bad habit of making things more troublesome the moment they decided to care.
His family. Viola. Possibly Luna. Maybe others too, if word spread in the wrong direction. Ludger already knew he would not be allowed to pass through it quietly. Which meant that in the span of less than ten days, he would probably have to survive both the capital’s polished nonsense and whatever personal chaos followed afterward.
He exhaled slowly.
Then muttered to the empty room, “I should’ve gone back to fighting northerners.”
The next day, Ludger was ready to depart for the emperor’s birthday party.
Ready was probably too generous a word. He was dressed properly, armed within reason, mentally prepared for irritation, and resigned enough not to actively complain every few minutes. For a political gathering in the capital, that was close enough.
Since he was traveling with Viola, Lord Torvares, and Luna, they needed to leave a little earlier than usual. This time, they would be using the common routes like everyone else.
No hidden tunnels. No secret entrances. No convenient shortcuts through the earth that let him avoid half the nonsense attached to normal travel. It was already annoying.
What made it stranger was the fact that his family was all there to see him off. For some reason.
Ludger stepped outside and found them gathered near the front, with the morning air still carrying the edge of cold and the courtyard quiet enough that the scene felt more deliberate than it probably needed to be.
Arslan was there, naturally. Elaine too. The twins were standing near them, trying to look serious and failing in slightly different ways.
Even the wolves had enough sense to stay out of the middle of it.
Ludger looked at them all, then asked flatly, “Why is everyone here?”
Arslan crossed his arms and grinned like a man already preparing to say something stupid.
“To make sure you don’t embarrass the family too much.”
Ludger stared at him.
Arslan went on before anyone could stop him. “And try not to pick on too many noble girls while you’re there.”
Elaine elbowed him immediately. Hard enough that Arslan grunted and took half a step sideways.
“That hurt,” he muttered.
“You deserved worse,” Elaine said.
Ludger said nothing. Mostly because even acknowledging that sentence felt like it would somehow make it real enough to follow him all the way to the capital.
Arash and Elle, meanwhile, had clearly been waiting for their turn. The moment the opening appeared, both of them stepped forward.
“When you come back,” Arash said with all the intensity a child could pack into a small body, “we’re going to show you some crazy moves.”
Elle nodded at once. “Really crazy ones.”
Ludger looked down at them. They were trying very hard to seem impressive. Which only made them look smaller. They probably heard that from Renvar or Kaela. His expression softened by a fraction, almost too little to notice. He reached out, patted both of them on the back, then deliberately messed up their hair.
They immediately made offended noises.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said.
Arash tried to fix his hair at once. Elle looked like she was debating whether she was old enough to take offense properly or still young enough to let it pass because it was Ludger.
Before either of them could recover fully, Elaine stepped forward.
Then she hugged him. Tightly. Ludger went still for half a second.
Elaine held him with the kind of quiet firmness that made it impossible to mistake what she felt, then said near his shoulder, “I’ll miss choosing your clothes.”
That, somehow, was what she decided to say. Ludger stood there in silence. He did not answer. Did not really know how to answer.
A part of him understood what sat underneath the joke. The fussing. The suits. The lingering attention. The quiet need to keep doing small things for him while she still could.
He was about to turn fifteen. In this world, that meant adulthood.
Not complete freedom, not magically transformed into a wiser person overnight, but still a threshold. A line people acknowledged. A point after which the world started looking at a person differently. And Elaine knew that.
Which meant she would probably start holding herself back more. At least a little.
Probably refrain from acting like an overly doting mother every chance she got.
Probably.
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