Chapter Text
As long as she’s with her friends, Katarina can ignore the darker, angrier, sadder feelings. She can be happy that Dewey’s siblings are safe, and she can be happy that Maria is talking to her long-lost father.
She doesn’t have to think about what - to be precise, who - Dewey’s siblings have to be saved from, and she doesn’t have to think about why Maria’s father has been missing for so long, and she doesn’t have to beat back the thought that “pretending to be drunk” doesn’t really make up for it. She doesn’t have to wonder how much of the tears she’d cried then were happy for her friend, and how much was rage and sadness, and how much is that justified, and is she only so angry because deep down she’s a villainess.
Instead she laughs with her friends, pouts when they scold her (“Don’t you know how dangerous that was?” and she doesn’t think about the cold of the darkness pouring over her, and the hungry look in Sarah’s eyes when she’d looked at Katarina), eats sweets, drinks tea.
She can get through it all as long as her friends are with her.
But the day ends, as days have to, and she gets back in the carriage and while Keith is there, so are her thoughts. She feels tired and sad and somehow lonely. And - she can’t help it - she thinks.
A dangerous pastime, she knows.
It had been a long day. One dramatic family event would have made the day feel long by itself, but two plus a run-in with darkness and then on top of that an outing with her friends - it feels like a week of finals crammed into this one single day.
“Sister?” She turns her head to look at her brother. Keith’s face is furrowed in worry - not the usual ‘Oh god what have you done now and what will we need to do to fix it’ but the deeper, ‘Are you all right?’ worry that only shows for real danger. Or real sorrow. She looks at him and thinks, ‘His bio-father was shitty too.’
“I’m glad father brought you into the family,” she says aloud, and lays her head on her brother’s shoulder.
Their parents are waiting for them when the carriage gets home - their father beaming, their mother’s brow slightly furrowed, as usual.
Katarina looks at her father and feels a sudden surge of emotion. It’s more sentiment and chaos, a roiling in her subconscious, rather than anything with words: love, trust, gratefulness, joy, a kind of guilt that she gets to have this man as a father, instead of the frankly worthless examples so many of her friends have to live with - remembrances of a warm hand on her head, a laugh and arms outstretched when she’d climbed too high, a kiss on her forehead, an expectant smile, jewels and silks laid out for her, tears shed in fear for her…
…the certainty that no matter what happens, no matter what she does, Luigi Claes will love her. That even if everyone else turns against her, if the game shunts destiny back onto its anti-Katarina rails, if she is so evil she gets exiled, if she is so careless she brings shame upon House Claes, if she is so deranged she gets herself killed - Luigi is the one person in the world who will still love her. The game at least never took that away from Katarina Claes.
She hurls herself at her father without thinking, hugging him hard and burying her face into his shoulder. “Dad,” she says, forgetting to be formal, “I love you. Thank you for being my dad. You’re the best father in the world.”
Shocked, but pleased, Luigi strokes his daughter’s dark hair. “I love you too, my cute Katarina. You’re the best daughter in the world!” he replies, and Katarina laughs sadly into his shoulder. Then all the day seems to catch up to her in that instant and she slumps against him tiredly - trusting that her father won’t let her fall.
She yawns, nuzzles deeper into her father’s shoulder, and falls asleep.
Keith, Miridiana and Luigi all stare at Katarina for a moment; then Miridiana and Luigi’s eyes dart to Keith.
“What happened?” Miridiana demands, while her husband sweeps Katarina up into a carry-hold. Katarina’s head lolls against her father’s shoulder, her face slack with deep exhaustion. In her stillness she seems so much smaller than she usually does.
“They said - she said…”
“Keith,” says Luigi, and his voice is serious and calm - guiding his young son as he always does. But his expression as he looks at his sleeping daughter is tight.
“Deep breaths, son. Now - count to three, and then make your report. Just the important points. You went to meet up with Katarina during her free day. Where did you meet with her? What happened?”
Keith does as instructed, calms himself, and explains what Katarina and Maria had gone through before meeting up with the rest of them.
“Dark magic again,” Luigi mutters, laying an absent-minded kiss on Katarina’s hair while plots and counterplots revolve behind his eyes.
“And terrible parents,” notes Miridiana in a quiet voice, moving closer to her husband and child.
“I agree with my sister,” Keith says, his voice wobbling ever so slightly. “You are the best parents in the world.”
Luigi smiles back at him; Miridiana glances at her daughter, and her eyes are sad and thoughtful.
Luigi carries Katarina up to her bedroom, giving quiet orders to the servants he encounters along the way. They hurry off to prepare tea, bandages, soothing oils, water. He ignores Keith’s offer to carry Katarina.
He is alone when he carries his daughter to her bed, and lays her down on the blankets with one last kiss on her forehead. He remembers carrying a tiny Katarina to this very room, her eyes bright as she babbles details of her day to him in a lisping toddler voice; long vigils by her bedside, afraid and praying to the gods to spare her life; tucking her into bed with a story and a hug. When…when was the last time he’d done that…?
“Dad…” His thoughts are interrupted by Katarina’s sleep-slurred voice. He turns to see half-closed eyes, glassy with drowsiness, looking at him. “Dad is the best,” she says again, and smiles. Luigi clutches his chest. His daughter…is truly the cutest in the world…!
“And almost as cool as,” Katarina yawns hugely, “Uncle Dan…”
Luigi freezes in place, hand still clutched into his shirt.
Katarina falls back asleep.