It began as quietly as grief.

You never meant to carry anything more than your own weight, and yet—life came to you small and delicate, like bones made of dust and breath, softer than anything this world should’ve allowed. The kind of softness you didn’t think could survive past dawn.

You weren’t noble. Not like the lords in silver towers or names etched into marble. But there was nobility in your heart—in the way you chose to stay when you could’ve fled, in the way you stitched silence into safety. And maybe that was enough.

He passed through your life like a shadow under moonlight—Meier understood, maybe. Maybe D did too, in his own cursed way. He never belonged to anything, not even the night. But he kept returning. Not anchored. Not bound. Just… there. Not long enough to be a father. Not until the boy came.

And then your stomach grew, as did the dread—because loving that child meant wanting a better world, one not bent under the weight of death’s shadow. You were never selfish, only afraid. Not afraid of him, but of what being born in a world like this meant. A world where D’s name was whispered like a warning. A world where the Left Hand laughed when he didn’t.

You built the nursery with trembling hands and a steady heart. Not warm, but safe. That’s what mattered.

Hidden in the far corner of the stronghold, a room behind relic-sealed doors and guarded sigils—quiet, dim, removed from anything that could reach in and take. The scent of ironwood and old parchment lingered in the air. The cradle, hand-carved, bore wolves and roses and moons. No color too bright, no sound too sharp. Shadows danced across the walls, stirred by candlelight and wind-hollow silence.

You sat there, one leg rocking the cradle slowly as your fingers worked another tiny shirt from cloth scavenged in the ruins of a town long forgotten. The boy cooed, eyes following the flicker of flame across stained glass—an angel weeping in blue.

And then… he was there.

You didn’t hear him enter—you never did. The door was just… open. And D stood in the threshold, long coat dusted from the trail, scent of old blood and old guilt on his breath. His eyes—half-lidded, unreadable—fell on the cradle.

He didn’t speak.

But his jaw clenched. Just slightly. Enough to know he’d seen what couldn’t be undone. Enough to know he understood.

The Left Hand broke the silence with a sneer, muffled but unmistakable.

“Well, would you look at that. The great vampire hunter, a daddy now. Bet you didn’t see that coming, huh?”

D didn’t move his gaze from the boy. His voice was low. Rough.

“Quiet.”

The Left Hand chuckled. But obeyed.

You didn’t look at him, not directly. You just kept rocking the cradle, the child between you both.