This isn't the first suit that Dainsleif has tried to squeeze him into, and Kaeya Alberich highly doubted this would be the last. After all, the judge had no reason to refuse the adoption papers, and even if he did, Dainsleif would just write Kaeya into his will as the recipient of his family affairs and his entire sizable fortune. Even if there's no official document stating Kaeya is his son,'it doesn't change that he has become Dainsleif's heir.
The tailor tutted at him, his eyes sharp and clinical in how they trace his arms, his stomach, the dip of his muscles and the swell of his chest. To him, Kaeya, nineteen years of age and tall, with broad shoulders and a lengthy stride, was nothing more than an obstacle to the typical seams and measurements for the average suit.
And Dainsleif wanted more than the average suit. He wanted Kaeya in a variety of fashions and fabrics for every conceivable occasion (and for some so out of the blue that Kaeya doesn't think he'll see them even if he lived twenty lifetimes) and the man wasn't budging. And considering he's a self-made gentleman, whom some of the higher echelons have referred to begrudgingly as the richest man in the country, discounting the Regent of course, their tailor wasn't willing to put up a modest argument when faced with the lofty whims of a rich man.
"How does it feel?" Dainsleif asked with a fair share of optimism, none of which Kaeya actually shared.
"Tight," Kaeya wheezed, the seams along his arms clenching tight enough around the bulge of his biceps to be tourniquets; his fingers tingled with how his nerves fell asleep one by one. The buttons on his chest were straining enough to pop right open. The waistcoat fared little better, and he was legitimately afraid to move his legs, lest he expose his derriere.
"We can't let it out, or he'll hide his whole shape," the tailor growled, swatting Kaeya on his behind. A button pops off the waistcoat in spectacular fashion, flinging itself right across the room and forcing Dainsleif to dodge its catapulting form for it to bounce off the window, and land hopelessly on the floor.
"Perhaps shapeless is better than naked," Dainsleif admitted.
And so, out came the seam ripper and a frustrated hiss from the petite blond tailor, who had seen the two of them more than once as the Season approached, and Kaeya would have to make his first official appearances in the Ton.
"Is this going to be enough?" Kaeya asked, adjusting the buttoned cuffs on his sleeves as his pants were forcibly loosened.
"I pray it will be," Dainsleif sighed, "It is all I can do but hope that our efforts won't be in vain. If I had the opportunity to relieve you of this performative burden, I would. But where I have long failed to gain the respect of my peers, I believe you to have the kind of charming disposition that will endear them to you. And of course, they know not of your history, and we'll do well to make sure they never find it out."
"My history as some kind of rake?" Kaeya shook his head, "You dressed a hog up finer than a prince, and I fear it is all for naught. These clothes can't disguise the calluses on my hands or the dirt underneath my fingernails."
"And I chose you for those very calluses and that dirt, when I told you I had no wish to adopt a different heir. You remind me of myself, smarter yet and twice as capable. No respectable man of decent breeding would have the same fire in them as you have, not when you have worked so hard for it," Dainsleif reminded him.
Kaeya looked down at his ill-fitting suit and waistcoat with the missing button, slowly being disassembled piece by piece by his exuberant tailor. "And such things earn their keep well enough in the army. And yet it is so that if vim and vigor was enough to gain the respect of these kinds of people, there never would exist a separation between us to begin with."
"But this Herculean task cannot be completed without spirit," his mentor replied, just as quick.
"All the good spirit will do me when we both know that if I am to carry out our duties, I will require a Match of someone most agreeable; satisfactorily plain and yet personable, non-assuming and pleasant, charming enough to sway any preconceived notions of our origins," Kaeya shot back with a snarl. "Herculean task, you say? To pass me off as a marriageable man of age, we'd need more than a miracle."
"You have your own charms," Dainsleif dismissed, the careless wave of his hand infuriatingly calm.
