Re: Blood and Iron

While Bruno was engaging in Grand Strategy and Diplomacy on a global stage, his son and heir Erwin were left at home. But unlike his siblings who had moved with their parents to Tyrol after it was bequeathed to them as their own private fief. Erwin and his wife Alya had stayed in Berlin.

In fact, Bruno had given the boy the home that he had spent the first few years of his early life in. The quaint manor in Berlin’s old town, which Bruno ironically enough had received from his father on his wedding night to Heidi.

From father to son, to grandson, the house had passed through three generations just like that. And now Erwin and Alya had made it their home. Erwin had awoken early in the morning, the cries of his and Alya’s child, a young boy had caused him to rise with the dawn.

And because of this, Erwin had run off to see the little rascal was already finding ways out of his crib, and crawling around, just barely learning to walk on his own. Alya, whose belly was swollen with another child visibly on the way, couldn’t help but rub her weary eyes as she saw the tyke stumbling to his feet and falling, eliciting tears to conjure his parents out of thin air.

"He’s walking already? He’s barely eight months old... Please don’t tell me our son is going to be as brilliant and terrifying as your father?"

Erwin couldn’t help but chuckle as he picked their son up, who blended his parents’ Germanic and Slavic heritage perfectly.

"God, I hope not... If my uncles are to be believed, my father was just a toddler when he orchestrated the exile of two of his older brothers into military boarding school. That man’s intelligence was frightening even when he was nothing more than a small child. So you better not be such a little brat, or your father’s going to be pissed, isn’t that right, Erich?"

Erich was the name of Erwin and Alya’s firstborn son, the child was named after his godfather. As Erich, while a tragic figure, had been a godfather to both Bruno’s children, and Heinrich’s adopted daughter.

It was only natural to name their son in honor of the man who had meant so much to them as children, even if they were aware of his darker nature and his ultimate fate. Of course, they could never publicly say that was why they had named the boy Erich. After all, his namesake was still a disgraced traitor on paper, and Bruno would need time to correct that narrative.

Thus, for the time being, they simply claimed their child was named that after some distant ancestor. And after ensuring the boy was taken care of, and breakfast was cooked for him, and his pregnant wife, Erwin, sat down with Alya, enjoying the brief meal of respite before heading off for his duties outside the home.

Considering the way he was dressed, Alya couldn’t help but ask about his schedule for the day.