[It's hard to hear, with her soft and caring heart, that these were the choices he made for her sake. That he'd looked at the situation at hand and determined that the best way to ensure her safety was to make certain there were no voices left to accuse her. And she remembers, less vividly now that the events are a week behind her but still with understandable clarity, the occasional moments in saving her when his control had slipped. The guards torn apart when he'd merely knocked others unconscious. The way the man's back had assuredly shattered when he'd been kicked into the wall.
He'd wanted to hurt them. He can couch it in reason when he explains it to her like this, can offer apologies born of guilt and shame with every breath he draws, but deep down she knows that his calculations had only gone so far that night. Not every death had been reasoned. Some had been simply the product of anger and hurt and the outrage of a son faced with his mother's suffering.
And yet here, now, he's contrite. He's ashamed to admit his actions to her, because he knows it's not what she would have wanted. You've raised me better, he says. At least I did better than my father would have, he pleads.
And for a second, she finds herself thinking of her husband, and his deficiencies in understanding what it means to be a man. How many cabbages must be forfeit before he is satisfied that justice has been done. Vlad, who struggles so much with compassion when she isn't there to model it for him.
Yet here sits her Adrian, with compassion knitted into his nature in a way that it isn't for his father. Adrian, left to struggle with being the product of the same two competing viewpoints that fight for days upon days over the same questions that he's expected to answer himself, and left to make his selections between the two when every choice he makes must feel like a betrayal of one parent or another.
She's always hated it when people called him Alucard. She never wanted him to define himself by his father.
What he's telling her now is that he made a choice, his own choice. Whether it agrees with what she would have done or not is irrelevant; what matters is that it was his alone to make. After all, he should no more define himself by her choices and opinions than he should by his father's; she'd hate it just as much to hear him called Asil as she would to dub him Alucard.]
I raised you to think for yourself.
[Her voice is quiet, and while her own pain may rest inside her, she won't let it get in the way of her pride, or her point.]
You know I don't agree with what you did. But you can't live your life only doing the things I agree with. That's no life at all.
[She holds him a little tighter.]
Your life will never be an easy one, my love. I've known that since the day you were born. All I've ever hoped for is that when the time came for you to make a choice, you would see more than one path open to you, and that you would choose from your heart and your mind. Not from what you thought would make us happy.
no subject
He'd wanted to hurt them. He can couch it in reason when he explains it to her like this, can offer apologies born of guilt and shame with every breath he draws, but deep down she knows that his calculations had only gone so far that night. Not every death had been reasoned. Some had been simply the product of anger and hurt and the outrage of a son faced with his mother's suffering.
And yet here, now, he's contrite. He's ashamed to admit his actions to her, because he knows it's not what she would have wanted. You've raised me better, he says. At least I did better than my father would have, he pleads.
And for a second, she finds herself thinking of her husband, and his deficiencies in understanding what it means to be a man. How many cabbages must be forfeit before he is satisfied that justice has been done. Vlad, who struggles so much with compassion when she isn't there to model it for him.
Yet here sits her Adrian, with compassion knitted into his nature in a way that it isn't for his father. Adrian, left to struggle with being the product of the same two competing viewpoints that fight for days upon days over the same questions that he's expected to answer himself, and left to make his selections between the two when every choice he makes must feel like a betrayal of one parent or another.
She's always hated it when people called him Alucard. She never wanted him to define himself by his father.
What he's telling her now is that he made a choice, his own choice. Whether it agrees with what she would have done or not is irrelevant; what matters is that it was his alone to make. After all, he should no more define himself by her choices and opinions than he should by his father's; she'd hate it just as much to hear him called Asil as she would to dub him Alucard.]
I raised you to think for yourself.
[Her voice is quiet, and while her own pain may rest inside her, she won't let it get in the way of her pride, or her point.]
You know I don't agree with what you did. But you can't live your life only doing the things I agree with. That's no life at all.
[She holds him a little tighter.]
Your life will never be an easy one, my love. I've known that since the day you were born. All I've ever hoped for is that when the time came for you to make a choice, you would see more than one path open to you, and that you would choose from your heart and your mind. Not from what you thought would make us happy.