"I was raised half out on the streets with rum gaggers, sailors and thieves, gammoners and prostitutes, and I am bred like the worst of them, son of a widow and a bastard soldier long dead in war. Do not make my concerns into mere anxieties caused by an overactive imagination, for while I am known to be in possession of one, that is not to be the case here," Kaeya said with more than his fair share of frustration. Perhaps his own words were harsher than Dainsleif deserved, but he felt as if denying the truth of the divide he so surely felt, one which was greater than either of them truly could comprehend, between himself and the unnamed strangers to whom he would have to be pretend to be one of, was not a wise decision.
Dainsleif's careless tone turned sharp, poignant: "If your hesitation may bring ruin to us, I will replace you, and violently so. I have had worse things accused of me than hiding away my heir from high society. It would be nothing to find you a replacement."
Kaeya clenched his fist, a sudden feeling of regret racing through his veins. "I did not mean to imply that I wanted to wait; it is not a matter of my own readiness. I think I am as ready as I ever will be, even if I have decades to prepare. I do not want to let you down. And, perhaps I am not wholly against the idea of finding a Match."
"Oh?" Dainsleif quirked a thin, blond brow. His lackadaisical smile returned to his face as he tossed a coin between his fingers.
Kaeya let the corners of his lips tug upwards in a similarly smug mien. "I too have heard many a rumor about the beauties that await a gentleman in Mondstadt, and the eagerness with which they can be pursued by their suitors. Perhaps I may even fall in love?"
These words were mere jest, for Kaeya had no hopes that someone such as he may be blessed with something only the Seven bestowed. No one in Khaenri'ah truly experienced love, not as such as nobles did here.
For all of Kaeya's experience between the sheets, he had yet to truly experience any kind of genuine romance before in his whole life. Love came and went easily between members of the lower classes, friendships just as quick and far more bawdy, and emotions were felt more keenly and genuine, Kaeya liked to think. Yet 'love' was something he had bought and paid for amongst the servants of the night too many times to count. Love was seen as something which must be experienced to the fullest and most extreme of degrees, because life and love would end quicker than one could count the hours.
That was how his mother's marriage had gone; stolen kisses in the night and babies born whilst soldiers left for war. He had never known his late father, the man who had married into his mother's family of two when his own would not let her marry into his, before he had disappeared from their lives for good. His mother kept rare few things of his, and the man never returned from war. Kaeya had grown up fatherless.
The papers now would call Dainsleif his father, but that was merely a contract. Dainsleif came into their lives when the man was young and Kaeya was younger. A Khaenri'ahn refugee they took in, for they too were naught but refugees seeking asylum in Mondstadt. The man had yet to make his fortune in merchantry, shipping wares from far off lands. As a young man unmoored and drifting, he fed Kaeya bitter stories of their homeland, ravaged by civil war and raked through with the blood of human sacrifices. He had told Kaeya of how he'd come to be in Mondstadt; of how he'd killed Mond soldiers when they came to quell the rebellion.
Was it such a surprise that a fatherless child stranded from his motherland would seek revenge on the very country that locked his people away for crimes they never committed? That he would follow the lead of his fellow countryman instead of the Knights that had rounded up everyone who so much as looked like him, and locked them away?
The greater surprise in their current arrangement was rather the power of the shipping and mercantile business that Dainsleif had built while Kaeya was but a mere boy. With riches enough to rival almost any other man in Mondstadt, Dainsleif had established himself a monopoly of trade in and out of the island city, and soon found himself among the city's elites, if not a black sheep treated with utmost suspicion and disgrace.
However, the acknowledgement of the city state's regent, not King, never King, fell out of his hands, his reputation as a criminal and foreigner too bitter and angry to allow him in the inner ranks of high society. The social connections needed to drive his business to higher heights was one thing, but the kind of inside information needed to support the mounting Khaenri'ahn rebellion to reclaim their kingdom from the Mond tyrants was another.
So hatched this plan: with more than enough money to spare, all Dainsleif needed was a spy. Kaeya was chosen from the ghetto and Dainsleif was currently in the process of presenting the papers to the judge to adopt him in the Mond manner as his son and heir to his business. If Kaeya could ingratiate himself into the Ton, he could become a part of a crucial supply line of information back to the Khaenri'ahn rebels, and thus help his homeland regain its autonomy.
