The Weight of Legacy

She hadn’t felt this type of dread in years—none of the widow’s later discoveries in life had been the type that had her stomach dropping as she read a page.

The aforementioned Hildegard fon Werruin sought at our doorstep to insist, again, that something be done, but the family she speaks of does not exist, by order of the Tacit Saint.

This entry is made to denote deaths of all members of the family with potential did indeed happen, their obits fed to the sea, and no further reports will be accepted on the matter.

This entry is closed.

A fucking Saint killed off the fon Hūdijanins? Malwine wasn’t even sure if this was surprise that she was feeling, or at least whether it was directed at the culprit having been a Saint. She wasn’t particularly eager to assume such a title even remotely implied goodness, but she wasn’t sure what she had expected, not really.

The surname being hidden, and often at that, had convinced her something shady had happened, but this seemed… well, Malwine found it underwhelming, in its lack of a clear reason.

When she thought of everything she’d learned of Bernie’s family prior to this moment, she guessed she’d developed an expectation that there had to be some interesting backstory to them. That they must have been interesting people, and that learning of whatever happened to them, distressing or not, would have had a bigger impact on her.

Instead, she just got two plain entries, from The Fog of 5789 and The Rain of 5790. OHeidi died, and it seemed her family soon followed, but no context was given at all.

Malwine tried to push away that selfish anger—she knew it wasn’t a good look, that the lack of information was a bigger bother to her than the knowledge that this was Bernie’s family she was complaining about, for their deaths not being elaborated upon.

It was probably a touchy subject for the woman herself, so it wasn’t as though Malwine would be asking anything.

No. To keep her thoughts from going further off the rails, Malwine refocused on the one detail she’d previously overlooked.

That was the estate’s butler. The ancient lady who hadn’t been happy to see Adelheid when the girl had wandered around—someone who had apparently been there when OHeidi died, and who killed someone on the Saint’s side, then.

Only the fact that Adelheid was off playing somewhere with Franziska kept Malwine from asking her sister to look for Hildegard immediately. She’d been hesitant to try and interfere with Adelheid’s newfound attachment to the young girl—Franziska was certainly a better friend than she ever could be, if only so Adelheid could spend time with someone who wasn’t just pretending to be her age.

I miss that simplicity, Malwine exhaled. A treacherous part of herself sometimes did get jealous at the ease with which the girls simply lived life, with no concerns or stressful long-term plans even when they knew about Skills and the like.

With asking Adelheid missing as an option for her, Malwine found herself having to accept she would be unlikely to find a way to contact the woman anytime soon, and with that, both [The Way of the Clave] and her common sense reared their head to tempt her to facepalm.

This wasn’t Veit she was thinking about—this random elderly butler with ties to Bernie’s family was the last person she wanted to interact with without some serious forethought, and even the double might not be a guaranteed barrier between them, if Malwine chose to go about it that way.

As Veit had told her, she wasn’t anywhere near as strong or special as she liked to imagine she was.

Not yet, you ancient logger, Malwine imagined retorting, if only within the confines of her mind.

So what did that leave her with?

None of her Skills were…

Malwine huffed to herself, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She did have an alternative, if she really wanted to dedicate more time to this.

She’d been pretty sure,—even before she stopped using the Trait after what she’d dubbed ‘the Katrina incident’—that [Imitation Beyond Filiality] would allow her to target Bernie.

If nothing else, it seemed like the logical solution.

She bit her lip—it was… slightly difficult for her to let go of that refusal to use the Trait again. As much as she’d appreciated [The Things We Do For Family] and it’s function as a bullshitting Skill, Malwine couldn’t quite shake off the discomfort that came with {Legacy} having basically commandeered the trial for Katrina.

It had been well over a year since then, and that feeling hadn’t dulled in the slightest.

That thought—that a year had passed since she last used the Trait—sent Malwine reeling. Ever since she’d started discussing things with Veit, she’d had to come face to face with the fact that she was prone to wasting time, not for the sake of her own wellbeing but because she simply wasn’t inclined to do certain things.

It was comparable to a—real—little kid refusing to do their homework until the last moment because they just didn’t feel like getting it out of the way without deadlines or circumstances forcing them to.

Again, it was a hold-out from the widow’s life—Malwine wanted everything she did, to be something she did because she chose to, not because she had to, all despite understanding the impracticality of that.

Devilsdammit, Veit. She couldn’t help but resent the man for having been right about her, yet again.

Before she could spiral any further—let alone convince herself to backtrack on this decision—Malwine put the tomes away and headed for the exit. If the answers she now wanted wouldn’t be there for her to see, she’d have no choice but to look for them herself.

Whoever that scribe was, was someone who worked for OHeidi. And not only did they dismiss Hildegard, but they didn’t seem to have any qualms about just ignoring the fon Hūdijanins existence.

Certainly, Malwine hadn’t been there, and didn’t exactly have a grasp on the cultural implications of a family being wiped out by a Saint. For all she knew, this might have been par for the course, but the phrasing of it made her think otherwise.

Who were you, ‘Tacit Saint’? Malwine frowned on her way to a lone corner, where she dismissed her double. Unlike her grudge with Elflorescence, she didn’t immediately jump towards adding them to any of her panels. The idea of labeling someone else as her enemy, even within the confines of her mind, when she knew next to nothing about them had her hesitating.

Their actions should be enough. Even if she didn’t know who the Tacit Saint was, even if Bernie wasn’t her favorite person, anyone who would massacre a family over hostilities with their already-dead matriarch was someone she’d need to watch out for.

As she returned to her real self, Malwine took in a deep sigh. Oh, I think I might have forgotten this was a cultivation world. Hard to tell with all the weird people sometimes, but it checks out.

Besides, what guarantee did she have that this wouldn’t be a problem for her down the line? The entry made it sound like they’d gone out of their way to only kill those with potential—which lined up with Bernie being left behind—but Bernie had children, now. How far would such an order go? If they were lucky, perhaps enough time had passed that the Saint had sort of forgotten about them.

For the first time, she found herself resenting how [Unpacifiable] only appeared to truly trigger with regards to threats to herself, even distant ones.

If the Skill’s silence could have at least told her it wasn’t likely to be a problem for Adelheid, she might have let the matter sink into the back of her mind—but that silence only stood for Malwine herself.

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