And the most crucial part of integration: a most suitable and pleasing marriage.
Kaeya would always be seen as an outsider, for the color of his skin and the roughness to his voice, but if he was to marry someone of standing, he could use those connections to find himself with invites the hosts would loathe to revoke to every occasion. With said contact would come the confidences of the Ton, and with those confidences, more power than any other Khaenri'ahn in the world.
The key part, that everything hinged upon, was the marriage.
"And the key part, that everything hinges upon, is your marriage," Master Crepus said as he stroked back a thick curl of Diluc's wild red mane, one that had escaped his ponytail and now was tucked behind a reddened ear.
"Father," Diluc said miserably, his hands clenched in the sheets.
"I want you to find happiness," Crepus told him, indulgent like caramel as he patted his only son on the head. "To be tied to my debts is a fate that no young spirit should withstand."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Diluc couldn't bear to look at him. Instead, his blurry eyes alighted on the sheets and stayed there, unable to tear himself away.
"I couldn't bear to see the smile drop from your face," his father admitted. The moment stretched on longer, with the words unsaid between them: 'he was running out of time.'
The situation, while ultimately complex, was in truth, very simple. When a man owed another a debt which he cannot pay, a man's family would be forced to pay those debts. If they could not cover the cost, all of the family's property shall be forfeit, if not altogether their lives. A man like Crepus's only son, inheritor of his will and assets, would also inherit the man's debt upon his death.
Diluc would be forced to pay back more than he could possibly make in mere moments, if the Fatui Diplomats came calling upon his father. It was to the benefit of his only son that Crepus then devised this plan, upon which everything hinged on marriage.
Typically, the only heir of a rich family would never be allowed to marry out into another. It would cripple the family name and bring shame to the family's crest. To do so was to essentially destroy the family as an entirety. If someone suggested such a thing, they'd be the laughingstock of the Ton at best, and accused of kin-stealing at the worst. However, a man with no family had no family to pass on his debts to, and if Diluc secured this very important marriage, it would mean Master Crepus's debt died with him.
And yet if Diluc married out, someone like Diluc, the only son of Master Crepus, who stood to inherit the title of Marquis, the debt perhaps would be paid. Diluc's bride price would be one of the highest in the country; whoever could afford someone touted to be as talented, intelligent, and attractive as the Ragnvindr heir would have to truly be someone rich indeed.
As for the rest of the debt not covered by the initial bride price, Master Crepus had a plan too for that. If all went well, Diluc would not truly lose his inheritance, proving his spouse could afford to purchase it back. The Dawn Winery that he grew up on, the manor that held all his childhood memories, his belongings and antiques: all would be offered to Diluc's new spouse for purchase as something of a dowry. If his spouse refused, the public then would be offered the same deal, and Master Crepus would retain just enough to keep himself well for the rest of his short, remaining days.
It was a plan that accounted for just about everything; Diluc happily married and safe from the debts his father had accumulated, and Master Crepus able to pay off what he could so he could spend the rest of his days in meagre but livable comfort while his illness slowly took his life.
It was a plan that did not account for Diluc, having been raised as someone more likely to take a bride than be one, feeling miserable as his father auctioned him away to the highest bidder. In another family, Diluc would no longer stand to inherit as head of the household, and his affairs would be decided by his spouse in their entirety. If they forbade him from ever seeing his father again, he would be allowed no other course of action. Most of those who stood to marry someone into their family, known in the Ton as lords, already hated Diluc for everything from his delicate, open features, to his skill with a claymore, and even his since-declined offer to become one of the Knights of Favonius. At their whims, he could expect no kindness.
Find happiness, his father begged of him, but Diluc could only find fear in his heart and a sense of aching loneliness. His father was all he had left. How could he leave him to die alone, married to someone who wanted him merely for display, for the bragging rights of taming the once proud Ragnvindr heir?
As these thoughts consumed him, Diluc felt his father's thin fingers card through his wild locks, a gentle yet repetitive stroke that only made the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes worse. When he couldn't stand his father's gentle coddling any longer, he tore from the bedroom in a flurry, ignoring the calls of the maids who reached out to stop him.
Adelinde grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back as he reached the front door, her strict no-nonsense voice taming the wild creature flapping its wings against the cage of his heart. "Don't stay out too long, young master, or you'll catch a cold."
"I won't," He promised, freeing her fingers, and then thrusting the main doors open with perhaps too much force. He couldn't stand to be in this house for a second longer.
Diluc had always loved his father more than anything, but now, he struggled not to feel furious with him. To purchase so much opium, to become so addicted to it that you gamble away your entire fortune, and for what? For it to ruin his health, take away the years of his life that Diluc had wanted to spend with him, too early, too soon? It was the hardest thing Diluc would ever have to forgive.
After all, if he was to follow his father's plan to the letter, these moments would be the last free ones of his life. Better to spend them indulging in all the things he would no longer know, in the long years to come. His childhood home, his hobbies, the people he had come to know; who knows how much he stood to lose, because of his father's debts?
For if Diluc was meant to be a bride, and certainly he would try his best to be, he would have to dress like one, act like one, speak like one, and master the arts of one. There was nothing shameful in a wife's work or a bride's dress, but again, Diluc had never donned their wear or joined in their games. Diluc had never been raised with that concept in mind.
Even now as he tacked his mare, he did every motion by hand, as a lord might. A lady should call for an attendant to saddle the beast, then be assisted upon it to ride side-saddle, her dress obscuring her legs. Diluc wasted no time with that, for he was still a lord for just a little longer, and he rode his horse hard into the woods with his legs parted as he had been taught to, unrepentantly wearing the breeches and overcoat befitting a master of the house.
If changing his behavior could be seen as free but for the time it would take to relearn his mannerisms, then the real price of this plan rested rather in his wardrobe. The sheer cost to redress himself alone… they could afford nothing, and Diluc felt a keen sense of fear settle into his bones.
He finally slowed his horse to a stop in a clearing full of lampgrass, beginning to glow with the taint of dusk settling heavy and quiet around him. He led the mare to drink, rubbing her flank as he himself stared at his own reflection in the water. He didn't look like a beautiful bride when he stared in the water, his own reflection glancing back. Each lap of the mare's tongue sent a ripple across his face, and he watched as his face distorted, warped into strange shapes with each tiny wave.
Diluc didn't want to let his father down, but he was afraid that what his father was asking of him was impossible. He might not look ugly, but he didn't look as a lady should. No kind and loving lord who saw him would ever accept him as a bride, not with his bride price set so high.
As a lord and husband, Diluc had much to offer. He had mastered the arts of literature, swordplay, military tactics, business and enterprise, and he offered a beautiful mansion for a lady to live in, along with the title of marquess. As a bride, he offered nothing. He didn't carry a beautiful figure, a gentle and kind disposition, a stunning face or a beautiful singing voice. He couldn't cook, couldn't embroider, couldn't sew, and his understanding of the ways of medicine could only be considered passable in comparison to the complete dearth of knowledge he had about children.
The only reason someone might pay that lucrative amount for a man like Diluc would be for the humiliation they could cause him by it. The lords he had known looking for a bride had all hated how the ladies in their beautiful dresses flocked to him, how he had never been pressed for choice. They had never compared favorably against him, and hated him for it. How pleased they would be, to subdue him financially, physically, sexually...
Most lords knew well enough the way society would shun them if they mistreated their wives, but Diluc knew he was the exception and with that, his protections would be stripped. His father's debt reached deeper than even the man himself knew. His future had never been so bleak, and he was wasting time in the woods that he could be spending with his father. After all, they didn't have much left but their pride and each other.
Diluc snapped the stalk of a lampgrass bud, not yet in bloom, and crushed it between his fingers. In a way, it almost felt poetic, but in another, all he could think was, "What a waste."